A different perspective on the grains "crisis"

The media has lately seized upon rising food prices. The story is simple: Congress mandated a huge increase in biofuels production, spurring competition for various crops, particularly corn. The New York Times has run a series of articles on the ill effects, which include famine in developing countries, less conservation as farmers plant corn rather than leave land fallow, and bankruptcy for producers in the dairy, chicken, pork, and beef sectors. Indeed, the sustained growth in certified organic land may even be reversed because farmers can achieve comparable profit margins if they stay conventional and forgo the bother and cost of certification.

I don’t agree with the general consternation—in fact, I think the corn shortage has some silver linings for the US and the world. The memory of the crisis cheerleaders is stupendously short. Only three summers ago, the mainstream had its knickers in a twist over a corn glut. The Times' story on this faux problem included this arresting picture of a rotting pile of corn the size of a football field, too large to cover with a tarp.

Why might high corn prices be good? First of all, the US has long used its cheap commodity crops to undercut foreign producers. In the worst instances, the US donates “free” grain on a flimsy pretext. For instance, grain farmers in Ethiopia can’t make a profit if their consumers receive “free” American corn donated to prevent “famine.” Our Midwestern breadbasket is also used to justify Neoliberal reforms—if developing countries can count on cheap grain imports, it makes no sense to develop a broad base of domestic agriculture. Instead, they pursue a comparative advantage via crops such as coffee or cacao, but dependence on fickle foreign markets ultimately increases an economy’s fragility. Without competition from US grain imports, foreign grain farmers will thrive, although the immediate shortages are tough.

While it's similarly difficult for farmers and ranchers who are driven out of business, Americans could use a dose of reality regarding their consumption of these products. Meat, milk, and cheese are unhealthy in a Western diet unless consumed in small portions, but pocketbook rather than nutritional arguments are most likely to be convincing. Furthermore, these sectors of agriculture are horribly inefficient—ruminants consume enormous amounts of grain, so if the number of bovines decreases, the pressure on the grain supply will gradually ease, causing prices to fall.

Meanwhile, the high price of corn provides a compelling reason to do away with the unnecessary and wasteful agricultural subsidies that encourage overproduction. As for the possible decline in organic certification and farmland conservation programs, this will be more than offset if price increases provide an incentive for Americans to eat more healthily overall. It makes ever more sense to eat locally and organically (whether certified or not) to escape the costs of transport and artificial fertilizers and pesticides.

Indeed, in my own research area—cattle ranching—the best way to avoid buying grain is to increase the amount of time an animal spends on pasture. While grass fed methods do nothing to better chances of “organic” certification in the eyes of the USDA, they make raising cattle less expensive and, if the cattle are rotated responsibly, they are better for the land than conventional methods. Moreover, the beef is healthier.

I do not want to leave the impression that I think the biofuels mandate was a good idea. The latest research shows that burning ethanol actually releases more greenhouse gases than burning gasoline. Is this actually surprising to anyone? You don’t need to be a chemist to figure out that carbon consumption of any type is going to release carbon dioxide as a byproduct, and anyone who has sat by a fire, whether fueled by wood or cornstalks, should know that the result is dirty. Greenhouse gas emissions won’t decrease unless we harness truly alternative power sources (wind and solar) for our engines or we truly forgo using them.

Similarly, the fact that Congress passed the biofuels bill is hardly surprising. Farm state Senators control agricultural policy, and the Farm Bill is all about paying farmers to produce crops we don’t need more of. They need to dispose of “corn gluts” to justify their payments, which is why the US donates so heavily to the World Hunger Program, and why High Fructose Corn Syrup, which sweetens nearly a quarter of the products sold by an average American supermarket, was invented. These Senators are remarkably effective because they support projects championed by non-agricultural Senators, as long as they get their way on the Farm bill.

Although corn prices are the highest they have been in decades, talk of reforming Farm Bill subsidies, which will be renewed this summer, has died almost entirely. The biggest opponent of the subsidies is (surprise!) President Bush, but since environmental groups refuse to work with him and the farm bill doesn’t have the cachet of illegal immigration in the red states, he’s unwilling to put his neck on the line by really fighting them.

Changes in supply are a natural feature of our economy, but coverage tends to focus on the negatives (the same goes for global warming). The winners will be those who can adapt the quickest to the higher prices of corn and other grains. In the meantime, observers should strive for a nuanced perspective of events in the hope that we can use the new pressures to achieve a more sustainable economy.

Shiprock

Were it not for the many other geological spectacles around Four Corners, Shiprock might be as famous as Devil’s Tower. Indeed, they are both remnants of ancient volcanos. Composed of breccia and other igneous rocks, Shiprock originally formed the volcano’s throat, several thousand feet underground, but in the 27 million years since inception, erosion has exposed the remnant.

Shiprock rises nearly 2,000 feet above the plain, and it is visible for scores of miles. Early Anglo pioneers thought it resembled a Yankee clipper ship. Last week, my old friend Sam Sweet and I approached from the north, first glimpsing it just after passing into New Mexico from Colorado. None but the hardiest grasses survive the arid conditions of the surrounding plains. Shiprock sits in the middle of a vast Navajo reservation that, to quote Robert Spurlock, is basically a third-world country sitting in the middle of the southwest. A town named for Shiprock lies fifteen or so miles from the formation; there was no sign of employment beyond service and government jobs. Power lines, apparently routing electricity from the turbines along the Colorado River to Albuquerque and Santa Fe, crisscross the vast expanse of the reservation. I never once caught a glimpse of cattle, which are ubiquitous elsewhere in the arid southwestern landscape.

Navajo legend tells that a village once occupied the top of Shiprock (Tse Bit’a’i to the Navajo), whose inhabitants cultivated the fields below. Lightning sheered off the trail leading to the bottom, leaving only a cliff and forcing the village to starve. The Navajo now forbid the rock’s ascent. Oddly, David Brower, later of Sierra Club fame, led the first recorded climb of Shiprock.

Highway 491 provides a constant vista of the peak, however, so we did not offend any resting spirits. Our Rough Guide, which contained a priceless section on “Traveling in Indian Country,” urges travelers to avoid making eye contact or being overtly friendly, as the natives apparently do not understand such paleface behavior.

Briefly disembarking to absorb Shiprock’s grandeur in the open air, I was struck by the trail of broken bottles along the road’s shoulder. Highway 491, nicknamed the Devil’s Highway, actually used to be 666 (the sixth spur of old Highway 66), until Bill Richardson and the New Mexican Congress changed it in 2003 to avoid “the mark of the beast.” Within the Navajo section of the road, a succession of fatal accidents led some to believe the road curse. Alcoholism is responsible for most of these deaths, however. Highway 491 is a road I would hesitate to drive at night—Shiprock is a massive, unearthly presence, and the image of headlights swerving head-on into my lane persists.

A bee in the organic bonnet

This rather dry piece is part of my Masters Thesis, but I did most of the research for my undergrad thesis. All of the pictures are from southwestern Wisconsin, fall 2005.

The organic dairy world is one of the most important sectors of the organic industry as a whole. In 2003, its sales totaled $1.4 billion. People seem to associate milk with health and childhood, which perhaps convinces them to accept premiums for organic milk. Indeed, in the 1990s, the organic dairying grew the fastest of any sector of the organic industry (Greene, 2001).

The National Organic Programs (NOP) rules governing organic dairy cattle mention access to pasture, but they do not specify what access entails. Thus it is possible to feed dairy cattle organic grain while confining them on large dairy farms, sometimes called Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). The debate over what access entails has played out in the competition between the two of the largest organic dairy operations in the country—Horizon Organics and Organic Valley—which approach organic milk production in markedly different ways.

Both companies were founded as cooperatives around the same time—Organic Valley in 1988, Horizon in 1992—and both were originally located in rural Wisconsin. Their rise roughly mirrored the explosion of the entire organic industry. After initial difficulty in finding their market niche, both companies settled on dairy products. However, while Organic Valley continued as a cooperative, buying milk only from member farms, Horizon, while continuing to purchase from its member farms, also bought its own large dairy farm in Idaho in 1994, which holds 8,000 cows, followed in 1997 by another in eastern Maryland, which houses a comparable number (Brady, 2006). Growth continued, and in 2003, as major food corporations began taking notice of the growing profits in the organic sector, Dean Foods purchased Horizon—now based in Boulder, Colorado—for $216 million (Pressler, 2003). Presently, the subsidiary works with 515 farms, and according to its website, 80% of its milk comes from members rather than its own operations in Idaho and Maryland (horizonorganic.com, 2008).

Nonetheless, Horizon has received considerable criticism from consumers groups. The Organic Consumers Association is leading a boycott of Horizon (as well as Aurora Organic, supplier to Wal-Mart, Safeway, Costco, and Target) because of the lack of access to pasture for cows on the large dairy farms. Logistically, bringing several thousand cows out to pasture is a daunting challenge when the cows also need to be milked twice daily. Practically, this means that the cows generally see pasture for two to three months per year, at the end of their lactation cycle. Since the USDA organic standards are vague, such conditions are legal as long as the cows are fed organic grains. The abundance of fecal waste and irrigation at large dairy farms—the Idaho farm was essentially created out of a desert—are also cited as reasons for the boycott (Brady, 2006). While major supermarket chains have not dropped Horizon or Aurora, the OCA has made some headway among natural food stores and coops.

Organic Valley, a giant in its own right with over 1300 member farms, has pursued a less controversial but also less lucrative strategy, at least in the short term. While diversifying into citrus and meat production, it has resisted using large dairy farms, however, instead relying entirely on small producers. Such a strategy has thus far proved healthy for the cooperative’s image, but the limits to supply come at a price.

In 2004, Organic Valley’s third largest customer was Wal-Mart. Executives at Organic Valley credit Wal-Mart with improving the cooperative’s efficiency and timing. Nonetheless, when a case of Mad Cow Disease was found in Washington State in 2004, consumers began switching to organic milk in such droves that the demand quickly outstripped supply. A shortage in organic grain for feed exacerbated the problem. Organic Valley was forced to shortchange its smaller customers in favor of Wal-Mart. The specter of competition with Horizon Organic, which was selling milk at 15 cents less per gallon than Organic Valley, convinced Organic Valley executives to drop the Wal-Mart account, despite the fact that the giant retailer had not asked for a price cut. Instead, Organic Valley focused on supplying its natural food store and co-op customers, avoiding vulnerability by maintaining a diverse set of clients. Though in 2006 Horizon sold $339 million worth of milk to Organic Valley’s $232 million, Organic Valley’s business with small distributors is growing. It is betting that the innovative nature of these businesses and the awareness of its consumers will endow it with long-term viability (Pattison, 2007).

Meanwhile, the bad publicity from the OCA boycott is beginning to take effect. Like Horizon, Aurora owns a pair of large dairy farms in Colorado, which separately hold 4,000 and 3,200 cows, and one in Texas, with 3,300 cows. When John Mackey, the vegan chief executive of Whole Foods visited the smaller of the two Colorado facilities, he deemed its conditions poor enough to preclude his grocery chain from carrying Aurora milk (Warner, 2006). Under threat of losing its organic certification, Aurora agreed with the USDA to decrease its herd size and buy more pasture, but it now faces several class action lawsuits (Martin, 2007). Horizon has not generated as much opposition as Aurora, but it was still compelled to issue its “Standards of Care,” which details how its raises its cows (horizonorganic.com).

Thus in the dairy industry, the controversy over pasture access, generated by the vague language of the NOP rules, tends to boil down to tension between corporate dairy companies and smaller, independent or cooperative producers. The influence consumer activism has borne on company behavior is worthy of note, and whether comparable activity will occur in regard to organic beef deserves attention.


Pictures: Cows on Mike Sebion's farm in Viroqua; the co-op in downtown Viroqua; a retail outlet for Organic Valley in La Farge; and Mike Sebion on his farm.

The Return of the Dwarf Cinquefoil

From the December issue of Appalachia!

The view from Mt. Monroe takes in a remarkable juxtaposition of wilderness and civilization. To the north, Mt. Washington is grand and daunting yet subdued beneath the summit buildings. Lakes of the Clouds Hut cuts a lower profile in the col between Washington and Monroe, but it stands out in among the alpine tundra. The western approaches to the Presidentials are awash with human structures, while away to the southeast stretches the isolated Dry River Wilderness.

Close at hand is the slender Crawford Path, a route popular with parents and thru-hikers for its gentle circuit around the pyramid-like peak of Monroe. It passes Monroe Flats, 5,100 feet high and conspicuous for its level and patterned surface. Across several acres, strips of vegetation alternate with rust-colored lines of broken rock and soil, giving the Flats a terraced aspect. An avenue of pebbles cuts it through the middle.

This site is home to the Dwarf Cinquefoil (Potentilla Robbinsiana), a tiny flower species unique to the White Mountains. Its name comes from the French, meaning five leaves; the leaflets, which are serrated, often occur in threes as well as fives. Its flower is a bright yellow.

At once hardy and vulnerable, the Dwarf Cinquefoil has adapted to a unique combination of geomorphology and climate. Wind whips across its habitat, stripping cover and exposing the ground to scouring from snow and ice as well as opening it up to winter sunshine. The frequency of freeze-thaw cycles is what makes the site unique. Water seeps into topsoil and freezes, expanding and thrusting rocks and plants out of the earth. Subsequently, in a process known as solifluction, the disturbed soil and rocks coalesce into stripes, giveing Monroe Flats its unusual terraced appearance.

Most alpine plants, though adapted to the severe climate in the Presidentials, succumb to the constant exposure and freezing and thawing on Monroe Flats. Dwarf Cinquefoil, actually a member of the rose family, is the exception, with 95% of its population existing in that one area. Its small size, usually less than two inches tall and wide, and paucity of roots make it vulnerable to competition from bigger plants in more clement conditions, but in the alpine zone and particularly Monroe Flats, minimalism is an effective survival strategy.

A tiny patch of Dwarf Cinquefoil also survives in the Franconia Range. Most alpine plants in New Hampshire grow in Labrador, but not the Dwarf Cinquefoil—its niche is severely limited.

It is therefore particularly susceptible to disturbances other than freezing and thawing. Unsurprisingly, interaction with humans has not been healthy for the plant, at least until the last twenty years. In fact, our relationship with it is remarkably representative of society’s evolving attitude toward the natural world in general. Once nearly collected and trampled into extinction, Dwarf Cinquefoil is now making a resurgence thanks to local, Federal-supported, stewardship.

Besides a few hardy explorers, the first visitors to the alpine zone were tourists and botanists, whose ranks ballooned upon the completion of the first railroad to the White Mountains in 1851. American botany was then so young that many alpine flowers were undiscovered and unnamed—a treasure trove for those with the interest, funds, and resolution to attain the peaks’ higher recesses. Many of the first botanists were amateurs, but they made up for their inexperience with extraordinary energy. As Laura and Guy Waterman wrote in Forest and Crag, “It is conceivable that between 1825 and 1848…the Presidential Range was hiked more intensively, albeit by a tiny band of dedicated men, than it has been in any generation since, when almost everyone sticks to established trails.”

Thomas Nuttall discovered the Dwarf Cinquefoil, but James Oakes gave it its Latin name, honoring James W. Robbins, another botanist. Many early botanists gave their names to the landscape: Oakes Gulf, for instance, or Boott Spur and Tuckerman Ravine. Originally, these monikers were possessive, as in Oakes’ Gulf. Over time, convenience has had a shortening effect.

In those days, botany was as much a matter of collection as observation. As a stroll through any older natural history museum will demonstrate, scientists vied with one another for the most comprehensive collection, whether of rocks, plants, or animals.

Being rare and difficult to get at, Dwarf Cinquefoil was particularly prized. Indeed, some botanists supported their scientific excursions by selling specimens to collectors. In 1993, a researcher found 850 specimens of the plant in collections around the world.

An even greater threat to the Dwarf Cinquefoil was the Crawford Path, which originally ran straight through Monroe Flats and remains etched into the landscape—a straight, rocky line testifying to the slow pace of recovery in the alpine zone. Ethan Crawford, the legendary innkeeper in Crawford Notch, built the Path in 1819. Though large portions of it have been moved, it is the longest continuously used hiking trail in the US.

Crawford, remembered as the stereotype of a mountain man with his ragged hair, remarkable feats of woodcraft, and eccentric personality, was also a shrewd businessman. With his father, Abel, he built the Crawford Path (in addition to another trail which roughly followed the same path as the Cog Railway) for adventurous guests who might wish to walk—or, in later years, ride horses—to Washington’s summit and back. Conveniently, they would also have to spend a couple of nights at his inn and maybe even hire him as a guide.

What with the heavily-used Crawford Path and the less popular Dry River Trail, which ran through Monroe Flats on its descent into Oakes Gulf, it is perhaps surprising that the Dwarf Cinquefoil managed to escape extinction. A 1973 census of Monroe Flats counted 1,801 plants larger than half an inch in diameter, and ten years later, its numbers had dwindled to 1,547. Between zealous botanists and the backpacking boom of the 1960s, the plant population was declining to unsustainable levels.

Officials realized that without prompt action, the plant would soon decline below the minimum population necessary for survival. In 1980, they finally designated its critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act, providing impetus for several steps to protect the plant. First, to mitigate human impact, trail crews relocated the upper part of the Dry River Trail entirely away from the plant’s habitat and moved the Crawford Path to the edge of Monroe Flats. They then built a scree wall along the trail’s edge to discourage people from stepping off. Finally, a pair of signs was posted to inform hikers about the plant’s fragility and warn them to watch their step.

Results were dramatic. According to an AMC study, 10% of hikers stepped off the trail the first year after relocation, but since then, levels have dropped to 2%. An effort to educate passers-by was initiated, led by the croo at nearby Lakes of the Clouds Hut. Lynne Zummo, an earnest veteran of several seasons on the AMC’s hut croos who worked as the Naturalist at Lakes in 2006, says, “While the vast majority of people who come through Lakes have no clue about it [the Dwarf Cinquefoil], those who do, or [those who] learn about it while at Lakes, take an interest in it. I always thought about it as one more thing that connects people to the place, making them want to both return to and protect the area.”

Another strategy in the rehabilitation effort is transplanting. Before 1980, attempts were made to transplant the Dwarf Cinquefoil to 20 different locations in the White Mountains, but all failed because suitable habitat was so limited. Since then, there have been about a dozen tries. In recent efforts, seeds are gathered and taken to the New England Wildflower Society’s seed bank at Garden of the Woods in Framingham, Massachusetts. Some are placed in storage, while others are germinated and held for two years, when they are planted, keeping the soil surrounding the roots intact. Success has been elusive, but transplants have survived in two places of note: at a new spot on Washington and at a new site along Franconia Ridge.

By 1992, Monroe Flats had over 3,000 plants, and 4,575 in 1999 (the censuses include plants wider than 14 mm. as numbers of smaller specimens vary dramatically according to season and climate). An original colony along Franconia Ridge, thought to be extinct, was identified in 1984, though it is only a tiny remnant of a larger population. This patch has been so eroded by hikers on the nearby Franconia Ridge Trail that the remaining habitat is unlikely to be viable in the long term.

Ultimately, while education, transplants, and habitat studies have played a role in the Dwarf Cinquefoil’s resurgence, “The recovery is largely a result of the habitat and population being left alone,” says Doug Weihrauch, an AMC staff scientist and alpine ecologist.

In 2002, using census data and other observations, the Fish and Wildlife Service deemed that the plant’s recovery was strong and danger of a relapse low. Consequently, they proposed and eventually did delist the Dwarf Cinquefoil as an Endangered Species, with the strong support of the AMC. Since the plant is entirely on Federal Land, it remains protected by USFS and state regulations forbidding its damage or removal. The Endangered Species Act also requires the Fish and Wildlife Service to monitor a species for five years after delisting.

During the summer of 2006, the designated census was taken, finding 4,777 Dwarf Cinquefoils growing on Monroe Flats. While the original population of plants on Franconia Ridge is unlikely to survive, the new transplant site is doing well—numbers have increased from 135 in 2000 to 165.

Though transplanting is for now mostly over, the AMC will continue moving new plants into the viewing garden site. According to Weihrauch, “This location has very limited, and probably sub-optimal habitat, but the idea is to establish a few plants here for education purposes, and so that those wanting to see/photograph the plant can do so without impacting the population.

“We will continue to collect seeds, at least for the next few years, for storage in a seed bank,” continues Weihrauch. “We will also conduct another count of the Franconia Ridge transplant population next year, even though it has increased overall…we want to make sure that the declines are…not the beginning of a trend.”

Despite the ever-growing number of visitors to the alpine zone, the Dwarf Cinquefoil’s future is brighter now than at any time in the past 30 years, thanks to the efforts to educate the public and minimize hikers’ impact on Monroe Flats. It is a hopeful but precarious balance, and one that will require vigilance in the years to come.


Photos: Monroe Flats, from Mt. Monroe (Ben Lewis), the DC up close, Lakes croo relaxing on the roof with Monroe and Monroe Flats in the background, and the DC up close again.

The West Texas landscape in film

The two films that have received the most critical attention of the holiday Oscar season are the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men and P.T. Anderson’s There Will Be Blood. Curiously, both were filmed in West Texas. As I have pointed out in earlier posts, it is a stark landscape, exceptional for its aridity and harsh, piercing, and beautiful light. In short, it is well suited to stories with biblical themes, which is undoubtedly why the Coens and Anderson chose to shoot their movies there (the Cormac McCarthy novel on which the Coen’s movie is based also takes place along the border, while There Will Be Blood, adapted from a muckraking Upton Sinclair novel, Oil!, is set in Southern California).

Spending Christmas at home in New England has increased my awareness of the contrast in landscapes. West Texas certainly has something in common with the Plains—the absence of trees means that the entire sky is visible, making one feel far more insignificant and exposed than in a hilly, forested place. On the other hand, such panoramas can be inspiring and liberating. No wonder that Marfa, a few score miles north of Big Bend, is an artists’ haven. It has been suggested that both films are “great American movies;” in that these stories of men who encounter great opportunity but ultimately are undone by greed evoke American themes of capitalism gone wrong, such adulation may be deserved. Certainly the acting of Daniel Day-Lewis and Josh Brolin is superb, though the Coen Brothers short-change character development by evoking themes of fate.


Quite a few developers have tried to make a fortune in West Texas, and most have failed. The landscape destroyed and was destroyed by the cattlemen of the late nineteenth-century. Too dry for open range grazing, its fragile grass ecosystems were ravaged by cattle before the cattle themselves died of thirst or cold or were shipped away to greener pastures. Even now, the semi-desert is mainly populated by invasive species, though there are efforts to bring back the native grasses. Abandoned fencing, homesteads, and various short-lived adaptations are now important features of the landscape in their own right.


Somehow, the light of West Texas, in its intense fragility, evokes the fleeting nature of human settlement out there. This quality is not unique only to West Texas—I’ve noticed it also in Idaho (it is omnipresent in Napoleon Dynamite, where it evokes the austerity and loneliness of its characters, behind their hip humor). Quite likely it is present throughout the American West, and indeed the dryer, more rugged regions of the world. Perhaps that is why country music, with its reliable and comforting themes of love and family, is so popular among inhabitants of these rather desolate places.

Such light, like these two remarkable movies, suggests that it is hubris to inhabit such places permanently.


These pictures are all from Big Bend National Park. The large rock mesa is Casa Grande, in the Chisos Range, while the pool of water amidst rock walls is part of the nearby Window.

Haze in the D.F.

My experience in Latin American cities is pretty limited, but on a superficial level, Mexico City, or the D.F. as the natives know it, fits the superficial stereotype. It is vibrant, crowded, seemingly unorganized but actually quite hierarchical, and highly polluted. At 7,000 feet, it lies in a mountain bowl, surrounded by some of the biggest peaks in North America.

I felt the altitude on my way up to the third floor of the Hotel Montecarlo, having carried with me a surplus of baggage for my return to the New England winter. On the streets, my breathing was fine, though Robert (a wonderful old college friend who visited me in Austin before I helped him kick off his month in Mexico) and I noticed a number of people wearing surgical masks over their mouths. Neither SARS nor bird flu was threatening Mexico City—these folks were simply worried about the particulates in the air.


On our first full day, we climbed the pyramids of Teotihuacán, enormous stone edifices built in the first century by the Olmecs. It was December 12, the anniversary of the Virgin of Guadalupe’s appearance back in the 16th century, and the sound of firecrackers reverberated through the air. Though a sunny, relatively dry day, it was difficult to even see to the horizon. Indeed, I never really got a sense of the city’s massive scale because every vantage point, even from the plane, was compromised by smog.

When I checked my email and the headlines over the course of the week, there was plenty of news about the failure to agree on reducing CO2 emissions at the Bali conference. While C02 isn’t particularly responsible for impacting visibility, its source and the slow but sustained nature of its effects are quite similar to the compounds impacting visibility and health—nitrates, carbon monoxide, and ozone.

While the evidence of global warming and its causes are by now obvious, the lack of an immediate crisis such as panda bears dying or local, fatal cases of asthma makes policy solutions far more elusive. Congress just passed an energy bill raising car mileage standards significantly, but another mandate to produce 15% of our energy from renewable sources by 2020 was stripped out because Republicans objected to raising taxes on energy companies to pay for the new investments. When, during a time of extraordinary profits for the oil and coal industries, Congress can’t muster the votes for what, in the grand scheme, is quite a small increase in renewable fuels, the situation appears hopeless.

Few people would be surprised by the amount of air pollution in Mexico City. But I’ve also seen disgusting levels in supposedly wild and pristine places this year. Up at Galehead, the smog floating in from the Ohio River Valley was so bad that we didn’t want to go outside sometimes for fear of the clear brown streaks in the sky. At Big Bend, as I’ve written about on this blog, despite being the most remote National Park in the lower 48, I could barely see the Rio Grande, only 15 miles away from the highest of the Chisos Mountains. The maquiladoras near Ciudad Juarez emit a stream of emissions that sails directly east into the park.

On my last full day in Mexico City, Robert and I took a bus up to the Paseo de Cortes, a mountain pass between two of the huge volcanoes east of the city. It is from this point, in 1519, that Cortes first beheld the city of Tenochtitlan, the marvelous Aztec capital. It was the Venice of the Americas, a series of islands grouped around a main temple complex, connected by canals and several long causeways to the mainland. Of course, less than fifty years after the Spanish conquest, the entire lake had been filled in to make room for the new Spanish city. Today, many of the older buildings tilt dangerously due to their shaky foundations on fill.

Needless to say, the city was invisible from our lofty vantage point, despite having gotten ourselves all the way up to 12,000 feet. On our way down, the sunset was magnificent—but such is the beauty of a hazy landscape at dusk.


PIctures: Robert and me on the Pyramid of the Sun, with the Pyramid of the Moon in the background, the view from the Pyramid of the Moon, a warning about volcanic eruptions, a tilting church in the Palacio Nacional, and sunset from the mountains to the east of the city.

New grass fed rules

In mid October, the USDA released new rules for labeling grass-fed beef. The timing is indicative of the past decade’s remarkable surge of interest in healthy food. Fueled by increased access through stores such as Whole Foods and interest-generating books such as Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dillemma, the organic business is now worth $17 billion and the Farm Bill is currently instigating, if not a raging debate, at least a buzz of interest. With its grass fed program, the USDA believes it is protecting consumers and aiding producers trying to distinguish themselves from the competition. But like the USDA’s rules on organic certification, the unveiling of the new guidelines was accompanied by a series of salvos from industry and advocacy groups. What exactly is grass fed beef, and what does the debate illuminate about the forces buffeting the industry?

Interest in grass fed beef has intensified as some medical studies have shown omega 3 fatty acids, which occur abundantly in grass but not grain, to reduce risk of heart disease. Some prefer the taste of grass fed beef, while others find it too tangy, leading many producers to “finish” the cattle with grain. This is supposed to improve taste, but it diminishes omega 3 fatty acids. Personally, I am unable to detect the difference—give me a fresh steak, and I will happily polish it off, whether grass or grain fed.

The USDA’s definition of grass fed beef is surprisingly straightforward. To meet the minimum standard for grass fed labeling, a producer must feed his cattle grass or forage for their entire lives, except for milk they consume before weaning. Grain is not allowed as a substitute. Finally, the animal is required to have access to pasture during the growing season.

Simplicity is appealing, and unlike the organic standards, which it developed over twelve years in response to a Congressional directive, the USDA issued them on its own initiative. Unlike the USDA’s rules on organic certification, red tape is essentially non-existent. But therein lies the problem—like so many of the Bush administration’s environmental and health initiatives, grass fed labeling certification is voluntary. A producer who labels his grain fed cattle grass fed faces no penalty. The only way to punish the liars is through consumer activism. Essentially, by shifting responsibility to consumers, the grass fed guidelines take the opposite approach from the organic rules, requiring producers to pay for certification.

Were most cattle producers trustworthy, that should not be great cause for alarm, but a parallel case within the dairy industry shows that many are not. Since 2002, two companies have dominated the dairy sector—Horizon Organics of Boulder, Colorado and Organic Valley of La Farge, Wisconsin. As their headquarters suggest, Organic Valley is much more decentralized—it is a cooperative, in fact—than Horizon, which is corporate. While Organic Valley relies on hundreds of small dairy farms, fulfilling the spirit of organic dairy rules, Horizon confines its cows to enormous feedlots. Its cynical interpretation of the USDA rule obliging “access to pasture” ensures that the only interaction its cows have with the elements is through a small open door. Of course the cows are reluctant to explore beyond the known confines of their pens.

Luckily, through consumer boycotts and an excellent marketing strategy, Organic Valley has held its own against Horizon. Nonetheless, the implications for grass fed beef are serious. Lacking a definition of access in the voluntary guidelines, feed lots will be the prime source of grass fed beef because forage can be brought to confined cattle. No doubt some responsible producers will allow their cattle to roam during the summer, but the big-retailers will favor the cheapest beef. The new USDA label enables corporate agriculture to subvert the public’s obvious desire for cattle that graze freely.

aIn fact, the new label characterizes grass fed so narrowly that it permits giving cows growth hormones and antibiotics. Such flaw is clearly designed for exploitation by feedlots. Without ways to bring cattle to maturity quickly at a minimum risk of disease, they would quickly become obsolete.

The American Grassfed Association (AGA), which has spearheaded criticism of the new guidelines, has announced that it will set up an alternate certification program incorporating standards on growth hormones, antibiotics, and pasture access. Hopefully, as the USDA forfeits its oversight responsibility, consumers will continue to demonstrate commitment to truly healthy cattle and beef by recognizing the more meaningful AGA grass fed label.