Grocery Update Volume 2, #12: Are Fossil Fuels The Lifeblood of The Food Supply?
And Lots More: Was MAHA Worth It? Grocery Co-ops To The Rescue. Why "Glyphosate Free" Is Not Enough. And Y'all Means All.
Discontents: Some Brief Thoughts: Why Y’all Means All. And Was MAHA Worth It? Features: 1. Why Glyphosate Free Is Not Enough. 2. Are Fossil Fuels The Lifeblood of The Food Supply? 3. Grocery Co-ops to The Rescue.
This issue is dedicated to the folks physically monitoring, documenting and protesting ICE/CBP raids. You make America great.
Some Brief Stuff.
First: Our fellow Texans have experienced a terrible, climate-change induced extreme weather event.
Flooding in Kerrville has killed over 100, including many children. For those that haven’t been there, the Hill Country is like the Catskills or Marin County of central Texas, beautiful rolling hills and cool rivers just a couple hours from major cities. Like the floods in Asheville, Iowa or Vermont, it is hard to comprehend the loss. Each of us could be in that situation at anytime, especially with the Republican budget cuts to vital services like NOAA, National Weather Service and more. Texas is a big, beautiful, diverse place. But catastrophic weather doesn’t care about blue states or red states. It is up to us to take care of each other.
Here are some local resources, more here, and even more. Please do what you can. Y’all means all!
Next: Was MAHA Worth It?
Big shout out to all the Trump-endorsing wellness influencers, brand leaders and healthy lifestyle marketers who stayed silent or ran interference for the largest upward transfer of wealth from working families to the ultra wealthy in human history, plus over $200 billion in SNAP food security cuts, tens of billions in new subsidies for agrochemicals, factory farms and industrial agriculture, and $170 billion of increased funding for immigrant detention, violation of civil liberties and mass deportation, making CBP and ICE among the largest armed forces in the world, as big as Russia’s total military budget, all on top of a trillion dollar Pentagon budget. Meanwhile, 70% of California farmworkers are steering clear of their workplaces lest they get gulag’d while picking your tomatoes and berries. #MAHA!
Marion Nestle likewise partially documents the damage (via Kevin Klatt):
Cut $1 billion from USDA for local food purchases for school lunch and food bank
Proposed a 40% cut to the NIH budget (which pays for nutrition research)
Cut WIC fruit and vegetable benefits.
Cut landmark nutrition trials such as the Diabetes Prevention Program.
Defunded major nutrition departments, like Harvard’s.
Cut several molecular & community nutrition grants at Cornell.
Disrupted lead exposure programs.
Cut FDA and CDC, including the human foods program HFP and food safety lab funding and staff (some reinstated).
Or this nonsense from the USDA Secretary, a political appointee with no prior food or agriculture experience:
Were voluntary commitments from some Big CPGs to remove artificial colors worth all of this? Looking forward to that #MAHA report in August.
And: As always, we stand in solidarity with all the folks out there facing food insecurity, working in the food industry for poverty wages or nervous that they or loved ones will be snatched up by ICE and deported to gulags in Florida, El Salvador, Guantanamo Bay or parts unknown. We got your back.
And HELP WANTED: DOES THE WATERBED EFFECT EXIST?
The waterbed effect is a theory by antitrust scholars and independent retail advocates that lower prices at market monopolies forces prices up to the rest of the market. But we have never seen the math.
We are looking for emerging brands or indie grocers willing to share data to prove whether or not selling into mass merchants, discounters or other market segment bottlenecks (like Whole Foods/UNFI or Sprouts/KeHe) lowers margins that must be made up elsewhere in the form of higher prices to other retailers or passed along in some form to consumers.
We will keep data and contact info anonymous and confidential.
Features:
1. “Glyphosate Free” Is Not Enough. Why?Because Diquat Is Worse.
Glyphosate, the active ingredient in both RoundUp weedkiller and used across hundreds of millions of acres of RoundUp resistant genetically modified corn, soy, alfalfa, canola and more, is widely believed to very bad, subject to billion dollar lawsuits and settlements, and linked to many kinds of cancer and other non-communicable, chronic and fatal diseases impacting farmers, farmworkers, landscapers, homeowners and consumers, pretty much everyone.
But just getting rid of glyphosate is not enough. Some certifications do just that, guaranteeing food that is produced without this chemical bogeyman. But farmers planting and harvesting thousands of acres of monoculture, genetically modified corn and soy will just switch their glyphosate out for something worse, namely paraquat or diquat.
Recent research now details have bad diquat actually is.
Diquat is about 200 times more toxic than glyphosate, in terms of chronic exposure.
Diquat can kill gut bacteria and damage organs in multiple ways. Diquat is possibly a neurotoxin, carcinogen and may be linked to Parkinson’s disease.
“From a human health perspective, this stuff is quite a bit nastier than glyphosate so we’re seeing a regrettable substitution, and the ineffective regulatory structure is allowing it,” said Nathan Donley, science director with the Center For Biological Diversity.
Diquat is banned in the UK, EU, China and many other countries- but not the U.S. The EPA is hook, line and sinkered by the agrochemical lobby, and is still mostly laughing off the #MAHA crowd. The EPA is not yet seriously scrutinizing this toxin.
Diquat damages organs and gut bacteria by reducing the proteins that are key pieces of the gut lining. This allow toxins and pathogens to move from the stomach into the bloodstream, and trigger inflammation in the intestines and throughout the body. Meanwhile, diquat inhibits production of beneficial bacteria that maintains the gut lining, which then inhibits the absorption of nutrients and energy metabolism, the authors said.
Diquat also harms the kidneys, lungs and liver, by destroying kidney and liver cells’ membranes and interfere with cell signals and causes the production of proteins that inflames the liver. Diquat can also trigger inflammation in the lungs and may cause organ systems to fail.
This is the agrochemical treadmill that our food system is all addicted to, starting with the farmers dousing their crops to suppress weeds and bugs.
This is why just getting rid of glyphosate is not enough. Even many so-called regenerative and no-till farmers still use toxic amounts of such weedkillers, and such chemicals are still allowed in leading regenerative certifications.
Only organic, biodynamic and regenerative organic productions systems are the most effective means to exclude toxins such as glyphosate and diaquat from food production.
Likewise, peasant agroecological producers in Global South countries have developed productive cropping systems that don’t need to poison the soil, farmworkers and end consumers, or rely on market based certifications that tack on additional costs and raise food prices.
We need to detoxify our food system in order to detoxify ourselves. No amount of self-care will free us from the agrochemical treadmill.
We need a just transition to organic and agroecological systems that emphasizes soil health, biodiversity, human health, minimal food processing and economic fairness, and not just playing whack-a-mole with individual herbicides.
Or we can keeping getting sick and dying from the myriad illnesses caused by the agrochemicals in our food. It’s not a tough choice.
2. Fuel To Fork:
What will it take to get fossil fuels out of our food systems?
A New Report From IPES-Food, with an exclusive introduction below by Errol Schweizer.
IPES-Food is an international expert panel composed of members from all over the world, primarily Global South and European scholars, social movement leaders and food producers. Errol Schweizer is a member of IPES-Food and contributed to this report.
Fossil fuels are – disturbingly – the lifeblood of the food industry.
From how food is grown, processed, and packaged to how it's refrigerated and delivered, nearly every step is fossil fuel-based.
Introduction:
Just think about your trip to the grocery store. You just bought a bag of salad, a bag of potato chips, a squeeze bottle of mustard and a pack of hot dogs.
The salad, picked by farmworkers commuting to work in gas powered trucks, the salad washed and sorted by fossil-fuel powered machines, bagged in clear poly plastic bags, transported to wholesalers and retailers in diesel powered trucks, shrink-wrapped in plastic poly, then merchandised in refrigerated store coolers powered mostly by fossil fuels.
The potatoes, grown with the use of fossil-derived nitrogenous fertilizers and sprayed with fossil-derived pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, and harvested by diesel powered tractors, washed and sorted by fossil fuel powered machines, transported to processors on diesel-powered trucks, sliced, deep fried, cooled and sorted by fossil-fuel powered processing lines, packaged in foil-lines plastic, boxed up and shrink-wrapped in clear poly plastic, transported to wholesalers and retailers on mostly diesel powered trucks.
The hot dogs, made from beef fed diets of genetically modified corn and soy, the crops grown through the use of fossil fuel based nitrogenous fertilizers and heavily sprayed with herbicides and pesticides partially derived from fossil fuels, the fattened cows transported on diesel trucks or coal powered rail cars, to abattoirs powered by fossil fuels, the cow parts wrapped in plastic poly wrap, the cases shrink wrapped in plastic poly wrap and transported to wholesalers and retailers on diesel trucks, where they are unwrapped, cut and displayed in refrigerated coolers or re-wrapped in plastic vaccuum-sealed packaging for display in freezers, all powered primarily by fossil fuels.
This is our food system, grown, sprayed, wrapped, processed, transported and powered by fossil fuels.
Fuel To Fork: Report Summary.
Fossil fuels are deeply embedded in every part of the food chain – accounting for at least 15% of total fossil fuel use globally – and their use in food systems is accelerating. As fossil fuel extraction continues to expand, and decarbonization strategies focus on energy and transport, the oil and gas industry is increasingly turning to petrochemicals – particularly agrochemicals and plastic food packaging – as its next growth frontier. Governments agreed at COP28 to “transition away from fossil fuels,” yet action on food systems is missing.
“The food system isn’t just a supply chain. It’s a system that makes fossil-fueled farming, plastic packaging, and ultra-processing feel perfectly normal. Fossil fuels are there every step of the way, making normal some of the weirdest things about the way we eat.” -Raj Patel
Fossil-based fertilizers and plastic food packaging have become critical lifelines for oil and gas companies, offering a new way to keep fossil fuels flowing even as other sectors begin to decarbonize. Ultra-processed foods are the ultimate expression of fossil-fueled food systems – born from commodity crops produced with fossil-based agrochemicals, harvested with fossil-fueled machinery, shaped by energy-intensive industrial processing, wrapped in layers of plastic packaging, and shipped around the world.
At the same time, major agribusiness corporations are aggressively pushing solutions that only deepen dependency on fossil fuels and agrochemicals while introducing new environmental and public health risks. Meanwhile major food corporations are actively working to block or weaken environmental and public health policies aimed at reducing plastic use and curbing ultra-processed foods.
“The real food desert is the one in our guts. Ultra-processed foods and the narrowness of the food system have wiped out the microbial diversity in our guts. The long-term nutritional and mental health impacts are only just being explored.”- Pat Mooney
We can’t tackle climate change unless we get fossil fuels out of food systems, yet this remains a major blind spot in climate and food policy debates.
Key findings from the report include:
40% of all global petrochemicals are consumed by food systems, mainly in the form of synthetic fertilizers and plastic packaging for food and beverages.
One-third of all petrochemicals go toward producing synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, making them the single biggest fossil fuel consumer in agriculture.
99% of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides are derived from fossil fuels.
At least 3.5% of global plastics are used in food production, and 10% in food and drink packaging.
Fossil fuel-dependent food systems are dangerously vulnerable to price shocks, with spikes in the price of oil and gas triggering surges in fertilizer and food prices – putting millions at risk of hunger.
“For every dollar spent on food in the US, more than two dollars go to cleaning up its consequences – from healthcare and worker exploitation to environmental destruction and climate change. These hidden costs are concealed deliberately and effectively by the food industry.” -Raj Patel
While food transportation relies on fossil fuels, its role is relatively small compared to the broader fossil fuel footprint of food systems, and it is rapidly electrifying.
Industry-promoted ‘blue’ ammonia fertilizers, ‘synthetic biology’ approaches, and high-tech, digital farming tools are expensive, energy-intensive, and risk keeping food systems tethered to fossil fuels and farmers dependent on agrochemicals.
These technologies are controlled by a handful of powerful corporations, locking farmers into industrial monoculture systems, and deepening existing power imbalances in food systems.
Most of the bioplastics introduced to replace conventional plastics are made from industrially-grown food crops and synthetic chemicals. They can leach harmful chemicals into the environment, and may compete with food production for land and resources.
“Over half of the minerals needed for the energy transition are located on or near lands of Indigenous and peasant peoples. The green energy transition must be decolonized. We don't want to exchange one form of exploitation for another.” -Nnimmo Bassey
Food systems are a critical front in the fight against fossil fuels.
“Agroecology isn’t just about switching to natural inputs. It’s about reestablishing biological relationships and ecological functions, feeding the soil, and recycling nutrients.” -Georgina Catacora-Vargas
To break industrial food’s fossil fuel addiction, we must phase out agrochemicals, and scale up agroecological farming, local food supply chains, and healthy food environments. This transition is already underway, and if accelerated, it can deliver healthier, more just and climate-resilient food systems.
“The future of the planet is inseparable from the future of the working class – and if we ignore that, we end up with climate solutions that just punish the working class.” -Raj Patel
What it will take to get fossil fuels out of food systems:
Rein in corporate power and democratize food systems governance: The first thing we need to do is break up the big food processors and retailers. None of the changes we're discussing will matter unless we do that – they absorb all the oxygen, all the energy, all the capital.
Advance a just energy transition that expands and equitably distributes renewable energy;
Phase out agrochemicals;
Promote agroecological farming;
Rebuild local food supply chains;
Reduce plastic by scaling up reuse systems and holding corporations accountable;
Cut ultra-processed food consumption and build healthy food access;
Scale up clean and electric cooking and eliminate food waste.
“Until we stop fossil fuel extraction, we are going to be stuck. Renewables are just augmenting fossil fuels for now, not replacing them significantly.” -Molly Anderson
3. Grocery Co-ops to The Rescue.
By Sara Willa Ernst
Sara Willa Ernst is a freelance writer based in Austin. Before that, she was the health reporter at the NPR station in Houston. Her radio stories have aired on shows like NPR’s All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, The Texas Standard and WHYY’s The Pulse. She has reported and produced two podcasts “Hot Stops” and “Below the Waterlines.” The latter won her two regional Murrow awards in 2023.
Published with permission from the Austin Free Press.
Rising University of Texas senior Salem Black (they/them) has managed campus life fine without a car. On foot, they get to class, visit friends at the 21st Street Co-op, and study at local haunt Tweedy’s Bar. Black lives in the dense West Campus neighborhood, where everything seems to be in walking distance — except a grocery.
Neighborhood food stores are limited to a mini-Target on Guadalupe Street and a smattering of convenience stores with little-to-no fresh produce. Black, who relies on a scholarship and university food stipend, sticks to a grocery budget of roughly $70 per week.
“I can either pay a lot more money to get the groceries through Instacart or (go to the) Target and Orange Market,” they said. “Or I just cross my fingers that somebody (with a car) goes to the grocery store at the same time I do.” Alternately, “I just go hungry or I will eat at a friend’s apartment.
Black is not alone. “Most people end up eating basically out of the convenience stores and out of very overpriced restaurants,” said Grant Gilker. A recent UT graduate, Gilker chairs the board of College Houses, which runs seven co-op housing buildings near campus. The convenience stores are “hugely overpriced and mostly sell alcohol and snack foods.”
This problem afflicting thousands of carless, off-campus students could be relieved in the coming years if all goes well. Wheatsville Food Co-op and College Houses are working on a plan to open a grocery in the West Campus food desert.
The two co-ops are exploring the possibility of redeveloping one of the older College Houses properties into a mixed-use property with a street-level grocery below and student housing above. A West Campus Wheatsville likely would cover about 5,000 square feet, smaller than the existing Wheatsville store on Guadalupe Street, and one-fifth the size of its South Lamar Boulevard location.
Wheatsville Food Co-op General Manager Bill Bickford says that the new store would offer fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh meat and dairy, shelf-stable products, and such prepared deli foods as sandwiches, bowls and salads.
“It will be a dense store with streamlined selection,” Bickford said. “We would still want to carry all of your basic produce needs. However, instead of having, say, eight varieties of apples, maybe there are three … Instead of five types of pasta sauce, there might just be one line.”
The proposed store would be a small “satellite” that relies on the South Lamar Wheatsville to prepare grab-and-go meals in its commercial kitchen and to provide products only sold to larger-volume retailers. Bickford said he can see the store filling perhaps 85 percent of someone’s grocery needs.
“We want to appeal to everyone in West Campus as an option for fresh groceries,” Bickford said. “I think we want to be something that is relatively small, shoppable, comfortable, but also has some of the fresh food options that the convenience (store) options lack.”
In co-op member meeting discussions of the idea, College Houses Executive Director Daniel Miller said, “People were really enthusiastic about having groceries in West Campus.”
Given the high demand in West Campus, why doesn’t it already have a grocery? A key problem is the area’s high “occupancy costs” for such things as rent, mortgages and property taxes, said Errol Schweizer, a former Whole Foods Vice President who opened that company’s North Lamar Boulevard store. This self-described “grocery nerd” writes a Forbes column and a Substack entitled “The Checkout.”
Retail space along West Campus’ Guadalupe Street “Drag” rents for $66 per square foot compared to $40 for similar space on East Caesar Chavez Street.
What’s likely to succeed in West campus is something “more like a New York City retail format,” Schweizer said. “In dense urban neighborhoods, these supermarkets are small and tight. There’s just a ton of product packed into these stores. They just have a higher sales per square foot and foot traffic. They don’t have this large, spacious layout like H-E-B Hancock or your typical Whole Foods.”
Schweizer says Wheatsville, which started on West Campus, is a good fit for that area.
“Austin’s grocery market is highly competitive and highly consolidated. Seventy-five percent of all grocery sales in Austin are just H-E-B and Walmart,” Schweizer said. “A small operator like Wheatsville has a huge opportunity relative to their size to go into this type of neighborhood, which has their demographic.”
In April the city of Austin proposed updating West Campus planning rules known as the University Neighborhood Overlay (UNO). The many suggested zoning changes include plans to lure a grocery to the area. UNO contains density-bonus incentives that allow developers to build taller and denser buildings than normally permitted in exchange for community benefits such as affordable housing and, perhaps in this case, a grocery.
In an April letter to city leaders, College Houses and Wheatsville Co-op requested that the city revise UNO’s language to decrease the minimum grocery lot size from 8,000 to 2,500 square feet to provide more flexibility. They also suggested that the proposal should stipulate that the grocery must provide “fresh produce,” to avoid incentivizing yet another convenience store. The Planning Commission incorporated this feedback into its recommendation to council.
The possible future West Campus grocery is part of a greater Wheatsville store reorganization that includes the planned closing of its Guadalupe store late next year. “We do not plan to push it past December 31st, 2026,” Bickford said. “That is the end of our current lease term and as of right now, we think it’s unlikely we would renew past that.”
Bickford has said that a major factor driving the Guadalupe store closure is Project Connect’s proposed construction of an Orange light-rail line along that route.
Wheatsville instead plans to open a series of smaller stores in North Central Austin, followed by the West Campus store. The co-op has launched a campaign to raise $6.5 million in community investments to fund the new stores.
UT students such as Salem Black are excited about the prospect of a West Campus Wheatsville, even if it wouldn’t open until after they graduate.
“I’ve really only made it out of this situation,” Black said, “by the grace of the people around me — and scrounging.”
(Perspectives do not reflect those of our sponsors.)
peace.