Trade rules are not easy to understand because they are so remote from most people’s lives.  But Public Citizen is keeping an eye out on what’s happening in the trade world, and making its meaning clear.

It reports that the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has just released its latest National Trade Estimate.  This reviews our trading partners’ actions that we think constitute “significant trade barriers” and want to eliminate.

What might these be?

This may be hard to believe but high on the list are other countries’ policies to promote breastfeeding, of all things.

The Trump administration wants to get rid of these “technical trade barriers:”

• Hong Kong draft code designed to “protect breastfeeding and contribute to the provision of safe and adequate nutrition for infants and young children.” This, according to USTR, could reduce sales of food products for infants and young children.
• Indonesia: USTR wants to get rid of a draft regulation to ban advertising or promotion of milk products for children up to two years of age.
• Malaysia: USTR doesn’t like its code restricting corporate marketing practices aimed at toddlers and young children.
• Thailand: USTR wants to eliminate penalties for corporations that violate laws restricting the promotional, and marketing activities for modified milk for infants, follow-up formula for infants and young children, and supplemental foods for infants.

It’s pretty depressing to watch what’s happening to the gains in food and nutrition policy so hard won in the last few years.

Nothing but bad news:

Menu labeling:  The FDA is submitting interim final rules, a tactic to delay implementation of menu labeling, which was supposed to start on May 5.  Why?  The National Association of Convenience Stores and the National Grocers Association filed a petition asking for the delay.   Pizza sellers have been lobbying like mad to avoid having to post calories.

Food labels (calories, added sugars): As the Washington Post puts it, the food industry is counting on the current administration to back off on anything that might help us all make better food choices.  At least 17 food industry groups have asked for a delay in the compliance date for new food labels—for three years.  Why?  They are a burden to industry.  The soon-to-be FDA Commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, said this about food labels:

As a general matter, I support providing clear, accurate, and understandable information to American consumers to help inform healthy dietary choices,” Gottlieb wrote, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. “ … However, I am mindful of the unique challenges that developing and communicating such information can pose, particularly on small, independent businesses.”

Definition of dietary fiber: The American Bakers Association wants the FDA to take back its new, stricter definition of dietary fiber, (it excludes synthetic fiber) due to go into effect in July 2018.

School meals: The USDA says it is about to announce new school meal “flexibility” (translation: rollback of nutrition standards).

The score: Big business 4, public health 0

Happy May Day.

For further reading:

• Vox’s Julia Belluz reviews these issues, but also comments on Michelle Obama’s enduring legacy.
• Politico summarizes USDA’s proposed actions.

Addition: It gets worse.  Politico reports that the congressional spending bill:

Contains a rider blocking funds from being used to work on “any regulations applicable to food manufacturers for population-wide sodium reduction actions or to develop, issue, promote or advance final guidance applicable to food manufacturers for long term population-wide sodium reduction actions until the date on which a dietary reference intake report with respect to sodium is completed.”

Politico also points out that the previous draft of the appropriation bill merely encouraged FDA to delay its salt reduction proposal until the reference intake report is updated (this, by the way, will take years).

More documents:

• USDA’ proclamation on school meals
• CSPI’s press release
• Background: the letter from Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) requesting these changes
• The FY2017 omnibus spending bill that includes the school lunch changes
• RWJ Foundation’s statement

Martha Rose Shulman.  Spiralize This!  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016.

I did a blurb for this book but only just got my copy.  I don’t usually blurb books about cooking, but Martha is a friend and spiralized vegetables are more fun than anything.  Here’s what I wrote, all true.

Who knew that preparing vegetables could be so much fun.  The fabulous Martha Rose Shulman gives you full permission to play with your food and use a spiralizer gadget to produce the most gorgeous meals ever eaten.  Vegetables have never been so easy, beautiful, delicious, and inspiring to eat.

I was interested to read a discussion by PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility) of a report from USDA’s Inspector General on a survey of the research climate within the agency.

The USDA did the survey after

Dr. Jon Lundgren, one of USDA’s top entomologists represented by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), publicly complained of political suppression of research linking potent new insecticides pushed by agribusiness with declines in wild pollinators, such as monarch butterflies.

The Survey of USDA Scientists Regarding Scientific Integrity produced either good or bad news, depending on how you look at it.  The USDA says that the vast majority of scientists reported no problems; only 2%-3% reported problems:

• Most scientists have not had problems with scientific integrity in their research in recent years…29 scientists (2 percent) indicated that entities external to USDA had pressured them to alter their work and 42 scientists (3 percent) indicated a Department official had pressured them to omit or significantly alter their research findings for reasons other than technical merit.
• Of those scientists who felt pressure to alter their research (referenced in the previous bullet), most did not report the incident because of fear of retaliation, reprimand, and reprisal.

The Washington Post says:

Nearly 40 percent didn’t bother to take the survey…Of those who did, more than half said they didn’t know how to file a complaint and some said they didn’t do so because they feared retaliation.

PEER notes that 41% of the scientists asked to fill out the survey failed to do so.  Of those who did fill it out,

nearly one-tenth report their research findings have “been altered or suppressed for reasons other than technical merit.” However, not one filed a Scientific Integrity complaint. Most (60%) confess they did not know how to file a complaint….[and] A majority of respondents (51%) do not think that USDA strongly promotes scientific integrity or refused to venture an opinion.

PEER points out that

nearly three-quarters (74%) of the responding scientists say agency management flags certain research areas as “sensitive/controversial,” with climate change, pollinator health, and anti-microbial resistance as the leading hot button topics. As one scientist commented “subtle tampering is common: with interpretations on politically sensitive topics, whether and how we address a certain research question, how we interpret our findings for the public are all interfered with on occasion.”

The PEER document collection

• USDA scientists’ comments
• IG survey results
• The Lundgren case
• Weaknesses in USDA Scientific Integrity Policy
• How the USDA Scientific Integrity process works in practice
• Uncertain fate of scientific integrity under Trump

Addition

PEER and US Right to know have filed separate petitions to USDA to protect its researchers

The increasing legalization of medical and recreational marijuana has many implications for food politics.  I’ve been collecting these items for the past couple of weeks.

• The food editor of High Times, Elise McDonough (@EliseMcD420), announced in a tweet that she would be leaving the post.  Is her job open?  You will need to contact High Times to find out.
• The New York Times reports that pot is becoming Big Ag, as big farms in the Salinas Valley are converting from fruits and vegetables to marijuana.  Call it “the industrialization of commercial cannabis.”
• Expect to see the same trend in Canada.  Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau introduced legislation to legalize pot, and soon.
• Grist has done an environmental impact analysis of growing pot; its use of electricity and water are nontrivial, and its production destabilizes ecosystems.
• The New Yorker profiles Laurie Wolf, ‘the Martha Stewart” of pot edibles.
• The New York Times dining section explains how to pair wines with pot varieties.
• Going to college is a risk factor for use of pot products.
• Advertising Age describes the difficulties with marketing the edibles—marketers must first educate the “Budtenders” who sell the products.

Dixie Elixirs, a maker of edibles including its new lines of THC-infused sour cherry, grape and lemon-flavored Fruit Tarts and Blazin’ Cinnamon and Citrus Blast Dixie Gummies, spends anywhere from 50%-75% of its marketing budget on education — particularly education aimed at budtenders, said the company’s CMO Joe Hodas.

The USDA has just agreed to delay its controversial GIPSA rules which were supposed to go into effect this week but are now delayed until October.

GIPSA stands for USDA’s Grain Inspection, Packers, and Stockyards Administration.

USDA calls them “Farmer Fair Practices Rules.”

But the meat industry calls them “disaster rules.”

Like everything else having to do with agricultural policy, the rules are next-to-impossible for outsiders to understand.  I’m using the USDA’s lengthy Q and A as a starting point.

The rules are designed to protect poultry producers who work under contract with highly concentrated chicken and turkey processors who monopolize the market.

As the USDA puts it, “processors can often wield market power over the growers, treating them unfairly, suppressing how much they are paid, and pitting them against each other.”

Furthermore, processors retaliate against growers who object to these unfair practices.

The GIPSA rules are supposed to

• Strengthen enforcement of existing fair-to-farmer regulations
• Establish criteria for determining if practices are unfair

Former USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack explained:

“You shouldn’t have to show if you’ve been treated unfairly or in a discriminatory way, that somehow what’s happened to you harms competition to the entire industry,” Vilsack told reporters as the rules were released. “That’s just an unreasonably high burden for anyone to have to meet.”  Industry groups are, for the most part, not pleased.

That last is an understatement.  The meat industry hates the rules..

The National Chicken Council, a trade association, says the GIPSA rules are “draconian” and “would inflict billions of dollars of economic harm to American agriculture.”

We are particularly troubled that the interim final rule and proposed rules appear designed to increase uncertainty and costly litigation—GIPSA even admits  that substantial litigation will ensue—with no quantifiable benefits…Throughout the rules, GIPSA consistently substitutes government fiat for private, market-based decision making.

This looks like contract chicken growers vs. Big Chicken to me, with Big Chicken calling the tune.

Or do I misunderstand?

In recent years, the USDA has received requests from several cities and states to allow pilot projects to remove sodas from items that can be purchased with SNAP benefit cards.

The agency has always found reasons to deny the requests, as it did for one from New York City in 2011.

The latest “denial” is to a request from the state of Maine for a pilot project to eliminate soft drinks and candy.  I put denial in quotes because it’s not actually a denial.   It’s a request for more information.  USDA wants to know:

• Whether Maine’s previous responses to previous queries still apply.
• What would happen without this restriction?
• Whether there will be a pre- and post-implementation data collection on purchases before and after the pilot.
• How Maine will correct for biases due to self-reporting of purchase data.
• Why Maine isn’t planning to get agreement from retailers to provide data.
• If Maine plans to provide a reasonable and legal time frame.
• Whether Maine plans to submit a new request for a waiver to cover use of SNAP-ED funds.
• What the evidence base is for using SNAP-ED funds as Maine plans.
• The full costs of this effort.

If Maine is serious about wanting to do this, it will have a lot more work to do.  USDA might as well have issued another denial.

Andrew Fisher.  Big Hunger: The Unholy Alliance between Corporate America and Anti-Hunger Groups.  MIT Press, 2017.

This book has a big theme, and I was happy to do a blurb for it:

If you don’t understand why anti-hunger groups hardly ever advocate for higher wages or public health nutrition measures for low-income Americans, see Andy Fisher’s analysis: they owe too much to their food-company donors.  Big Hunger is a call to action, one well worth heeding.

Here’s his interview today in Civil Eats.