In recent months food scandals have hit the headlines across the globe with horsemeat being passed off as beef in Europe, rat dressed up as lamb in China and fish being sold as, well other kinds of fish. These may just be the tip of the iceberg.

Today’s high and volatile prices mean that concerns about food safety are on the rise too. More people are having to buy cheaper and poorer quality food to make ends meet. In Bangladesh for example people in rural and urban areas are growing their own vegetables because they’re worried that cheaper vegetables have been poisoned by pesticides.

Concerns about food safety are just one of the issues highlighted in new research published today by Oxfam and the Institute for Development Studies. The report, called ’Squeezed’, explores how five years of high and volatile food prices have affected 23 different urban and rural communities in ten countries across the globe. We’ll be updating the study by returning to these same communities over the next three years to see how they’re coping.

’Squeezed’ shows how high and volatile prices are not only changing what we eat but also how we work and relate to others. For instance, where men are struggling now to fulfill their traditional role as breadwinners for the family, we find there is often an increase in domestic violence and alcohol and drug abuse.

We also found that community life can begin to disintegrate in the face of higher food prices. People are being forced to put on hold expensive social events, such as weddings, in order to save money. Or else they’re having to leave home to find work in cities or abroad.

We see people leaving their farmlands too, to go into riskier but better paid occupations such as gold mining. And we find that more and more women are entering into the workforce and their grandparents or older daughters forced instead to step in to help with childcare.

This first report is a snapshot of a problem that reaches well beyond the dinner table. As our researchers follow the communities over the next three years we will build up a much better picture of what this new era of high and volatile prices means for people and for society. But there are answers to be had already, especially if policy makers start looking at the bigger picture.

Governments need to start tackling high and volatile food prices by better managing our food stocks and better regulating the global grain markets. Here in the US that will mean finally rethinking the corn-ethanol mandate which is failing to deliver on its promises and contributing to high and volatile prices. Over the long term it will also mean getting serious about climate change which is expected to lead to drastic spikes in food prices over the coming decades.

Ultimately, all governments and donors will need to start investing far more smartly in small holder agriculture and into social safety nets to help the poorest and most vulnerable.

It is often said that politicians who want to bury a bad story, put out their news late on a Friday afternoon in order to avoid the media scrutiny. It’s called the Friday news dump. Today at 5pm, our country’s most venerable media institution, the New York Times, dumped its own awful news on the world, announcing they will be discontinuing their Green blog.

The decision is incredibly disheartening if not altogether unexpected. A little more than a month ago I called the paper’s move to shutter the environment pod “an unmitigated disaster,” predicting that the closure would undermine the paper’s focus on critical issues facing our planet. At the time editors expressed unwavering commitment to continuing their coverage of environmental issues. But it was hard to see then how that promise could be kept. Today’s news feels like a nail in the coffin of that particular pledge.

Some have argued the changes could ultimately be a good thing. But let me give a timely example of why I think that’s wrong. This week Oxfam released a major report into the social and environmental policies of food and beverage companies. Stephanie Strom from the Times covered it. But because of a hitch in the news cycle and the timing of her article, the only place her editors could find space for the story was on the Green blog.

Now that the blog is gone, what will happen with stories like this? Chances are that they will just go away. Theoretically they could live somewhere else. But if the blog is closing for a reason, why wouldn’t the stories that fed it be affected?

I know this all sounds like a very self-interested complaint, a flack hand-wringing about how I’m going to get coverage for my employer. But obviously this goes beyond stories about Oxfam’s research. The idea that the Times would take all of its reporters who are focused on environmental issues and reassign them to other beats, then close down the most significant space on their website for these topics, yet somehow manage to “continue to cover these areas of national and international life just as aggressively,” seems, well, laughable.

The editors should skip the spin and just admit that they have made a business decision to deprioritize these vital, if soon-to-be neglected, energy and environment issues.

A few weeks before Oxfam’s GROW Campaign launched in 2011, I went up to New York with our president Ray Offenheiser and head of our policy (and lead Poindexter) Gawain Kripke to meet with a handful of journalists. We wanted to give them a sneak peek at what we had planned.

One of our first stops was to sit down with Sandy Keenan, Environment Editor at the New York Times, and two key reporters on the Environment Desk: Elisabeth Rosenthal and Justin Gillis. We had a long conversation about the issues of GROW and the emerging trends that we were seeing around the world.

Cracked, dry earth outside Magartu Baleha's home near East Shewa, Ethiopia. Photo: Eva-Lotta Jansson / Oxfam America

They asked difficult questions, probed the soft spots of our research, and challenged us to back up our point of view with credible evidence. It was a good conversation, one clearly grounded in knowledge and experience with the immense and complex challenges that come with trying to feed a growing population without breaking the planet. This is not always the experience one has when talking to reporters. In fact it was utterly unique. No other outlet had this depth of knowledge actually backed up by the resources and mandate to reach a mainstream audience.

So it is with great disappointment that I read today that the “paper of record” is dismantling its environment desk, reassigning the reporters and editors to other beats. The change, they say, is not prompted by budgetary pressures but what Inside Climate News calls “the shifting interdisciplinary landscape of news reporting.”

Times managing editor for news operations told ICN that environmental stories are, “partly business, economic, national or local, among other subjects. They are more complex. We need to have people working on the different desks that can cover different parts of the story.”

That’s all well and good but it is hard to see this move as anything but an unmitigated disaster for people who care about how the challenges facing our environment impact our lives. The Times environmental coverage is heads and shoulders above what any other mainstream outlet in the US is offering. It is literally without comparison in its quality and quantity. Certainly there are good reporters outside the confines of the Times. Most other outlets have offered shrinking coverage of the political and policy decisions that impact our planet. The Times, led by its Environment Desk, has continued to push the conversation forward on a range of issues.

In theory, this tradition could continue without the benefit of a dedicated team. But color me skeptical. In my experience the issues reporters choose to pay attention to, and the lens through which they approach their coverage, is heavily shaped by the beat to which they are assigned. The title a reporter has on their business card can play a major role in determining what gets written and what does not.

It is certainly true that environmental issues are business issues. They’re national political issues. They’re local issues. But try getting a national political reporter to write a nuanced and thoroughly reported article about the threat climate change is posing to food systems. Try getting a business reporter to write about the ways in which American and European biofuels policies are influencing the ability of poor Guatemalans to get enough to eat. I wish you good luck.

The Times has been a leader in environmental coverage because it has shown a commitment to covering the issue via the Environment Desk. We can only hope that the desk’s closure does not turn out as bad as it seems for environmental coverage.

For the sorcerers who practice the dark arts of politics, the hot summer months are generally known for their focus on triviality, hyperbole and petty posturing. This “silly season” is marked mostly by frivolous debates over manufactured controversies as voters tune out and cook out in parks and backyards across the country.

So it comes as no surprise that the latest bit of feigned outrage to embroil the United States Department of Agriculture involves an interoffice newsletter recommending that employees consider taking a modest stab at common sense.

Joining the ranks of thousands of companies, restaurants, schools, average Americans and Oprah, a recent newsletter from the USDA made a humble suggestion for its employees to reduce their environmental footprints: Consider eating a meat-free lunch once per week. The agency was referring to “Meatless Monday,” a project of Johns Hopkins, Columbia and Syracuse universities and supported by many other health-related organizations.

Read the full blog at CNN here. 

Sometimes a quote says more, much more, than the person saying it intended. Today an article in POLITICO looks into how potential reforms to international food aid programs in the US farm bill could impact the shipping industry.

In defending the wasteful and inefficient practice of mandating that virtually all US food aid is grown by preferred growers and then shipped by preferred shippers from the US to countries-in-need, Clint Eisenhauer, vice president for governmental relations for Maersk, a Danish-based shipping company, said, “but if you could grow the grain in Somalia, people wouldn’t be starving.”

Well, yes. Exactly. Let’s leave aside for a second the irony of an executive of a Danish shipping company lecturing anyone on why Congress should double down on regulations supposedly set up to promote American interests. The real issue is that Eisenhauer’s quote displays a fundamental misunderstanding of why people end up struggling to find enough food in the first place. In many food emergencies, food availability is not the challenge. The challenge is that people are too poor to afford to buy it, or they are displaced by conflict or crises. There is ample food available, often very close to where the hungry people are, but because of economic, political or other shocks, many people just cannot access or afford enough of it to support their families.

But more important than those basic facts is that even in many of the countries that most often require emergency assistance, countries like Sudan, Niger, Ethiopia, and yes Somalia, there is vast, untapped potential to grow food.  Lots and lots of food that could sustainably support the livelihoods of millions of people.  Suggesting that it is impossible to grow food in these countries is not just offensive, it’s factually wrong. Transforming how aid is delivered so that more can be invested in building self-sufficiency and resilience is exactly what we should be doing with our scarce foreign aid dollars.

When it comes to debates over policy, it’s easy to find yourself deep in the weeds. Discussions over how to save lives quickly devolve into symposiums on tendering procedures and assessments of equivalent expenditures. But if you can hack your way through the complex thicket of jargon, sometimes you find yourself with a number that just makes sense.

In our efforts to articulate why food aid reform is worthy of support in the Farm Bill, the number that makes the most sense to me is 17.1 million. That’s the number of additional people the US could reach with life-saving food aid if two basic reforms are pursued by Congress. And all this without costing taxpayers a single extra penny. We make the case for these reforms in a new report with American Jewish World Service.

But sometimes a report isn’t enough to make a number sink-in; even one as a staggering as 17.1 million. That’s why we’ve produced a food aid infographic, in the form of a receipt, which shows Americans what they’re getting for their food aid dollars. Like most receipts, ours comes with an easy cost-saving opportunity to help drive home the very simple point: reforming food aid saves money and lives. Check it out and let us know what you think.

The momentum for reform to our food aid program is getting stronger. Usually discussions over food aid are relegated to the back burner in negotiations over the Farm Bill. But that is changing thanks to the more than 70 women who are in DC today to lobby members of congress for reforms to food aid. Yesterday Oxfam Global Ambassador Kristin Davis and Oxfam America President Raymond C. Offenheiser went on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports to bring Oxfam’s message of reform to a national audience. Watch what happened:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Today the Senate Agriculture Committee held its first hearing of the year on the 2012 US Farm Bill, a $288 billion behemoth best-known for setting farm subsidy and other agricultural policy. Although it rarely receives top billing, the Farm Bill is the central legislation that guides the US government’s global food aid programs.

Here’s the long and the short of it: the US Food Aid program is immensely important, but right now it is broken, seriously hampered by special interests who lobby Congress to impose regulations that protect their bottom-line at the expense of hungry people and taxpayers. These regulations cause less food to get to the hungry people who need it with up to 32 cents out of every $1 spent on food aid going to waste as a result. To put it succinctly, the regulations cost money and lives.

Families collecting their WFP monthly ration at an Oxfam distribution point in Northern Kenya, March 2011. Photo by Andy Hall.

For years these rules have been protected by a group of well-heeled lobbying organizations representing the shipping industry and the major commodity trade groups including the American Cargo Transport Corporation, the National Corn Growers Association, and USA Rice Federation among several others.

Case in point, this letter sent to members of Congress in 2010 by DC lobbying firm Winston & Strawn on behalf of industry groups opposing reform. These groups have joined hands to fight against common sense changes that would make our food aid program more effective at saving lives and more cost efficient for US taxpayers.

But it’s time for the craziness to end. And the 2012 Farm Bill is the place to make that happen. That’s why Oxfam America and some of our friends and allies are standing up to take on the special interests that are getting in the way of life-saving reforms. We hope you’ll join us. For more detail on the issue, see the memo we put out this morning highlighting three ways that Congress can fix the food aid program.

And stay tuned to this space for more.
 
 
 
 
TO: Interested Parties
FR: Ben Grossman-Cohen, Oxfam America
RE: The Farm Bill and Food Aid

Helping hungry people during food crises is an essential part of US foreign policy; it reduces instability around the world and protects the most vulnerable communities from catastrophe. But under the current law, special interest lobbyists are having a field day with our food aid program, imposing rules and regulations that benefit themselves, cost lives, and waste taxpayer dollars. These regulations cause less food to get to the hungry people who need it with up to 32 cents out of every $1 spent on food aid going to waste.

For years, a group made up of well-heeled lobbying organizations representing the shipping industry and the major commodity trade groups including the American Cargo Transport Corporation, the National Corn Growers Association and USA Rice Federation, have joined hands to fight against efforts to make our food aid program more effective at saving lives and more cost efficient for US taxpayers.

(See the letter sent by DC lobbying firm Winston & Strawn on behalf of industry groups opposed to food aid reform.)

These groups push Congress to impose regulations which require that food be purchased from preferred growers and shipped from the US on preferred ships instead of finding the best prices and sources of food that will save the most lives and reduce dependence on aid in poor countries. This red-tape directly benefits the industries these lobbyists represent at the expense of hungry people and taxpayers.

Independent studies have shown that these rules cost taxpayers approximately $213 million a year, a massive chunk of the relatively small food aid budget. Shipping restrictions alone cost taxpayers on the order of $140 million in one recent year. Think of the lives that could have been saved if that $140 million could have been spent on food and agriculture programs instead of unnecessary overhead.

What’s worse, the regulations contribute to delays in food deliveries of up to four to six months, delays that can mean life or death for people in crisis. The rules also hurt small-scale farmers when US food aid is dumped on developing country markets. Rather than helping communities build a bridge out of poverty and hunger, these rules contribute to a cycle of poverty and dependence for small-farmers and hungry people.

America is better than this. It is time to put the interests of hungry people and American taxpayers ahead of industry lobbyists by reforming food aid’s wasteful and ineffective regulations in this year’s Farm Bill.

These reforms must allow for food aid to be purchased locally and regionally within developing countries and put an end to the use of life-saving aid doubling as corporate welfare. These fixes will save lives and ensure our aid helps build self-reliance, enabling local farmers to thrive and reducing the need for assistance over the long term.

How to fix food aid in the Farm Bill:

1. Expand the use of local and regional purchasing of food aid.
The 2008 Farm Bill created a small pilot program for local and regional purchase of food to prove that it can be done. Rigorous evaluation of this program has demonstrated that it can. Where appropriate, local and regional purchasing is a cost-efficient and effective model to save lives and enable communities to build pathways out of poverty. The current pilot should become a regular program and receive funding as part of the core food aid program.

2. Use food as food, not a source of fundraising.
Some organizations that deliver food aid are forced sell it to food traders to raise cash to fund their food aid programs. It’s perfectly legal, but totally inappropriate. This process, known as “monetization” is extremely inefficient and can damage local markets, hurting farmers and undermining food security. Food aid must be used to save lives not as an inefficient and wasteful way to generate funds for organizations providing food assistance. The US must eliminate the “monetization” of food aid. Congress must provide organizations delivering food aid with adequate funding so that they can deliver lifesaving programs without having to sell off food to keep the lights on.

3. End costly shipping restrictions.
By law, at least 75 percent of US food aid must be shipped on preferred US ships. This rule wastes money, costs lives and creates an unnecessary burden on USAID that hampers quick and effective response in times of crisis. It is wrong to use emergency food aid that is intended to save lives as corporate welfare for the shipping industry. Special set asides for the shipping industry should be stripped from the Farm Bill.

With the bipartisan Super Committee set to cut at least $1.2 trillion from the federal debt next month, Big Ag and their supporters in Congress are scrambling to protect their slice of the pie. The Republican and Democratic leadership of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees intend to put forward what amounts to a new five-year Farm Bill proposal by November 1, building off their recommended $23 billion in “cuts” to Ag programs.

On the face of it, $23 billion in cuts and an end to wasteful direct payments should bring cheers from reformers. But this attempt to circumvent democracy and cut a back room deal that protects the interests of Big Ag above voters is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

(For more on the substance of the proposals so far, see my colleague Jim French’s take here.)

As Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told reporters last week, Congressional Ag leaders, traditionally those with the closest ties to the industry, want to avoid taking their proposals to the floor of the House and Senate where support for reform is strong.

Already, the Obama administration has proposed even deeper cuts to Ag programs amounting to at least $33 billion. And just this month, the Big Ag lobby was rocked on its heels when an amendment offered by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) to cut farm subsidies to anyone with an average income over $1 million cleared the Senate by an eye-popping margin of 84-15. Clearly the momentum is not in Big Ag’s favor.

The deliberation and discussion by Agriculture Committee Chairs and Ranking Members that has led to the current proposal has neither been shared publicly nor opened to the scrutiny of Members of Congress who represent individuals, families and businesses affected by Farm Bill programs. If the Ag Committees would have their way, the next Farm Bill will effectively be authorized with no floor debate at all. Members of the Super Committee should be wary of taking the bait.

The entire political calculus of the Ag Committee leaders is based on the reality that their plan does not have adequate support outside of their own committee to pass on the floor. If the Super Committee’s goal is to craft a proposal that deals with the debt and can garner enough votes on the floor to pass, this is one surefire way to cut a deal that is less popular, has less impact on the debt, and less likely to garner votes.

Already, Members of Congress are catching on and fighting back. Representative Ron Kind is circulating a “Dear Colleague” letter to Congressional colleagues, which already has support from several Democrats and Republicans, asking the Super Committee not to approve any Agriculture Committee proposal that hasn’t been voted on by Congress. Rep. Kind’s message should garner broad support across party lines as this is a rare issue that should appeal to Democrats, Republicans, Tea Partiers, and Occupiers alike.

Let’s break this down a bit. If you’re a Tea Party supporter, you probably shouldn’t like this deal because:

1. It is a back room deal negotiated without any public scrutiny.
2. It cuts less wasteful spending than other proposals.
3. The $23 billion in proposed cuts could shrink dramatically if the volatile agriculture markets or increasingly volatile weather swings production or prices in a new direction.
4. It authorizes the government to pick certain industries/commodities as winners over others.

If you’re an #OWS supporter, you shouldn’t like this deal because:
1. It was negotiated to satisfy high powered industry lobbies that pay lots of money to influence the Ag Committee.
2. It’s a giveaway to big industrial farms at the expense of family farmers.
3. It promotes unhealthy, unsustainable farming practices at the expense of sustainable farming.
4. It targets conservation and nutrition programs for cuts disproportionately.

Clearly there are many reasons not to like this deal. Members of the Super Committee should swiftly reject it. For more on what’s wrong with the substance, read Jim French’s piece here.

If you spend any time reading about food policy, you might have felt a strong wind at your back pushing you vaguely in the direction of Zuccotti Park last week. Some of my favorite food bloggerati including Jane Black, Mark Bittman, Tom Philpott, and Kristin Wartman (among several others) all wrote compelling pieces urging those of us in the “food movement” to start to align ourselves squarely within the ranks of the 99%.

And they’re right. As Philpott writes, “as Occupy Wall Street evolves, food policy should be on the plate.” The food movement needs more energy, more creativity, and as Black suggests, a more ruthless commitment to “winning” political battles. If productively directed, the dynamic power that #OWS seems to be building could be a promising addition to the movement’s arsenal. The only problem in reading these articles, is one gets the idea that food reformers don’t actually know all of this already. In reality there are many of us in the food movement who spend our lives doing just this. But, it’s much easier to talk about the injustices and failures of our food system than it is to motivate action on specific winnable battles.

Protest is essential. Voicing anger and dissatisfaction with the countless failures of our political, financial, and food systems helps bring to light the injustice embedded in how these systems can distort our society and undermine our health, security, and general well-being. But, more productive than a generic call to arms to voice our collective anger, is a specific call to action that can help overcome real injustices.

Among the issues raised by Black, Bittman, Philpott, and Wartman are the financial industry’s impact on food prices, the drive by investors to acquire land in developing countries, and the need to raise revenue from the banks that helped create the economic mess we currently face. Here are a few examples of what Oxfam is trying to do on each of these issues to create real, concrete change, and some ways that individuals, including our friends in the bloggerati, can help. Alone, none of these actions will create the bold institutional reforms our food system needs, but they’re a darn good start:

Last week Oxfam released a letter from 461 economists urging regulators to reign in excessive speculation on commodities that drives food price spikes and hunger:

http://www.oxfamamerica.org/press/pressreleases/461-economists-call-for-urgent-action-against-excessive-speculation-on-food-commodities

You can sign your own letter to the top regulator at the CFTC urging strong action here:

http://www.change.org/petitions/world-food-day-action-cftc-should-regulate-commodities-trading-2

Last month Oxfam revealed that major corporations are pushing poor farmers in the developing world off of their land and into hunger and poverty. Since our report release, farmers in Uganda who spoke out against land grabs have felt intimidation and harassment after questioning from the New Forests Company:

www.oxfamamerica.org/landgrab

You can send a letter to the CEO of the New Forests Company, 20% of which is owned by the major international bank HSBC, demanding that he take immediate action now to bring justice to these communities:

https://secure.oxfamamerica.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1273

Around the world, momentum is building behind a tiny tax on bankers that could generate billions of dollars to help with problems at home and overseas:

http://www.oxfam.org/en/campaigns/health-education/robin-hood-tax

You can add your voice to this campaign joining tens of thousands of other advocates in urging leaders of the G20 nations to put this tiny tax into place and help millions of people in the US and around the world get the health care, education, clean water, and nutritious food they need:

http://www.oxfam.org/en/campaigns/health-education/robin-hood-tax