Last day with formal meetings at Sacrameto and Davis

The day was packed with meetings at Glide Ranch, followed by being part of lucheon organized to honour Asia and Pcific Islanders community at USDA, visit to Yolo county Cooperative and Extension Service, brief tour of Farmers Market at Davis and a Home Hospitality at Sacramento.

At Glide Ranch, David Runsten exposed us to his magazine 'Buy Fresh, Buy Local: The Eater's Guide to Local Food'through his Community Alliance with Family Farmers. The concerns of the farmers were echoed and reiteratd the futily of defining a small vs large famers. He also agreed that when the call for 'organic' farming was echoed by the family farmers to create a demand it also has been  taken over by the industrial-mechanical farming group and 'certification' is becoming a costly affair for family farms. He also identified that the increase in productivity in the conventional method is also linked with a decline in nutritional content. These are some similar concerns that we face in India. While we were leaving, he said that Glide Ranches houses a number of offices that work on agriculture related issues and the ranch is a rescue centre for old horses and cattle that the owners do not want to take care off.

Luncheon at the USDA's regional office of Sacramento honouring the asian and pacific islanders was a good time  with different kinds of food and came to know about people from different communites. The Hawaiian are a part of the US, but the Japanese and Sikhs have settled down couple of centuries ago and Hmong came perhaps more recently.

Meeting at the Cooperative Extension  of Yolo revealed that they have been interacting with the community to improve healthy eating and hygenic practices. With demonstration they shouwed to us how less than 20 seconds of cleaning can still leave germs in our hands. However, the absence of link with researchers and the extension workers became evident. It seems that in recent years as extension workers retire their posts are not filled. Current research in universities is more about doing big things in large sizes and this seems to ignore the relevance of the extension officer. This is so because research is also increasingly going away from the farmer.

We moved through the farmers market at Davis observing their wares and fresh products of fruits, vegetables, bakery stuff and many other things. It is a weekly affair and has a demand in  this university town.

The California Crop Improvement Association inspects and certifies seed  growers and tells them whether the seed has followed  adequate norms to maintain purity. Technology is being increasingly used to find out the distance between plots of seed growers. But the distance with commerical crop growers is done with physical verification, it is not linked with other crops/seeds grown, and there are no limits for  cotton and corn. Genetically Engineered crops are going to stay and they are going to spread as the limits will increasingly become ineffective. The end to interesting discussions at Sacramento.

Home hospitality saw interactions with interesting people and good food. A Rabbi indicated that he is working for 'Equal  access to produce (to grow), and equal access to produce (what is grown)' at Fresh Producers. An event manger wanted to facilitate these and told how the Governor's house, which is now owned by Doctors of Indian origin, or her own house can be used for raising awareness. An attorney had her son wanting to go to developing countries to know about issues of deprivation. A financier cum enterpreneur wated to set up agro-processing factories that produce healthy food and also create bio-waste as an alternative to fertilizer.

Risk Management by USDA, Arcadia's Biosciences and Full Circle Farms

The Risk Management Agency at the regional  office of USDA mentioned how for commodities that are indexed at the Chicago market the prices depend on that, but for commodities that are not traded there and local to California such as strawberries, almonds and the like then they use locally collected informtion to arrive at some price. In almost all insturances, the federal government gives a subsidy and the agency managing it collects the remaining premium and fee but in case of payout their liability is only 30-60 per cent depending on the crop and the loss. Premiums are paid for nature induced losses interpreted in a broad way. For instance, following the recent Tsunami in Japan and the nuclear disaster some food items were obsorved to be contaminated (which exactly is not nature related),  but as the outcome was in a sense induced by nature they agreed to pay the insurance amount. On the  possibility of farmer and insurance company colluding, they agreed that it can happen and even identified a case where the individuals involved were asked to repay the money - unfortunately, the farmer and his wife ended their lives.

Meeting with Aracadia biosciences revealed that they work largely with bringing technology related, particularly genetically engineered ones, to find solutions to some presing problems of agriculture - salinity, pesticides, and need for increasing yield among others. They indicated about New Rice for Africa (NERICA), also see its wikipedia page here. On the genetical interventions, many questions do still remain - cost of the technology, disregard for alternatie technologies that can be  costly, and of course health implicatio which can only be known 30/40 years down the line if some research is done. For instance, they tried to address nitrogen fixation by genetic modification and cared less for nitrogen fixation by azola or other cost-efffective measures that are locally feasible. Similarly vitamin A fortification leading to Golden rice can be  supplemented by making the populations available milk, egg, carrots or spinach among others.

In contrast to the above, we also visited Full Circle Farms at Davis. A group of four people have rented the place for 600 dollars and provide vegetables, fruits, nuts or eggs under a commuity supported agriculture scheme to 20 families by charging 20 dollars for a week. The labour put in these farms is much more to the conventional farms that are largely mechanized, but one could relate with similar practices in India. One/two more days at Sacramento, California.

The Capitol at Sacramento and the UC Davis Meat Lab

The highlight of the day was the visit to the state Capitol of California which is just across the road from where we stay, Hyatt, Sacramento. We were taken to the Assembly (lower house) and the Senate (upper house) and then had discussion with the Consusltant for the Senate Committee on Agriculture. A lot of important issues were raised. The budget cut in recent years, the conflicting interests withing agriculture - for instance, citrus groweres do not want bees near them while growing seedless varieties whereas almong growers and bee-keepers would prefer them. The shortage of labour as there have been restrictions on cross-border migration from Southern America.

As the budget is to be decided there were many lobby groups that we saw today. Most important were the teachers who have been reeling under cuts for the last three fours. In fact, last year many teachers lost their jobs and as a result the quality of teaching has been impacting.

The other isues of concern are hunger and homelessness. Almost one in six/seven Americans are facing hunger. And this situation has worsened in the last couple of years. Our discuss with small business and restaurants revaled that business has been poor in the last two years and the difficult part is that they do not see thing being revived in the forseeable future.

We began the day at the University of California Davis Meat Lab where we were told about different processes in slaughtering cattle, lamb, and hog (pig). The United States Departemnt of Agriculture (USDA) inspectors are to be present before an animal is butchered to ensure 'ethical' treatment before being butchered. Well, these are meant to ensure food safety standards. They use some 'foodgrade' chemicals to keep the environment fly free, they keep the digestive tract empty by not feeding tthe animal the previous night to reuduce possibilities of bacteria. After being butchered they are cleaned properly and stored in below 45 degree farhenite to ensure bacteria free environment. An animal can be slaughted under state inspector but that can be used only for personal consumption and cannot be sold in the market.

Meat are graded and those with more fat content and of poor quality are priced the cheapest. These are the ones you will find in fast food and those frequented by the poor leading to greater ill health.  One observed a  homeless man in a bicycle came and put his head into dustbins looking for food. We are in telling times.

Landed in Sacramento

Today has been a long dayLeft Washington DC and reach Sacramento, California. First we took a hoping flight via Chicago to Los Angeles and then a second flight to Sacramento. Unlike in Inida, the passenger in the hoping flight were allowed to go out have food and come back. At LA we had some difficultues because the smaller flight had some technical problem and we had to start after and hours. The time lag between Sacramento and DC is three hours. On the way to LA we saw theGrand Canyon. The most interesting part was when the flight landed in Sacramento, it gave the feeling that we landed in the midst of agricultrual field,

California is the biggest state of the US and if it were an independent country then it would the eitghth largest in terms of economy. It is known for Hollywood, agriculture, gold mines in the earlier years. Here we are put up at the Grand Hayatt, but I do not have easy access to the computer as I had in DC. And hence, I may not write as frequently. Tomorrow we are all heading to Napa Valley to visit wineries. It is time that I take some rest.

Penultimate day at Washington DC

Today is the last day of our official engagement at Washington DC. We began the day by going to Feeding America. Interaction with Sophie Milam brought out many perspectives. Some of the important initiatives by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) are the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and School Meals among others. The poor are more likely to be those who eat unhealthy food, and hence, likely to be obese. These will have adverse implications on health as also life expectancy. Some of the biggest chalenges that they face are budget cuts. She also emphasised the need for a nutritional guidelines.

The next stop was at the United States Agency for International Development. There were discussions on feed the future. In fact, the research strategy is version is uploaded on their website and they want comments from public. They engage with different stakeholders (particularly other governments) in developing strategies to provide technology-enabled assistance. A caution that one would like to give is that in their engagements with many countries, vested interest come into play and that is why it is necessary to invest in people. There are positive experiments world wide in this people-centric initiatives, but these need to be scaled up.

Had lunch at a Thai outlet and then went to Best Buy from where I purchased a phone - for those coming from outside and staying here for a couple of weeks, the go phone by at&t is good. You pay about 10 dollars for the phone (it will not be operational once you leave the country) and another 15 dollars or 25 dollars for refilling. Thee are two interesting schemes - ten cents per minute and 2 dollars per day. I have taken the latter.

After having got the phone I called up Baba (for CDS people he is Prof KKS's son) who came to Pentagon city and picked me and another co-participant from Bangladesh. Touched base with Padma aunty who had just arrived. Came to know that Baba is a farmer (urban bee-keeper). He has sent some honey for people at home in Mumbai/Hyderabad. Later he took us to an Indian store owned by a Telugu speaking person who employed a Tamilian, a Nepali and a Hispanic. All Indian vegetables and food items were available. I picked up chicken biryani from there for my dinner. Tomorrow we fly to Sacramento, California.