Keynote Motivational Speaker
Keynote and Motivational Speaker
• June 14, 2013: Watsonville California – See What’s Growing On
Master of Ceremonies – “Monterey Bay Greenhouse Growers Open House”
• April 22, 2013: Chicago, Illinois – Food Dialogues
Panelist – “The Straight Story on Biotech in Agriculture: The Media and its Impact on Consumers”
http://www.foodDialogues.com
• October 24, 2012: University California Berkeley – GMO Teachin
Panel of Speakers – Stacy Malkin: California Right to Know Campaign
Ignacio Chapela: Associate Professor, UC Berkeley
Miguel Alteri: Professor, UC Berkeley
Rachel Pachivas: California Right to Know Campaign
Michael Olson: MetroFarm.com, Local Farms Local Food
Jesse Schwartz: President Living Tree Community Foods
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• June 20, 2012: Los Angeles, California – Food Dialogues
Moderator – Meeting of the Minds: Hollywood’s Urban Farm
http://ow.ly/cyAkd
• August 15-17, 2012: Toronto Canada –Toronto Urban Ag Summit
Speaker – Up Against Goliath
http://urbanagsummit.org
• September 10-11, 2012: Bastrop, Texas – Annual Farm & Food Leadership
Keynote Speaker – 2X2 Pledge
http://farmandranchfreedom.org/conference2012-press-release
This unique conference focuses on the policies and regulations affecting our farms and our food. Come hear top speakers on issues such as the Farm Bill, genetically modified foods, corporate control of our food system, health freedom, and much more.
• September 13, 2012: Santa Cruz, California – Central Coast
Small Business Development Center
Speaker – Getting the Most from Your Advertising Dollar
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Food Chain Radio Show
“What’s Eating What” with Michael Olson
Saturday Mornings 9AM Pacific
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Food now travels an average 1,200 miles from farm to fork!
Michael Olson: Author, Syndicated Broadcast Personality and Keynote Speaker
With so much distance between our food and ourselves, we no longer know, nor have any control over what’s in our food. We do get news about our food, which leads us to ask…
How will the price of fuel affect the price of food? Is it safe to eat genetically engineered corn? Why do they want to irradiate meat? Are we running short of water? What will happen if China drives our farmers out of business? How secure is this food chain?
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Food Chain Radio Show #784 • July 28, 2012 • Sat 9AM Pacific
Michael Olson hosts John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of
Agriculture & Applied Economics and
author of The Essentials of Economic Sustainability
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GREEN WITHOUT BROWN?
Can we be green without being brown?
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I am a contrarian.
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When everyone is heading North, I would prefer to be heading South. When everyone is eating arugula in French restaurants, I would prefer to be eating buffalo under the stars. When everyone is wiring up to the latest gadget, I would prefer to be holding a dowser’s forked willow.
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As a contrarian, I tend to admire others who travel the wrong side of the road. One of my all-time favorite contrarians was University of Missouri soil scientist, William Albrecht, who went up against the dominant science of the day with the startling claim that you could not raise healthy people on unhealthy soil.
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The dominant science of the time said, in essence, that civilization could grow all the food it needed with the chemicals developed in WWII, and soil be damned.
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Albrecht did not back down, and so became the contrarian of agriculture, relegated to eating buffalo in the badlands of academia. Though Albrecht passed in 1974, his insistence that we cannot grow good food on bad soil will not go away. And so we ask…
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Can we have a green civilization without brown soil?
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(Food Chain Radio & Forums #784)
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Food Chain Radio Show #776 • May 26, 2012 • Sat 9AM Pacific Michael Olson hosts Daniel Duane, author of How to Cook Like a Man
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FOODIE FANATICS!
How does one become a foodie
without going belly-up?
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We all must eat to live, and so think little about the daily task of hunting down food, processing it into something edible, and then cooking it up into a meal.
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It is what we must do to live… day in, day out, for all of our days.
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But then something happens to some of us, and the entire process of eating to live becomes one of living to eat. We become foodie fanatics!
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For foodie fanatics, food must feed the intellect as well as the body, and so the day-to-day process of hunting down food, processing it into something edible, and then cooking it up into a meal becomes a daily pilgrimage to the Holy Land that can eat up all one’s time and money.
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This fanaticism leads us to ask:
How can one become a foodie without going belly-up?
(Food Chain Radio & Forums #776)
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AN AMISH ALLERGY ANOMALY
Food Chain Radio Show #775 • May 19, 2012
Why do so few Amish have so few allergies?
Suffering from the sneezes, and having an interest in anomalies, the following from Reuters caught my attention:
“Holbreich, an allergist in Indianapolis, has been treating Amish communities in Indiana for two decades, but he noticed that very few Amish actually had any allergies.”
Beyond the interesting notion of an allergist spending decades treating patients with no allergies, there is the simple fact that children raised on Amish farms, under towering clouds of Midwest pollen, have few, if any, allergies.
This calls to mind the Amish autism anomaly we considered back in Food Chain Radio #694. Whereas the incidence of autism in the general population is 1 in 166, in the Amish community it is only 1 in 15,000.
And so we sit down with allergist and immunologist Dr. Mark Holbreich and ask:
Why do so few Amish have so few allergies?
(Food Chain Radio & Forums #775)
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AMERICA’S
FAMILY-LESS FARMS
Food Chain Radio Show #772 • April 28, 2012
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Can the family farm survive without the family?
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The administration of the federal government has ordered its Labor Department to apply child labor laws to America’s family farms.
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Under these child labor laws, children under 18 will be prevented from working “in the storing, marketing, and transporting of farm product raw materials.”
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Children will be prevented from working in “country grain elevators, grain bins, silos, feed lots, stockyards, livestock exchanges, and livestock auctions.”
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Furthermore, the government will revoke approval of safety training and certification courses taught by independent groups like 4-H and FFA and replace them with a federal government training courses.
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This move by the federal government leads us to ask…
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Why is the government applying child labor laws to the family farm?
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What impact will child labor laws have on the ability of children to work on their family’s farm?
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Can the family farm survive without the family?
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(Food Chain Radio & Forums #772)
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FREE GOVERNMENT LUNCH
Should parents be allowed to feed their children?
As a hunter growing up in Montana, I was taught to recognize signs of prey, to read the signs, and then to use the information obtained from the signs to project where that prey might be headed.
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Later, as a journalist working out of California, I was taught to recognize the signs of a story, to read the signs, and then to use information obtained from the signs to project where that story might be headed.
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Here are some signs of a story currently in the news: (1) First Lady demands a healthier school lunch for children. (2) Government inspector confiscates a pre-schooler’s turkey and cheese sandwich and forces that child to eat government-approved chicken nuggets. (3) California politician seeks to ban private food vendors from school grounds. (4) Government funds 5 meals per day for children at local elementary schools.
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Obviously, these signs point to a crisis that will not be allowed to go to waste, and so we look down the road to where the signs point and ask…
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Should parents be allowed to feed their children? (Food Chain Radio & Forums #767)
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BUGS BY THE BILLIONS?
Food Chain Radio Show #763 • February 25, 2012
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Why fear genetically-modified foods?
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A difference of opinion exists as to whether foods that have been modified to contain foreign genes should be labeled as such.
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Some see the vibrant populations of micro-organisms that populate all living foods and ask, “Why the fuss?” There can be, after all, 100 million microbial cells on every square centimeter of plant surface. When we routinely consume billions of bugs with every meal of living food, why should we be concerned about taking the genes of a few of those bugs and using them to re-engineer how a plant goes about living its life?
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Nevertheless, those who do not, for one reason or another, trust in the efficacy of foods that have been re-engineered with foreign genes by commercial interests to perform in unnatural ways, want modified foods to be labeled as such. As a consequence, some 50 nations around the world now require genetically modified organisms to be labeled.
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The difference of opinion leads us to ask…
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Why fear genetically-modified foods? (Food Chain Radio & Forums #763)
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OUT OF THE KNOW ON GMO
by Michael Keith Olson
Copyright 2011
“Are genetically modified organisms safe?”
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With the introduction of their genetically-engineered crops, the Monsanto Corporation, DuPont, and other “crop science” companies have, in a few short years, changed how we grow food. Today, 87 to 90 percent of soybeans, and 75 percent of our corn contain re-engineered genes, and those genes are spreading rapidly throughout the food chain and may soon be contained in just about everything we eat! The rapid acceptance of the re-engineered genes poses an interesting question: Are genetically modified organisms (GMOs) safe to eat?
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Before we discuss the safety of GMOs, let’s take a look at why they have been so readily accepted by those who grow and process our food. Let’s start with me, because like many others, I was a teenage herbicide! I spent many of the summer days of my youth hoeing weeds for farmers in Montana’s Yellowstone River Valley. It was hot, sweaty work, but vitally important. Left unchecked, those weeds I hoed out of existence would have taken the farmers’ sunshine, water, and nutrients, and left the farmers with no crops for their winter.
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But for a young teen with big dreams, hoeing weeds is never much fun. I remember looking up from that hot sticky work to the passenger jets flying over at 35,000 feet, and calling out to them, “Take me away!” Finally, one did.
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The Monsanto Corporation has freed millions from the toil of hoeing weeds in the hot summer sunshine. Monsanto’s glyphosate herbicide, which is sold under the tradename “Roundup,” and its “Roundup-Ready” genetically-engineered crops, make it possible for one farmer to kill millions of weeds in the cool of an air-conditioned tractor. Consequently, Monsanto’s Roundup technologies are used in the production of an overwhelming percentage of the nation’s corn and soybean crops, and as its Roundup-Ready genes spread across the land, America’s youth are freed to pursue more productive interests, like hanging around street corners in hooded sweatshirts.
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There is a lot of money in this new way of growing crops: There is the money saved by not having to hire human herbicides, like me. There is the money paid to purchase millions of tons of chemicals. There is the money paid to rent the patented genes from the Monsanto Corporation, Dupont, and others. This money soon adds up to billions, if not trillions, and maybe even zillions. Simply put, a lot of money wants GMOs to be safe, and that money finds a way to be heard, and respected.
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Though GMOs were rapidly accepted by many producers, many consumers still wonder if they are safe. Let’s begin our search for efficacy at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration where, in 1991, Monsanto attorney Michael R. Taylor became the FDA’s first Deputy Commissioner for Policy. During his tenure as FDA’s Policy chief, Taylor instituted– some say invented– a doctrine called Substantial Equivalence, which says, in effect, that GMOs are safe because they are substantially equivalent to non-GMOs, and thus may be accepted into the nation’s food chain with no studies as to their efficacy. Taylor then left FDA to become Vice President of Monsanto, and then left Monsanto to become the FDA’s Food Safety Czar, where he resides today. The FDA seems to be telling us that GMOs are safe because the Monsanto Corporation says they are safe. And that tells us a lot, does it not?
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Next let’s visit the halls of academia, where we hear many voices being raised in support of GMOs. But wait! What are we to make of Dr. Don Huber, Professor Emeritus of Plant Pathology at Purdue University, who is standing up in the back of the room saying, “Excuse me, but something is not right here!” Huber is saying his research, and that of others, has identified a new microscopic pathogen spawned in Roundup-drenched soils that is causing spontaneous abortion rates of 25 to 45 percent in the animal populations eating the Roundup-Ready GMO crops. You and I look into the eyes of this grandfatherly retired professor at the back of the room and wonder, ‘Is he telling the truth?’ And if he is telling the truth, ‘What will his Monsanto Bug do to us?’
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To be certain, Professor Huber’s assertion of a Monsanto Bug is being met with howls of derision from other academics in the room, many of which also have advanced degrees and impressive credentials in the fields of plant pathology and human physiology. No doubt some of these academics came from Iowa State, which boasts a Monsanto Auditorium and Monsanto-funded graduate fellowships. And some came from Kansas State, where they helped spin off Wildcat Genetics, a side company that sells Roundup-Ready soybean seeds. And so we scratch our heads and wonder which academics to believe.
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I do not know about you, but I want GMOs to be safe. I want everybody to make billions and trillions and zillions of dollars, and I don’t want to spend my summers hoeing weeds in the hot sunshine. I don’t want to believe in Dr. Huber’s Monsanto Bug, and I don’t want to think about what that bug could be doing to the animals that eat GMOs, or to the people who eat the animals that eat the GMOs. However, I just can’t quite get to where I want to be, and must face the fact that I do not know who to believe with respect to the efficacy of GMOs.
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Furthermore, I am reluctant to commit to either side out of fear I will be wrong: If GMOs are accepted as safe, and planted sea to shining sea, Dr. Huber’s microscopic Monsanto Bug might eat us all into extinction. But if GMOs are rejected as dangerous, we might not be able to get rich by growing a lot more food for a lot less money.
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Are GMOs safe? I do not know, but I am as skeptical as a deer in the woods during hunting season.
Michael Olson is the author of MetroFarm: The Guide to Growing for Profit In or Near the City, and host of the nationally-syndicated Food Chain Radio program, both of which can be seen and heard at www.metrofarm.com. (Food Chain Show #739, The Monsanto Bug with Dr. Don Huber, may be accessed on demand.)
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GOVERNMENT-SAFE FOOD
by Michael Olson
Copyright February 26, 2011
“You never let a serious crisis go to waste!”
Rahm Emanuel – Chief of Staff to the President of the United States
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In response to the mass food poisonings caused by Salmonella contaminated eggs from Wright County, Iowa and peanuts the Peanut Corporation of America, as well as E. Coli contaminated spinach from California’s Salad Bowl of the World, Congress passed the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010.
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The Food Safety Modernization Act grants the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) absolute authority to recall any foods it deems unsafe and to inspect all the nation’s food processing facilities. Congress has, in other words, established an army of food regulators and vested it with total control over the nation’s Food Chain.
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Given how poorly large, industrial-scaled processors like Peanut Corporation of America and Wright County Egg have been inspected by the government– which is to say, not at all– many have applauded the takeover. But questions linger about the future of our food chain for those who are curious about what’s eating what:
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Which foods make people sick?
According to the National Institute of Health, 76 million Americans get sick each year from eating contaminated food. There are three possible sources of food poisoning: (1) personal neglect, as in the eating of a spoiled potato salad; (2) local neglect, as in the selling of contaminated greens at a farmers market; and (3) industrial neglect, as in the processing of food in filthy facilities like those of Wright County Egg and Peanut Corporation of America.
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With respect to personal neglect, no government can prevent people from naively, ignorantly, or stupidly eating bad food. The only prevention is to teach individuals how to protect themselves from bad food, and this education must begin at a very early age. Government might teach protection, but government cannot prevent individuals from poisoning themselves. That leaves the FDA’s army to police the local and industrial food sectors for sources of bad food.
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Interestingly enough, the local food sector does not appear to be a problem. In Food Chain Radio #631, I asked attorney Bill Marler of Marler-Clark, a law firm specializing in food safety cases, how many times in his 30-year career of bringing the purveyors of bad food to justice he found local food to be a problem. “None!” he replied, “Local food regulates itself.” Easy to understand: If Farmer Joe sells contaminated spinach to Neighbor Sue, the entire neighborhood will find out about the bad food in ten minutes, and Farmer Joe will be forced out of business.
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When first put forth, the Food Safety Modernization Act contained elaborate safety protocols that would have to be adopted by all food producers and processors. These protocols favored large-scale industrial producers over local producers, as only industrial producers have the economies-of-scale sufficient to spread costs. For example, a $10,000 food safety protocol would cost a 1,000-acre tomato farmer $10 per acre, whereas it would cost a 10-acre tomato farm $1,000 per acre. Quite naturally, the Food Safety Modernization Act became a big hit with industrial-scale producers, who lobbied mightily for its passage because it would drive smaller competitors out of business. However, those in the local food movement fought back by sending millions of missives to representatives in Congress, who responded with Montana Senator Jon Testor’s amendment to exempt local producers with sales of less than $500,000 per year.
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With local producers on one side of Testor’s line-in-the-sand saying they could regulate themselves, and all other producers on the other side of the line saying the law should be applied equally to all, the Food Safety Modernization Act was not an easy bill to pass. In fact, it took the Senate two votes and the House three votes before the amended bill finally squeaked through in the waning hours of Christmas Eve 2010.
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For whom will government make food safe?
Though small producers of local foods have temporarily escaped the grasp of the FDA’s new army of regulators, their fight to survive is certainly not over.
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Government, by its very nature, will go for the money, and the money will always come from producers who have economies-of-scale sufficient to spread costs. A $10,000 political donation, for example, would cost a 1,000-acre tomato farmer $10 per acre, whereas the same donation would cost a 10-acre tomato farmer $1,000 per acre. The bigger the producer, the less it will cost to influence government.
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Nothing in the Food Safety Moderization Act ensures the FDA will act responsibly with its power to inspect and recall. Nor does the Act address the root causes of large-scale contaminations, which appear to be the mass production and processing systems of industrial agriculture. The agency is free, in other words, to enforce its will at will. Which sector, then, will the FDA scrutinize for unsafe food? We can rule out, for the moment at least, those farmers whose scale permits them a Testor exemption. That leaves the very big, who have the economies-of-scale sufficient to donate liberally to politicians, and those in the middle, who are too big to be protected by Testor and too small to donate liberally to politicians. As if to answer the question, Monsanto Corporation’s often-hired gun, Michael Taylor, has been appointed Food Safety Czar by President Obama, and despite there being no study proving the safety of Monsanto’s genetically-engineered alfalfa, the administration recently approved its release into the American food chain.
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Who will be left to provide us with safe food?
If agriculture is like most other industries, and it is, there will soon be only two sources of safe food– the very big and the very small. Medium-sized producers will be inspected and regulated out of business. Competition for our food dollars will then become intense, with the very big contending with their economies-of-scale and government-safe food, and the very small with their Testor-exemption and garden-fresh quality. Which safe food will get your dollars?
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