A Place at the Table - Available March 1

On March 1, A Place at the Table, a powerful new documentary will be released in select theaters and for streaming via iTunes and On Demand.

Fifty million people in the U.S.—one in four children—don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Directors Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush examine the issue of hunger in America through the lens of three people struggling with food insecurity: Barbie, a single Philadelphia mother who grew up in poverty and is trying to provide a better life for her two kids; Rosie, a Colorado fifth-grader who often has to depend on friends and neighbors to feed her and has trouble concentrating in school; and Tremonica, a Mississippi second-grader whose asthma and health issues are exacerbated by the largely empty calories her hardworking mother can afford.
Ultimately, A Place at the Table shows us how hunger poses serious economic, social and cultural implications for our nation, and that it could be solved once and for all, if the American public decides — as they have in the past — that making healthy food available and affordable is in the best interest of us all. 

Credit to Wired for Reporting on Antibiotic Resistance

In a recent post, Antibiotic Resistance and US Meat, I blogged about two recent reports on the use of antibiotics in livestock production and antibiotic resistant bacteria in retail meat. I lamented that few major media outlets covered the release of these reports. A comment to the post led me to an excellent article posted on, Wired by Maryn McKenna, Antibiotics and Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria in Meat: Not Getting Better.   I amended the post to reflect this link, and I offer it in this separate post. Nice to know that people are reading the blog and providing us with additional information.

Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria and US Meat

Let's go back to highlight a couple of reports that came out a couple weeks ago. They did not get the attention they deserved in the media, and I neglected to post when they first came out.

The FDA published its 2011 Summary Report on Antimicrobials Sold or Distributed for Use in Food-Producing Animals.  Under the Animal Drug User Fee Amendments, codified in the Federal Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act at 21 U.S.C. § 360b, sponsors of applications for new animal drugs that contain an active antimicrobial ingredient are required report to the FDA each year, providing data on the amount of sold or distributed for use in food-producing animals. The law also now requires that FDA make the information compiled public. The report is not publicized, and it provides only the bare numbers. However, given that such a large percentage of the antibiotics produced in the U.S. are used for livestock feed, and given concerns about antimicrobial resistance, the report provides important information.

And, speaking of resistance, the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) also issued its 2011 report this month, reporting on the antimicrobial resistant bacteria it found on meat products. NARMS is a joint project of the FDA, the CDC and 11 state public health laboratories, and it tests retail meat products for the presence of antimicrobial resistant strains of bacteria. Again, this is extremely important data, but its release is provided without the kind of explanation that most consumers can readily understand.

Few major media outlets covered the release of these reports, although credit is extended to Wired for an excellent article by Maryn McKenna, Antibiotics and Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria in Meat: Not Getting Better.  Here are links to some of the commentary that was published to explain the reports.

• Dr. David Wallinga, Senior Advisor in Science, Food and Health at the Institute of Agriculture & Trade Policy wrote, Animal Antibiotic Use Continues Upwards, FDA Keeps Blinders On. 

• Bill Marler posted his thoughtful analysis on the Marler Blog, 2011 Retail Meat Report of the National Antimicrobial Monitoring System (NARMS) is Out.

• The Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy at the University of Minnesota provided a very helpful summary, Bacteria in Meat Show Growing Drug Resistance, FDA Says, by Robert Roos.

• The Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming published Record High Antibiotic Sales For Meat and Poultry Production, including its graphical representation of the use of antibiotics in the U.S.

• Helena Bottemiller at Food Safety News dug into the data and provided a helpful interpretation.  FDA Data: Slight Uptick in Animal Antibiotic Use, Resistance Remains Issue in Meat.

Overall antimicrobial drug use in livestock production is up about 2.3%.  In 2011, 29.9 million pounds of antimicrobial drugs were used in livestock production. Contrast this with the 7.7 million pounds of antimicrobial drugs used for humans during the same time period.

Not all of the drugs used in livestock production are used for human treatment. The 2011 data shows a welcome decline in the use of Sulfa drugs, often used in humans. In contrast, Ionophores, which are not currently used to treat humans, showed an increase in animal use, largely in poultry production.

However, Dr. Wallinga noted that:

Penicillins and tetracyclines sold for animal use increased for the second year in a row. From 11.5 million pounds in 2009, sales rose to 14.4 million pounds in 2011. The two classes of antibiotics remain the most commonly used antibiotics in livestock and poultry, despite their obvious import for treating infections in people as well. In 2011, animal sales accounted for 38 percent of total penicillin sales and 98 percent of total tetracycline sales, including in humans.

One of the concerns about the overuse of antibiotics in livestock production is that we are encouraging the development of antibiotic resistant strains of dangerous bacteria. This is where the study of antimicrobial resistance in retail meat is important. Summarizing the NARMS report, Helena Bottemiller noted that:

Drug resistance among Salmonella isolates increased all around. In 2010, the percentage of isolates that showed drug resistance was about 50 percent, while in 2011 it had increased to nearly 55 percent. 

Resistance to cephalosporins, a class of drugs the FDA restricted in early 2012, increased between 2002 and 2011. Third generation cephalosporin resistance increased, in chicken from 10 to 33 percent and in ground turkey from 8 to 22 percent. . . .

The NARMS data also indicate that there was a significant increase in ampicillin resistance over the last decade among retail chicken, from nearly 17 percent to around 40 percent, and in ground turkey isolates from 16 percent to 58 percent. Ampicillin can be used in human medicine to treat infections, including Salmonella. 

More than 27 percent of all chicken isolates showed resistance to five or more classes of antibiotics and in ground turkey isolates researchers found 10 different serotypes with resistance to six or more classes of antibiotics.

The Animal Health Institute, the lobbying organization for the veterinary pharmaceutical companies has not commented on the recent reports, but has consistently maintained that "[a]nimal antibiotics make our food supply safer and people healthier. Antibiotics are a critical tool to prevent, control and treat disease in animals. In doing so, they also reduce the chance of bacterial transmission from animals to humans."  While antibiotics are clearly needed in animal production for the treatment of disease, the data indicates that their continual use in feed as a disease prevention method and to promote rapid growth is problematic.

Representative Louise Slaughter, a long time proponent of legislation to reduce antibiotic use in livestock production addressed the report through a press release titled, We Are Standing on the Brink of a Public Health Catastrophe.

Last October, IATP published a bibliography of studies, No Time to Lose: 147 Studies Supporting Public Health Action to Reduce Antibiotic Overuse in Food Animals.  

Monsanto, the Court, and the Seeds of Dissent



An important editorial in today’s Los Angeles Times: “Monsanto, the Court, and the Seeds of Dissent.” The authors are George Kimbrell, senior attorney at the Center for Food Safety, and Debbie Barker, program director of Save Our Seeds and international director of the Center for Food Safety.

On Tuesday, attorneys for the largest agrochemical corporation in the world, Monsanto, will present arguments before the Supreme Court asserting the company’s rights to the generations of seeds that naturally reproduce from its genetically modified strains. Bowman vs. Monsanto Co. will be decided based on the court’s interpretation of a complex web of seed and plant patent law, but the case also reflects something much more basic: Should anyone, or any corporation, control a product of life?

The journey of a 75-year-old Indiana farmer to the highest court in the country began rather uneventfully. Vernon Hugh Bowman purchased an undifferentiated mix of soybean seeds from a grain elevator, planted the seeds and then saved seed from the resulting harvest to replant another crop. Finding that Bowman’s crops were largely the progeny of its genetically engineered proprietary soybean seed, Monsanto sued the farmer for patent infringement.

The case is a remarkable reflection on recent fundamental changes in farming. In the 200-plus years since the founding of this country, and for millenniums before that, seeds have been part of the public domain — available for farmers to exchange, save, modify through plant breeding and replant. Through this process, farmers developed a diverse array of plants that could thrive in various geographies, soils, climates and ecosystems. But today this history of seeds is seemingly forgotten in light of a patent system that, since the mid-1980s, has allowed corporations to own products of life.

One of Monsanto’s arguments is that when farmers save seed from a crop grown from patented seed and then use that seed for another crop, they are illegally replicating, or  ‘making,’  Monsanto’s proprietary seeds instead of legally ‘using’ the seeds by planting them only one time and purchasing more seeds for each subsequent planting.

This logic is troubling to many who point out that it is the nature of seeds and all living things, whether patented or not, to replicate. Monsanto’s claim that it has rights over a self-replicating natural product should raise concern. Seeds, unlike computer chips, for example, are essential to life. If people are denied a computer chip, they don’t go hungry. If people are denied seeds, the potential consequences are much more threatening.

Although Monsanto and other agrochemical companies assert that they need the current patent system to invent better seeds, the counterargument is that splicing an already existing gene or other DNA into a plant and thereby transferring a new trait to that plant is not a novel invention. A soybean, for example, has more than 46,000 genes. Properties of these genes are the product of centuries of plant breeding and should not, many argue, become the product of a corporation. Instead, these genes should remain in the public domain.

The seed industry also claims that if patents are made narrower in scope, innovation, such as devising environmentally sustainable ways to farm, would be stifled. However, evidence casts doubt on the prevalent assumption that positive environmental impacts have resulted from their seed technologies. [....] 

When arguments from both sides have been presented, the Supreme Court justices will have to thoroughly consider the many complexities of patent law as it pertains to self-replicating organisms. But taking a few steps back from the microscope and the lawbooks, they may find that there is a discussion to be had about a much deeper question: the appropriate role of ownership and control over the very elements of life.

(Please click on the link above for the full article.)

Image: Kale seed from the Organic Farm School.

LL.M. Program in Agricultural & Food Law Accepting Applications

The LL.M. Program in Agricultural & Food Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law offers the nation's only advanced LL.M. degree in the combined studies of agricultural and food law. We take pride in offering a curriculum covering the full spectrum of law and policy from the perspective of the farmer, the processor, the retailer, and the consumer.

Our nine month course of study attracts attorneys from throughout the United States and from abroad. While some of our LL.M. candidate are recent law school graduates, many others enter the program as experienced attorneys.

And, in each of our last three years, we have been pleased to welcome visiting scholars and professors from other law schools. There are a limited number of teaching assistantships that will be available for law professors and experienced attorneys.

The University of Arkansas School of Law is located in Fayetteville, Arkansas at the foot of the Ozark Mountains. Fayetteville was described in the New York Times as "flush with youth, culture and natural beauty."  For more information on the program visit our LL.M. Agfoodlaw blog.

Please help us spread that word that we are reviewing applications for the 2013-14 academic year. Those interested are encouraged to apply as soon as possible. Visit our website, send me an e-mail, or call 479-575-3706.

Susan A. Schneider
Professor of Law and Director
LL.M. Program in Agricultural & Food Law
University of Arkansas School of Law
Fayetteville, Arkansas
(479) 575-4334
sschneid@uark.edu

Note that the Apple Photo above was taken by Scott Bauer, and it is part of the USDA Agricultural Research Service Photogallery, a fantastic source of photos of our food system, from farm to plate.