The influence of large corporations had an average score of 6.6. This theme emerged in all of the focus groups, though it was much more strongly held by some individuals. One participant said, “The huge conglomerates that are controlling agriculture really, really bother me,” and others named specific multinational food processors and chemical companies whose motives they distrusted. Some participants blamed these corporations for the low prices that farmers receive for their products and the loss of family farms. How far food travels was the lowest-ranked topic on the survey, with a score of 5.8. Focus group participants had various reasons for their interest in this topic, involving economic, food safety, or environmental concerns. Most focus group participants wanted to know the country of origin of their food. “I guess I’d like to know [where fruits and vegetables are from] because I’d like to know are we producing our food or are we actually reaching out into other countries?” said one participant. Some participants wanted to support the U.S. economy, while others went further and expressed interest in supporting their local economies. Another stated reason for wanting this information was concern about the safety of imported food, such as the presence of pesticides banned in the U.S. or contamination with microbial diseases. Finally, some participants wanted to know how much fossil fuel was consumed in transporting their food. Of 60 survey respondents who identified additional topics in a write-in section, 22% had reservations about genetically engineered food, best indoor plant pots and 15% wanted more information on pesticides.
Other interests identified by more than one respondent were freshness, where food was grown, and the fate of food waste.As a soil scientist with the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems , Marc Los Huertos helps farmers on the Central Coast manage nitrogen levels to maximize harvests and minimize pollution. Los Huertos is also part of a growing global effort to address the problem of farm-generated nitrogen pollution. Just back from the Third International Nitrogen Conference in Nanjing, China, Los Huertos has a sobering message for farmers: “China is ramping up agricultural production, and strong international environmental regulations could be what saves U.S. farming from a formidable competitor,” said Los Huertos, who manages the Center’s research program on water quality monitoring in a number of Central Coast watersheds. “I saw hundreds of miles of greenhouses,” Los Huertos said of a three-week tour of the Chinese countryside that followed the Nanjing conference. “If they can figure out how to get their produce here fast enough, the Chinese could outcompete U.S. farmers in no time at all.” Convinced that U.S. farmers have a huge stake in regulations that would force global competitors to clean up their act, too, Los Huertos is eager to increase public understanding of agriculture-related nitrogen pollution. “My job is to prepare farmers for policies that might affect them, whether at the state, federal, or international level, so I went to China to get a sense of the international movement,” said Los Huertos.Nitrogen accumulation reduces biodiversity, acidifies soil and water, degrades coastal environments, reduces forest productivity, contributes to the greenhouse effect, and depletes the ozone.
“Reactive nitrogen is so high in the developed world that we’re polluting ourselves out of clean air, drinking water, and biodiversity,” he said. Although essential to life, nitrogen must be converted from a gas to a reactive form to be usable by most organisms, including plants. The accumulation of reactive nitrogen in the environment is largely a result of the conversion of enormous quantities of nitrogen into fertilizers that are used in the production of food and fiber. Reactive nitrogen is also a by-product of fossil fuel combustion for transportation and energy production. A significant portion of nitrogen in fertilizer is never taken up by plants and instead runs off, contributing to the “cascade” of atmospheric and aquatic nitrogen accumulating in many regions of the world—even as most of Africa and parts of South America and Asia suffer from a deficiency of reactive nitrogen in the soil. In Nanjing, about 800 conference participants approved the “Nanjing Declaration on Nitrogen Management,” which urges the United Nations Environment Program to promote understanding of the nitrogen cycle, assess consequences of its disturbance, provide policy advice and early-warning information, and promote international cooperation. With Center director Carol Shennan and researchers Claire Phillips and Alex Fields, Los Huertos monitors nitrogen in several important waterways along the Central Coast, including the Pajaro River and around the Elkhorn Slough, one of the largest remaining tidal wetlands in California. Nitrogen levels in Central Coast agricultural watersheds have steadily increased since the 1950s, when levels of <1 ppm were typical, according to state records compiled by Los Huertos. Today, Los Huertos regularly documents levels of 10 ppm in May and 20 ppm in the fall in the Pajaro River. Drinking water standards allow for a maximum of 10 ppm. Unlike some coastal areas where fertilizer runoff has wiped out marine life, Monterey Bay circulates the ocean water and flushes nutrients through the ecosystem. This mixing and upwelling make it difficult for scientists to assess how nitrogen runoff affects the bay, but it certainly has a role in the freshwater streams, according to Los Huertos. “We know we have excess nitrogen on the Central Coast, and farmers and the state and federal government are struggling with finding ways to control polluted runoff,” said Los Huertos.
In other coastal areas, runoff from nitrate-based fertilizers has had devastating consequences. In the Gulf of Mexico, a 5,000-square-mile area from the mouth of the Mississippi River almost to the Texas border is overrun with nitrates each summer, triggering an algae bloom that severely reduces oxygen levels until late September.As “alternative food movements” have gained momentum, they have helped transform institutions from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to the University of California, argues Allen. She notes that, “Universities across the country have sustainable agriculture programs, and the USDA has programs that were unheard of 20 years ago.” In her book, Allen examines the shortcomings of the current conventional agriculture system, and the ways that alternative agrifood movements are addressing problems such as environmental degradation and lack of food security. She analyzes the interactions of alternative movements with mainstream institutions such as the USDA and land grant agricultural research system, describing the way their research agendas and methods are beginning to change. She addresses the importance of building broad-based alliances for developing alternative agrifood systems, and some of the emerging connections between groups working for environmental change and those concerned with social issues. Allen also documents some of the problems with the current efforts to reform the conventional agricultural system. She points out the way that, in an effort to avoid controversy or upset the status quo, alternative ideals such as social justice may be watered down or slighted within traditional institutions such as academia or extension programs. Allen warns that some of the problems of the dominant agrifood system are being repeated within the movement toward a more environmentally sound and socially just system, and suggests ways to avoid such repetition. She also critiques the drive toward food-system localization as a strategy for the sustainable agrifood system movement, noting for instance the enormous differences in wealth and resources from one community to another. Allen is particularly concerned by what she sees as two major problems in the movement to develop a more sustainable agriculture and food system: the lack of a coherent vision, and the paucity of attention being paid to social justice issues. Although “socially just” is now included in most definitions of sustainable agriculture, blueberry container size along with “environmentally sound” and “economically viable,” Allen believes such issues as living wages, gender inequities, and land tenure are still receiving short shrift. Until such issues are seriously addressed, she argues, a truly sustainable agriculture will continue to elude us. Lack of a coherent message is also a handicap. “One of the major things I try to do in this book is to focus on the way people are thinking about and portraying issues in the sustainable agrifood movement. When you have a social movement that doesn’t have a lot of access to traditional power or resources, your main tool is your ability to frame an issue and convince people of its importance. I feel like the sustainable food movement has not yet done a good enough job of that,” said Allen. Within the movement itself, people are doing all kinds of activities—from running community gardens, promoting locally grown foods, and supporting family farmers, to creating food security councils. According to Allen, “Most people working in these areas recognize that they’re working on a small part of a much bigger issue.
For the movement to become strong and vigorous, there needs to be a coherent, well-articulated platform that bring people together, even thought they’re doing different projects. They need to be meeting the needs of a wide range of people so that people can feel that this movement is for and about them.” Allen addresses this point in the book’s closing chapter, “Working Toward Sustainability and Sustenance,” where she writes – “An articulated vision of a sustainable and food secure society would help engage and unite diverse constituents for an alternative agrifood movement. This is crucial because one of the fundamental requirements of a social movement is a problem statement and a way of expressing that problem—a clear discourse.” With a clear message in place, Allen sees the potential for the alternative agrifood movement to catalyze even larger movements for social and environmental justice—movements in which everyone can play a role. “Participation in the movements need not mean becoming a full-time activist, researcher, or producer. People can participate effectively as consumers by changing their own perceptions and practices . . . Participation in everyday forms of resistance, like choosing foods grown without pesticides, may seem small in comparison to the enormity of the problem, but they can have significant effects.” Together at the Table is part celebration, part cautionary tale, and in the end, a call to action for people working in the alternative agrifood arena to come together and create a democratic social movement with a well-articulated message. “At this point,” writes Allen, “the contemporary American food and agriculture system sustains neither humans nor the environment. Agricultural policy and administrative agencies in their current forms are unlikely to develop effective solutions to problems of poverty, poor health, and environmental degradation.” The alternative agrifood movement has made great strides toward addressing these problems, but must go further to create a truly sustainable system. Together at the Table is geared toward those teaching about agriculture and food system issues, as well as policy makers, activists, and others interested in the transformation of the U.S. agriculture and food system. Aphids’ ability to contaminate a broccoli head has sometimes led to zero-tolerance spray thresholds in conventional broccoli production , thereby causing ecological harm. Minimizing or eliminating sprays for aphids requires knowing more about how they affect broccoli production, and how alternative controls such as natural enemies can affect aphid populations. Diego Nieto, a researcher with the Center, spent two field seasons examining aphid dynamics in an organic broccoli system to determine the way that factors such as the time of the cropping season when aphids arrived, the location of the aphid colony on the plant, and the abundance of natural enemies influenced the broccoli harvest. The study is part of Nieto’s masters’ degree research at San Jose State University. Nieto found that cabbage aphids predominantly colonized the outer leaves of a broccoli plant. These colonies, however, did not significantly influence broccoli harvest. In each of the study’s two field seasons, only aphids located at the center of the plant were correlated with head infestation, making the head unmarketable. Aphid arrival time into a field was strongly correlated with eventual harvest, with early arriving aphids being less likely to infest a head. This was in part due to higher numbers of natural enemies, particularly the larvae of syrphid wasps , which developed in response to the presence of aphids early in the season. Because natural enemies such as they syrphid wasp were able to control aphids arriving early in the season and had a positive effect on the harvest, Nieto recommends that future research on alternative controls for aphids focus on management practices that encourage the early establishment of natural enemies.