I think that as private standards become increasingly pervasive means of regulating the global food system, we'll be seeing development funds increasingly devoted to subsidizing the training and certification programs that enable export-oriented farmers in the Global South to access these markets.

There's a story in the Middle East Times about one such scheme funded by the Dutch government to train some of the 800 farmers in the Gaza Strip in the Eurepgap protocols (100% Dutch supermarkets sell 100% EurepGAP-certified produce). The program is run by Israel/Palestinian Center for Research and Information (IPCRI).

Sadly, one of the 40 farmers in the first graduating class was killed last Sunday, May 7, as he tended to his watermelon crop, by an Israeli shell supposedly aimed at militants who fire homemade rockets from Gaza into Israel. It makes me wonder a couple things: 1) if growing food under military occupation and state-sponsored terror can be considered "Good Agriculture Practice", with all the extra market value for European consumers.

So when's Wal-Mart going to join the rush? This is from an article in the Wall Street Journal:

In a bid to capture a slice of the fast-growing organic-foods market, mainstream supermarket chains are rushing out their own store-brand lines that can cost significantly less than comparable specialty brands often found at health-food and gourmet stores. The pricing could remove a big barrier for many Americans who have wanted to try organic rice, cookies or cans of soup but have been put off by the prices. Though the store brands are less expensive, the chains say they adhere to the same federal standards for what constitutes organic as other brands.

SuperValu Inc., poised to become the nation's second-largest supermarket chain after it acquires Albertson's Inc., this month is introducing a line of 50 organic products called Nature's Best, including cereal, juice, apple sauce and pasta. By the end of June, the company will add 100 more private-label organic products, and plans to offer about 300 by mid-2007.

Ag Observatory published two somewhat contradictory stories from the newswires on March 15th that both relate to the discovery of the third case of mad cow disase. The first deals with legistlators who are capitalizing on this discovery to make the National Agricultural Identification System (NAIS) for tracing cattle mandatory. Right now it's voluntary, and as this article states,

About 10 percent of the 2 million premises nationwide have been registered.

They fail to mention, however, that these are mostly the largest feedlots and slaughterhouses.

Meanwhile, the other article outlines the USDA's plans to reduce the amount of testing of cattle at the time of slaughter.

To what degree are food security and profit, the two goals of animal identification, amenable? The USDA just released their implementation plan (PDF) for the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), a "a cooperative State-Federal-industry partnership to standardize and expand animal identification programs and practices to all livestock species and poultry", and USDA secretary Mike Johanns just held a press conference about it. Straight from the horse's mouth...:

As many are aware, [NAIS] will also help the U.S. livestock industry to remain competitive. Traceability is being used as a marketing tool by several countries. For example, Australia is aggressively marketing animal traceability to gain a competitive advantage over us. We know how important the export market is to livestock producers, and we want to retain our competitiveness in the international arena.

BTW, don't you love use of cowboy graphics to market this stuff?

The computer scientist who wrote Minix, which was the inspiration for Linux, has just shown that Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags are vulnerable to viruses and worms. In a laboratory setting, Andrew S. Tanenbaum, infected RFID tags with a computer worm, capable of transmitting itself to other tags.

As an article at New Scientist states,

A tag infected with a worm and attached, for example, to a piece of luggage could rapidly infect other luggage in an airport, the Dutch researchers say. "On arrival at other airports, these cases will be scanned again and within 24 hours, hundreds of airports throughout the world could be infected.

The brits are hands-down the best headline writers in the world, so i had to leave this one intact. It's from an article about the new Quality Food Designations in the EU.

Here's the quick summary:

PDO: Produced, processed and prepared in a given geographical area using recognised know-how
PGI: The geographical link must occur at the production, processing or preparation stage
TSG: Highlights traditional character, either in ingredients or means of production

Shelf space at supermarkets is one of the most valuable and therefore contested forms of real estate square footage in the world. That's one reason why food processers, united in the US as the Grocery Manufacturers Association, sponsor anti-democratic bills like the one that passed 283-139 in the US House to override state and local food-label laws.

It seems like whenever citizens and consumers express desires that go against the will of supermarkets and agribusiness, they respond with calls for "science-based" regulation, as if a) the GMA suddenly represents Science, and b) citizenry and consumers are the last to know what is good for them.

Their ultimate goal? Uniformity for food. Sounds awful. Who comes up with this stuff?

I just came across this 2004 article by Wendy Johnson about the standards for cherry production in British Colombia.

What is surprising to me is not only that industrialized fruit farms in the South are adapting more quickly to new standards than their Canadian counterparts, but also that on some of the farms in Chile and Argentina each field "grows for a specified country and follows its particular maximum residue levels designations".

The conclusion?

It is hard to argue with a system that puts the quality of food first, but there is the nagging suspicion this will spell the end of some family farms. This industry-changing event is just a sign of things to come.

Someone recently posted about RFID tags on food on the hugely popular "news for nerds" website Slashdot:

Angry_Admin writes "According to the article at IT World Canada, Recent food security scares have triggered public outcries and intense concern. People want to know exactly what is in their food, and what is done to it by whom. In response, Canada and many other countries are introducing traceability requirements - records that track all links in the food supply chain, from farmers to processors to retailers to consumers. The Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada agency recently released a policy framework, stating the goal is to make 80 per cent of all food products traceable by 2008."

Of course, you only read Slashdot for the hundreds of witty comments by hackers, such one guy who predicts this will prompt questions like: "Why is my Big Mac linking back to a horse farm??". Unfortunately, most of the tech geek comments are very optimistic about RFID, partially because many realize that RFID will be creating an increasingly

Here's an example of micro traceability technology being used by a progressive business.

When you buy a carton of organic soy milk from Organic Valley, you can enter the date of expiration on the their website, and find out who grew the soybeans that your milk was made from.

While i really like this idea, i can't help but feel a bit unsure about whether or not this is the kind of transparency that we should be looking for. I'm all for transparency, meeting the farmers etc., but doesn't this also contribute to fetishizing the commodity? If i'm going to fetishize something, i'd rather it be the very progressive and successful institution that allowed a farmer to cooperate with other farmers, act as good stewards of the land, and succeed.

On a related note:

In a great article in The New York Times it was reported that when Wal-Mart demanded they reduce their prices by 20%, Organic Valley balked, and walked away from what is probably their biggest customer.