Two years after the capping of BP's blown Macondo well, effects of the vast spill linger in the Gulf of Mexico. In a study released in April, scientists found heightened levels of heavy metals in the shells, gills, and muscle tissue of Gulf oysters, correlated with the spill. Another study found that BP's errant oil accelerated the loss of marshlands along the Gulf—a devastating blow to coastal ecosystems. Yet a third study found drastic changes in the microbiota that live between grains of sand along beaches, which could entail lasting negative impacts at the base of the Gulf's food chain.

In short, through its bungling and short-sightedness, BP delivered a mammoth and enduring insult to the Gulf of Mexico and the communities and ecosystems clustered along it. Our nation's greatest regional culinary culture is not the least among the spill's victims. Rooted in precisely the body of water BP polluted, Gulf cuisine endures in its glory but can ultimately only be as healthy as the ecosystems that sustain it.

Which is why I find this news item unspeakably sad:

Eight Louisiana and Gulf Coast chefs—including John Folse and Galatoire's executive chef Michael Sichel—are on their way to London. BP will send them to the 2012 Olympic Games host city to fill it with a "dash of spice."

In addition to Folse and Sichel, participating chefs include Chris Poplin (Biloxi's IP Casino Resort Spa), Calvin Coleman (Gulfport's Naomi's Catering), Chris Sherrill (from Orange Beach, Alabama's Eat! and catering company Staycations), and Alec Naman (from Mobile's Naman's Catering).

These chefs may think they're leveraging BP's cash to promote their region on a grand stage. "We wanted to feature the Gulf Coast on an international stage," BP director of Gulf coast media communications Ray Melick told the Montgomery Advertiser. "This was a good opportunity to bring these chefs’ seafood flavors to that stage, reminding everyone that the Gulf Coast is alive and well, and that the seafood is the most-tested and best-tasting anywhere." That last bit describes the real message BP is hiring Gulf chefs to convey: Everything's fine in the post-spill Gulf; the 2010 spill and any ill effects from it are dead and gone.

But as Mississippi's most famous novelist once wrote, "The past isn't dead; it's not even past."

Right-wing critics like to denounce President Obama's supposed penchant for "job-killing regulations." Just last month, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus complained on the conservative blog Red State that "instead of pursuing policies that would help job creators put Americans back to work, he's burdened them with ObamaCare, regulations, and continued threats of higher taxes."

Meanwhile, back here on Planet Earth, the government keeps making industry-friendly regulatory decisions, at least in the food and ag field that I cover. Here's a list of four recent Obama administration bows to the agrichemical and meat industries.

1. It allowed factory farms to remain on the DL.

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency withdrew its own proposed rules that would have required operators of factory-scale livestock operations to report basic information to the agency, such as the number of animals kept, whether manure from the facility is applied on surrounding land, and, if so, how much land is available for manure application.

The problem of routine antibiotic use on factory farms has generated a lot of ink lately—especially after this startling recent report on a possible link between industrial chicken farming and a spate of antibiotic-resistant urinary-tract infections among women.

But what about vaccine use? Concentrated animal feedlot operation (CAFO) operators use antibiotics to help prevent bacterial infections from raging through spaces densely packed with animals (as well as to make the animals grow faster). To address the problem of viral infections, against which antibiotics are ineffective, they turn to vaccines, which get considerably less press.

So, how's the farm bill going? Well, the Senate's version of it "could have been worse," I concluded after it passed, straining for positive things to write about it. The House Agriculture Committee's, though, was a full-on disaster, offering harsh cuts to food aid at a time of high unemployment, fat handouts to big ag, and gratuitous gifts to the biotech/pesticide industry.

The bill is now stalled in the House, in danger of being buried by right-wing backbenchers intent on even deeper food-aid cuts. If the House doesn't vote on it before the August recess, the most likely outcome is an extension of the 2008 bill—and the 2013 Congress will have to start the farm bill process from scratch. Let's be blunt: If that scenario plays out, no matter how the November elections go, we're quite likely to see an equally or more dismal bill emerge next year.

This is tragic. The farm bill, a once-in-five-years piece of legislation, lays out federal food and agriculture policy. At a time of accelerating climate change and other ecosystem crisis, including agriculture-related dead zones in two of our most important fisheries (the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay) the time has come to reassess our food system. Meanwhile, a robust sustainable-agriculture has arisen over the past two decades, developing alternative styles of farming that are highly productive, less polluting, and more resilient to climate change. You might think farm policy would be primed to adjust to these developments. Instead, our legislative process is pushing agribusiness as usual.

A crop duster sprays a soybean field.




Ratatouille, served here over toast and under a fried egg, along side a salad of raw shredded kale.

Ratatouille, a classic dish from southern France, had been confounding me for years. On the one hand, it combines iconic hot-weather produce—squash, eggplant, tomatoes, red peppers, and basil—making it an ideal high-summer dish. On the other hand, I first discovered in in the early '90s, before I had heard of farmers markets or seasonal cooking; and the recipe I used for it required long roasting. Back then, I'd make it in winter from supermarket veggies trucked in from God knows where and serve it with something hearty like polenta. It was actually quite satisfying.

And then for years, as my life turned to gardening, farming, and fixation on the farmers market, I never made ratatouille. I wasn't going to buy tomatoes or eggplant in the winter; nor did I have any desire to heat up my kitchen with a long roast in high summer.

Then, in the process of reviewing Alice Waters' book The Art of Simple Food a few years ago, I stumbled upon her ratatouille recipe, which in place of roasting involves a kind of extended stir fry—still a hot project, but nothing like an oven blazing at 400 degrees. (I've since learned that the Waters' method is the classic method of Provence; no telling where I got the roasting idea).

With peak-of-season produce and good olive oil, ratatouille is a spectacular dish: the brightness of squash, tomatoes, and peppers, the depth of eggplant, and the pungency of onion and garlic, all melted down down into a delicious stew. And it's a wonderful thing to cook on the weekend and have around for the work week. I served it one day as a side dish to grilled chicken breast (cue silly vegan outrage); another day tossed with pasta and chickpeas; and twice for lunch over toast and under a fried egg.

Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), chair of the House ag committee, and "valued partner" of the biotech industry.

Surprising no one, the House agriculture committee has passed a boldly regressive farm bill draft—trumping the recently approved Senate version in generosity to Big Ag and austerity for the people who rely on the food-stamp program (now known as SNAP).  

Summing up the bill's main provisions, Ferd Hoefner, policy director of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, called it an "anti-reform bill—bad for family farmers, rural communities, and the environment."

But the committee added a dash of spice to this acrid stew of a bill that not even a political cynic like me could have predicted: Buried in the depths of the 557-page draft loom 16 pages of riders (see sec. 10011-10014) that, if passed into law, would gut the USDA's already-weak ability to regulate the politically influential agriculture-biotech industry. (If you want to dive deep into the industry-friendly framework of the USDA's GMO oversight, check out these two posts of mine from last year.)





1. Carrageenan

2. Synthetic DHA (a fatty acid)

3. Acidified sodium chlorite

4. Tetrasodium pyrophosphate

5. Ethylene

As the climate warms up and "extreme" events like heat waves and droughts become more common, what will become of food production? I started to examine that question in my last post, published Wednesday. A front-page article in Thursday's New York Times brought a stark reminder of why the topic is crucial. Reports the Times' Monica Davey:

Already, some farmers in Illinois and Missouri have given up on parched and stunted fields, mowing them over. National experts say parts of five corn-growing states, including Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, are experiencing severe or extreme drought conditions. And in at least nine states, conditions in one-fifth to one-half of cornfields have been deemed poor or very poor, federal authorities reported this week, a notable shift from the high expectations of just a month ago.

The message from the Midwest is clear: Chemical-intensive, industrial-scale farming is vulnerable to spells of hot, dry weather—some of the very conditions we can expect to become common as the climate warms. In my last post, I argued that the solution to this problem favored by US policymakers—to keep industrial agriculture humming along with novel seeds engineered for "drought tolerance"—probably won't work.

What might? I think the answer lies outside of some Monsanto-funded university lab and right beneath our feet: in the dirt. Or, more, accurately, in how farmers manage their dirt.