Edible Schoolyard educates food council

Edible Schoolyard educates food council

Donna Cavato, the executive director of the Edible Schoolyard program of the Samuel J. Green Charter School in New Orleans, told the Louisiana Sustainable Local Food Policy Council that one way to get children interested in eating vegetables is through a hands-on approach.
Green Charter School hosted the council as it toured the school’s cooking classroom and school garden in early February.
“Our program has three components,” Cavato said. “Our gardening program is where the kids literally dig into the soil and learn how to grow their own food.
Cavato explained that the school’s educational concept illustrates how children learn by doing and can develop an ability to make wise nutrition choices.
“When the children grow a carrot or Brussels sprouts and cook together in the kitchen, they’re eager to try it,” Cavato said. “We have a teaching kitchen where the kids learn how to prepare and enjoy the food they grow as a community at the table”
Cavato was quick to say the program does not automatically result in children who will clear their plate of all vegetables.
“Do all of our kids love vegetables? No, not yet, but they eat all of their fruit and most of their vegetables. It’s a process that you can’t lose sight of.”
Cavato said the Edible Schoolyard program is a component of the teaching philosophy of Firstline Schools, a charter school system that is managing the Green School, Arthur Ashe Charter School, John Dibert Community School and Langston Hughes Academy. Firstline will add a high school to their lineup next year.
Cavato said Green School was flooded by Hurricane Katrina but the Edible Schoolyard program helped bring the neighborhood back.
“The Samuel Green story is the story of rebuilding our school and community through food and the Edible Schoolyard,” Cavato said.
The food policy council met in New Orleans on Feb. 2 at the Tulane Tidewater Building and heard from four parish public school food service representatives and Bill Ludwig, the southwest regional director of the USDA Food and Nutrition Service in Dallas.
Natalie Jayroe of the New Orleans food bank system and David Coffman of Hunger Free Louisiana also spoke at the morning session.
The Louisiana Sustainable Local Food Policy Council is comprised of state agricultural and institutional food stakeholders and is studying ways a sustainable local food policy can be applied to school lunch systems, government assistance programs and Louisiana agriculture.
Ludwig’s goal for school lunch and breakfast programs is lofty.
“My objective is to end hunger in all five states of my region (Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico),” Ludwig said. “When I look at the numbers for Louisiana and see the poverty rate is 17.3 percent and the number of households that are food insecure at 10 percent and that 65 percent of all the schoolchildren in Louisiana are participating in the national school lunch program, I know there is a lot more we can do for these programs.”
Ludwig said less than 50 percent of the children that participate in the lunch program are participating in the breakfast program. He speculated that the busing system and parents have difficulty getting children to school early enough to participate in the breakfast program.
“Hungry children can’t learn and they have disciplinary problems,” Ludwig said. “If you want to do something, help us get those participation rates in the national breakfast program up.”
John Dupre from the Louisiana Department of Education told the panel his department oversees the 140 food service organizations in Louisiana that plan school lunches for public, diocesan and private schools and other institutional groups.
Within the 140 food service groups, more than 1,600 facilities plan and serve 100 million lunches and 40 million breakfasts on an annual basis.
That’s a lot of food and the suppliers must be consistent, reliable and affordable, Dupre said.
The USDA reimburses school systems but also sets the criteria for what constitutes a reimbursable meal. Last year, Louisiana received $250 million from the USDA for its school lunch and breakfast program.
“There are avenues for the Louisiana food grower and the parish food service director to bring in more local foods,” Dupre said. “But it takes planning and both groups need to be invested in the process.”
The council also heard from food service representatives from Ouachita, Lafayette, St. Martin and Jefferson Parish school systems.
Cecilia Enault of Jefferson Parish said her goal was to make the school lunch program better than the one she had as a child.
“Our school system, like many others in the state, is struggling to balance its budget,” Enault said. “We have served Louisiana Gulf shrimp in an okra and shrimp gumbo with Crowley rice and satsumas and strawberries and we prepare those types of familiar foods, but we don’t always have the opportunity to say where these foods are going to come from because of bid requirements.”
Sylvia Dunn of St. Tammany Parish said her schools have achieved the USDA Gold Standard of Distinction.
“On our food bars we have fresh strawberries and watermelon,” Dunn said. “We’d like for those to be Louisiana strawberries and watermelons but we do get those items from California sometimes.”
Dunn also said the best way to teach students how to make wise choices when selecting their food is to offer fresh fruits when they begin kindergarten.
“The children who were eating fresh fruit when they were in kindergarten still want fresh fruit when they are in the ninth grade,” Dunn said.
Because there were so many diverse views presented on how to bring more local food into the school lunch system, State Representative Scott Simon, the chairman of the advisory group, called for the creation of a subcommittee to study the various practices employed by each program in the state.
Simon, of Abita Springs, established the Louisiana Sustainable Local Food Policy Council within the LDAF, during the 2009 legislative session.
Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner Mike Strain will review the findings and present its recommendations to the legislature sometime in 2012.
“The council is identifying opportunities to build a sustainable local food economy,” Strain said. "I believe that a strong local food economy will help stimulate job creation, economic development, preserve open spaces and increase consumer access to fresh, locally grown food.”
“One of the council's goals is to create partnerships throughout the Louisiana food system and open doors for as many of our agricultural producers as possible,” Simon said.

Doha Round can help lift Africa’s agriculture — Lamy

http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/sppl_e/sppl188_e.htm


Doha Round can help lift Africa’s agriculture — Lamy

Director-General Pascal Lamy, in opening the conference on “Harnessing Agriculture for Development through Trade” sponsored by CUTS in Geneva on 21 February 2011, said that “the Doha Round will help level the playing field for Africa, correcting historical injustices in the world trade rule-book”. He also said that “African agriculture needs to become more efficient, and in that efficiency it needs to discover ‘specialization’”. This is what he said:


Ladies and gentlemen,

It is my pleasure to be here with you today. When CUTS invited me to deliver the opening address for the launch of its latest publication on agriculture in Africa, my first instinct was a cautious one. I need to see that publication first, I said. And when I read it, I can assure you, there was no way I was going to decline.

The publication responds to a question that I had put my own staff to research almost as soon as I took up my post at the World Trade Organization: why has Africa become a net-food importer, I asked. What explains this situation? Africa, as you know, became a net-food importer in the 1980s, when the prices of its key commodity exports tumbled and its agriculture slowed down. Its food trade deficit is now in the ballpark of USD 20 billion. The publication that we collectively launch today goes a long way towards answering a question that has long been on my mind. I personally congratulate the authors.

Prior to commenting on the specifics of the publication, and offering my thoughts on African agriculture more generally, I'd like to start by framing the discussion. While it is indeed interesting, if not vital, to understand how Africa moved from being a net-food exporter, to being a net-importer, the goal of this discussion should not be how to bring Africa back to export supremacy. Rather, the goal should be to see how African agriculture can become more efficient and competitive. Efficiency and self-sufficiency are two different concepts.

To explain, a country can have a perfectly efficient and competitive agricultural system but still be an important importer of food, or even a “net-importer.” These issues are not tied. Europe, for example, exports 9% of the world's food, and imports 12%. The United States exports 10% and imports 8%. Being a food export power-house does not preclude being a major importer too.

Students of economics are taught this concept in an amusing way. Take Einstein and his Assistant is what professors often say. Einstein is so incredibly smart, he can do everything better than his Assistant (or, in fact, better than most of us I would say!), all the way from creating science to processing documents. But while Einstein can indeed do everything better, it makes no sense for him to live without an Assistant. It makes no sense for him to become self-sufficient. Why is that? Because while he is able to create 20 times more science than his Assistant per minute, he only outpaces the Assistant by 10 in the processing of documents. The world benefits far more, therefore, when all his time is dedicated to what he is so much better at doing, which is science, than to having him write, type and edit his own letters too!

The same for Africa. African agriculture needs to become more efficient, and in that efficiency it needs to discover “specialization.” It would make no sense for Africa to produce everything for itself, just as it makes no sense for Einstein to process documents too.

I would add another point to the “framing” of the discussion before going to the publication. African agricultural exports, as a fraction of Africa's total merchandise exports, have also fallen sharply over the years. From 1960 to today, that share fell from 42% to 6%. But I would also caution on how we assess this statistic. This, in and of itself, is not a bad sign. In fact, it simply mirrors what has happened at the global level. In 1960, agriculture was about 50% of world trade, and today is only about 6%. All this says is that the world, as well as Africa, have industrialized.

Turning now to the publication, I would say that, through its five country case-studies, it gives us a wealth of information to work with. Amongst its principal findings are that African agriculture has been shackled by: (1) colonial patterns of trade that have locked Africa into commodity exports; and (2) macroeconomic and trade policies aimed at import-substitution and food self-sufficiency that have achieved the exact opposite of their goal. In taxing agriculture, and shielding it from international competition, these policies made African agriculture less competitive. In Africa, Einstein became, at once, the creator of science and the documents processor; producing much less science than before.

The publication documents incredible infrastructural bottlenecks in Africa, which for trade in perishables is a very serious problem. It also documents the limited regional food trade that exists in Africa, sometimes because of a lack of product complementarity, but sometimes also because of a simple lack of regional integration. And I have often heard it be said that it is a shame that a food-surplus country can sit, side-by-side, with a food-deficit country in Africa, and be unable to trade. Shortages to agricultural inputs are also a problem, many of which are imported. In fact, from first-hand experience, I know that animal vaccines and improved seeds in Africa are often considered a luxury.

The publication also puts an astonishing statistic on the table. It says, I quote, that “about 80% of trade in agricultural produce and food in the East African region is informal and not statistically recorded.” Clearly, these are all issues that are in need of our urgent attention.

Stagnant agriculture, combined with a population growth rate in the continent that is higher than the world average, is obviously leading to food insecurity. The publication tells us, for instance, that food prices in Kenya are amongst the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, as you all know, expenditure on food in Africa is a very high percentage of total expenditure, and much higher than in the OECD. In Gabon, it is about 50% of the total expenditure. Clearly, therefore, food security is also about food “affordability.” Greater competition and international trade helps brings down the price of food.

And I have often disagreed with the United Nations Rapporteur on the Right to Food, when he has said that (I quote) “the world needs to end its addiction to cheap food.” In many parts of the world, people pray that their food will become cheaper.

African agriculture has clearly gone through various phases. A phase of state-control and import substitution in the 1960s, in which Africa's food-deficit started building, followed by the Structural Adjustment era of the 1980s. This era was marked by the gradual privatization of state-owned farms, and the dismantling of marketing boards for key commodities. However, Africa's food-deficit has persisted. But what preoccupies me the most is that its agricultural productivity continues to languish.

The CUTS study sets out a very important menu of recommendations for our consideration. The need to increase agricultural productivity, to promote regional trade, to “facilitate” trade through better infrastructure, and the need to educate and build the capacities of farmers and traders. But the need to rapidly conclude the Doha Round of trade negotiations features too in this menu. It is referred to as a priority.

Contrary to what some have been saying about international trade somehow being responsible for the plight of African agriculture, this publication as well as several others demonstrate that import-substitution policies and lack of investment in agriculture have been the principal culprits.

In my view, here is how the Doha Round can make a modest contribution to helping lift Africa's agriculture. It will give least-developed countries duty-free, quota-free, access to export markets. It will deal with the colonial patterns of trade referred to in the study by reducing the phenomenon of tariff escalation. The high tariffs imposed on processed coffee and chocolate, relative to coffee and cocoa powder, for example. The Doha Round will also reduce the subsidies of the rich world that have made it difficult for Africa to compete on international markets, and flooded African markets with cheap imports. Yes the world needs cheaper food, but food that is produced under conditions of fair competition. In short, the Doha Round will help level the playing field for Africa, correcting historical injustices in the world trade rule-book.

Through Aid for Trade, it is also my hope that the WTO will help address some of the infrastructural bottlenecks that the CUTS study refers to. In an Aid for Trade success story, we have managed for example to better link Mali's mango exports to markets, through the introduction of refrigerated containers. We have managed in Lesotho to help farmers add value to mushrooms by exploring and exploiting their medicinal potential. But, clearly, there is much more for us to do.

Ladies and gentlemen, let greater efficiency be the aim. And I will certainly be apprising myself of your deliberations today. A final word of congratulations to Pradeep Mehta for his tireless efforts to shed more light, through CUTS, on what are complex debates.

It is my pleasure to be here with you today. When CUTS invited me to deliver the opening address for the launch of its latest publication on agriculture in Africa, my first instinct was a cautious one. I need to see that publication first, I said. And when I read it, I can assure you, there was no way I was going to decline.

The publication responds to a question that I had put my own staff to research almost as soon as I took up my post at the World Trade Organization: why has Africa become a net-food importer, I asked. What explains this situation? Africa, as you know, became a net-food importer in the 1980s, when the prices of its key commodity exports tumbled and its agriculture slowed down. Its food trade deficit is now in the ballpark of USD 20 billion. The publication that we collectively launch today goes a long way towards answering a question that has long been on my mind. I personally congratulate the authors.

Prior to commenting on the specifics of the publication, and offering my thoughts on African agriculture more generally, I'd like to start by framing the discussion. While it is indeed interesting, if not vital, to understand how Africa moved from being a net-food exporter, to being a net-importer, the goal of this discussion should not be how to bring Africa back to export supremacy. Rather, the goal should be to see how African agriculture can become more efficient and competitive. Efficiency and self-sufficiency are two different concepts.

To explain, a country can have a perfectly efficient and competitive agricultural system but still be an important importer of food, or even a “net-importer.” These issues are not tied. Europe, for example, exports 9% of the world's food, and imports 12%. The United States exports 10% and imports 8%. Being a food export power-house, does not preclude being a major importer too.

Students of economics are taught this concept in an amusing way. Take Einstein and his Assistant, is what professors often say. Einstein is so incredibly smart, he can do everything better than his Assistant (or, in fact, better than most of us I would say!), all the way from creating science to processing documents. But while Einstein can indeed do everything better, it makes no sense for him to live without an Assistant. It makes no sense for him to become self-sufficient. Why is that? Because while he is able to create 20 times more science than his Assistant per minute, he only outpaces the Assistant by 10, in the processing of documents. The world benefits far more, therefore, when all his time is dedicated to what he is so much better at doing, which is science, than to having him write, type and edit his own letters too!

The same for Africa. African agriculture needs to become more efficient, and in that efficiency it needs to discover “specialization.” It would make no sense for Africa to produce everything for itself, just as makes no sense for Einstein to process documents too.

I would add another point to the “framing” of the discussion, before going to the publication. African agricultural exports, as a fraction of Africa's total merchandise exports, have also fallen sharply over the years. From 1960 to today, that share fell from 42% to 6%. But I would also caution on how we assess this statistic. This, in and of itself, is not a bad sign. In fact, it simply mirrors what has happened at the global level. In 1960, agriculture was about 50% world trade, and today is only about 6%. All this says is that the world, as well as Africa, have industrialized.

Turning now to the publication, I would say that, through its 5 country case-studies, it gives us a wealth of information to work with. Amongst its principal findings are that African agriculture has been shackled by: (1) colonial patterns of trade, that have locked Africa into commodity exports; and (2) macroeconomic and trade policies aimed at import-substitution and food self-sufficiency, that have achieved the exact opposite of their goal. In taxing agriculture, and shielding it from international competition, these policies made African agriculture less competitive. In Africa, Einstein became, at once, the creator of science and the documents processor; producing much less science than before.

The publication documents incredible infrastructural bottlenecks in Africa, which for trade in perishables, is a very serious problem. It also documents the limited regional food trade that exists in Africa, sometimes because of a lack of product complementarity, but sometimes also because of a simple lack of regional integration. And I have often heard it be said that it is a shame that a food-surplus country can sit, side-by-side, with a food-deficit country in Africa, and be unable to trade. Shortages to agricultural inputs are also problem, many of which are imported. In fact, from first-hand experience, I know that animal vaccines and improved seeds in Africa, are often considered a luxury.

The publication also puts an astonishing statistic on the table. It says, I quote, that “about 80% of trade in agricultural produce and food in the East African region is informal and not statistically recorded.” Clearly, these are all issues that are in need of our urgent attention.

Stagnant agriculture, combined with a population growth rate in the continent that is higher than the world average, is obviously leading to food insecurity. The publication tells us, for instance, that food prices in Kenya are amongst the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, as you all know, expenditure on food in Africa is very high percentage of total expenditure, and much higher than in the OECD. In Gabon, it is about 50% of the total expenditure. Clearly, therefore, food security is also about food “affordability.” Greater competition and international trade, helps brings down the price of food.

And I have often disagreed with the United Nations Rapporteur on the Right to Food, when he has said that (I quote) “the world needs to end its addiction to cheap food.” In many parts of the world, people pray that their food will become cheaper.

African agriculture has clearly gone through various phases. A phase of state-control and import substitution in the 1960s, in which Africa's food-deficit started building, followed by the Structural Adjustment era of the 1980s. This era was marked by the gradual privatization of state-owned farms, and the dismantling of marketing boards for key commodities. However, Africa's food-deficit has persisted. But what preoccupies me the most, is that its agricultural productivity continues to languish.

The CUTS study sets out a very important menu of recommendations for our consideration. The need to increase agricultural productivity, to promote regional trade, to “facilitate” trade through better infrastructure, and the need to educate and build the capacities of farmers and traders. But the need to rapidly conclude the Doha Round of trade negotiations features too in this menu. It is referred to as a priority.

Contrary to what some have been saying about international trade somehow being responsible for the plight of African agriculture, this publication as well as several others, demonstrate that import-substitution policies and lack of investment in agriculture have been the principal culprits.

In my view, here is how the Doha Round can make a modest contribution to helping lift Africa's agriculture. It will give Least-Developed Countries duty-free, quota-free, access to export markets. It will deal with the colonial patterns of trade referred to in the study, by reducing the phenomenon of tariff escalation. The high tariffs imposed on processed coffee and chocolate, relative to coffee and cocoa powder, for example. The Doha Round will also reduce the subsidies of the rich world, that have made it difficult for Africa to compete on international markets, and flooded African markets with cheap imports. Yes the world needs cheaper food, but food that is produced under conditions of fair competition. In short, the Doha Round will help level the playing the field for Africa, correcting historical injustices in the world trade rule-book.

Through Aid-for-Trade, it is also my hope that the WTO will help address some of the infrastructural bottlenecks that the CUTS study refers to. In an Aid-for-Trade success story, we have managed for example to better link Mali's mango exports to markets, through the introduction of refrigerated containers. We have managed in Lesotho, to help farmers add value to mushrooms by exploring and exploiting their medicinal potential. But, clearly, there is much more for us to do.

Ladies and gentlemen, let greater efficiency be the aim. And I will certainly be apprising myself of your deliberations today. A final word of congratulations to Pradeep Mehta for his tireless efforts to shed more light, through CUTS, on what are complex debates.