Food-Movement Victories of 2012

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Food-Movement Victories of 2012

From human rights to animal rights, livestock antibiotics to GMOs, food policy was in the news throughout 2012. There's no turning back now— an increasingly aware American public now understands how important food is, as it impacts everything from our personal health to our global political strategies.

Before moving into 2013, TakePart pauses to examine how far we’ve come—acknowledging, of course, that the work is not done yet—in creating a better, fairer, more sustainable and humane food system for all. Click through to see some of the highlights of a very busy year in food policy.

Photo: Huw Jones/Getty Images

Goodbye, Gestation Crates

Thanks to a slew of companies making progressive decisions, 2012 could be dubbed the Year of Gestation Crate Bans. The crates—which confine pregnant sows so they can’t turn around or sit down comfortably, causing stress and health problems—have been lambasted by animal-rights advocates. Animal behavior expert and Doctor of Science Temple Grandin compared the practice to “asking a sow to live in an airline seat.” This year, Big Food started to listen.

McDonald’s U.S. led the way, announcing in February plans to require its U.S. pork suppliers to demonstrate to McDonald’s their plans to phase out the use of sow gestation crates. “McDonald’s wants to see the end of sow confinement in gestation stalls in our supply chain,” Dan Gorsky, Senior Vice President of McDonald’s North America Supply Chain Management, said at the time. By May—several weeks after Burger King announced its own plans to phase out crates by 2017—McDonald’s U.S. announced that by 2022 it will only source pork from farmers who do not use gestation stalls for pregnant sows.

The following month, the restaurant chain Cracker Barrel made a similar announcement (albeit with vaguer deadlines), citing research on consumer preferences regarding pork production. “We’re seeing an evolution in Americans’ awareness and attitudes regarding meat produced with higher animal welfare in mind,” said Cracker Barrel’s Vice President of Strategic Sourcing, Vance Fouraker.

By July, Oscar Mayer, Carl’s Jr., and Hardee’s had all jumped on the pig pile, pledging to phase out crates within 10 years, and Fresh Enterprises, LLC—the owner of Baja Fresh—announced plans to only purchase pork from suppliers with plans to end the use of gestation crates.

If animal-rights advocates and slow foodies have their way, expect to hear a similar announcement from Walmart in 2013.

Photo: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Fairer Conditions for Farmworkers

For more than ten years, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) has pressured grocery store chains and restaurants to sign the Fair Food Agreement, which would improve conditions for farmworkers in Florida’s tomato industry, including raising daily wages from $50 to $80. This year, the grassroots organization made huge headway.

In February, Trader Joe’s, which has more than 350 outlets, became the second major food retailer (after Whole Foods) to sign the document. The agreement not only guarantees higher wages, but it also grants workers much-needed basic rights, like safety education, protection from violence and sexual harassment in the fields, accurate time-keeping, and grievance procedures that protect them from the threat of retaliation by employers.

By October, Chipotle buckled to the pressure of CIW as well: After six years of working to bring Chipotle into its Fair Food Program, CIW issued a press released stating that the two groups had reached an agreement.

Chipotle wasn’t the first fast-food chain to make the leap—Burger King and McDonald’s did so much sooner—but the company’s reputation for making “food with integrity” makes it a prime example for the rest of the industry. Gerardo Reyes of the CIW called the development “a turning point in the sustainable food movement as a whole, whereby, thanks to Chipotle’s leadership, farmworkers are finally recognized as true partners—every bit as vital as farmers, chefs, and restaurants—in bringing ‘good food’ to our tables.”

Photo: Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images

GMO Concerns Have Gone Mainstream

It would be more victorious to declare that Proposition 37—a 2012 California ballot measure to require labels on genetically modified foods—had passed. (Opposition won by 500,000 votes.) Still, despite the measure’s loss, the momentum of the opposition against genetically modified foods really picked up this year, in large part due to the Yes on 37 campaign. Big Food worried that, if Prop 37 passed, the rest of the nation would follow suit, forcing major food corporations to fess up to the use of GMO ingredients or change their ways. The nearly $46 million that Big Food spent to defeat the prop demonstrated just how threatening Prop 37 was to companies who depend on keeping consumers uninformed.

Prior to the vote, the Just Label It campaign reached its goal of one million signatures demanding GMO labeling from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the petition is now approaching 1.3 million names. Meanwhile, Washington state is taking after California: Signatures are being collected to petition legislation for its own Right to Know campaign.

With so much movement on the anti-GMO front, the conversation around GMOs is no longer an insider topic for foodies. Though anti-labeling campaigns won out in California’s election, the anti-GMO movement has gone mainstream.

Photo: Lawrence Lawry/Getty Images

FDA Reigns in Animal Antibiotic Use

We have a long way to go before the use of antibiotics in farm animals is strictly regulated. But in the food industry, which often puts profit over people, any change—even incremental—is significant. In 2012, the food industry made several strides in animal antibiotic regulation.

In February, a study published in the journal mBio put to rest the question that scientists and agribusiness have fought over for years—whether or not antibiotics in livestock feed propagate antibiotic-resistant germs that threaten human health. Scientists came out on top: The study demonstrated that yes, feeding animals antibiotics to boost their growth and ward off sickness in overcrowded factory farms is, in fact, hurting human health.

A month later, U.S. District Court Judge Theodore Katz ordered the FDA to prove that feeding antibiotics to livestock has no negative effect on human health—or stop the practice altogether.

By April, the FDA announced new regulations on antibiotic use for farm animals, stating that pharmaceutical producers have “largely agreed” to require prescriptions for any drugs used. Instead of dosing up cattle, pigs, and chickens as desired, farmers will have to obtain consent from a veterinarian before feeding animals medications. Michael Taylor, a representative from the FDA, said the new regulation would “result in significant reductions in agricultural antibiotic use.”

Unfortunately, the end is not nigh—pharmaceutical companies also have a financial stake in animal antibiotic use. But it’s a small step forward. For 2013, cross your fingers for the passage of the Preservation of Antibiotics on Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA), which would outlaw nontherapeutic antibiotic use in livestock altogether.

Photo: Daniel Pepper/Getty Images

See Ya Never, Big Gulp

More than one-third of adults in the U.S. are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Looking for a fix to the national health threat, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg targeted supersized sodas. In September, the Mayor capped drink sizes on sugary drinks sold in restaurants, movie theaters and street carts in New York City at 16 ounces. The ban hasn’t been popular among soda makers—or with the NYC residents who organized a march to protest the proposal before Bloomberg signed it. But Bloomberg stood his ground, pointing out the cost of obesity-related illnesses in his city. “If you want to kill yourself, I guess you have a right to do it,” he said at a press conference prior to the march. “We’re trying to do something about that...In New York City alone, we’re going to spend $4 billion dollars of your money to treat obesity-related diseases.”

The Centers for Disease Control reports that in 2008, medical care costs related to obesity in America totaled about $147 billion.

After the ban passed, Bloomberg indicated he believed New York City was just the first of many cities that will make similar decisions to reduce obesity in America. “This is the single biggest step any city, I think, has ever taken to curb obesity,” he said. “It’s certainly not the last step that lots of cities are going to take, and we believe that it will help save lives.”

Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

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A sucker for sustainable agriculture and a good farmers market, Megan likes writing about food almost as much as eating it. If you don't want to know what's in your fruit/milk/meat, don't invite her to lunch. @babybokchoy | TakePart.com