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.

Meetings at Whole Foods, CNFA and IFPRI at Washington DC

Our day started with a meeting at Whole Food's Market that provides a niche market for natural and organic foods. They make constant endeavours in maintaining high standards of quality, satisfying customers, creating wealth, caring for community and environment, facilitating suppliers, promote healthy eating. One wonders whether such an initiative can be taken up by the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) (to being with, it should be in a small scale but it can expand later) in Andhra Pradesh.

The days second meeting was with CNFA (an acronym for which I did not get the full form). This elusiveness was also evident in my understanding of what they are doing. Their interventions are among poorer regions of Africa, Central Asia and South Asia to increase productivity and give a higher income to farmers. But, it gave me an impression that they are using technologies that have been developed elsewhere and have not been locally grounded. One only hopes that their concerns of global hunger and food security has some good initiatives and it is a laudable. Nevertheless, concerns on immediate benefits and long term ramifications remain. The irony is that the immediate benefit will be shared by many but adverse consequences will only be limited to the local communities.

Outside our itinerary, the participants decided to go to a conference by USDA's 'The Economic Research Service: Celebrating 50 Years' and attended their session 3 'Leading the Study of the Food System'. There were four panelists. David Zorn, 'Understanding the Economics of Food Safety', talked about new technologies and the need for new regulatory systems and research so that consumers can make informed choice. More importantly food safety research has to go beyond presence/absence of germs. Discussions on other aspects of nutrition (sodium, fat, calories among others are equally relevant).

Elise Galon's 'Exploring the Determinants of Food Choice' discussed about What, Where, Why and How of Food and indicated about the affordability of food because of the prices. She touched upon the fact that there is a price variability across regions, but the value of food coupons given to the vulnerable is the same. There is also a need to understand food demand from the perspective of behaviourial economics. In a survey where people were told that the wine is from 'North Dakota' then they sipped and said it is not good. The same wine was given to them and they were told that it is from 'California' then the said that it is very good. These have implication that suggest that the choice the consumer has is 'subjective'.

Steve Carlson's 'Measuring Domestic Food Security' acknowledged the developments in measurement of food security but said that the main picture of hunger is missing in the analysis. What is more, the discussion of numbers misses the richness of information that one can gather from peoples experience and the socio-economic milieu.

Neel Convelin's 'Assessing Global Food Security' raised the global concerns of hunger. When it comes to households the question of distribution cannot be ignored. At the national level policies on trade and development become relevant and at the global level the growth of population should be kept in mind.

One of the questions, which was also in my mind, is that some of the discussions and views expressed here are missing in the policy on global hunger and food security. Are concerns of food safety not relevant there?

The last meeting of the day was at IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute). Guillaue Gruere has been working on South Asia with a focus on technology and has recently written a paper on farmer suicides and Bt cotton. This has reference to some of my earlier work. Kamiljon Akramov was working on development strategy and governance with a focus on Central Asia.

Later in the evening we went to Ford's theatre to see 'Liberty Smith'. It was an enthralling performance. 

Interaction with USDA

USDA or the United States Department of Agriculture is the second largest federal department after Defense. Yesterday (4 May 2011) we had a number of interactions with people working on different aspects. It began with Jeannie Harvey of the Foreign Agricultural Services (FAS) introducing us to various possible research collaborations. There was discuss about 'Feed the Future' a theme which has been coming back in all interactions for which work is already underway for Bangladesh and Nepal (from where we have two of our participants). India also seems to be a part of the scheme indirectly as it wants to provide logistics support in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The day's second meeting was with Dan Lawson of the National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) which is one of the departments with field level officers who interact closely with farmers in providing research and extension, but not on a top down basis - it is the farmer who has to finally decide what is good for him/her after the informtion is provided. However, their experience from the field is that individual farmers want to conserve the same for future generations. The farmers have strong self regulatory norms that would prempt others to impose norms that can be costly for farmers down the line. Time lag and personnel shortage are some of the difficulties that might delay work in some cases. But, a very good initiative that takes farer as the base - there are lessons for other countries.

Next, we had a meeting with the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) formerly known as the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES). Ann Lichens-Park mentioned the relevance of Education (Moral Act passed about 150 years ago), Research (Hatch Act) and Extension (Smith-Lever Act) to make scientific-advances in agriculture to be locally grounded. Their work is organized into five focal areas - global food security and hunger, climate change, sustainable energy, childhood obesety and food safety. And they fund other university and researchers to take up work either independently or collaboratively (see the Coordinated Agricultural Projects that brings in multiple disciplines).

Her colleague R Hedberg who is involved with the sustainability issues under their Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) where even farmers can put up proposals to test some gut feeling. He mentioned about a success story when the farmer came up with some seed variety that has been having a lot of demand from other neighborhood farmers. The focus of sustainablity under this are for human needs, economic, environment and social concerns. Again the two presentation did through of lessons for other countries, that is, research should be grounded with local concerns and based on the principle that the farmer has to decide.

Dane Williams from the Office of the Agreements and Scientific Affairs (OASA) informed us about agricultural trade, the World Trade Organization and the concerns of the United States in havin access to markets. These concerns differ from those of some other countries and how the Doha round has been going on for a long long time.

In the final meeting we again interacted with five people from the FAS whose work was on technology and trade. An implicit view that could be sensed is that exporting technology developed in the developed countries would solve the problem of global hunger and food security. One wishes that it was that simple.

Later in the day we went the to the Smithsonial National Meuseum of Natural History. The best part was the live butterfly park. The displays were wonderful and intersperced with various modes of presentation were very educative. One could spend one full day in the museum and there are many other museums, on American History, on Science, on African culture and on American Indian population among many others. Later in the evening visited the farmer's market at Foggey-Bottom and then went to meet a friend at the Center for Global Development. Came back late in the night. It was a long day.