Press Release 1
Press Release 2

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Jan. 31, 2006
CONTACT: Janet Byron, (510) 987-0668 or janet.byron@ucop.edu

January-March 2006 California Agriculture magazine

Press Release 1:

Market incentives could promote better nutrition
among food stamp recipients
At a time when obesity, diabetes and other diet-related diseases are epidemic, the U.S. government should retool subsidy programs to encourage healthy diets, says policy expert Josh Miner in the January-March 2006 issue of the University of California’s California Agriculture research journal.
In a peer-reviewed research perspective, Miner proposes policy changes for two agencies within the U.S. Department of Agriculture — the Food Stamp Program and the Farm Services Agency. The former provides money for food without promoting healthy diets, Miner says, while the latter promotes unhealthy diets without reducing the cost of food.
“Does it really make sense to support the production of products such as high-fructose corn syrup by giving corn growers direct subsidy payments, and to support the purchase of products like Coca-Cola by giving food stamp recipients benefits but no incentives to spend extra for nutrients instead of maximize calories?” Miner writes.
In a carefully researched article, Miner notes that obesity and diet-related diseases such as diabetes and heart disease disproportionately affect low-income consumers. Yet food assistance programs like food stamps do little to promote the consumption of healthy fruits and vegetables, nuts and whole-grain products, while U.S. commodity payments encourage the consumption of high-calorie, unhealthy, processed foods.
“Why not instead invest in the health and good dietary habits of low-income Americans, while providing marketplace support for producers of health-promoting food products?” writes Miner, former UC Cooperative Extension analyst and current policy fellow in the W.K. Kellogg Food and Society Program.
Miner lays out a proposal to reduce payments for large-scale commodities such as corn, soybeans and rice, and replace them with a compensation system for retailers who sell fruits, vegetables and other nutritious products to low-income consumers at reduced prices. “By linking incentives directly to products that have health benefits, there is a high likelihood that these redirected subsidies would result in additional future cost savings, in the form of improved health, increased productivity, and other economic and social benefits,” Miner writes.
To contact Miner, call (608) 782-0825 or e-mail jminer@ucdavis.edu.

Also in this issue of California Agriculture, three policy experts discuss the 2007 Farm Bill in an “Outlook” roundtable. They note that changing the current commodity-payment structure to promote healthier eating might not be as far-fetched as it sounds. (In early 2005, President Bush proposed placing a $250,000-per-grower cap on commodity payments.) In a wide-ranging discussion about the coming overhaul of the 2007 Farm Bill, Ralph Grossi of the American Farmland Trust noted: “If you accept that large government programs and payments influence human behavior, then the Farm Bill has the potential to have a major impact on dietary habits.”

Press Release 2:

Smaller bins reduce the risk of back injuries among grape harvesters without affecting productivity
Back injuries and related musculoskeletal disorders are the most common and costly work-related injuries in agriculture. The risk is especially high among workers who hand-harvest grapes; they are constantly turning, twisting and leaning forward to remove grapes from the vine, while routinely carrying loads of up to 80 pounds and lifting to dump the grapes into gondolas.
In a peer-reviewed study published in the January-March 2006 issue of the University of California’s California Agriculture research journal, scientists showed that a simple engineering solution — giving workers smaller bins to fill with grapes — significantly reduced the risk of back injury among grape harvesters, without affecting productivity.
“It may seem obvious that lightening the load would reduce back injury risk, but the problem is more complicated in that workers handle heavy loads differently than lighter loads,” explains James M. Meyers, specialist in the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. “Compared with heavier loads, lighter loads may be moved with more bending, velocity and twisting. Workers may expose themselves to other risk factors and experience less recovery time.”
Meyers and colleagues with the UC Agricultural Ergonomics Research Center (UC AERC) conducted a 3-year intervention study among grape harvesters in Napa and Sonoma counties. Since 1994, the center has studied common agricultural injuries and developed and tested cost-effective interventions. Meyers notes that contrary to general belief and industry practice, training is regarded by safety professionals as the least effective way to reduce workplace injuries. Rather, studies have show that engineering interventions — which eliminate or reduce the hazards themselves — actually do reduce injury rates.
The UC AERC scientists provided the workers with a commercially available tub that is 13% smaller in volume than the standard tubs used in grape harvesting, which reduced the average load carried from 57 to 46 pounds (19%). Before and after each harvest, the workers completed a comprehensive survey of their musculoskeletal symptoms. Productivity was assessed by monitoring the tons of grapes picked by participating crews on a daily basis.
During the first (control) year of the harvest, workers used the larger standard tub only; of 95 workers who reported no musculoskeletal symptoms prior to the harvest, 66 (70%) reported symptoms when the harvest ended. In the second year of the study, workers used the smaller tub; of 90 workers who had no symptoms preharvest, only 26 (29%) reported symptoms postharvest. (Results in the third year were similar.)
With the smaller tub there was a small, nonsignificant reduction in the pounds of grapes delivered (an average of 168 pounds less than the 7,000 pounds carried by the average worker during an 8-hour shift), but neither workers nor their managers appeared to mind. “Because workers are paid on an incentive rate per ton rather than time, this decrease was of minor importance to managers,” Meyers says. “Furthermore, the workers in our study preferred the smaller tub because it was easier to manage.” Indeed, all of the companies participating in the study subsequently adopted the smaller tub for their workers.

Also in the January-March issue of California Agriculture:

• Food ethics. A survey finds that Central Coast consumers want more information about “ethical” aspects of food production, such as environmental impacts, the humane treatment of animals, and social justice for farmworkers.
• Evaluating nutrition education. A new food-behavior checklist is making it easier for UC Cooperative Extension nutrition educators to evaluate the impact of their programs on fruit and vegetable consumption among recipients of government food support (such as food stamps).
• Vine mealybug control. Lower-toxicity insecticides, insect growth regulators and biocontrol programs are promising alternatives to standard organophosphate chemicals to control the vine mealybug, a newly invasive pest of California vineyards.