Newsletter May 15, 2008

No one can be blamed for falling back to what they know when they are confronted with danger, uncertainty and unsettling changes. What’s ironic about the disconcerting shifts in food costs and availability is how differently people respond, and how they “see” the same set of facts so differently. Two examples:

Organic food price increases: As all food prices increase, some shoppers are reacting by buying lower-cost food—either food grown non-organically locally or farther away on a large scale—or food of lower nutritional quality. Others are storming local greenhouse shelves for transplants and online ordering sites of seed companies as they expand the amount of food they want to grow for themselves and their families.

Bacteria in milk: Some ask how we can find ways to optimize health for cows and humans in a robust and complex ecosystem where milk, carefully handled at the farm level, is life-giving and healthful in its natural (unheated and unpasteurized) state. Others respond to deaths from pasteurized milk or reports of disease-causing bacteria in unpasteurized (raw) milk with the same answer: pasteurize more and more carefully.

In this week’s feature story, California dairy farmer Mark McAfee argues for a deeper look at the relationship of people, cows and bacteria to see where the raw milk dialogue might lead to better understandings of what is really good for us. His approach is a provocative reminder of the need to re-frame what appear as “food safety” problems by asking what arrangements really create health, vitality and well-being. Read more...

News items we present this week show this is a good time to ask some fundamental questions about how farming well—in terms of ecological integrity, nutritional quality and economic viability for farmers—will be defined in the months ahead, considering:

• The world’s CO2 levels are at the highest levels in 650,000 years. Read more...

• Higher prices are causing lower demand for organic food, with impact on organic retailers.

• Genetically manipulated crops have increased pesticide use without fighting hunger or benefiting small-scale subsistence farmers who grow crops to live.

• Yet, change is happening. Being the change they want to see, front-yard gardeners are converting lawns into ultra-local food production.

Calling for the change we all want to see, Rodale Institute CEO Tim LaSalle continues to press the case for conversion of farmland to regenerative organic farming to become a primary global strategy for combating global warming. You can see and pass on LaSalle’s video interview from this week’s OnPoint webcast.

Eat well, and think creatively.

Greg Bowman and the Rodale Institute editorial team