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How The Lack of Affordable Vegetables is Creating a Billion-Dollar Obesity Epidemic in South Africa
Fruit and vegetable prices in South Africa have increased to the point that poorer people have had to remove them from their grocery lists. Credit: Nalisha Adams/IPS
JOHANNESBURG, August 10, 2018 (IPS) - Every Sunday afternoon, Thembi Majola* cooks a meal of chicken and rice for her mother and herself in their home in Alexandra, an informal settlement adjacent to South Africa’s wealthy economic hub, Sandton.
“Vegetables is only on Sunday,” Majola tells IPS, adding that these constitute potatoes, sweet potato, and pumpkin. Majola, who says she weighs 141 kgs, has trouble walking short distances as it generally leaves her out of breath. And she has been on medication for high blood pressure for almost two decades now.
“It is precisely a justice issue because at the very least our economy should be able to provide access to sufficient and nutritious food. Because, at the basis of our whole humanity, at the very basis of our body, is our nutrition." -- Mervyn Abrahams, Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice, and Dignity Group
“Maize is the first priority,” she says of the staple item that always goes into her shopping basket. “Every Saturday I eat boerewors [South African sausage]. And on Sunday it is chicken and rice. During the week, I eat mincemeat once and then most of the time I fill up my stomach with [instant] cup a soup,” she says of her diet.
Majola is one of about 68 percent of South African women who are overweight or obese, according to the South African Demographic and Health Survey. The Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition’s Food Sustainability Index (FSI) 2017 ranks 34 countries across three pillars: sustainable agriculture; nutritional challenges; and food loss and waste. South Africa ranks in the third quartile of the index in 19th place. However, the country has a score of 51 on its ability to address nutritional challenges. The higher the score, the greater the progress the country has made. South Africa’s score is lower than a number of countries on the index.
Families go into debt to pay for basic foods
Many South Africans are eating a similar diet to Majola’s not out of choice, but because of affordability.
Dr. Kirthee Pillay, lecturer of dietetics and human nutrition at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, tells IPS that the increase of carbohydrate-based foods as a staple in most people’s diets is cost-related.
“Fruit and vegetable prices have increased to the point that poorer people have had to remove them from their grocery lists.”
The Pietermaritzburg Agency for Community Social Action (Pacsa), a social justice non-governmental organization, noted last October in its annual food barometer report that while the median wage for black South Africans is USD209 a month, a monthly food basket that is nutritionally complete costs USD297.
The report also noted that food expenditure from households arise out of the monies left over after non-negotiable expenses, such as transport, electricity, debt and education needs have been paid first. And this resulted in many families incurring debt in order to meet their food bills.
“Staples are cheaper and more filling and people depend on these, especially when there is less money available for food and many people to feed. Fruit and vegetables are becoming luxury food items for many people given the increasing cost of food. Thus, the high dependence on cheaper, filling staples. However, an excessive intake of carbohydrate-rich foods can increase risk for obesity,” Pillay tells IPS via email.
Majola works at a national supermarket chain, with her only dependent being her elderly mother. She says her grocery bill comes to about USD190 each month, higher than what most average families can afford, but agrees that the current cost of fruit and vegetables are a luxury item for her.
“They are a bit expensive now. Maybe they can sell them at a lesser price,” she says, adding that if she could afford it, she would have vegetables everyday. “Everything comes from the pocket.”
Monopoly of Food Chain Creating a System that Makes People Ill
David Sanders, emeritus professor at the school of public health at the University of the Western Cape, says that South Africans have a very high burden of ill health, much of which is related to their diet.
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But he adds that large corporates dominate every node of the food chain in the country, starting from inputs and production, all the way to processing, manufacturing and retail. “So it is monopolised all the way up the food system from the farm to the fork.”
“The food system is creating, for poor people anyway, a quite unhealthy food environment. So for well-off people there is sufficient choice and people can afford a nutritionally-adequate diet, even one of quite high quality.
“But poor people can’t. In most cases, the great majority, don’t have a kind of subsistence farming to fall back on because of land policies and the fact that in the 24 years of democracy there hasn’t been significant development of small scale farming,” Sanders, who is one of the authors of a report on food systems in Brazil, South Africa and Mexico, tells IPS.
According to the report, about 35,000 medium and large commercial farmers produce most of South Africa’s food.
In addition, Sanders points out that a vast majority of rural South Africans purchase, rather than grow, their own food.
“The food they can afford tends to be largely what we call ultra processed or processed food. That often provides sufficient calories but not enough nutrients. It tends to be quite low often in good-quality proteins and low in vitamins and minerals – what we call hyper nutrients.
“So the latter situation results in quite a lot of people becoming overweight and obese. And yet they are poorly nourished,” Sanders explains.
The Sugar Tax Not Enough to Stem Epidemic of Obesity
In April, South Africa introduced the Sugary Beverages Levy, which charges manufacturers 2.1 cents per gram of sugar content that exceeds 4g per 100 ml. The levy is part of the country’s department of health’s efforts to reduce obesity.
Pillay says while it is still too early to tell if the tax will be effective, in her opinion “customers will fork out the extra money being charged for sugar-sweetened beverages. Only the very poor may decide to stop buying them because of cost.”
Sander’s points out “it’s not just the level of obesity, it is the rate at which this has developed that is so alarming.”
A study shows that the number of young South Africans suffering from obesity doubled in the last six years, while it had taken the United States 13 years for this to happen.
“Here is an epidemic of nutrition, diet-related diseases, which has unfolded extremely rapidly and is just as big and as threatening and expensive as the HIV epidemic, and yet it is going largely unnoticed.”
Overweight people have a risk of high blood pressure, diabetes and hypertension, which places them at risk for heart disease. One of South Africa’s largest medical aid schemes estimated in a report that the economic impact on the country was USD50 billion rands a year.
“Even if people knew what they should eat there is very very little room for maneuver. There is some, but not much,” Sanders says adding that people should rather opt to drink water rather than purchase sugary beverages.
“Education and awareness is a factor but I would say that these big economic drivers are much more important.”
Sanders says that questions need to be asked about how the control of the country’s food system and food chain can “be shifted towards smaller and more diverse production and manufacture and distributions.”
“Those are really the big questions. It would require very targeted and strong policies on the part of government. That would be everything from preferentially financing small operators [producers, manufacturers and retailers]…at every level there would have to be incentives, not just financial, but training and support also,” he says.
Pillay agrees that the increase in food prices “needs to be addressed as it directly influences what people are able to buy and eat. … Sustainable agriculture should assist in reducing the prices of locally-grown fruit and vegetables and to make them more available to South African consumers.”
Mervyn Abrahams, one of the authors of the Pacsa report, now a programme coordinator at the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group, tells IPS that the organisation is campaigning for a living wage that should be able to provide households with a basic and sufficient nutrition in their food basket. The matter, he says, is one of economic justice.
“It is precisely a justice issue because at the very least our economy should be able to provide access to sufficient and nutritious food. Because, at the basis of our whole humanity, at the very basis of our body, is our nutrition. And so it is the most basic level by which we believe that the economy should be judged, to see whether there is equity and justice in our economic arena.”
*Not her real name.
Chipotle Facing 2 Lawsuits After Hundreds of Diners Reported Getting Sick
Health Officials Are Currently Investigating The Cause of The Food Poisoning Scare
by Lyn Mettler / Aug.08.2018 / 5:09 PM ET / Source: TODAY
Bloomberg via Getty Images
After a spate of foodborne illnesses in 2015 affected restaurants across the country, Chipotle Mexican Grill vowed to clean up its act by implementing new food handling processes in both its restaurants and at the supplier level.
But in the past few weeks, Chipotle has been hit with another food poisoning scare — and it may be the largest the company has ever faced. More than 600 people who ate at a Chipotle restaurant outside Columbus, Ohio, at the end of July have since reported gastrointestinal symptoms.
According to the Delaware General Health District in Delaware, Ohio, to date 624 people claimed that they have experienced nausea, vomiting and diarrhea after dining at a restaurant in Powell, Ohio, between July 26 and 30.
While the store closed immediately following the reports “to implement ... food safety response protocols that included total replacement of all food inventory and a complete cleaning and sanitation of the restaurant,” a Chipotle spokesperson told TODAY Food, the location at on Sawmill Parkway has since reopened.
The Health District says preliminary testing results have been negative for salmonella, E.coli, norovirus, and shigella, but tests are ongoing and, after the initial inspection, found no reason that the facility should not reopen.
AUG. 6, 2018 CHIPOTLE UPDATE
“The health of our guests and employees is our top priority,” the Chipotle spokesperson told TODAY Food.
But Chipotle already faced some backlash recently after their much-hyped promotion for free guacamole on National Avocado Day went awry.
While the latest outbreak has only been linked to one location, the fast-casual Mexican restaurant chain being sued over the incident. According to a press release for the law firm filing the suit on behalf of two individuals, this is the seventh time in two years the company has faced a food contamination crisis.
AP
“Through this lawsuit and with the dozens of claims we are investigating, we will determine where and how Chipotle once again failed to protect its customers,” Mark A. DiCello, a partner at DiCello Levitt & Casey, one of the firms filing the suit, stated in the press release. “This has become far too routine at Chipotle, and ultimately we want to make sure that the company doesn’t let this happen again.”
In the complaint, one plaintiff, Filip Szyller, says he bought three chicken tacos at the restaurant and the next day began to experience diarrhea, severe abdominal pain, nausea, headaches, as well as hot and cold flashes. In a separate lawsuit, another plaintiff, Clayton Jones, is claiming that he ate a burrito bowl with chicken, fajita vegetables, pico de gallo, rice, sour cream and lettuce and experienced similar medical issues.
The response to the latest health scare has been mixed on social media with many saying they aren't phased by the incident.
There’s another food borne illness outbreak from Chipotle? I’ll gladly take my chances
@ChipotleTweets it doesn’t matter how many articles my boyfriend sends me about the food poising outbreak it won’t stop me from devouring a burrito #chipotle #thatswhatinsuranceisfor
Every time @ChipotleTweets ends up in the news with a food poisoning outbreak all it does is make me crave Chipotle. sooooo I think they're fine
Others, however, are saying it's time for the chain to admit defeat or vowing never to eat at the restaurant again.
Aquarian Goddess@ReneeBr56236293
Chipotle just needs to close up and call it a done deal
Man it seems like eating at chipotle's is like Russian roulette! Constantly seeing illness from food issues. Had incident myself. C'mon guys get your act together.
- Aaron Allen, CEO of the global restaurant consulting firm Aaron Allen & Associates, told TODAY Food that the company still has life despite these repeated incidents, though it’s not doing itself any favors. “You want to bet on this boxer, but he just keeps punching himself in the face," he said.
He explained that Chipotle has installed a new executive leadership team this year, which he said likely hasn’t had time to get the company reorganized. Despite the setbacks, however, Allen said investors are becoming desensitized to the food poisoning scares, and understand that Chipotle is more prone to these issues with the number of stores nationwide and the amount of fresh food they handle daily. Allen even sees its potential international growth soon.
However, Allen added that Chipotle isn't totally immune to blowback and that these scenarios can’t continue forever. “If these [food scares] keep happening, it’s going to be increasingly difficult to recover from it,” he said.
How Will Humanity Feed Itself By 2050?
The food industry today faces a daunting task: feeding 10 billion mouths in a fair and sustainable way by 2050. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, food supply must more than double in 30 years to provide for the entire world.
With almost 10 billion people predicted to be living on earth in 30 years’ time, the food system is working hard to feed a growing world.
Here’s how it’s working to do that.
By Zafirah Zein
30 July 2018
The food industry today faces a daunting task: feeding 10 billion mouths in a fair and sustainable way by 2050. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, food supply must more than double in 30 years to provide for the entire world.
One in nine people around the world suffer from hunger today and in Southeast Asia alone, four countries—Myanmar, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam—have the highest levels of malnutrition globally.
But with megatrends such as climate change and rapid urbanization making their impact felt on the food system, it will only become more difficult to ensure affordable, nutritious food for the world.
Changes in weather patterns due to climate change and land degradation, for instance, could lead to drastic declines in agricultural yield to the point it would require an additional 75 million hectares of farmland to make up for the shortfall, according to a recent report by Singapore investment firm Temasek titled Feeding Urban Asia.
Rural-urban migration and rising income levels will mean fewer farmers to till the land, and less space for growing crops as arable land gives way to urban development. Urbanisation has also been linked to increased rates of meat consumption and higher calorie intake per person, increasing the need for the world to produce more calories to keep up.
The search for solutions is urgent. Yannick Foing, global lead, partner engagement in nutrition improvement at DSM Nutritional Products, tells Eco-Business: “We need to work with the public sector, non-government organizations, and consumers, to make sure we are all aligned to the same goal.”
“Can we look into more sustainable sourcing? Can we promote locally grown diversified diets? How can we look at all the sustainable options so that we can have an impact on food security?”
Growing farms in cities
The solution seems simple—if the world’s farmers could intensify farming and become more productive, less land and fewer farmers could meet the production needs for the future. Introducing high-yield crop varieties, increasing the use of fertilizers and improving irrigation of available farmland are methods that have been cited in recent years to help boost agricultural production, especially in developing countries.
But a new study released earlier this year showed that ramping up crop production with the help of pesticides and fertilizers will come at a high cost to smallholder farmers and the environment. While it would increase yields in the short-term, it could also degrade the soil and compromise productivity in the long run, said, authors. Food quality could also be compromised by the extensive use of low-grade fertilizers, which farmers around the world are using to meet high production targets.
“The food system hasn’t really changed much in the last 20 years,” says Gerard Chia, head of business development at VisVires New Protein, a capital venture fund that invests in disruptive technologies for the global food and feed systems. “We’ve always seen an intensification of food production which saw an emphasis on quantity instead of quality.”
How can we look at all the sustainable options so that we can have an impact on food security?
Yannick Foing, global lead, partner engagement in nutrition improvement, DSM Nutritional Products
One new, innovative way of providing food to urban populations that have gained popularity around the world is urban farming, which turns spaces in cities into high-yielding farms.
A rendering of the Floating Ponds vertical fish farm conceptualized by Surbana Jurong and Apollo Aquaculture Group. Their model of urban aquaculture has reported yields six times higher than traditional farming, using the same land area. Image: Surbana Jurong
In Singapore, Apollo Aquaculture Group started a “high-rise” seafood farming project, which produces a yield six times higher than traditional aquaculture farms. Vertical farms—which stack layers of produce on top of one another and combines advanced farming techniques like aeroponics and hydroponics—are becoming more commonplace, from just one in 2012 to seven in 2016. In Japan, urban farmers make up a quarter of farming households, generating one-third of the nation’s agriculture output.
Urban farming as a solution addresses the issue of food security, as well as the major problem of food waste by being close to the end consumer.
“We lose large amounts of food produced on the way to urban centers,” says associate professor Ralph Graichen, who heads the Food and Nutrition, Biomedical Research Council at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore.
In South and Southeast Asia, around 59 percent of food is lost before making it to the dining table due to lack of services and infrastructure, and globally, food lost due to inefficiencies along the supply chain amounts to 65 percent of global food wastage.
Says Graichen: “The further away food is produced, the more we need to invest in preservation and supply chain management.”
The sheer amount of food loss and waste is inspiring new solutions in Asia.
Scientists at A*Star in Singapore have unveiled a new packaging material that extends the shelf life of food by at least 50 percent. A longer shelf life not only helps customers cut food waste at home by making produce last longer; it also limits spoilage during transportation.
Japan is trying to address the issue using data technology by developing an artificial intelligence system that predicts food demand based on weather information and sales data. This aids companies in reducing unnecessary production and eliminating food inventory losses.
By reducing the amount of food waste that leaves the food system, the world could save up to about 1 trillion dollars and make greater strides in strengthening food security.
Working together for the future of food
Ensuring that the next generation is well-fed goes beyond producing enough food. In order to support healthy, thriving populations, feeding the world into the future also requires meeting their nutritional needs.
Various stakeholders in and outside the food and agriculture industry are collaborating to create food products that are both nutritious and affordable for lower-income consumers in Asia-Pacific. For example, DSM in China and India developed fortified rice that looks and tastes similar to normal rice .
Heightened atmospheric CO2 levels might be adversely affecting the nutritional quality of the food we eat, according to a major report by the US Global Change Research Program. Image: Shutterstock
But Foing from DSM recognizes that companies are limited in what they can achieve on their own. “We cannot do it alone— as an industry we have innovative products but we need to partner with others so that we can channel these products to consumers who need it the most,” says Foing.
He added that partnerships between different stakeholders such as business and government, consumers and NGOs, should define the new era of food, considering the drastic changes needed to ensure the industry is up to the challenge of feeding 10 billion mouths. It was this focus on partnerships that led DSM to organize the Sustainable Evidence-based Actions for Change in Singapore, gathering industry professionals, government representatives, academia and civil society to discuss how to provide affordable, accessible and nutritious food to low and middle-income consumers in the region.
“Nutrient dense food [for the masses] is possible if we communicate and educate properly to make it acceptable to consumers. This will help to provide high-nutrient food in the future, even if overall food supply falls,” says Professor Graichen. “We also have to be more open to technology. If we can food produce in an urban environment in the future, supply can be met.
What Is The Impact Of Our Ecological Footprint?
Yesterday, August 1st, was Overshoot Day, the date when mankind's demand for natural resources exceeds the amount of resources that Earth is able to generate in the same year.
Earth Overshoot Day was established in 2006 to make people all over the world more aware of the continual erosion of natural resources. Every year, on a precise date calculated with the aid of a specific index, the point is reached when mankind has consumed all the resources Earth is able to generate that year. Everything consumed after that date is a debt to the environment, which we urgently need to start repaying.
Unfortunately, this date seems to come earlier in the calendar every year (in 1997 it was at the end of September, while last year the date was 2 August). This means that
"every year, these resources are running out at a faster and faster rate.
“To keep our economies running today, we are borrowing resources that will be needed tomorrow. This vicious cycle cannot go on much longer: if we continue this trend, in little more than fifty years we may already have consumed everything available to us" by the start of the year. And what are the consequences for all our lives?", commented Marta Antonelli, Head of the Research Program at BCFN Foundation. Estimates indicate that this year, to satisfy the current demand for natural resources, we are using the equivalent of 1.7 Earths.
But how do we consume these resources? 60% corresponds to the "demand from nature" for the absorption of carbon dioxide emissions. Each one of us could do something to improve the situation even by just changing our approach to food, since the way we produce it accounts for over 30% of our greenhouse gas emissions (more than heating, which generates 23.6% and transport, which is "only” responsible for 18.5% of the greenhouse gases produced worldwide).
To trigger change, the Global Footprint Network suggests solutions for moving the date towards the end of the year (#movethedate) by providing measurement methods, concrete commitments, and a new Ecological Footprint calculator.
And you? What are you doing to move the date towards sustainability?
Chipotle Reopens Ohio Restaurant Following Customer Illnesses
Traci Whittaker, a spokeswoman for the health department in Delaware County, said they had received more than 100 calls related to the investigation.
By Craig Giammona and Shelly Hagan
July 31, 2018
Mexican chain had closed site ‘out of an abundance of caution’
Local health officials say probe into cause continuing
Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. reopened a restaurant in Ohio on Tuesday that was temporarily closed after customers reported getting sick.
The restaurant, located in the city of Powell, was voluntarily closed for cleaning on Monday after local health officials and the company received reports of employees and customers complaining of nausea, diarrhea and cramping. The news sent Chipotle’s shares down as much as 8.5 percent Tuesday as investors grappled with another round of negative headlines tied to the Mexican chain.
A spokeswoman for Chipotle confirmed that the restaurant had reopened. She earlier said the location had been closed out of an “abundance of caution” after the company was told by local officials of two customers complaining of illness.
Traci Whittaker, a spokeswoman for the health department in Delaware County, said they had received more than 100 calls related to the investigation. A cause of the outbreak hasn’t been determined, but “if samples are given and delivered to the lab, we may have results by Friday or the beginning of next week.”
“They are complaints, but nothing can be confirmed without laboratory testing,” Whittaker said, referring to the calls.
After falling for three consecutive years, the Chipotle’s shares had spiked 61 percent in 2018 prior to the news of the illnesses in Ohio. The biggest intraday slide in a month sent the stock as low as $425.88 on Tuesday. Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management is the chain’s biggest shareholder.
The latest round of negative headlines comes amid renewed optimism on Wall Street that the chain can mount a comeback under Chief Executive Officer Brian Niccol, the Taco Bell veteran who took over in March. Prior to Tuesday, the Mexican chain had been recovering from a food-safety crisis that battered its brand. Chipotle recently posted same-stores sales that beat estimates for the second quarter as Niccol starts to reshape the company, with new menu items, increased marketing, a delivery push and store remodels.
The chain was upgraded to buy from hold by Andy Barish, an analyst at Jefferies, in a research note sent to clients early Tuesday. He cited the shift to digital sales and operational improvements that should help boost sales. Barish said Tuesday in an email that he was not changing his view on the company in light of the incident.
This “appears to be an isolated incidence in Ohio,” he said, calling it “obviously unfortunate but not indicative” of the changes and training improvements the chain has put in place.
Local health records available online indicate that restaurant inspectors visited the Ohio restaurant, located about 18 miles north of Columbus, on July 26 and found lettuce and beans that weren’t stored at the proper temperature. The Delaware General Health District, the county agency, said it was notified about three days later that five patrons who ate at the restaurant were sick. They got an additional two reports the next day. The records also indicate that as many as five employees of the restaurant got sick.
Local official visited the restaurant on Tuesday and “did not find anything that would prevent them from opening.”
(Updates with restaurant reopening and info from local health officials.)
These Low-Tech Indoor Gardens Bring Vegetables To Your Kitchen
While some indoor farming companies operate in sprawling buildings–like Aerofarms, with a 70,000-square foot, tech-filled farm inside a former steel mill in Newark, New Jersey–a small startup called Aggressively Organic is focused on increasing indoor farming one square foot at a time.
- 06.29.18
- WORLD CHANGING IDEAS
These Low-Tech Indoor Gardens Bring Vegetables To Your Kitchen
Aggressively Organic wants to improve diets (and fight food insecurity) by making growing your own produce as simple as possible.
[Photo: Aggressively Organic]
While some indoor farming companies operate in sprawling buildings–like Aerofarms, with a 70,000-square foot, tech-filled farm inside a former steel millin Newark, New Jersey–a small startup called Aggressively Organic is focused on increasing indoor farming one square foot at a time. The startup wants to make small kitchen gardens affordable enough to be accessible to everyone, growing kale or tomatoes that can begin to address food insecurity.
The company’s new kits, which will begin shipping to customers in August, come with seeds that someone can plant in a small pod made from coconut coir, a byproduct of making coconut water. After the plants sprout up, the pods get moved to small cardboard containers under lights that come with the system. The company claims that after the initial setup, the system holds in water well enough that it won’t need to be watered again for at least a month. It’s low-tech, unlike some similar systems with sensors that measure soil moisture and automatically water themselves.
[Photo: Aggressively Organic]
“Typically hydroponic systems require pumps and air filters,” says Partlow. “Ours does not. It requires none of that. So that’s how you keep the cost down.” A set of nine hexagonal planters, which nestle together to save space on a counter or bookcase, along with all of the assorted parts of the system and 72 refills of the growth medium and seeds, is currently on pre-order at a sale price of $139; once the plants begin growing, they can be harvested continuously for months.
[Photo: Aggressively Organic]
“We harvest off of a head of lettuce for three months or kale for us six months to a year,” says Partlow. (When leaves are taken off the plant, rather than cutting off the whole plant, the plant keeps growing.) Like an outdoor vegetable garden, it’s cheaper to use than buying organic produce at a grocery store, but because it’s inside, it can be used year-round in any climate. It’s also easier to maintain, uses less water, and doesn’t require the use of pesticides. The company believes that a network of its indoor gardens throughout households would also make the food system more resilient; rather than growing lettuce in drought-prone Arizona and California, where nearly all of it is grown today, it could be grown in the kitchens where it’s eaten.
Partlow aims to make the systems available to everyone, particularly those who are food insecure, though even a price of $139 may be out of reach of someone who relies on food stamps. The company is working on a new service model that would supply customers with a six-pack of plants that are already ready for harvest, and let them exchange the plants as many as 24 times a month, for a cost of around $50, which could be paid either in installments or through SNAP, the government food assistance program.
Growing food at home could also improve nutrition–both because fruits and vegetables lose nutrients as they spend time in long supply chains and because simply having kale visible on your counter may mean you eat more of it.
“What we found is that if it’s available and you don’t have to go to the store to get it, our diets start to resemble more of what our natural diets as human beings have always been, which is we graze,” says Partlow. “Our habits actually change… you eat more vegetables than you would now because it’s available. It takes less time to plant, grow and maintain these things than it takes most people to get dressed and get ready to go to the grocery store and find a parking spot.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adele Peters is a staff writer at Fast Company who focuses on solutions to some of the world's largest problems, from climate change to homelessness. Previously, she worked with GOOD, BioLite, and the Sustainable Products and Solutions program at UC Berkeley.
Another Reason For Indoor Farming
Iraq has banned its farmers from planting summer crops this year as the country grapples with a crippling water shortage that shows few signs of abating.
Iraq Bans Farming Summer Crops As Water Crisis Grows Dire
by Philip Issa | AP July 5, 2018
MISHKHAB, Iraq — Iraq has banned its farmers from planting summer crops this year as the country grapples with a crippling water shortage that shows few signs of abating.
Citing high temperatures and insufficient rains, Dhafer Abdalla, an adviser to Iraq’s Ministry of Water Resources, told The Associated Press that the country has only enough water to irrigate half its farmland this summer.
But farmers fault the government for failing to modernize how it manages water and irrigation, and they blame neighboring Turkey for stopping up the Tigris and Euphrates rivers behind dams it wants to keep building.
The volume of water flowing in these two vital rivers — which together give Iraq its ancient name, Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers — fell by over 60 percent in two decades, according to a 2012 report by the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
“What’s happened this year is a combination of low rainfall, low groundwater, and the new dam that Turkey has built,” said Paul Schlunke, a senior emergency response coordinator for the FAO in Erbil. “It means there’s no water for the south (Iraq).”
The orders against sowing rice, corn, and other crops this summer came as a shock to the towns and villages in the once fertile plains south of Baghdad, where the local economy depends on farming. Nationwide, one in five Iraqis works in agriculture.
In Iraq’s rice belt, the farmland is cracked and dry.
“I feel as though my very existence has been shaken,” said farmer Akeel Kamil as he surveyed his barren fields near the town of Mishkhab.
His 100 dunams — about 25 acres — last year produced 150 tons of Anbar rice, a strain particular to Iraq that is prized for its gentle, floral aroma. This year, the pumps that would be flooding his fields with water are silent, and the irrigation canal that runs by his property is nearly empty.
Flood irrigation has been used in the area for millennia, though FAO has warned of massive water wastage. It and other organizations are calling on the Iraqi government to revamp its approach to agriculture and promote more efficient methods including drip and spray irrigation. Iraq’s Natural Resources Ministry protests it does not have the budget to do that.
Farmers staged demonstrations against the moratorium. In one instance, they forced the closure of a levee along a branch of the Euphrates River to let the water levels rise for irrigation.
They demand the government secure more water from Turkey, fill the country’s reservoirs, and drill into the nation’s aquifers.
“When we protested, no one listened to us. Then we closed the levee, and the police came and the politicians started calling us vandals. Is this how a government behaves with its people?” said Mahdi al-Mhasen, a 48-year-old farmhand in Mishkhab.
The rumblings here will be heard in Baghdad. South Iraq is the popular base of the Shiite blocs that have led Iraqi governments since Saddam Hussein was deposed in 2003. The rice belt hugs Najaf, Shiite Islam’s holiest city, where theologians and politicians have powerful influence.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the highest Shiite authority in Iraq, castigated lawmakers, telling the government it must help farmers and modernize irrigation and agriculture.
In response to the pressure, the government said it reversed its ban on rice farming. But Agriculture Ministry spokesman Hameed al-Naief told the AP that only 5,000 dunams (1,236 acres) of irrigated land could be allocated to the crop this summer, less than 3 percent of the area permitted last year.
The impact of waning water resources is clear around Mishkhab. Local divers and river patrols say their branch of the Euphrates is far shallower than it was this time last year. Green scum collects under bridges where the water has stagnated and fishing boats are stranded on the river bed.
Earlier this summer, video on social media showed the water levels of the Tigris River so low that Iraqis in Baghdad were crossing it on foot.
About 70 percent of Iraq’s water supplies flow in from upstream countries. Turkey is siphoning off an ever-growing share of the Tigris and Euphrates to feed its growing population in a warming climate. And it is building new dams that will further squeeze water availability in Iraq.
Syria is expected to start drawing more water off the Euphrates once it emerges from the yearslong civil war.
Turkey started filling its giant Ilisu Dam upstream in June, then paused the operation until July after pleas from Baghdad. Iraq’s Water Resources Ministry says it has enough water behind the Mosul Dam to guarantee adequate flow for a year, but experts say the Ilisu could take up to three years to fill, depending on rains.
The last moratorium on farming rice came in 2009, but that year farmers were permitted to grow other crops to shore up their income. This year, there is no such reprieve. Though it is OPEC’s third-largest oil producer, Iraq, unlike Saudi Arabia, does not distribute revenues to the general population.
Farmers in Mishkhab say they have little to fall back on with the loss of the summer season’s income. Families that depend on credit to cover their expenses during the growing season are afraid their lenders — shop owners, mechanics, even friends — won’t lend to them this year because they know the rice harvest has been cancelled.
“What will happen to our lands?” asked Kamil, the 42-year-old farmer. “Should we leave them? Should we move to the cities?”
McOutbreak: CDC Investigating McDonald’s Salads
The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, public health and regulatory officials in several states, and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration are investigating a multistate outbreak of Cyclospora infections.
JULY 16, 2018
The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, public health and regulatory officials in several states, and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration are investigating a multistate outbreak of Cyclospora infections.
As of July 13, a total of 61 laboratory-confirmed cases of Cyclospora infection were reported in people who consumed salads from McDonald’s restaurants in seven states: Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Two people have been hospitalized, and no deaths have been reported.
CDC said at this time, there is no evidence to suggest that this cluster of illnesses is related to the ongoing Cyclospora outbreak linked to Del Monte fresh produce vegetable trays.
Illnesses started on or after May 1, and the median illness onset date is June 28. Illnesses that started after June 1 might not have been reported yet due to the time it takes between when a person becomes ill and when the illness is reported. For Cyclospora infections, this can take up to six weeks.
Epidemiologic evidence indicates that salads purchased from McDonald’s restaurants are one likely source of these infections. The investigation is ongoing and FDA is working to determine the source of the ingredients used in the salads served at McDonald’s. The investigation has not identified a single, common ingredient in the salads linked to illness.
State and local health departments are interviewing ill people to find out what foods they ate in the two weeks before they got sick. Many ill people reported eating salads from McDonald’s restaurants located in the Midwest. People reported eating a variety of McDonald’s salads.
McDonald’s is cooperating with the investigation and has voluntarily stopped selling salads in more than 3,000 locations in the following 14 states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
McDonald’s Removes Salads Linked to Intestinal Parasite Outbreak in Midwest
Public health officials in Illinois and Iowa have reported a surge in cases of cyclosporiasis, with at least 15 infections in Iowa and 90 others in Illinois.
McDonald’s Removes Salads Linked to Intestinal Parasite Outbreak in Midwest
McDonald’s said it had stopped selling salads at about 3,000 locations in the Midwest after cases of cyclosporiasis were reported in Iowa and Illinois.CreditKeith Srakocic/Associated Press
By Matthew Haag
- July 13, 2018
McDonald’s pulled salads from 3,000 restaurants in the Midwest after health experts announced that more than 100 people had been infected by an intestinal parasite in recent weeks.
Public health officials in Illinois and Iowa have reported a surge in cases of cyclosporiasis, with at least 15 infections in Iowa and 90 others in Illinois. Everyone who became ill in Iowa and about a quarter of those who became sick in Illinois said they had eaten McDonald’s salads in the days before symptoms appeared, according to the states’ health departments.
“Although a link has been made to salads sold in McDonald’s restaurants in some Illinois cases, public health officials continue to investigate other sources,” Dr. Nirav D. Shah, the director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, said on Thursday.
McDonald’s said Friday that “out of an abundance of caution,” it had stopped selling salads at the restaurants and was working to remove the lettuce from those locations and distribution centers. The company said it was switching to another lettuce supplier at those locations.
“McDonald’s is committed to the highest standards of food safety and quality control,” the company said in a statement. “We are closely monitoring this situation and cooperating with state and federal public health authorities as they further investigate.”
Cyclosporiasis is caused by a microscopic parasite, known as cyclospora, found in food or water that has been contaminated with feces. Although rarely fatal, the infection can cause severe nausea, fatigue, and diarrhea for more than a week. Symptoms typically appear within a few days of infection.
Health officials in both Illinois and Iowa said that people who experienced similar symptoms after eating at McDonald’s should contact a doctor for testing and possible treatment.
The cases in Illinois first appeared in mid-May, while the illnesses in Iowa were more recent, surfacing in late June and early July.
They were announced as state and federal health authorities investigate another outbreak of 225 cases in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin that have been tied to Fresh Del Monte Produce vegetable trays.
Cyclosporiasis has been reported in the United States since the mid-1990s after the country started to import significantly more food, particularly fresh fruit and vegetables. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has investigated more than 2,000 cases of cyclosporiasis since 2000. Past outbreaks have been blamed on basil from Peru, snow peas from Guatemala and cilantro from Mexico.
Follow Matthew Haag on Twitter: @matthewhaag.
A version of this article appears in print on July 13, 2018, on Page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: McDonald’s Stops Selling Salads Tied To Outbreak.