Author: D.W.

1960s market song

So, on the lighter side:
A charming 1960s market song that I came across recently performed by Herman’s Hermits in their movie “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter”
Something to hum while setting those tents up….

“Lemon And Lime”
(Gouldman)

Mr Brown: Lemon and lime
Turn of the time
Or five for a couple of bob.
Good for a cold
You’ll never grow old
For wheezing there just the job.
Around the corner
In the market square
Thats the spot to make your pitch.
Around the corner
Put your barrel there
That the place where you’ll get rich.
Carrots and spuds
Jeffers and bloods
They’re lovely, ripe and sweet.
Let it out loud
Pull a big crowd
To value they can’t be beat.
Around the corner
In the market square
Thats the spot to make your pitch.
Leck: Around the corner
Put your barrel there
That the place where you’ll get rich.
Pippens with pips
These are the tips
On how to make punters punt
Keith: Give them a schpeal
Polish the peel
And put the good one’s up front.
Around the corner
In the market square
Thats the spot to make your pitch.
Mr Brown & Keith: around the corner
Put your barrel there
That the place where you’ll get rich.
Mr Brown: Peas in their pods
Never lay odds
Mr Brown & Barry: Aware of the golden thumb
Mr Brown: Press down the scale
You’ll go to jail
The costomers are tom thumb
Everyone: Around the corner
In the market square
Thats the spot to make your pitch.
Around the corner
Put your barrel there
That the place where you’ll get rich.
Mr Brown & Karl: Play it my way
Make the game pay
Tell them what they want to hear
Serve with a smile
Cut for the pile
After you’ve sold the idea.
Mr Brown & Herman: Lemon and lime
Turn of the time
Or five for a couple of bob.
Good for a cold
You’ll never grow old
For wheezing there just the job.
Around the corner
In the market square
Thats the spot to make your pitch.
Around the corner
Put your barrel there
That the place where you’ll get riiiiich.

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Allergic levels higher for urban kids

Urban kids have more allergies.

Data revealed that the odds of food allergies were significantly higher in more densely populated areas as compared to rural areas and small towns. Rates varied significantly from almost 10 percent prevalence in urban centers to only 6 percent in rural areas. The study also found that the most common food allergy was for peanuts, and milk and soy were two of the most consistent allergies throughout the various demographic areas.

One explanation for a higher prevalence of food allergies in urban areas is that exposure to certain “microbial agents’” or agitants earlier in life may somehow protect a child from developing food allergies later in life. Kind of the same argument for people who use sanitizers too much on their hands and become more susceptible to getting sick as it weakens their immune system. Either way, the association between food allergy prevalence steadily rose as population density rose as well, which makes it clear rural kids are far less likely to suffer from an allergies than their city-dwelling counterparts.

So, once again like in the Dirt Adds Value story from the NYT, linked on this blog, we need to be part of the natural world from the beginning for so many reasons. Farmers and farmers markets contribute to that familiarity and need to be recognized for that.

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Growing trend: Nighttime farmers markets – Video on msnbc.com

Growing trend: Nighttime farmers markets – Video on msnbc.com.

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GMO language taken out of Farm Bill

In case you wondered what the Bernie Sanders (VT) amendment on GMO that failed to pass the Senate was about, here it is:

Co-sponsored by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Mark Begich (D-Alaska), Sanders’ amendment would have made clear that states have the authority to require the labeling of foods produced through genetic engineering.
In the United States, Sanders said, food labels already must list more than 3,000 ingredients ranging from high-fructose corn syrup to trans-fats. Unlike 49 countries around the world, however, foods that contain genetically engineered ingredients do not have to be labeled in the U.S.
The measure also would have required the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to report to Congress within two years on the percentage of food and beverages in the United States that contain genetically engineered ingredients.

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/senate-votes-keep-consumers-in-the-dark-about-gmo-food.html

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Seed in Oregon City

Just finished the first ever SEED http://www.marketumbrella.org/marketshare/
study in Oregon City, Oregon. Market manager Jackie Hammond-Williams puts together an amazing market every few days and has a lot of fun while she does it. Look for my upcoming FMC newsletter story about the study day and how this economic tool measures a markets impact. AND you’ll be able to read the report too – which was ready the next day. I guess we’ll let OCFM look at it first but I’m sure they will have it on their website very soon, and it will be followed by their weekday market SEED report too.

20120626-081822.jpg

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Award winning sustainable farmer ad

This won an award for this ad where a farmer realizes the error of his ways and returns his farm to sustainable farming, and presumably because of his change of heart, becomes a supplier to Chipotle.
I’m not kidding.
See how far we’ve come?
http://usat.ly/Mft5Cp

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Farm bill update from FMC

Farmers Market Coalition Applauds Bipartisan Leadership on Senate Farm Bill

(Charlottesville, VA) On Thursday, June 21st , the Senate passed the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act (ARFJA) with a 64-35 vote, after considering several dozen proposed amendments to the bill. The Farmers Market Coalition commends the bipartisan commitment to healthy debate and effective action on long-needed steps to reform and improve the nation’s food policy.

Farmers Market Coalition members were instrumental in reaching out to Senators leading up to the last two days of debate, urging for continuation and expansion of the flagship Farmers Market Promotion Program into the new Farmers Market and Local Foods Promotion Program.

While the Act includes some cuts to conservation programs, the Senate bill does adopt some important amendments, including by Senator Brown (D-OH) on rural development and beginning farmers, by Senator Merkley (D-OR) on crop insurance for organic farmers, by Senator Grassley (R-IA) on commodity payment limit reform, and Senator Wyden (D-OR) on farm to school pilot programs.

As passed, the bill includes the following provisions essential for expanding retail opportunities for small and mid-sized farms while making fresh, nutritious local foods available to communities of all income-levels. Several of the provisions included in the Senate’s bill address the Farmers Market Coalition 2012 Policy Priorities:

● Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program – Increases funding to $20 million a year and expands the scope of the highly popular Farmers Market Promotion Program to include additional outlets for processing, marketing, and distributing local foods.
● Specialty Crop Block Grants – Increases funding to $70 million per year for five years from the current level of $55 million per year with provisions to allow for collaborative projects among multiple states.
● Innovations in SNAP Technology – Authorizes pilots of mobile applications and online ordering for authorized SNAP retailers and includes provisions to permit SNAP redemption by community supported agriculture (CSAs).
● Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program (WIC) – Maintains mandatory funding at $20 million annually to provide assistance to low-income seniors and ensure access to the fresh, local food at farmers markets.
● Hunger-Free Community Incentive Grants – A total of $100 million to create a new grant for incentive programs to increase fruit and vegetable purchases by SNAP customers at farmers markets and other healthy food retailers .
● Community Food Projects – Doubles funding from the current $5 million per year to $10 million per year to support the development of comprehensive projects to fight food insecurity and increase the self-reliance of communities in providing for their food needs.

Sources in the House of Representatives indicate a strong interest in moving forward on a House Farm Bill process after the July 4th recess, with a committee mark-up process scheduled for July 11th. The Farmers Market Coalition encourages House members to follow the Senate’s lead by supporting these innovative, cost-effective, and far-reaching provisions.

“With the current Farm Bill expiring on September 30th, we hope that the House will follow the Senate’s lead on cost-saving reforms that continue to invest in a more resilient, equitable, and diversified food system, ” said Stacy Miller, Executive Director of the Farmers Market Coalition. “We urge the House to retain the Senate’s language on these critical programs, in recognition the economic, social and nutritional impacts farmers markets have in more than 7,000 communities nationwide, for at least 50,000 innovative agricultural producers.”

About Farmers Market CoalitionThe Farmers Market Coalition is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization who seeks to strengthen farmers markets’ capacity to serve farmers, consumers, and communities by providing the rapidly growing movement with information and representation at state and federal levels. FMC is a hub for cross-pollination of best practices and public information, representing more than 3,500 farmers markets through its membership. FMC mobilizes peer leadership and grow farmers market capacity to link sustainable farmers with neighbors seeking healthier relationships to food and their community. For more information, tools, and resources please visit http://www.farmersmarketcoalition.org.

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dirt adds value

What a great column in the New York Times today. Every time I think we have covered the gamut of what info we need to gather to show how local food systems are working, another imaginative and appropriately scaled data collection point comes along.

Dirt.
In particular, the amount of dirt that farmers and markets are returning to the food system on our just picked products. Dirt that humans used to consume more of (and now in the author’s theory) need in order to reduce the autoimmune issues we have given ourselves from too many antibiotics and scrubbed clean food choices.

Having just consumed handfuls of organic berries, figs and tomatoes straight from the garden this week, I join that chorus.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/opinion/lets-add-a-little-dirt-to-our-diet.html?_r=1&ref=contributors

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Environmental factors spread obesity, study shows

If there was ever a study that assisted markets with choosing the right location for markets hoping to incentivize significant nutritional behavior changes…. The well structured analysis simply points out how “Areas with above-average concentrations of food-related businesses had high-than-normal prevalence of obesity and diabetes.” In other words, it might be an example of Tulane Professor Diego Rose’s food swamp language, which explains that large concentration of bad food is much more prevalent than no food (a food desert) where obesity and diabetes is a prevailing issue. If more of this teams’ studies show that the fluctuations found correlate to a socioeconomic disparity (as they think it might), then we might have the data to further the market theory that markets located on “edge communities” serving more than one socioeconomic community will do a great deal for all of those communities.

Environmental factors spread obesity, study shows.

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Jeff Sessions Argues Food Stamps Increase Not Moral, Mocks Kirsten Gillibrand

In case you sometimes forget that the farm bill is a political fight, and there will many attempts to derail a thoughtful, serious conversation about the type of food we eat, who produces it and who will get access to it.

Jeff Sessions Argues Food Stamps Increase Not Moral, Mocks Kirsten Gillibrand.

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How Veggie Co-ops and Ice Cream Collaboratives Could Save the Economy | Mother Jones

This entrepreneur throws some great numbers out in this excellent blog post and also entices us all with visions of local ice cream and veggies at what he, very interestingly calls a winter food bazaar. That typology term may fit in quite nicely to the project that we call Market CITY (Characteristics, Indicators and Typology)
His reference to Civic Economics and Ken Meter’s work is not surprising, since their reports (along with Michael Shuman at BALLE and Jeffrey O’Hara at Union of Concerned Scientists) make up much of the data that we are using to build the economic argument for local food systems.

How Veggie Co-ops and Ice Cream Collaboratives Could Save the Economy | Mother Jones.

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Food Stamp Subsidies for Junk Food Makers, Big Box Retailers, and Banks?

As 2012 Farm Bill debate rages in Congress, a new investigative report demands SNAP program transparency

Oakland, CA, June 12, 2012 — Are food stamps lining the pockets of the nation’s wealthiest corporations instead of closing the hunger gap in the United States? Why does Walmart benefit from more than $200 million in annual food stamp purchases in Oklahoma alone? Why does one bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, hold exclusive contracts in 24 states to administer public benefits?

These are a few of the questions explored in a new report called: “Food Stamps, Follow the Money: Are Corporations Profiting from Hungry Americans?” from Michele Simon, president of Eat Drink Politics, a watchdog consulting group. This first-of-its kind investigation details how the food stamp program—originally designed to help farmers and those in need—lines the pockets of junk food makers, food retailers, and banks.

Right now, Congress is debating the farm bill, including significant cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps). Much attention has focused on how agricultural subsidies fuel our cheap, unhealthy food supply. In reality, the largest and most overlooked taxpayer subsidy to the food industry is SNAP, which comprised two-thirds of the farm bill budget in 2008.

“Michele Simon’s well-researched, credible investigation breaks new ground and exposes who else stands to gain from the government’s largest food assistance program,” said New York University Professor Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics. “While reauthorizing the farm bill, Congress needs to make sure that the poor get their fair share of SNAP benefits,” she added.

Food Stamps, Follow the Money examines what we know and don’t know about how much the food industry and large banks benefit from a tax-payer program that has grown to $78 billion in 2011, up from $30 billion just four years earlier, and projected to increase further due to current economic conditions.

“Transparency should be mandatory. The people have a right to know where our money is going, plain and simple,” said Anthony Smukall, a SNAP participant living in Buffalo, New York. He says his fellow residents are “facing cuts year after year, with no sustainable jobs to be able to get off of programs such as SNAP.” Smukall added, “J.P. Morgan is shaking state pockets, which then rolls down to every tax paying citizen. I am disgusted with the numbers in this report. If people knew how such programs were run, and how money is taken in by some of the world’s conglomerates, there would be outrage on a grand scale.”

As the largest government-funded agriculture program in the nation, SNAP presents a tremendous opportunity to help tens of millions of Americans be better nourished and to reshape our food system in a positive way. SNAP dollars now represent more than 10 percent of all grocery store purchases.

“Every year, tens of billions of SNAP dollars are propping up corporations that are exploiting their workers and producing foods that are making America sick,” said Andy Fisher, founder and former executive director of the Community Food Security Coalition, who is currently writing a book about the anti-hunger movement. “It’s high time we stopped this madness, and returned the food stamp program to its original purpose: providing needy Americans healthy real food grown by farmers,” he added.

“I hope Congress does not cut SNAP. Food prices have been skyrocketing while salaries remain unchanged, and many people I know have two jobs to try to make ends meet,” said Jennifer L., a SNAP participant living in Massachusetts. “As a single mom who has only recently re-entered the workforce, the SNAP assistance I receive makes a huge difference in my ability to support my children,” she added. “I am in favor of making retailers’ and banks’ information regarding SNAP public. What are they hiding?”

Food Stamps, Follow the Money offers several recommendations on how to improve SNAP in order to maximize government benefits for those in need. These include:

· Congress should maintain SNAP funding in this time of need for millions of Americans;

· Congress should require collection and disclosure of SNAP product purchase data, retailer redemptions, and national data on bank fees;

· USDA should evaluate state EBT contracts to determine if banks are taking undue advantage of taxpayer funds.

“Congress should make SNAP more transparent by mandating accurate tracking of SNAP expenditures. Why should only the likes of Walmart, Coca-Cola, and J.P. Morgan know how many billions of our tax dollars are spent each year?” said Ms. Simon.

Download report here

About: Michele Simon is a public health lawyer specializing in industry marketing and lobbying tactics. She is president of Eat Drink Politics, a consulting group that helps advocates counter corporate tactics and advance food and alcohol policy. http://www.eatdrinkpolitics.com Twitter: @MicheleRSimon

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