What Do Oil, Potatoes, and Lobster Have in Common?

It's always been the most imporant part of being a reporter, but it's gotten much harder. The business/political world is full of PR, spin, and manipulation, and reporters have to somehow sort it out. The number of communications experts being hired by industry and governments is soaring, while journalist numbers everywhere continue to fall.  It's no longer a fair fight. 

Pipelines, and all of the financial, environmental and political risk that goes with them are a good example of what can happen. Remember last summer when Mike Duffy (when he was still Stephen Harper's guy on PEI) told all who would listen that the West to East pipeline would bring cheaper oil to the Maritimes. Even Frank McKenna (who should know better) joined the chorus It was widely reported. And today, well before new pipelines are built, it's true.   It's what's driving the rail transportation of North Dakota Bakken oil to the Irving refinery now (it was one of these shipments that led to the tragic loss of life in Lac Megantic).   It's cheaper than what the Irvings would have to pay for Middle Eastern or Venesualan crude brought to St John by water, but bought at the higher world price. 

The reason Canadian and Northern U.S. oil producers get less than the world price is strait forward and familiar to lobster and potato producers here on PEI, too much supply. The oil gets bottle-necked in Oklahoma. The existing pipelines just aren't numerous enough to handle the growing supply from shale gas fields, and increased tar sands production from Alberta.  It's why the oil industry and the Federal Government are so anxious to get new pipelines built, to remove this bottleneck. A good summation of the problem here:
 http://www.canadianbusiness.com/business-news/industries/energy/new-oil-pipelines-price-bottlenecks-and-how-cushing-okla-impacts-canadas-economy/

With this week's announcement by the National Energy Board's Joint Review Panel giving the go ahead to the Northern Gateway project to carry Alberta tar sands to Kitimat B.C. and on to Asia by tanker, the real agenda is again before the public: not a "made in Canada" cheaper price to help our Maritime brethren as we heard last summer, but every expectation that this and other pipelines will finally deliver a world price to Canadian producers.   (We had a "made in Canada" price with Trudeau, the older one, back in the '70's, and you can remember how much that was supported in Alberta.)

So if and when these new pipelines are built, that will be the very reason oil prices will go up, not down. Even U.S. president Obama sees the connection when commenting on the XL pipeline:      “...... oil is going to be piped down to the Gulf to be sold on the world oil markets, so it does not bring down gas prices here in the United States. In fact, it might actually cause some gas prices in the Midwest to go up where currently they can’t ship some of that oil to world markets.”

 Some excellent discussion on the NEB decision with former Islander journalist  Jim Brown here:


 http://www.cbc.ca/the180/podcasts/


As for who to believe?  Simple for some, hard for others.  A fascinating interview with Christophe de Margerie, the head of the big French oil company Total, by Stephen Sachur, the take no prisoners BBC Hard Talk interviewer here:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/ht

Absolutely no shame in looking for oil, supplying the demand, making money for the company. Climate change? Not my problem. 

For Canadians, there may be an incredible irony at play. Stephen Harper has gutted science both in Environment Canada, and DFO. He's weakened regulations and the regulatory bodies that were in place to oversee sensitive projects like the pipelines. Now just when he needs to win the confidence of British Columbians,  First Nations leaders, and other skeptical Canadians,  he doesn't have the regulatory credibility to do it. It  allows journalists like Chris Turner to take a hard run at the project:


http://desmog.ca/2013/12/19/scenic-photos-high-point-panel-s-report-enbridge-northern-gateway-oil-pipeline-proposal

Scenic Photos the High Point of Panel's Report on Enbridge's Northern Gateway Oil Pipeline Proposal

• Dec. 19, 2013

The final report of the National Energy Board’s Joint Review Panel landed in Calgary today with an authoritative thud. “After weighing the evidence,” it announced in outsized type, “we concluded that Canada and Canadians would be better off with the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project than without it.”
The report sprawls across two volumes — a 76-page summary entitled Connections, and a phone-book-thick 417-page volume of conditions and rationales called Considerations. Both are bound with bright green spines and back covers, and the front covers feature atmospheric photos of rugged Canadian wilderness, similar to the sort you’d find in a travel brochure.
I mention the cover images because they are among the report’s most significant environmental assessment features. Whatever else, the Joint Review Panel knows what a pristine environment looks like when it sees one. You want pictures of salmon spawning in streams and caribou peeking out from glades and humpbacks breaching majestically from Great Bear Rainforest bays? This report’s got ‘em.
On facing pages of the “residents and communities” section of Connections (Item 2.4 for those playing along at home), there are pictures of the Gitga’at village of Hartley Bay (which lies at the mouth of Douglas Channel, where supertankers would pass en route to and from Enbridge’s oil tanker terminal at Kitimat) and a tourist office with solar panels on its roof. They know what First Nations communities and low-carbon energy technologies look like too, those graphic design whizzes down at the National Energy Board.
But surely there’s more to the most hotly anticipated National Energy Board report in many moons, right? Surely the nation’s media did not gather eagerly in a conference room in the heart of downtown Calgary to look at a long-form travel ad for northern British Columbia? Surely all those numbers — 1,179 oral statements, 175,669 pages of evidence, 47 aboriginal groups and 884 hours of hearings — amounted to more than a sort of shrugging “seems pretty good to us, eh?”
Well, you tell me. Probably the most revealing passage of the report is the one entitled “What Was Outside Our Mandate?” (Item 2.2.2). Among the not-our-department issues were “both ‘upstream’ oil development effects and ‘downstream’ refining and use of the products shipped on the pipelines and tankers.” Got that? A report on the “public interest” involved in an oil pipeline decided that it was irrelevant where the oil came from or where it goes.
Skipping ahead to 2.4.1, “a large oil spill” was deemed “unlikely,” and in any case “the adverse effects would not be permanent and widespread.” Pipelines don’t, in and of themselves, emit greenhouse gases. And oil spills are basically spilled milk, not worth crying over. So check off the 209 conditions between the picture of the grizzly bear on the cover of Considerations and the Forest Stewardship Council logo on the back cover and you’re good to go!
(Incidentally, Item 4.3.6 concedes that eight grizzly bear populations would be affected “over the linear density threshold,” but this — and the negative impact on woodland caribou — were “found to be justified in the circumstances.” There is a picture of a grizzly with a salmon in its mouth on that very page of Connections. I have thus far resisted adding to my pristine copy a cartoon word bubble indicating an out-of-frame voice saying, “Suck it, fishface!”)
To be fair — I know, a little late in the game — the report does take some pains to indicate that it listened to a lot of dissenting voices. Why, Item 2.3 in Connections (“What were the public concerns?”) is a veritable litany of complaints and wrung hands. “People expressed concerns about the ‘catastrophic’ effects they believe a major pipeline rupture or tanker spill could have on salmon and other fish... People were concerned about the effect of tanker traffic... Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal participants said clean environments are crucial parts of traditional and present-day cultures.” Duly noted, y’all. We feel you.
I could go on, but there are two odd little logical hiccups I’d like to highlight from the report. They concern the two shrugging dismissals I’ve already mentioned: that upstream and downstream impacts were outside the mandate, and that large oil spills would cause damage limited in time and space.
Let’s start with upstream and downstream impacts. There are any number, but for the overwhelming majority of people not living along the length of the pipeline, the big one is climate change. This is broadly understood beyond the pages of Joint Review Panel reports on oil pipelines to be the absolute top concern regarding the extraction, refining and burning of the fossil fuels transported by such pipelines. It’s conspicuously absent from the report, aside from some passing references to “emissions.” Which — again to be fair — are created before and after the oil passes through the pipeline.
But perhaps you’d been led to believe — by Canada’s prime minister and natural resources minister and Alberta’s premier, among others — that the whole reason Northern Gateway was such a high-priority piece of infrastructure was because it would encourage new oilsands developments, thus creating new “Economic Action” in the field of “Responsible Resource Development,” as per maybe the most vociferously championed "Plan" in the nation’s history.
Well, hold it there, hoss. “We did not consider that there was a sufficiently direct connection between the project and any particular existing or proposed oil sands development or other oil production activities to warrant consideration of the effects of these activities.” Got that? Northern Gateway has no direct connection to Alberta’s oilsands! This must just be surprising the boots right off the feet of a great many CEOs in a great many Calgary boardrooms, but there you go.
And to their credit, the Joint Review panelists offer up “four factors” to explain this reasoning. (We’re back in that gem Item 2.2.2, by the way.) They’re all impressive, but I liked the third bullet point best. “Bruderheim Station” — the eastern terminus of the pipeline — “would not be located near oil sands developments and could receive oil from a variety of sources.” I wish I could report that those Joint Review Panel dreamers suggested a few other possible sources for the hundreds of thousands of barrels of diluted bitumen per day the pipeline is being built to transport, but alas they left us to wonder.
Anyway, point being this is a report that doesn’t consider such fussy “upstream” details. Except when it’s assessing the economic benefits of the very same pipeline, over in Item 3.1, which is rather inconveniently located just 12 pages further along in the very same report. “We have taken into consideration that Western Canadian crude oil supply and the demand for imported condensate are forecast to grow significantly over the life of the project.” So a cornerstone of the economic case for the pipeline is that oilsands supplies will increase, but those increases have no direct connection to the project being used to deliver them to new markets from an environmental perspective. Connections is nothing if not one seriously gutsy Joint Review Panel report.
There’s a similarly nifty trick going on in the oil spill risk assessment section, which as I’ve mentioned estimates the possibility of a major spill to be “unlikely,” with no “permanent” or “widespread” impact. Turn to Item 5.5 for some elaboration: “We found that, in rare circumstances, a localized population or species could potentially be permanently affected by an oil spill. Scientific research from a past spill indicates that this will not impact the recovery of functioning ecosystems.”
Sure aren’t a lot of specifics there, and to be fair (yet again!) you have to turn to a whole other page of the report to find the section where it says Northern Gateway is obliged to establish “a scientific advisory committee to study what happens to diluted bitumen when released into the environment.” So we don’t actually know how the oil would behave if it spilled, but we’re really quite sure the impacts won’t be too bad. Take our word for it or whatever.
This is a report that almost physically shrugs in your hands as you read it.
I haven’t even mentioned the fact that Fisheries and Oceans Canada told the Joint Review Panel many, many moons ago it lacked the capacity to provide a full environmental impact assessment. Or that First Nations along the route are already asserting their intention to refuse to let the pipeline be built on their land. Or that as a country we have just maybe the most incoherent climate and energy policies in the industrial world.
I really could go on, but I won’t for now. Heckuva job there, Joint Review Panel. Lovely photos.

A Half Step Forward

I've written previously, as have many many others, about the risks of non-theraputic use of antibiotics in livestock.  In other words using continued small doses of antibiotics when livestock are well in the hopes of preventing disease, and getting them up to market weight more quickly.  They're not as widely used in the Maritimes with smaller feedlots, but are important to large confined operations with a lot of animals crammed together.  It's something you'll often see on labels if you look for it "antiobiotc free". There's more information in the piece below on the huge health risks from this.  The news is that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, for the first time,  is acknowledging the risk, and beginning to police it (just beginning).  With regulators on both sides of the border also looking at the use of neonicotinoids, there are two major environmental/health issues at least acknowledged by government agencies that have been lead footed in responding to growing evidence.  A hopeful way end the year??

And a shout out to organic dairy. I've generally supported (bought) organic stuff not so much because of health worries, but more because of the much stronger soil management practiced by  organic farmers. Healthy soils matters to them, and there's a lot more effort put into finding the environmentally safest way to manage pests and diseases, brains and experience trumping something bought off the shelf.  But I did see a piece about different kinds (healthier) fats being found in organic milk because of the grass based diet.  I still think a forage based livestock industry (as opposed to corn/soybean/grain) is something PEI farmers should consider. We can grow grass here as well if not better than anywhere else.

Think of farmers (and hopefully you'll know who they are) as you sit down to feast during the upcoming days.  Yes we can do better, but these are  moments for all of us to remember how lucky we are.



http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/opinion/bittman-the-fdas-not-really-such-good-news.html?ref=opinion

The F.D.A.’s Not-Really-Such-Good-News

By MARK BITTMAN

That “good” news you may have read last week about the Food and Drug Administration’s curbing antibiotics in animal feed may not be so good after all. In fact, it appears that the F.D.A. has once again refused to do all it could to protect public health.

For those who missed it, the agency requested (and “requested” is the right word) that the pharmaceutical industry make a labeling change that, the F.D.A. says, will reduce the routine use of antibiotics in animal production. I’d happily be proven wrong, but I don’t think it will. Rather, I think we’re looking at an industry-friendly response to the public health emergency of diseases caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria, resistance that is bred in industrially raised animals.

You may know that around 80 percent of antibiotics in the United States are given (fed, mostly) to animals. Why? Because the terrible conditions in which most of our animals are grown foster illness; give them antibiotics and illness is less likely. There is also a belief that “subtherapeutic” doses of antibiotics help animals grow faster. So most “farmers” who raise animals by the tens or hundreds of thousands find it easier to feed them antibiotics than to raise them in ways that allow antibiotics to be reserved for actual illness. (And yes, there are alternatives, even in industrial settings. Denmark raises as many hogs as Iowa and does it with far fewer antibiotics.)

You may also know that this overuse of antibiotics is leading to increasing bacterial resistance, that we’re breeding an army of supergerms. This isn’t theoretical: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 23,000 Americans died of illnesses related to antibiotic-resistant bacteria each year. Another two million were sickened. (Some experts say that these numbers are low.) This makes resistant bacteria a greater health threat than AIDS, and there is talk by the C.D.C. of a post-antibiotic era.

The only solution, say most experts, is to stop the prophylactic use of antibiotics and use the drugs only to treat animals that are actually sick. (This is not news: Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, feared microbial resistance and discussed it in his Nobel Prize speech of 1945.) Preventing this is an ostensible goal of the F.D.A., which itself predicted — in 1977 — the very scenario in which overuse of antibiotics would lead to superbugs and, at that time, proposed to limit their use. But Congress got in the way and in the intervening years the agency appears to have been infiltrated by industry-friendly administrators who publicly write that “Using these drugs judiciously means that unnecessary or inappropriate use should be avoided,” yet manage to avoid enforcing these pronouncements.

The story of the last 36 years is one of inaction. The F.D.A. is already under a federal court order to “ensure the safety and effectiveness of all drugs sold in interstate commerce,” and to withdraw drugs demonstrated to be unsafe — a court order the agency has appealed twice. One could see the new guidelines as little more than an attempt to convince the court to set aside its ruling.

Technically, reducing antibiotic use is simple. The science tells us it is the thing to do, the meat industry has the capability of designing animal-growing facilities that would foster less disease and, perhaps most important, the F.D.A. has the power to rule — not suggest — a complete ban of the use of antibiotics for growth promotion and disease prevention in livestock.

This last statement is contentious. (If you want to make your own judgment about the F.D.A.'s legal power, have at it.) Michael Taylor, the agency’s deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine (and — just in case you think the notion that there is a revolving door between the F.D.A. and the food industry is hyperbole — a former vice president for public policy at Monsanto), told me, “The approval of a new animal drug for specific indication is like the granting of a license; it applies to that company. There’s a prescribed process for withdrawing that license … a very formal administrative process. We can’t just issue a rule of general applicability that extinguishes their due process rights.

“We don’t feel we have the legal authority,” he continued, to do “what might be great to do from a public health policy standpoint. You’d have to show product by product that each is contributing” to a resistance problem. “This is a strategy to drive this to closure in the quickest way possible. We expect and hope folks will watch us closely.”

We are talking about 287 different drugs, and Taylor says it might take “three or four years” to go through the process for each one. These guidelines, he says — which were developed with the cooperation of the industry (uh-huh) — will work faster.

But there are other ways of looking at the F.D.A.'s ability to regulate. These drugs fall into seven categories; nothing was preventing the agency, three or four years ago, from picking a drug from each category and beginning what Taylor calls “a very formal” process. Nothing prevents them from doing it now — simultaneously with their new guidelines — except, I would suggest, a desire to maintain a noncontentious relationship with Big Pharma and Big Food. As each drug, or category, was demonstrated to be unsafe, the process would become less cumbersome and something “great” might actually be done for public health.

It’s not just me saying this.

Margaret Mellon, a lawyer and a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said to me, “The agency can legally withdraw the label claims approvals if it can show that uses under the label circumstances are no longer safe in terms of resistance.”

When I asked Representative Louise Slaughter — who happens to be a microbiologist, and is among the few in Congress with both the knowledge and spine to call out the F.D.A. — whether the agency had the authority to ban antibiotics for any use except direct treatment, she barely let me finish my question before exclaiming, “Of course they do.”

And Robert Martin, a program director at the Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins and a former director of the widely respected Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, told me, “They have the authority to make these guidelines mandatory; the problem is that it’s regulation by the consent of the regulated.”

I could go on.

This in part explains why millions more are doomed to be sickened by the F.D.A.'s failures. You can blame Congress for inaction, too — shocking, I know. The Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act would require the F.D.A. to review its approvals of antibiotics and cancel them for antibiotics that help breed resistant bacteria; in fact it would put the burden of proof back on the companies, alleviating the workload and contentiousness Taylor seems intent on avoiding. (In fact, if the F.D.A. were truly interested in public health it would be out there lobbying for the passage of PAMTA.) Slaughter has introduced this act four times since 2007, and it’s supported by almost everyone, but it hasn’t passed. One wonders, though, since the F.D.A. is already under court order to do pretty much the same thing, whether even PAMTA would spur them on.

Instead, the F.D.A. has created a “road map for animal pharmaceutical companies to voluntarily revise the F.D.A.-approved use conditions on the labels of these products to remove production indications.” No obligation. And no problem labeling those same drugs as disease-prevention vehicles, as long as those uses are “judicious and appropriate,” says Taylor. Whether you call it growth promotion or disease prevention, the effects are likely to be on labels only, not on public health. (It seems to me that if you prevent disease you promote growth, and vice versa. It also seems to me that if you prevent disease by having healthy growing conditions you don’t need to prevent it with antibiotics.)

And drug companies are O.K. with this new “guidance,” because it’s so benign it won’t affect their bottom lines. In a Wall Street Journal piece, Jeff Simmons, the president of Eli Lilly’s “animal-health division,” was quoted as saying, “We do not see this announcement being a material event.”

The F.D.A. says it “is asking animal pharmaceutical companies to notify the agency of their intent to sign on to the strategy within the next three months.” (There are no provisions for noncooperation.) “These companies would then have a three-year transition process.” In other words, drug companies have three months to “comply” with a voluntary plan to marginally change their labeling, and three years to implement that. Again, if they don’t … sorry, there’s no plan.

Strenuous oversight, huh? During which time industry can figure out how to increase the amount of antibiotics they sell, as long as they don’t label them as growth-promoting. Yet Taylor insists that “this will make a difference for resistance.”

In those three years, something like 69,000 Americans will have died from antibiotic-resistant bacterial diseases; many subsequent deaths may be preventable if rampant use of antibiotics is curbed now. But when insiders talk about the expected percentage decline in antibiotic use as a result of the F.D.A. recommendations, the smart money is on “zero.” And when I asked Taylor, “How much do you anticipate routine antibiotic use declining in the next few years?” he answered, “It’s a fair question but I don’t have an answer for you — we need to work on that.”

It’s depressing. I root for the F.D.A. to do its job, but the power of industry and its anti-regulatory lobby adds up to an apparent unwillingness to put public health above all else. And by phasing this in over three years (by which time we’ll have a new and possibly less supportive president), the agency has bought itself and the industry more time before bowing to the inevitable change in our horrific animal production system.

In fact, the worst thing about the new guidelines may be that they’re seen as a first step, and as such rule out a more meaningful one. (Center for a Livable Future’s Martin said to me, “My fear is now we won’t see anything new for a decade.”) It’s bad news masquerading as good news. The F.D.A. is claiming, “We’re controlling the use of antibiotics in animal production!” But it’s more like Congress declaring, “We’re raising the minimum wage!” and then appending “...by 10 cents an hour. And we’ll review the impact of this monumental change in three years!”

I should point out that some of my favorite antibiotic-overuse critics are more optimistic, among them the former F.D.A. head David Kessler, who was quoted in these pages as saying, “This is the first significant step in dealing with this important public health concern in 20 years,” and Laura Rogers, a director at the Pew Charitable Trusts, who told me, “These criteria represent a meaningful shift in the agency’s public policy, and bode well for future action.” (“That said,” Rogers added, “we are concerned that antibiotics will still be used for disease prevention, possibly in place of growth promotion.”)

Rogers is admirably diplomatic, but I agree more closely with Representative Slaughter, who wrote, “Sadly, this guidance is the biggest step the F.D.A. has taken in a generation to combat the overuse of antibiotics in corporate agriculture, and it falls woefully short of what is needed.”

It’s also worth noting that the F.D.A. has drafted (that means it’s not even yet a recommendation) a “directive” that would require that veterinarians supervise antibiotic use. Make that final and make that mandatory — as the agency is threatening to do if these voluntary guidelines don’t work — and we might be getting somewhere. But the best-case scenario is that within three years some or even all growth-promotion claims will have been dropped and the use of antibiotics will be approved by veterinarians — many of whom have jobs that will depend on approving just such uses. I see no reason to be encouraged. It may truly be worse than nothing, or it may simply be a delay we can ill afford.

Public safety is the F.D.A.'s job, and they’re doing it badly. What’s needed here is a drastic reduction in the use of antibiotics, now, and few people think these recommendations are going to do that. As the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Mellon said to me, “This recommendation involves voluntarily giving up making money in the interest of public safety. Who does that in the United States? No one.”

What can we do? Push for labeling, for one thing: “Raised without antibiotics” (period) is a label we could pay more attention to. And push our markets to carry more truly antibiotic-free meat, and buy it. Organic meat is another obvious solution. I’ll get to strategies like these in another column. But as Slaughter said, “I’m persuaded now that the only thing we can do is get an outcry from the public.” Make some noise, people.




http://www.ipolitics.ca/2013/12/12/bees-pros-and-cons-of-pesticide-ban-paid-out-in-submissions-to-regulator/

Bees deaths: Pros and cons of pesticide ban paid out in submissions to regulator

• by Kelsey Johnson

December 12 is the last day for public comment on whether a controversial pesticide is harming the country’s bee population.
Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) has been seeking public input since September on recommendations meant to “mitigate risks to pollinators, related to the use of neonicotinoid treated corn and soybean seed,” the agency’s notice of intent reads.
The PMRA is responsible for monitoring and regulating the use of pesticides in Canada.
With the deadline fast approaching, a number of industry groups – including the Ontario Beekeepers Association and CropLife Canada –  have already submitted their written comments on the PMRA’s recommendations.

In their 15-page long submission, Pierre Patelle, vice-president chemistry, and Maria Trainer, managing director regulatory affairs, said CropLife Canada agreed with the PMRA’s recommendations “in principle.”
“CropLife Canada and our member companies are strongly supportive of the measures outlined in the Notice of Intent,” the submission reads. “We have already taken significant steps to address many of the requirements.”
Those steps, CropLife writes, include the development of best management practices to reduce dust, improving planting technology and changes to seed bag labels.
CropLife Canada represents companies who develop and produce pesticides like neonicotinoids.
However, the group’s detailed submission goes on to say seed treatments, like the ones found on corn and soybeans, are essential tools for farmers because they help boost crop yields. ”Without these products, we would lose a significant percentage of our crops to pests and diseases,” the documents said.
Beekeepers disagree. In his report to the PMRA, Ontario Beekeepers Association President Dan Davidson argued seed treatments in Canada are “generally applied prophylactically regardless of whether pests are present in a particular field or at levels that will lead to economic losses.”
“Numerous studies indicate that preventive treatments like seed coatings may not result in yield benefits and can be less cost effective than other control measures,” the OBA added. As for labelling changes, the beekeepers argue current labels already state the chemicals are toxic and environmental harmful.
“And yet, bees are still dying by the millions,” Davidson submission reads. For now, he adds, the only way to protect the country’s bees is to suspend the use of neonicotinoid pesticides until we understand how to manage the risks posed by these products to honey bees and other pollinators.”
The PMRA’s request for public comment comes after the agency determined the popular seed treatment (used on corn, canola and soybean seeds) were killing pollinators like bees. The crisis – which government agency has said is concentrated to Ontario and Quebec – showed current agriculture practices were unsustainable, the agency said.
“There is a clear problem here that needs to be addressed as soon as possible so we are taking action on this issue right now,” Scott Kirby, director of environmental assessment directorate for the PMRA, told iPolitics during a Sept. 16 interview.
That action comes in the form of a series of PMRA recommendations including data collection and label changes on seed bags, changes to how farmers prepare for planting and enforcing the use of new dust-reducing seed flow lubricants, which help seeds from getting stuck in the seeder.
Controlling dust during planting is essential because the PMRA believes the dust produced by seeds treated with neonicotinoids is what’s largely impacting bee health. Seeds coated with pesticides produce toxic dust, which then coats the bees who then carry it to their hives.
The dust can also contaminate the bee’s water supply, poisoning the bees when they drink.
In 2012, 40 beekeepers – and more than 200 bee yards – in Southern Ontario reported record losses to the PMRA. One Quebec beekeeper also reported losses, according to an agency report release in April. Of these, the PMRA determined 70 percent of the deaths were caused by direct contact with dust contaminated with neonicotinoids.
In 2013, a national survey by the Canadian Association for Professional Apiarists found colony mortality in Canada has nearly doubled from 15 per cent to 29 per cent. Bee mortality was even higher in Ontario and Manitoba, with losses ranging from 38 to 46 per cent respectively. Beekeepers have repeatedly said these losses are not sustainable.

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2013/12/organic-milk-proves-higher-healthy-fats

Organic milk proves higher in healthy fats

• by Tom Philpott
• Dec. 13, 2013

The long-simmering debate over whether organically grown food packs more nutritional punch than conventional has a new data point. In a recent study published in the peer-reviewed PLOS-One, a research team led by Washington State University's Charles Benbrook found that organic milk delivers significantly healthier fats than its non-organic counterpart.
The team took samples of organic and non-organic whole milk taken from 14 commercial milk processors across the United States over the course of 18 months and analyzed their fat content. They found that organic milk delivered on average 62 percent more omega-3 fatty acids, and 25 percent fewer omega-6 fatty acids.

Both types are essential in the human diet, but a growing consensus holds that Americans on average don't get enough omega-3s, which have been associated with protection against heart disease and stroke, potentially cancer, and autoimmune conditions like inflammatory bowel disease, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis, according to Frank Sacks, a professor at Harvard's School of Public Health. The science is more cloudy on our omega-6s, which are abundant in the vegetable oils that have grown popular in recent decades. Some scientists believe that Americans over-consume them; others, including Harvard's Sacks, disagree.
The PLOS-One study attributes the higher omega-3 content in organic milk to the cows' diets—according to USDA certification standards, organically raised cows have to spend at least four months per year on pasture, chomping on omega-3 rich grasses, while conventionally raised cows tend to eat omega-6-rich corn year-round.
Interestingly, in one region, organic and conventional milk samples showed similar, omega-3 rich fat profiles: northern California's Humboldt County. There, the researchers say, "both types of dairy farms graze cattle for over 250 days per year." The highest divergence in fat profiles between organic and conventional showed up in the Mid-Atlantic region, they report.
Another factor pointing to diet, and specifically grass, as the key: organic milk had 55 percent higher levels of the beneficial fatty acid CLA, or conjugated linoleic acid, in the pasture-rich summer months than in winter. For conventional milk cows, who tend to get little access to grass year-round, CLA levels clocked in only 12 percent higher in summer.
It's important to note that Organic Valley, the farmer-owned organic dairy cooperative, donated $45,000 to fund the research, and Maged A. Latif, director of research and quality at Organic Valley, is one of the paper's co-authors.
But the paper's publication in PLOS-One, one of the nation's premier refereed science journals, lends it credibility. And it has been well-received in fat-research circles, reports The New York Times.
Nor is it the first study to document fatty-acid advantages in organic milk. In this 2010 paper, UK researchers found similar differences in that country's organic and conventional milk. (I wrote about it here.) As in the US study, access to pasture emerged as the driver of the nutritional difference.
The takeaway seems to be: milk from grass-fed cows seems to have more healthy fats then conventional milk. And for consumers, the organic label is a good shorthand way to find milk from cows eating the good stuff.

 

 

 

Losing Importance Bit by Bit, Day by Day

We're hanging on by our fingernails here on PEI, but nationally and internationally you see signs everywhere: a growing lack of interest in rural issues. That's bad enough, but it's now being replaced with disbelief and derision.   This week mocking headlines for a UK export deal with China:

"British Prime Minister David Cameron was in China for the past three days for a trip that has seen some controversial moments. However, there’s at least one clear success: The United Kingdom has signed a deal to export porcine semen to China that will net British farmers a reported £45-million ($73-million) a year.
Yes, pig sperm."

The news, then the mock.  

The CBC has chipped away at its interest and reporting in rural issues. At one time there were national agriculture reporters in both radio and tv.  George Price was the Parliament Hill reporter on farm issues and reported daily to Radio Noons across the country. Country Canada was a Sunday afternoon staple on television, the Food Show just as popular Sunday morning on CBC Radio.  CBC Radio did have Tooth and Claw this summer which at least explored the idea that the food we eat is alive and goes through "something" to get to the dinner plate, and that even in nature (outside of Walt Disney)  there is death leading to survival.  These were interesting shows.

Few noticed but when CBC bought up a cable channel called Country Canada, it promised to program for rural communities.  First it moved curling on the channel creating storms of protest from curling fans and players across the country forced now to pay to watch. Then (without CRTC approval) it turned Country Canada into Bold, an arts channel. It sold Bold earlier this year, and, even in news stories on the sale, the fiction of catering to rural communities continued:

"Bold carries a broad range of different programming that it describes as "focusing on the lives of rural Canadians."
Some of the series that airs on its channel include repeats of Party Down, a comedy about a catering company, and Skins, a dramatic series following a group of British teenagers dealing with a culture of sex, drugs, school and friends."


I understand why this happens. Rural communities are declining and aging, and not a demographic of much interest to anyone trying to make a buck.   The lack of interest is one thing, but it leads to something else more pernicious in the media(something it share with First Nation stories). It only gets attention when there's trouble, so the general public only hears farmers who are angry, scared, or defensive.  As stories became shorter it was always the emotional clip that would make the cut, anything that would provide context, or turn the person into a more real human being was left out. I did it myself for years.

I think we saw this lack of interest in rural issues last week with the release of Horace Carver's report on the Land's Protection Act  This had many of the same elements as the debate over the fixed link,  and Plan B: let's call it  "economic and industrial progress vs. conservation at all costs",  "responding to the competitiveness of the marketplace vs. wishing the environment didn't have to pay a price so people could stay in business" or something like that. These are very real PEI issues that have dogged the province since the development plan in the 1960's.  Throw in people having to leave in order find a better life (as they have for generations btw) and the conversation gets even more interesting.  I'm not saying either side is right, I'm saying that the discussion is an important one, the tension between the two ideas matters to our future, and there was a lost opportunity to have it. 

We're a little, broke, vulnerable province surrounded by powerful political and economic forces.   I'd love to live retired in a rural Disneyland but know we have to find ways to pay the bills (healthcare costs alone will continue to be crippling).  It's finding the right way to do things, offering the right incentives, but having some sticks to bring out when needed.  These won't be right unless we talk about them. Horace Carver made an honest effort to get at these issues in his public hearings, and in his report. He deserved more attention.