1989-1993 Safe Food
Roger’s work as director of Americans for Safe Food initiative included responsibility for liaison with more than sixty local Safe Food organizations, and for political and media work on the full range of food safety and organic farming issues.
November 1992, by Roger Blobaum Q: Is organic food completely free of pesticides? A: Not necessarily. It sometimes contains trace amounts of synthetic chemicals. Q: How can that happen? A: There are lots of ways. Pesticides can be carried to organic fields by irrigation water, rain, wind-blown dust, fog, and drift from spray that has been applied elsewhere. And even if that doesn’t happen, the soil in which organic foods are grown could contain traces of chemicals that were used years ago. There is so much “background” chemical pollution on our farmland that it’s impossible to make a claim for absolutely residue-free food. In some soils the contamination is so bad that it could take years for all the chemicals to disappear.
Read More...Presentation by Roger Blobaum, Blobaum and Associates, At The National IPM Forum, Washington, D.C., June 19, 1992 I appreciate very much the opportunity to participate in this forum. I am impressed by the amount of preparatory work that was done. I have been part of a national food safety dialogue the last two years and am especially pleased to see several of the participants here. We encountered each other initially in an adversarial setting. I have learned a lot from them about pest management and value them now as professional colleagues and friends. I was surprised at how many speakers the first day felt compelled to declare that our food supply is safe. Most Americans don’t believe that.
Read More...“Representatives of consumer organizations have just as much right to influence policy as agricultural scientists. The policymaking process, in fact, is enriched by our involvement.” –Excerpt R. Blobaum
Read More...By Roger Blobaum Notes used in presentation at Brussels workshop. Exact date unknown. 1989-1992 My remarks will focus on the area of consumer acceptance, a serious problem for those promoting biotechnology.
Read More...The Environmental Magazine | Eating As If the Earth Mattered Click for pdf file: January/February 1992 | Eating as if the Earth Mattered By Roger Blobaum and Lisa Lefferts January/February 1992 Environmentally savvy consumers steer clear of toxic cleaners, bleached coffee filters and plastic bags at the supermarket, and fret about the recyclability of containers. But most of us barely give the environment a second thought when it comes to choosing food, the product we buy most often at the grocery store. But besides profoundly affecting our health, our food choices greatly affect the environment.
Read More...REMARKS by Roger Blobaum, Joint Meeting of Northeast Region Extension/Research Directors, Mystic, Connecticut, July 10, 1990 I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this food safety forum. I like to use occasions like this to remind farmers and other agricultural professionals that the millions of consumers who express food safety concerns are their customers.
Read More...Roger Blobaum speaking on the Food Safety Panel, Western Association of State Departments of Agriculture, Seattle, Washington, August 14, 1989 We were pleased to accept your invitation to participate in this food safety panel and want to thank you for giving it a prominent place on your program. Consumer pressure, as you know, is pushing the safe food issue higher on the political agenda in state capitals and in Washington.
Read More...By Roger Blobaum, exact date unknown – written in the 1970s We think of nutrition as a personal responsibility. Or, perhaps more accurately, as the responsibility of the mothers of the family. We might assume, then, that bad nutrition is simply the result of bad mothering and that it can be corrected by the education of mothers. I want to question this common assumption and to suggest that problems of bad nutrition reflect bad public policy rather than uninformed
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