Food and Drink, Food Security

Current Trends in Buying Produce

Every year The Packer publishes Fresh Trends, an industry analysis of preferences for fruits and vegetables. Take a look at this overview:

Fresh Trends 2010

Editorial: Back to the Basics

By Janice M. Kresin, Special Projects Editor

Keep it simple. It’s easy to say, not so easy to do.

We’re bombarded with choices at every turn — What route do I take to work today? Which mobile phone company will work best for my needs? What will I make for dinner tonight? When it comes to food, the choices can be endless.

It turns out, though, that buying fresh fruits and vegetables is not a choice. No matter the economic climate, consumers want the fresh stuff, and it’s never been clearer than in the past year.

Purchases for nearly every commodity we studied in Fresh Trends 2010 — 57 in total — were up this year, despite economic struggles and lingering uncertainty. You see, consumers know that the value of fresh produce goes beyond just dollars. Fresh fruits and veggies are a cheaper alternative than higher health care bills…. Read more

I also noted that first lady Michelle Obama has just launched a campaign to put 6000 or more salad bars in schools over the next three years. She is making a huge difference in Hawai‘i’s food security.

See video about it here.

Adopt-a-Class, Schools

The Story of the Adopt-A-Class Project

When I first heard that the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) was interested in coming to Mauna Kea, I volunteered to be on the TMT committee of the Hawai‘i Island Economic Development Board (HIEDB). If the TMT was going to happen, I wanted to have a hand in making sure it was done right.

At the time, I was just a banana farmer minding my own business. But it was clear to me that I needed to learn more about the Hawaiian culture and the effect the TMT might have on the Hawaiian people, whose feelings about Mauna Kea were deep-rooted.

That led me to Keaukaha, the oldest Hawaiian Homes community on the Big Island, and to Keaukaha Elementary School, which is the center of the community’s social structure. Lehua Veincent was the school’s principal.

I thought I had a reasonable plan of action when I asked Kumu Lehua what he thought about asking the TMT folks to give Keaukaha Students five full-ride scholarships to the best schools in the nation. He looked at me, and in a gentle way he asked: “And what about the rest?”

I could feel my ears getting red. Indeed, what about the rest? That was a lesson I will never forget.

The TMT folks engaged HIEDB to do community outreach, and we had done that for about a year when they decided instead to engage the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa directly. But having met and liked the folks in the Keaukaha community, I continued to talk story with Kumu Lehua and then Patrick Kahawaiola‘a, President of the Keaukaha Community Association. Occasionally, I would drop by and give the kupuna bananas or tomatoes—whatever was in oversupply.

One day, I asked Kumu Lehua where the students go on excursions. He told me that they did not go on regular excursions; instead they walk around the community, because they did not have enough money for the school buses.

I thought that everybody went on excursions! Here we were in Keaukaha, the most Hawaiian of Hawaiian communities, looking up at the Hawaiians’ sacred mountain Mauna Kea where there are millions of dollars’ worth of telescopes, and the kids do not go on excursions because they cannot afford the bus?

I was speechless.

I thought, “This no can.” I called my friend Duane Kanuha, and we came up with the idea that we would start an Adopt-A-Class program. It would be designed like the Adopt-A-Child program one sees on TV, where for $25 or so, one could “adopt” a child, and the child would sent a note and photos, showing how his/her live improved.

We did some checking and decided to set $600 as the amount it would take to Adopt-A-Class so they could go on excursions. Three hundred dollars would be for the bus, and $300 would go toward entry fees for ‘Imiloa—Hilo’s world-class Hawaiian culture and science museum—should the teachers choose to take the students there.

We told the community about this, and they responded. We had all the classes from K-6 adopted, for both semesters, within four months. And they all started to go on excursions.

Chef Alan Wong was one of the first to get involved in the Adopt-A-Class program. One day he called me and said, “I want to go talk to the class I adopted.” This led to him visiting and presenting a class to the 6th graders. Leslie Lang wrote about it here on the blog:

…The principal of the school told me they never get people of such celebrity speaking to, and inspiring, their kids. Richard says that one of the teachers told him, too, that no one comes to Keaukaha Elementary to tell the kids they, too, can do it. He says the teacher had tears in her eyes when she told him that.

It was really an incredible morning. Read more

Alan Wong has a new book out, The Blue Tomato, which came about as a result of that visit to Keaukaha Elementary School.

The Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation heard about our Adopt-A-Class project and they took the idea islandwide. They were going to sponsor half of all students on the island to visit ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center, but then the bus company heard about it and offered such a huge discount that instead they were able to pay for every student on the island, in every public, private and charter school.

During that one year that the TMT disengaged from dealing with Big Island folks, the feeling in the community was overwhelming that the TMT would be going to Chile, not coming to Hawai‘i. The TMT people were not successful when dealing directly with UH Manoa.

But Dr. Henry Yang, Chancellor of UC Santa Barbara and the new President of the TMT Corporation, wanted to assess the situation for himself. So along with his friend Dr. Jean Lou Chameau, President of Cal Tech University, he came to visit the Big Island.

I was at that meeting. Dr. Yang asked what I thought. I told him it would take a lot of work and they would need to talk to the community directly.

Henry is a “people person.” By the end of the meeting, I could tell he is the kind of person one could do business with on a handshake.

He and Jean Lou visited the Big Island at least 15 times after that, and because of the relationships I had built up in the Keaukaha Community with the Adopt-A-Class project, I was able to bring them to community meetings with the real, grassroot folks. To their credit, Henry and Jean Lou wanted to meet with even the most strident activists on the island.

They visited Keaukaha Elementary School four times. Can you imagine, the President of the TMT and the President of Cal Tech visiting Keaukaha School so many times that they became a fixture? As in: “Eh, where you guys going now? Come, come. Go eat!”

The relationship and the trust grew. Henry and Jean Lou started to understand that the lowest common denominator, on which folks on all sides of the issue could agree, was keiki education.

So one of the first foundation pieces they agreed to was committing $1 million per year for keiki education. It would start as soon as the construction permit was issued, and then continue through the construction period and for the life of the TMT. This is estimated to be 58 years.

Imagine, $58 million dollars for the education of our kids on the Big Island!

The TMT is applying now for the construction permit. If it is approved and we get the $58 million dollars for keiki education, it will be largely because people cared about other people, and sent kids on excursions just because it was the right thing to do.

My Pop used to tell me, “Get thousand reasons why no can. I only looking for the one reason why CAN!”

Food Security, Government

Food Safety Legislation Passes the Senate

The Food Safety bill I wrote about yesterday passed the Senate Tuesday. This is a good step. Now it’s on to the House.

From NPR’s Health blog:

Senate Passes Sweeping Food Safety Bill, House Up Next

November 30, 2010

by APRIL FULTON

It sure took a while, but the Senate today passed the first major bill to strengthen food safety protections in 70 years. By current partisan standards, the 73-25 vote in favor of the bill was a landslide.

But before changes to the nation’s system for safeguarding food become law, the Senate bill still has to get through the House, which passed its own food safety bill nearly a year and half ago….

 Read the rest here.

Food Security, Government

Food Safety Legislation

There is food safety legislation in the pipeline, which would have increased costs to smaller farmers when they are the most vulnerable.

Let’s encourage new and small farmers to become larger farmers. Let’s not kill them off before they can get started.

Remember: Food Security has to do with farmers farming. If farmers make money, farmers will farm.

A revised amendment by Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont. (see below), which exempts smaller operations from some requirements under the legislation, was included in the final bill presented for debate. I think this amendment, which helps small farmers, is reasonable.

From today’s New York Times:

OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS

A Stale Food Fight

By MICHAEL POLLAN and ERIC SCHLOSSER

Published: November 28, 2010

THE best opportunity in a generation to improve the safety of the American food supply will come as early as Monday night, when the Senate is scheduled to vote on the F.D.A. Food Safety Modernization bill. This legislation is by no means perfect. But it promises to achieve several important food safety objectives, greatly benefiting consumers without harming small farmers or local food producers.

The bill would, for the first time, give the F.D.A., which oversees 80 percent of the nation’s food, the authority to test widely for dangerous pathogens and to recall contaminated food. The agency would finally have the resources and authority to prevent food safety problems, rather than respond only after people have become ill. The bill would also require more frequent inspections of large-scale, high-risk food-production plants…. Read the rest here

Both national produce trade associations and 17 other fruit and vegetable industry groups said, on November 18, that they were forced to oppose the Senate food safety bill because of the Tester language being folded into the main bill.

Tester Amendment – Qualified Exemptions

Food facilities would qualify for an exemption from the preventive control/Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point provisions in section 103 of S. 510 if:

            • They are defined as a “very small business” under FDA rule making or under certain conditions:

            • The average annual monetary value of all food sold by the facility during the previous three-year period was less than $500,000, if the majority of the food sold by that facility was sold directly to consumers, restaurants or grocery stores in the same state or within 275 miles of the facility.  Source: Senate Health Committee

When things go wrong on large, industrial-sized farms, lots of people are affected. If something goes wrong on a tiny farm, few people are affected. We need resilience and redundancy in our food supply; we should not depend on a handful of large farms.

This is why we need to support small farms.

History

Thinking About ‘Gift Economies’

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

In modern Hawaiian history, the culture has given, given, given and the economy has taken, taken, taken. Now, with the gift of geothermal, we have an opportunity for the economy to give, give, give and the culture to receive, receive, receive. If we can make this happen, it will indeed be a Happy Thanksgiving for all of us.

My friend Gail Tverberg wrote about the “gift economy” at the Oil Drum blog. The gift economy is a good thing. It makes us all feel good.

Thanksgiving: A Time to Think about Gift Economies?

Posted by Gail the Actuary on November 25, 2010 – 10:40am in The Oil Drum: Campfire 

This post was published earlier. But Thanksgiving (in the US) seemed like a good time to think about the ideas again.

When I sat down to research this post, I thought I would write a post about barter, since it seemed like if our current financial system failed, barter would be one possible form of back-up. But when I started to research barter, the first thing I came across was this statement:

Contrary to popular conception, there is no evidence of a society or economy that relied primarily on barter. Instead, non-monetary societies operated largely along the principles of gift economics. When barter did in fact occur, it was usually between either complete strangers or would-be enemies.

So I decided to step back a bit, and look into gift economies. Read the rest of the post.

I recognize the gift economy in the Hawaiian style of interaction. No wonder Gail was so well received by the Kanaka Council. When I saw Mililani Trask’s photo at one of the links, I was not surprised. And it is no wonder that Dawn Chang and I hit it off so well. Chef Alan Wong is like this, too.

Many, many folks walk on both sides of the issue. And I see that most really want to be on the side of the gift economy.

I had no idea there was a name for such a thing, until I read Gail’s post.

I can see now that 50 years ago my Pop, as rough and tough as he was, was a “gift economy” kind of guy. When he told us kids stories, he would sometimes make “mean face” and growl at an imaginary person: “No mistake kindness for weakness!”

Finally, I understand what he was doing. It was his way of teaching us how to operate in both systems.

Geothermal, Peak Oil

Peak Oil Is Here; See This Video Overview

The International Energy Association, in their World Energy Outlook for 2010, says Peak Oil has already happened.

If you don’t have a good grasp on what Peak Oil is – or even if you do – here’s a great video for you to watch. It’s one that puts Peak Oil into context very nicely.

This video is just one chapter of a series of videos making up The Crash Course by Chris Martenson, and I highly recommend the whole series. They are available to watch on YouTube.

Watch this video, and then know that here on the Big Island we have the possibility of using geothermal as our source of “base power.” It is cheap, proven technology and easy on the environment. And we have it in abundance here.

Chris Martenson is no fan of hydrogen because he assumes hydrogen will come from depleting sources of input – but cheap electricity from geothermal is an exception. We can make hydrogen using cheap “off peak” electricity and run the electricity through water to get the hydrogen. We can use the hydrogen as is.

Or we can combine it with nitrogen from air to make NH3, which is more efficient an energy carrier than H2 by 30 percent.

Air, water and geothermal are all here on the Big Island in abundance. The less we depend on importing energy, the better we will make it for future generations.

Bananas

Changes In The Banana World

Changes in the banana world, according to The Packer:

Chiquita, Dole face profit squeeze from weak bananas

By Bruce Blythe

Published on 10/28/2010 12:53PM

…The banana market has been a concern for the produce industry for more than a year after global recession and a cold winter hurt demand. Recent price weakness raises questions whether Chiquita and Dole will see the improved conditions their executives predicted earlier this year.

Additionally, strength in Latin American currencies, such as the Costa Rican colon, has raised costs for U.S. and European importers, Jones said. Rising costs may force large, multinational fruit companies to buy less or shut some growing operations next year, she said…. 

Read the whole article.

 

Peak Oil

Smithsonian magazine on Peak Oil

We came across this short article at Smithsonian magazine’s science blog about Peak Oil, and realized it is a very good example of how mainstream these issues are.

Richard agreed that Smithsonian takes a very clear, well-balanced look at just what Peak Oil means.

…Geologist M. King Hubbert developed the concept of peak oil back in the 1950s, and he later predicted that it would occur around 1995 to 2000 (he wasn’t expecting the energy crisis in the 1970s, when production dipped). Peak oil forecasts have varied wildly, with some experts arguing that it won’t be a problem anytime soon and others predicting the peak within a decade. This is the trouble with predicting the future. You won’t see peak oil until it has passed.

Well, last week, the International Energy Agency, which only two years ago was predicting a slow and steady increase in oil production, said that the peak has passed, and that oil production topped out in 2006 (Hubbert got it pretty close, apparently). The decline will be gradual, at least, they say, with production plateauing for a decade or two, but there are complicating factors, like increased demand from China….

Read the whole article here

Peak Oil

Chris Martenson Interview: Prepare While There Is Time

1 Comment

Chris Martenson was one of the more influential speakers I heard at the Peak Oil conference last month in Washington, D.C. Take a look at this interview with him from the Energy Bulletin.

Interview with Chris Martenson: “Prepare for peak oil while there is time.”

 by Alexander Ac

ASPO peak oil conference held in Washington was an unique opportunity to meet Dr. Chris Martenson. Chris is devoted to finances, economics, energy and environment and connects together these separate fields. He says that the next 20 years will be very different from the last 20 years. Peak oil “will change everything” and there is never too soon for preparations. The key is resilience, self-dependency and versatility. He is an optimist and believes that many people will survive peak oil happily – if they prepare themselves. As all people researching peak oil and its impacts, he advises people to get out of debt.

Read the full interview here

Tomatoes

Current Tomato Trends

1 Comment

The Packer is a national produce newsletter. Here’s how they describe their publication:

There’s no argument that The Packer is the fresh fruit and vegetable industry’s leading source for news, information and analysis. The Packer has been reporting every week on the produce industry since 1893. ThePacker.com serves fresh fruit and vegetable growers, packers, and shippers; produce retailers; foodservice distributors; fresh-cut processors; wholesale produce distributors, and allied product and service providers.

Every year, The Packer does research on fruits and vegetables, and I will periodically post some of the reports. Here is its 2010 tomato report.

Fresh Trends 2010

Tomatoes are one of the most popular commodities in the produce department. This year tomatoes were the third most-popular vegetable, down from the No. 2 spot last year. Overall, tomatoes were the fifth most-popular item of all commodities studied in Fresh Trends 2010.  Purchases increased five percentage points in the past year and were up 10 percentage points from Fresh Trends 2009.

For the fourth consecutive year, the likelihood of purchase increased according to income, with consumers earning more than $100,000 annually being the most likely to buy tomatoes. Consumers with kids living at home were slightly more likely to buy tomatoes, at 90%, than those without kids, at 86%. Consumers in the lowest income bracket, and single shoppers, were the least likely to buy the red vegetable.

Field-grown beefsteak tomatoes remain the most popular variety. In fact, purchases of the slicers climbed 12 percentage points from Fresh Trends 2009. Preference for romas, consumers’ next favorite, slipped seven percentage points in the past year. Preference for cherry tomatoes fell more than 50% from Fresh Trends 2009, while most other varieties remained relatively steady.

Shoppers are comfortable with tomatoes, as 81% of those surveyed said they felt at ease selecting ripe tomatoes for immediate consumption. For example, consumers said they were more comfortable selecting ripe tomatoes than they were selecting ripe bananas. Sixty-seven percent of consumers said they knew how to ripen tomatoes once they got them home.

Tomatoes top many salads around the country, as more than 80% of consumers said they use the vegetable in salads. Shoppers also buy tomatoes to add to their favorite recipes or to use as a side dish.

Last year organic tomato purchases reached new heights – this year organic lost all it had gained the previous year, and more. However, tomatoes were still one of the most popular items that consumers purchased organic at least some of the time. Tomatoes were the No. 2 vegetable and the No. 3 commodity overall that consumers said they purchased as organic periodically. This year, 17% of tomato consumers said they bought organic at least some of the time. The likelihood of an organic-only purchase fell 66% from Fresh Trends 2009 and dropped 50% from Fresh Trends 2008. Seventy-one percent of organic tomato buyers said they bought organic less than 25% of the time. Single shoppers were most likely to buy organic tomatoes exclusively.

More of The Packer’s Fresh Trends articles here.