Nanette Mahler, left, and Tracy O’Neill, walk along Macon Wall Road in Cheatham County, Tennessee, near the site of a proposed Tennessee Valley Authority gas power plant project. Local backlash against the proposal comes as the federal utility faces bipartisan legislation in Congress seeking to boost transparency in its planning process and scrutiny of TVA’s anemic renewable power growth compared to other utilities. (By Robert Zullo/ States Newsroom)

ASHLAND CITY, Tenn. — When he heard about the sale, Kerry McCarver was perplexed.

In 2020, the mayor of rural Cheatham County discovered that the Tennessee Valley Authority bought about 280 acres of rolling farmland “in the middle of nowhere” in his county, which lies just west of Nashville and is home to about 42,000 people.

He asked another county official who formerly worked for the TVA, the nation’s largest public power company, to find out what it planned to do with the land.

The answer they got was “future use,” and they speculated a solar farm might be in the works.

“It’s kind of the last we thought about it,” McCarver said during an interview in his office in May. “Then a year ago last summer, TVA called here needing a place to have a public meeting.”

The authority was now proposing a 900-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant, battery storage, pipelines and other associated infrastructure for the site, which came as a shock to McCarver and many other locals who felt it was wholly inappropriate for the area.

“I called the county attorney and said ‘What’s our options?” McCarver said. The answer he got: “It’s TVA. You don’t have any options.”

Opposition to the Cheatham County project dominated a public “listening session” of the TVA’s Board of Directors in May, when TVA officials told States Newsroom that the proposed plant is in the early stages of development and just one potential option to meet growing power demand in the region and replace retiring coal power.

“We understand that some members of the Cheatham County community do not view this location as appropriate for a new generating site, and we respect that viewpoint,” TVA spokesman Scott Fiedler said in late June. “No decisions have been made.”

However, the backlash comes as the federal utility faces bipartisan legislation in Congress seeking to boost transparency in its planning process as well as its management and salary structure. TVA has also been in the crosshairs of green groups over its planned gas power buildout, which is among the largest proposed in the nation, and anemic renewable power growth compared to other utilities.

“Back when it was created in the 1930s, TVA was on the cutting edge of transforming a region of the country and investing in a lot of infrastructure to create that transformation,” said Amanda Garcia, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center who has worked on TVA issues for a decade.? “We‘re just not seeing that happen now.”

‘Clearly a laggard’?

Created by Congress in 1933 during the Great Depression, the TVA today provides wholesale electricity to 153 local power companies serving 10 million people in Tennessee and parts of six neighboring states.

The authority is replacing major coal-fired units at its Kingston (site of a massive coal ash spill in 2008) and Cumberland plants with gas generation and is planning to retire all of its coal power fleet by 2035. It has set a goal of 10 gigawatts of solar power by 2035 and boasts that 55% of its electric generation is carbon free, most of it hydroelectric and nuclear power. And TVA President and CEO Jeff Lyash says a little less than half of the 10 gigawatts of solar it wants to put in by 2035 is already “in operation or in development and construction.”

For comparison, though, utility giant Duke Energy had more than 10 gigawatts of solar installed across its 16-state footprint as of 2022. Environmental and clean power groups say TVA, a federal nonprofit power company, could be doing much more to advance a transition to cheaper, cleaner power.

“They, unlike many utilities, have the ability to do big things and do big things faster,” said Daniel Tait,? executive director of Energy Alabama, a clean energy advocacy organization, and a research and communications manager for the Energy and Policy Institute, a utility watchdog group.

Tait and others say TVA’s leadership has been historically dismissive of the role renewable power can play on the grid.

“TVA is clearly a laggard when it comes to renewable energy,” said Stephen Smith, executive director of the nonprofit Southern Alliance for Clean Energy who has served on TVA advisory panels in the past. “Florida Power & Light has deployed more solar in a quarter than TVA has in their whole history.” Smith, who joked that he’s been “beating his head against the gates of TVA since 1993, said the authority was created to “lead on big national issues” but isn’t living up to its legacy.

“They’re not demonstrating leadership on renewables, they’re not demonstrating leadership on energy efficiency. They’re not demonstrating leadership on (battery) storage,” he said, partly the result of what he called an “institutional bias” against renewable power.

TVA officials reject that notion, with a spokesman telling States Newsroom that TVA is a “clean energy leader.”

However, Lyash acknowledged at the May board meeting that supply chain challenges brought on by the pandemic, inflation, difficulty securing land for solar and the TVA’s own interconnection delays (it also runs the electric grid in its service area) have created snags.

“We’re not satisfied. We’re? going to revise our processes,” Lyash said. “We’re taking a hard look at how we can accelerate the deployment of clean energy assets. It will be a focus of ours in the coming year.”

In an interview, Lyash said the TVA is pursuing new initiatives to advance solar development,? like its pilot Project Phoenix, which would put solar panels on closed coal ash sites.

“If this is successful, and it looks like it will be, this will be replicated across our whole system,” Lyash said.

An ‘incredibly weak board’

Still, TVA, which now has a board largely appointed by President Joe Biden, remains out of step with the president’s own aggressive power sector decarbonization goals, green groups note. (The Sierra Club gave the TVA an “F” last year on its latest ranking of how well utilities are living up to their own decarbonization goals and transitioning to cleaner power).

“There’s a lot of room for the Biden administration to deepen their relationships with TVA,” said Garcia, the SELC attorney. “If the largest federal utility isn’t even coming close to that, then how can we have hope that we’re going to achieve that target to decarbonize the grid?”

The White House did not respond to an inquiry on TVA’s gas buildout or additional appointments to the board (two members appointed by former President Donald Trump saw their terms expire earlier this year.) Another Biden nomination for the TVA board has been before a U.S. Senate committee since January. TVA’s nine-member board is supposed to be its chief regulator, since TVA does not answer to state utility commissions in its territory. But, critics note, the board is part time, lacks its own staff and usually defers to the TVA executive leadership on big decisions like power plant construction.

Smith called it an “incredibly weak board led by an executive staff that’s accountable to no one,” adding that reformers have pushed for the TVA board to attend meetings of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and hire their own staff.

“I don’t know how a part-time board with no staff? and no technical capabilities can review something like an integrated resource plan effectively,” said Dave Rogers, deputy director of the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign.

The TVA’s long legacy in the South?

In the U.S. electric utility landscape, there’s really nothing like the Tennessee Valley Authority Created by an act of Congress in 1933 as the nation was mired in the Great Depression, the authority was tasked with, among other jobs, taming flooding and improving navigation along the Tennessee River, reforesting lands, erosion control for farmers, malaria prevention and electric power production, initially through a network of dams and hydroelectric plants.

“This in a true sense is a return to the spirit and vision of the pioneer,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in a message to Congress asking for legislation to create the TVA. The authority looms large in the lore of the region as a result of the surge in economic development and living standards it unleashed in what had been one of the most impoverished parts of the country. Average yearly income in the Tennessee Valley was about $168 in 1933, half the national average at the time.

“The most dramatic change in Valley life came from the electricity generated by TVA dams,” the National Archives notes. “Electric lights and modern appliances made life easier and farms more productive. Electricity also drew industries to the region, providing desperately needed jobs.” During a tour of the area after the TVA’s creation, the journalist Lorena Hickok wrote in a field report to the Roosevelt administration that “a promised land, bathed in golden sunlight, is rising out of the gray shadows of want and squalor and wretchedness down here in the Tennessee Valley these days.”

Indeed, not too many electric utilities get a shout out in smash country songs.The Bob McDill-penned “Song of the South,” which became a hit for the band Alabama in 1989, also speaks to TVA’s legacy: “Cotton was short and the weeds were tall, but Mr. Roosevelt gonna save us all. … Papa got a job with the TVA. We bought a washing machine and then a Chevrolet.”

There was a darker side to all that progress, however. Thousands of people across the region were displaced and in some cases entire towns were flooded, creating a number of what the Tennessee State Museum calls “underwater ghost towns.”

Today, the authority has about 10,000 employees, a budget of more than $12 billion, 29 hydroelectric plants, four large coal plants, three nuclear power plants and 17 natural gas plants, among other assets, and has one of the largest transmission systems in North America — 16,400 miles of lines covering 80,000 square miles.. It still plays a major role in economic development, but also has suffered some very public black eyes over the years, including a devastating coal ash spill in 2008 and subsequent litigation alleging the workers who cleaned it up, many of whom have since fallen ill and died, were not adequately protected. The TVA was also forced to implement its first-ever rolling blackouts in 2022 during Winter Storm Elliott as fossil fuel plants tripped off line. Since then the TVA has spent more than $123 million on winterization upgrades at the plants and made it through its highest ever peak demand during a cold snap last winter without any blackouts. – Robert Zullo

‘More transparent’?

A big part of the problem for TVA’s would-be reformers is the so-called integrated resource planning (IRP) process. Though the process varies by state and regulatory regime, many utilities across the country file IRPs with state regulators that lay out forecasts for electric demand and outline how they intend to meet their obligations to customers, including what generation and transmission projects they are likely to build under different scenarios. The process provides an opportunity for ratepayer advocates, environmental groups and large industrial customers, among other intervenors, to challenge utility assumptions about demand growth and the best and cheapest way to provide electric service.

TVA does compile an IRP, and it handpicks a working group of outsiders (who are asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, participants say) to advise on the plan. The last one was published in 2019. The current process has been paused in part because of new power plant carbon rules by the Environmental Protection Agency.

But bipartisan legislation introduced in Congress earlier this year by Tennessee Reps. Steve Cohen, a Memphis Democrat, and Tim Burchett, a Republican from the Knoxville area, is intended to pry open the TVA planning process. The bill would create an Office of Public Participation to “facilitate a process for meaningful and open public engagement … including opportunities for intervention, discovery, filed comments and an evidentiary hearing,” among other duties, a news release says. The bill would also direct TVA to include standard information about long-term sales and peak demand forecast, a summary of transmission investments, scenarios that “fairly evaluate demand-side and supply side technologies,” disclosure of modeling assumptions and analyses of fuel costs and environmental regulations, among other requirements.

Crucially it would also require the TVA board to “issue a decision approving, denying or modifying the plan, like every other utility regulator.”

Burchett and Cohen also introduced legislation that has passed the House and is currently in the Senate that would reinstate the TVA’s annual reporting requirement to Congress on executive and top manager compensation. In May, the TVA board voted separately to restructure its executive pay practices, cutting incentive-based compensation and changing the severance plan. (Lyash earned $10.5 million in 2023, making him the highest paid federal employee.)

“We’re trying to get them more and more transparent and give them some solid guidelines,” Burchett said in an interview. “If we say we’re going to let them do it, it’s not going to happen.”

Burchett, who added that TVA had become “too big and arrogant for their own good,”? said he and Cohen have been friends since their days in the Tennessee legislature.

“We might not agree on a lot of policy things,”? he said. “But public input and transparency are a couple of things we really agree on.”

Multiple attempts to reach Cohen for an interview were unsuccessful.

At the May meeting several board members acknowledged the need to improve transparency, including in publicizing lists of large capital projects approved during the budget process, and speeding up clean power projects.

“I also know that we need to go further, faster on our renewable energy goals,” Board Member Beth Geer said. Joe Ritch, the chair, said the board will “continue to review our governance processes and make changes and updates as appropriate.”

‘Everybody wins’

And while representatives of many of TVA’s local power companies showed up at the May listening session to voice support for the authority’s power plant buildout, others have some frustrations with the authority.

Most notably, Memphis Light, Gas and Water in 2022 refused to ink a new long-term contract with TVA, opting for a five-year rolling deal. It had been exploring leaving the authority as local groups pushed for cheaper and cleaner power. (Memphis LG&W turned down an interview request to discuss the contract situation.) Fiedler, the TVA spokesman, said 147 of the authority’s 153 local power companies have signed the long-term contracts.

The Southern Environmental Law Center, on behalf of several environmental groups, sued over the contracts, arguing the “never-ending” deals would “forever deprive distributors and ratepayers the opportunity to renegotiate with TVA to obtain cheaper, cleaner electricity.”

A judge dismissed the suit last year, finding the groups lacked legal standing. The contracts allow local power companies to build local generation resources like solar to meet up to 5% of their average electric needs but some argue TVA should be allowing more..

“It should be 10%,” said Gil Hough, executive director of TenneSEIA, a state affiliate of the national Solar Energy Industries Association. (Nashville Electric Service’s CEO said the cap should be 15%). Hough said local power companies can often get projects done faster than the TVA and the new generation, especially solar and battery storage, helps mitigate TVA’s concerns about growing electric demand.

Hough cited a partnership between Huntsville Utilities and Toyota in Alabama that will build a 30-megawatt solar system to power about 70% of a local Toyota engine plant as a prime example. The Huntsville Business Journal reported that it was the first time the local utility, taking advantage of the new 5% local generation flexibility option, would be buying power from “someone besides TVA.”

“Everybody wins,” Hough said. “Regular ratepayers win. Economic development. TVA doesn’t have to add more generation. Solar developers win.”

‘You feel helpless’

Both Tracy O’Neill and Nanette Mahler describe themselves as Nashville “refugees” who were seeking peace and quiet when they moved out to Cheatham County. Now, though, growing power demand in Middle Tennessee is a big part of TVA’s rationale for the gas plant, pipelines and transmission infrastructure proposed for Cheatham.

“They’re taking from us to give to other people,” Mahler said.

The neighbors aren’t aligned politically (Mahler is a conservative and O’Neill a liberal environmentalist) but they’ve bonded over their mutual dread of the proposed power plant. Both live close to the site and gave a reporter a tour of the area, a collection of old farmsteads and sparsely situated single family homes along narrow country roads.

“Who would have ever thought they’d come out here and do this?” Mahler said.

They’re both members of Presvere Cheatham County, a local group formed to oppose the project and the massive disruption they fear construction and operation of the plant will bring: heavy truck traffic, pollution, noise and light and wear and tear on flood-prone local roads, among other impacts.

Despite TVA’s assertions that the project is in the early stages and alternatives are being considered, Mahler said TVA’s contractors are telling locals it’s a “done deal.”

Both fault TVA for what they say was limited outreach to neighbors.

“It feels like they have been intentionally secretive,” O’Neill said. “It’s just heartbreaking to think that all of this will be destroyed.”

That feeling of powerlessness extends to McCarver, their mayor, who said the county welcomes industrial development, but only where it makes sense.

“They don’t have a snowball’s chance to get rezoned for something like that in that area,” he said. “They just come in as the thousand pound gorilla having their way without having to ask anybody or tell anybody or even work with those neighbors or that community out there.”

State and federal elected officials haven’t been much help, he added. And offers by the county to purchase the land from TVA have been fruitless. The only thing that might derail the project, McCarver added, is some adverse finding during the environmental review that will come if the plant moves forward. TVA’s been under fire for ignoring the Environmental Protection Agency’s critiques of its plans to replace coal-fired units at its Kingston plant with gas generation. The EPA said in a review of the draft environmental impact statement for the plant that TVA fell short in a number of ways, including not evaluating enough alternatives, lapses in cost calculations and other deficiencies. The agency asked TVA to prepare a supplemental analysis, which TVA didn’t perform.

“We appreciate the input from EPA as a cooperating agency in the EIS process, which was completed with the release of the record of decision,” Fiedler, the TVA spokesman said.

For McCarver, the past year of dealing with TVA’s proposed gas plant in Cheatham has been “a horrible experience” that’s made him painfully aware of the authority’s unique powers as a federal entity.

“I’ve always dealt politically with ‘not in my backyard.’ This is not a ‘not in my backyard’ situation,” the mayor said “Their area will never be the same. … You feel helpless.”

Congress needs to rein in the TVA, and forcing it to follow local zoning would be a good start, McCarver said.

“They put up a good front. They do a good tap dance. But at the end of the day, the feeling is … they’re going to do what they want to and how they want to do it and when they want to do it, and hopefully you won’t be in their way,” he said. “Nobody should be that powerful. Why is TVA that powerful?”

Cheri Levinson is an associate professor with the university and the director of Louisville’s Eating Anxiety Treatment (EAT) Lab. (Photo provided)

LOUISVILLE — Kentucky researchers are developing and expanding a virtual reality treatment for eating disorders using a $125,000 grant from the National Eating Disorders Association, the University of Louisville announced Tuesday.?

Eating disorders are widespread and can be deadly. The COVID-19 pandemic increased their prevalence in Kentucky.?

About 9% of Americans live with eating disorders, which can lead to a “preoccupation” with food intake, weight, calories and more, according to NEDA. Girls are more likely to have disordered eating, the Lantern has reported.?

Louisville researchers who study this issue want to expand the use of virtual reality (VR) technology that they have developed. This can help patients “face their fears of gaining weight” through simulations, they say. Researchers have already conducted a pilot study on such technology, which UofL says was “effective” in helping patients.??

“Research shows exposure treatment can be really effective in taking back control over these devastating and life-altering fears,” Christina Ralph-Nearman, a UofL College of Arts and Sciences assistant research professor, researcher and co-inventor of the technology, said in a statement. “Our virtual simulation allows people to do that in a safe way.”?

Cheri Levinson, an associate professor with the university and the director of Louisville’s Eating Anxiety Treatment (EAT) Lab, is currently leading several projects to tackle and treat eating disorders. In November, Levinson and her team were awarded an $11.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study treatment options.?

“Despite the high prevalence of eating disorders, there still aren’t many options for treatment and prevention,” Levinson said. “This work will not only create new options by leveraging technology, but open previously unopened doors for treating people on a personal, individual level.”

Levinson wants to use the grant money to expand this new technology to “more inclusive of all body types and sizes, ethnicities, races and gender identities and to further test outcomes in a clinical setting.”?

“Eating disorders don’t just affect one type of person — there are a multitude of factors that can influence them,” she said. “Treatment and prevention options should reflect that full range of experience.”

The Kroger Co. corporate headquarters is seen in downtown Cincinnati. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Looking for someone to blame for increased costs in the grocery aisle? You might not need to look any further than three retail giants, the Federal Trade Commission said in a recent report.

The agency looked at supply chain disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic and determined that the three largest food retailers — Kroger, Walmart and Amazon — “accelerated and distorted the negative effects associated with supply chain disruption,” the agency said in a statement. It added that “consumers felt the negative effects of supply chain disruptions in the form of skyrocketing prices for groceries and product shortages for essentials, like toilet paper.”

Those prices, the report said, remain high well after most supply-chain disruptions have been resolved.

“As the pandemic illustrated, a major shock to the supply chain can have cascading effects on consumers, including the prices they pay for groceries,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said in a statement. “The FTC’s report examining U.S. grocery supply chains finds that dominant firms used this moment to come out ahead at the expense of their competitors and the communities they serve.”

When the worst pandemic in a century hit in 2020, commerce suffered huge disruptions as policymakers around the world tried to slow the spread of the coronavirus by keeping people at home — and apart from each other. It stands to reason that the price of groceries went up as transportation became more difficult and some items much harder to get.

But the FTC report says the big-three retailers and suppliers made things worse in several ways:

Large retailers used the threat of fines and fees to pressure upstream suppliers to allocate scarce items to them instead of smaller competitors.As retailers realized that having a small supplier base made them vulnerable, they worked to diversify. However, some of the biggest — such as Walmart and Kroger — are buying up some suppliers. That also could disadvantage smaller retailers that don’t have the resources to follow suit, the FTC report said.Manufacturers of scarce items reduced promotional spending, thus reducing smaller retailers’ ability to offer items at temporary discounts — a method they use to compete with the “everyday low price” strategy used by retailers big enough to negotiate low wholesale prices with manufacturers. The latter prices were less affected by pandemic-related disruptions than promotional spending was, the FTC report said.

Thankfully, the worst of the pandemic is past, but grocery prices remain stubbornly high, having jumped by 25% in four years. Retailers have contended that the higher prices merely reflect their greater costs, but the FTC found data that indicate otherwise.

Food and beverage retailers saw their revenue rise to 6% over total costs in 2021 — higher than the previous peak of 5.6% in 2015. Then in the first three quarters of 2023, they went even higher — to 7%, the report said.

“Notably, consumers are still facing the negative impact of the pandemic’s price hikes, as the Commission’s report finds that some in the grocery retail industry seem to have used rising costs as an opportunity to further raise prices to increase their profits, which remain elevated today,” it said.

A spokeswoman for Cincinnati-based Kroger didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. With 2,800 stores and $148 billion in annual sales, it’s the nation’s largest grocery retailer.

Kroger is trying to increase its dominance by buying Boise, Idaho-based Albertsons for $25 billion. The FTC, however, is suing to block the deal, saying it “will eliminate fierce competition between Kroger and Albertsons, leading to higher prices for groceries and other essential household items for millions of Americans.”

The antitrust watchdog might have bolstered its case with last week’s report about supply disruptions caused by the pandemic.

“The pandemic made clear that supply chain bottlenecks, which can be created or exacerbated by limited competition, can leave markets exposed to major supply chain shocks—and that those shocks, in turn, can allow major firms to entrench their dominance and further harm competition,” the report said. “Achieving more diversified supply chains, including through promoting competition, can both limit the severity of supply chain shocks and, in turn, reduce the opportunity for that entrenchment.”

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal, a sister publication of the Kentucky Lantern and part of the nonprofit States Newsroom network.

The sludges remaining from municipal waste treatment contain nutrients for crops and pastures. They may also contain heavy metals and chemical contaminants that are taken up into the food chain and may harm the safety of crops and the health of livestock like these beef cattle grazing in Jessamine County. (Photo by Robert Pokorny)

On March 11, the Administrative Regulations Review Subcommittee will consider a set of revisions to Energy and Environment Cabinet regulations that weaken protections for farmers, farmland and the public from the application of contaminated sludges from municipal wastewater treatment plants.

Called “biosolids,” the sludges remaining from city treatment of residential, commercial and industrial wastes contain nutrients of value to crops and for growing livestock forage. They may also contain heavy metals and chemical contaminants with no value to agriculture, including contaminants that are taken up into the food chain and may harm the health of livestock, the safety of crops and the health of the consuming public.

Kentucky farmers, already in difficult economic circumstances in a “cheap food” economy that undervalues their essential work and the importance of their crop and livestock production, often use these sludges as fertilizers as a cost-cutting measure in lieu of commercial fertilizers.

And they rely on the cabinet to require permits and set standards and enforce testing requirements on these city treatment plant sludges to assure that if the sludge is sold or given to farmers for use as fertilizers it will not damage the productivity of their farmlands, contaminate their crops, or harm their livestock and ability to sell those products.

The land application of sewage sludges from cities has been subject to regulation by the cabinet for many years. Those cities have also been subject to federal regulations known as the 503 Regulations, adopted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1992.???

Complaints from a few cities of alleged delays in getting approvals for land applying their sewage sludges led to the enactment of Senate Bill 213 by the General Assembly in 2023.? SB 213 required the cabinet to revise its regulations to adopt standards “in conformance” with federal regulations that require routine monitoring for only nine pollutants.?

According to EPA’s own Inspector General in a 2018 report, EPA has failed to study the risks of and to set standards and require monitoring for 352 other pollutants detected in sludges by EPA, including 61 designated as acutely hazardous, hazardous or priority pollutants in other programs. The report concluded that EPA’s controls over the land application of sewage sludge (biosolids) may not fully protect human health and the environment.?

The cabinet’s proposed administrative regulations go much further than necessary to address SB 213 and significantly weaken accountability for applying this category of special wastes to Kentucky land. The cabinet’s regulations, if finalized without significant improvement, will result in:

• Less accountability for cities with respect to their wastewater treatment plant sludges that are land applied;
• Greater risk of contamination of farmland and potentially of crops and livestock;
• Creation of a new generation of state superfund sites where future remedial costs could be imposed on farmers and cities for cleanup of any lands where contaminated sludges were applied.

The cabinet knows that so-called “forever chemicals,” PFAs and PFOAs, are likely to be present in the sewage treatment plant sludges of cities whose municipal wastewater treatment plants (MWWTPs) accept industrial and commercial wastewaters in addition to residential and institutional wastewaters.

The key flaw among many is that there is no requirement for city testing of the sludges prior to land application for all known contaminants and no obligation to inform farmers if these sludges contain pollutants that may harm their health or land and soil productivity.

The cabinet knows that the EPA is moving forward to establish standards to limit public exposure to these forever chemicals due to known and suspected adverse health outcomes.

Yet despite this knowledge, the cabinet is moving forward with regulation changes that fail to require cities to test the sludges thoroughly and to inform farmers of the contents and that also fail to limit the land application of contaminated sludges. These regulations invite repetition of catastrophic situations such as have occurred in other states from such land applications, and which caused Maine to ban such actions.

The key flaw among many in the proposed regulations is that there is no requirement for city testing of the sludges prior to land application for all known contaminants of concern, including emerging contaminants such as PFAs and PFOAs, and no obligation to inform farmers if these sludges contain, in addition to nutrients, pollutants that may harm their health or land and soil productivity, and at what levels they are present.? The only thing that the city must tell the farmer is that the “biosolids may contain constituents from an industrial pretreatment program.” What pollutants are present and how much, are not required to be tested for or shared even if known.

And when that contamination of farmland occurs, it will be only by happenstance that it? is discovered, and there will be no obligation under these proposed regulations, to remedy the contamination.?The burden of the contamination of land and groundwater resources will fall on the farmer, and not the cities whose systems generated the sludges.

The cabinet admits that it is aware of instances in other states where long-term application of biosolids containing emerging contaminants has been “determined to be impactful to public health and the future viability of the land on which it was applied.” Yet knowing this, it proposes to allow that practice here until and unless federal rules are developed that limit such practices.

The?interests of the farming community in assuring that the sludges that they get from the cities are not contaminated with PFAs and other chemicals that have no agricultural use or value — but have a real and proven potential for contamination of land, crops, and livestock — is being sacrificed to accommodate the short-term interests of cities in cheaper disposal of their wastewater treatment sludges.?

The long-term interests of the cities and of the commonwealth — in the protection of farmers and farmland, public health, and avoidance of future cleanup liability — are served by shelving the proposed regulations and proposing a more responsible and vigorous set of requirements for testing and informed consent.

The short-term interests of the cities in finding a way to inexpensively dispose of their municipal wastewater treatment sludges appears in the proposed regulations to have trumped the protection of public health, the environment, agricultural land and those who receive and apply the wastes.??

If the cities cannot control or address the contamination through pretreatment or other means to assure that the sludges they sell or give to farmers are?in fact?only “nutrient-rich,” “organic,” and will “improve” or “maintain” productivity of the soils — rather than contaminate and render them unusable — then the cities should utilize other more responsible and accountable approaches to special waste management.

Supporters of House Bill 367 say losing food assistance would encourage able-bodied adults to get a job. Opponents say the bill would harm local economies, increase administrative burdens on school lunch programs and disqualify people for having even small savings. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

After an hour-long debate on the Kentucky House floor, lawmakers advanced a bill that is aimed at upping workforce participation but which some worry will cause food insecurity.?

House Bill 367 would give the General Assembly power over decisions about work requirements for Kentucky’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP.?

It passed 61-33 and can proceed to the Senate side for consideration.?

The bill would also restore the federal asset test, ending the Cabinet for Health and Family Services’ ability to waive asset limits through the Broad Based Categorical Eligibility (BBCE). This would exclude households that have savings worth $2,750 as long as there are no disabled or elderly people in the household. This number increases to $4,250 for seniors and people with disabilities.

HB367 would also remove the CHFS ability to waive work requirements for SNAP eligibility, giving that power to the General Assembly.?

A key worry for some Democrats who spoke against it Thursday is that the bill reduces the gross income threshold for SNAP-eligible Kentuckians to 130% of the federal poverty level.?

Anti-hunger advocates testified when the bill was heard in committee that the bill would hurt farmers’ livelihoods and burden food pantries that may have to pick up extra capacity.?

Other opponents have said it will have a negative impact on school lunch availability. Schools can qualify for a Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which allows them to serve free food and is based on the community’s poverty levels and participation in other programs, like SNAP.?

Sponsor Rep. Wade Williams, R-Earlington, called Kentucky’s economy “red hot” and cited the roughly 112,000 job openings in the state as of November, down from 118,000 in October.?

“Every time I speak to my business community back home,” Williams said, “they tell me they cannot find workers who want to work.”

The floor opposition

Rep. Sarah Stalker, a Louisville Democrat, said she’s been on SNAP in the past and “it’s not an easy process to navigate.”?

“It’s quite demoralizing for so many people because of the way we stigmatize people in poverty,” Stalker said. “How poor do you have to be in Kentucky to be worthy of food? That is the question of the day.”

Fellow Louisville Democrat Lisa Willner said she believes “when we hear ‘able bodied adults with zero dependents,’ we have this idea that there are huge numbers of Kentuckians lying around just refusing to go to work and that is simply not the case.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture? says that more than half of American households that live with food insecurity have at least one person working full time.?

Citing the savings cap, Rep. Josie Raymond, D-Louisville, said “We want our general assembly to build up a healthy budget reserve fund, but we’re literally going to prohibit families from doing the same thing.”?

Williams, the sponsor, reiterated on the floor that “it is not the bill’s intent to eliminate SNAP. It’s an important safety net and we want to keep it.”?

He later said his goal with the bill is to “make sure that everyone that’s on SNAP should be on SNAP.”

A national advocacy group says a bill approved by the Kentucky legislature will criminalize investigations of industrial agriculture abuses. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

FRANKFORT — A bill backed by Kentucky’s poultry industry and approved by the Senate Thursday would subject drone operators to new restrictions that opponents warn could help hide health and safety hazards in food production.

Critics worry that Senate Bill 16, sponsored by Sen. John Schickel, a Republican from Northern Kentucky, could criminalize more activities than lawmakers realize and that it’s part of a long line of so-called “ag-gag” laws enacted across the country to block whistleblowers and watchdogs from investigating the conduct and practices of industrial agriculture.?

Schickel on the Senate floor said Kentucky’s poultry industry has large “chicken houses” and processing facilities around the state, and the industry had asked for help dealing with drones flying over and “basically harassing” their facilities.?

Graham Hall, a government affairs manager with Tyson Foods, testified in favor of the bill when it passed the Senate Agriculture Committee earlier this week. Hall said drones could “hinder” their business and endanger employees and livestock, saying a drone landed on a “live haul” truck in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. The North Carolina town in 2020 temporarily prohibited drones from flying over a local Tyson facility that had a COVID-19 outbreak after some TV stations flew drones over the facility for news coverage.?

SB 16, which passed the Senate along a largely party line vote, would add concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and commercial food manufacturing or processing facilities, such as meatpacking plants, to a list of “key infrastructure,” such as energy or military research installations. Flying drones over these sites is classified as misdemeanor trespassing under state law.?

The bill restricts more than drones. It also would impose restrictions on any photography or filming of CAFOs and food-processing sites.

CAFOs are meat, dairy, and egg operations where hundreds or thousands of animals are raised together in a confined facility; Kentucky had 150 of them as of 2022. Such facilities have been the target of animal rights groups investigating instances of animal cruelty and health violations.?

The bill would criminalize flying drones above or on such facilities. It prohibits recording and distributing photos or video of CAFOs or food manufacturing or processing facilities, even when photographed or filmed from the ground.?

Sen. Jason Howell, R-Murray, said facilities “come under fire a lot from well-meaning activists that interrupt operations” and that the bill was “narrowly tailored” to protect the facilities.?

But critics of the bill, including some Democrats who voted against the legislation, believe it could have far-reaching and ?unintended consequences.?

The environmental legal group Kentucky Resources Council, which has strongly opposed the legislation, cites multiple examples of how the law could be misused or misinterpreted: Employees or inspectors taking photos or videos of workplace violations could run afoul of the restrictions. So could a neighbor taking video from their own property, or someone simply taking photos at zoos, horse tracks or pumpkin patches, which could constitute an “animal feeding operation, ” the council has warned.?

“This bill may prevent the documenting and chill the reporting of dangerous conditions at commercial food manufacturing and packaging facilities that threaten worker or public safety,” an email from the legal group stated. “Workers or visitors to these facilities would be criminally liable for recording or reporting proof of an illegally and potentially dangerous source of food, defective equipment, or a spill or release of a hazardous materials, or transmitting documents to a government agency.”

Todd Blevins, the Kentucky state director of the Humane Society of the United States, echoed those concerns and also questioned whether the bill would be constitutional on First Amendment grounds. Other state laws restricting video and photo recording around agricultural facilities have been litigated, with some laws being struck down in court.?

“It just doesn’t seem like smart policy to pass something that’s been found unconstitutional more often than not,” Blevins said.?

In an interview after SB 16 cleared the Senate, Schickel said he thinks some of Kentucky Resource Council’s concerns are “farfetched” but that any potential unintended consequences created by the bill would be fixed.?

“Agriculture by its nature can be distasteful to some,” Schickel said. “I think these groups have harassed these businesses, and these businesses have to protect their operations and their customers.”

“Tyson does a great job and these other corporations are providing that service,” he said. “Kentucky benefits from it.”

Supporters of House Bill 367 say losing food assistance would encourage able-bodied adults to get a job. Opponents say the bill would harm local economies, increase administrative burdens on school lunch programs and disqualify people for having even small savings. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

FRANKFORT — A bill that backers say is intended to encourage more Kentuckians to join the workforce but which advocates warn could lead to food insecurity passed out of a House committee Thursday along party lines.?

Among other things, House Bill 367 seeks to give the General Assembly power over decisions about work requirements for Kentucky’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP. It passed the House Standing Committee on Families and Children 11-3 after about an hour of discussion. It can go to the full House for consideration now.?

Sponsor Rep. Wade Williams, R-Earlington, said he wants to close “wildly abused loopholes” in the assistance program that are letting “34,000 able-bodied adults in Kentucky” be “on food stamps today between the ages of 18 and 50 who have no dependents.”?

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says Kentucky had 112,000 job openings in the state as of November, down from 118,000 in October.?

“Now that the pandemic is behind us, it’s time for us to think about solutions on how to get more workers off the sideline and back into the workforce,” he said during the committee.?

HB367:?

• Restores the federal asset test, ending the Cabinet for Health and Family Services’ ability to waive asset limits through the Broad Based Categorical Eligibility (BBCE). Advocates say this would exclude households that have savings worth $2,750. This number increases to $4,250 for seniors and people with disabilities.
• Would remove the Cabinet for Health and Family Services’ ability to waive work requirements for SNAP eligibility, giving that power to the General Assembly.?
• Reduces the gross income threshold for SNAP-eligible Kentuckians to 130% of the federal poverty level.?

Scott Centorino, the deputy policy director at the Florida-based Foundation for Government Accountability, said the proposed reforms “will protect this program for the truly needy, the folks who can’t just go out and get a job and really need this to support themselves.”?

“We love SNAP,” Williams said. “I think it’s a great program. And that’s why we’re here. We want to make sure that SNAP is available for all those people that need it.”??

Advocates warn of ‘downstream harms’?

Several people testified against the bill in committee.?

HB367 could cause “downstream harms,” warned Jordan Ojile, an advocate with Feeding Kentucky, which is a nonprofit that aims to fight hunger.?

For example, “When more people go hungry,” he said, “more people need health care.”??

If people who need food cannot get it through SNAP, he said, they will lean more heavily on food banks.

Tyler Offerman, a Food Justice Organizer with the Kentucky Equal Justice Center, said that in pre-pandemic times, SNAP fed seven meals to a food bank’s one.?

“There is no feasible way that food banks will be able to pick up that capacity,” he told the Lantern.?

Kimmie Ishmael, the policy campaign coordinator with the Community Farm Alliance, fears “ripple effects” of the bill will hurt Kentucky’s farmers, who she said sometimes need food stamps to subsidize incomes of less than $38,000 a year.??

It “will not only impact the farmers, but our local food system as a whole,” Ishmael said. “These unintended consequences could hurt the growth of small farmers across our commonwealth in many ways.”?

The asset test concerns her too, she testified, saying:“This change would require farmers to either become completely destitute before getting assistance with food, or else de-incentivize them for saving.”?

“The small ripple effects of this bill not only impact hungry people, but it’ll impact those who feed them,” Ishmael added. “And we know farmers are the backbone of this state. They deserve to farm with dignity.”?

Dustin Pugel, the policy director at the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, called the bill a “recipe for hunger and for hardship.”??

“If we start cutting off tens or hundreds of thousands of people from SNAP benefits like House Bill 367 could do, that’s going to cost us tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in local economies,” he testified. “It’s a real problem.”?

School lunches?

Several people testified that the bill could cost some families their free or reduced school lunches.?

“This will not actually change any eligibility standards for the school lunch program and other programs in Kentucky,” the FGA’s Centorino said. “It may change how people actually become eligible for those programs.”?

Offerman with Kentucky Equal Justice Center said “for sure it will” hurt school lunch access because people who enroll in SNAP are “directly certified for free and reduced lunch.”?

“What they’re trying to say is … ‘but they’re still eligible, so they can just go to their school and apply,’” he told the Lantern. “And so, yes, that is true. And many of them will not”? because of the paperwork involved or because the topic is too confusing.?

Schools can qualify for a Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which allows them to serve free food and is based on the community’s poverty levels and participation in other programs, like SNAP.?

“CEP was adopted to reduce the administrative burden on schools and determine eligibility for school meals,” Ojile with Feeding Kentucky said. “This will just be putting that burden right back on top of them.”?

‘lululemon and Starbucks:’ What do other lawmakers think??

Several committee members took issue with the asset tests, worried people with little in the bank might still need assistance.?

“I’m very concerned that … we will be discouraging people from being fiscally responsible,” said Rep. Lisa Willner, a Louisville Democrat. That is “the exact opposite, I think, of what the members of this committee are wanting: for people to be independent and standing on their own two feet.”?

The bill, Willner said, is “probably well intentioned but really wrongheaded. And I think it’s going to hurt a lot of people.”?

Louisville Democrat Rep. Josie Raymond asked if a child care center employee making $11 an hour can have a diamond ring and that ring be counted as an asset. Williams said that “yes, that’s a household good.”?

Raymond went on to call the asset test “fairly preposterous.”?

Rep. Stephanie Dietz, R-Edgewood, had another take.?

“In my job as a family law attorney, I get my nose stuck in everybody’s business, in all their finances. What I have seen as we live in an age where it’s lululemon and Starbucks,” she said. “Sometimes the hardest thing I do is I look at clients and say, ‘you’re living a lifestyle of debt.’”?

“I agree that food should be number one,” Dietz continued. Speaking about a Kentuckian saving money for a car for their child, she added: “So if food is number one, the car is not number one. So maybe the money that’s being saved should go for the food. But I think that there should be an educational component for people to learn how to spend their money when they’re saving, and we all don’t need to have lululemon and Starbucks and a new car.”??

Fall peppers and chili at Bloomingdale Farmers Market on Nov. 9, 2014, in Washington, D.C. The market accepted Women, Infant and Children (WIC) Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program benefits coupons. (USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.)

WASHINGTON — As Congress barrels toward a partial government shutdown, the White House Monday warned that a program that helps millions of low income families afford healthy food could see substantial cuts.

The White House released a?state-by-state breakdown, estimating that nearly 7 million people who rely on the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, also known as WIC, could be at risk of losing funds to purchase select food and receive vouchers for vegetables and fruit.

The program provides financial support for those who are low income and pregnant or nursing, as well as for children up to 5 years old.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said during a Monday White House briefing that WIC recipients could feel the impact of the shutdown within days.

“Millions of those moms, (babies) and young children would see a lack of nutrition assistance,” he said.

Vilsack, Iowa’s former governor, said some states have leftover WIC benefits and “could extend (WIC) for a week or so.”

“The vast majority of WIC participants would see an immediate reduction and elimination of those benefits, which means the nutrition assistance that’s provided would not be available,” he said.

For example, in Alabama, about 112,000 WIC recipients could lose their benefits, and in Florida, more than 421,000 as well. In Michigan, more than 207,000 recipients could lose their WIC benefits and in North Carolina, it’s more than 268,000 WIC recipients.

Additionally, new eligible participants could face a backlog.

“Without the urgent investment of additional funds, state WIC offices could soon be forced to consider waiting lists for prospective participants — a drastic step not seen in nearly 30 years,” Kate Franken, board chair of the National WIC Association, which is the non-profit advocacy arm of WIC, said in a statement.

The impending shutdown comes after President Joe Biden?made a deal?with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy earlier this year to raise the debt ceiling.?That deal?set maximum spending levels for the next fiscal year.

However, only one of the 12 appropriations bills has been passed by the House, and a handful of far-right Republicans are?pushing for steeper cuts, even if it means a partial government shutdown.

“House Republicans have turned their backs on the bipartisan budget deal that a large majority of them voted for just a few months ago and proposed a continuing resolution (CR) that makes devastating cuts to programs that millions of hardworking Americans count on,” the White House said in a press release.

A continuing resolution, or CR, is regularly used to keep the government funded for weeks or a couple of months while the House and Senate finish work on the 12 annual spending bills.

Without a CR by Saturday, the end of the fiscal year, a partial shutdown will occur and programs that have discretionary funding, like WIC, will lapse.

Funding for WIC is not mandatory spending, meaning the program won’t be automatically funded regardless of a government shutdown. It’s funded through the Agriculture appropriations bill, which has not been passed by Congress.

The White House criticized the Agriculture appropriations bill the House passed out of its committee that did not include the supplemental funding the Biden administration requested.

“Without the Administration’s funding request, states could soon be forced to institute waiting lists for WIC, causing mothers and children to lose access to the vital nutrition assistance,” the White House said.

WIC funding is distributed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service to states through a formula. The share of eligible people who participate in WIC can vary between states —?for example?California, Massachusetts, and Minnesota, have a coverage rate for WIC by over 60%.

Pieces of Good Meat's cultivated chicken are shown at the Eat Just office in Alameda, Calif., Wednesday, June 14, 2023. The Agriculture Department issued final approvals Wednesday, June 21 to California firms Upside Foods and Good Meat to sell the products, known as “lab grown” or “cultivated” meat. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Select U.S. restaurants have begun serving laboratory-grown chicken, spurring long wait times for reservations by diners curious to taste it.

In June, the U.S. Department of Agriculture gave final approval for a few California-based companies to begin selling lab-produced chicken across the country.

While it may be years before lab-grown meat is available at grocery stores, a handful of states are tightening rules on labeling the new food, which is produced by growing cells acquired from living animals into muscle tissue.

Consumers interested in sustainable foods that avoid the slaughter of animals are driving the growing industry. But, pushed by the cattle and poultry industries, more states are defining what can be sold to consumers as “meat” and are requiring prominent labels on products cultured in labs.

Under a USDA agreement, UPSIDE Foods and GOOD Meat, as well as the latter’s manufacturing partner JOINN Biologics, will sell their products with the label “cell-cultivated chicken,” while the department develops further labeling rules.

But some states are imposing their own additional requirements.

Texas passed the most recent bill, signed into law by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in May. Starting Sept. 1, cultivated products in Texas must include the term “cell-cultured,” “lab-grown” or similar wording on packaging near the name of the product, in type at least the same size as the text around it.

The Texas Farm Bureau, an advocacy group of farmers and ranchers, had listed the bill as one of its legislative priorities this year.

In 2018, Missouri became the first state to pass legislation requiring different labeling for traditional meat versus products not derived from livestock or poultry.

Such products marketed in Missouri as meat without the words “plant-based,” “veggie,” “lab-grown,” “lab-created” or a similar phrase before or after the product’s name may be referred to a county prosecutor and the attorney general for potential violations, according to a memorandum from the state. The products also must state that they are “made from plants,” “grown in a lab” or a comparable disclosure.

Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyomingenacted similar legislation the following year.

In 2020, Oklahoma enacted a law giving state officials the authority to enforce meat labeling practices.

This year, Iowa considered a bill to prohibit lab-grown proteins in public schools, but it didn’t pass. A Michigan labeling measure remains in committee.

Kentucky’s 2019 law deems a food misbranded if it is labeled as meat but contains cultured animal tissue.

The cattle industry in Kentucky is extremely important to the economy, said state Rep. Michael Meredith, a Republican from Oakland, who sponsored the measure. People are interested in knowing about the origin and makeup of their food now more than ever before, he said, and legislators wanted to ensure labels are clear.

“I think the public is very skeptical of the product,” Meredith said. “I have talked with people — and I come from a fairly rural area — and folks are just appalled, and it’s not even funny.”

He added, “I think it’s going be really, really hard to push something like this in rural America as a market.”

But the cell-cultured meat industry has made significant strides in recent years. As of 2022, the global number of cultivated meat companies rose to 156, with headquarters in 26 countries, according to the Good Food Institute’s State of the Industry?report. The nonprofit, which advocates in favor of protein alternatives and prefers the term “cultivated” meat, found that all-time investments in the industry had reached $2.8 billion globally last year.

The institute argues that U.S. state legislatures are taking steps to undermine the market through “label censorship,” which it calls unconstitutional and unnecessary.

“It’s always been our position that state label censorship through legislative efforts were kind of a ‘solution in search of a problem,’” said Laura Braden, associate director of regulatory affairs and an attorney at the Good Food Institute. “Consumer choice rather than label censorship should determine winners and losers in the marketplace.”

Still, legislators in states such as Wyoming, where the law requires labels on lab-grown meat to include “containing cell cultured product” or similar wording, say they want labels clearly understood by the public.

“It never hurts to have our Department of Agriculture, doing this work alongside the USDA,” Wyoming Republican state Sen. Brian Boner said. “We’re just going to have a more robust system where folks will know exactly what they’re purchasing when it comes to meat products.”

But such measures have met resistance.

The Missouri law prompted a lawsuit arguing the state made “a brazen attempt to stifle the growing grocery category of plant-based meats,” according to a statement from the ACLU of Missouri, which is part of the lawsuit. Including the Animal Legal Defense Fund, the Good Food Institute and Tofurky, a plant-based protein company, a coalition of organizations challenged the law for violating the First Amendment.

“I don’t think this was about consumer confusion,” said Amanda Howell, a managing attorney at Animal Legal Defense Fund. “I don’t think this is about ensuring clear and non-misleading labels. I think this was about taking First Amendment rights away from companies and making them call themselves things that you know would be unintelligible to consumers. And if a consumer can’t tell what a product is, they’re not going to buy it.”

Howell said states are acting now because they sense the growing market possibilities.

“These are very animal agriculture-heavy states, their GDP relies on those animal producers, and they feel beholden to their constituents to pass these laws designed to attack plant and cell-cultured meats.”

Mike Badger, executive director of the American Pastured Poultry Producers Association, said poultry producers have long been expecting the approval of cell-cultivated chicken.

The association represents independent farms that market directly to consumers, unlike poultry giants like Tyson Foods, which has been investing in lab-grown meat companies for a few years. While the traditional poultry farm community isn’t overly concerned about the possibility of competition, Badger said, there are still ethical concerns for consumers choosing cell-cultivated chicken.

“I think the really big question here is this: What’s driving the demand to create this new lab-grown protein?” Badger asked. “Is it only the fact that people think it’s more ethical than having a living chicken that dies for your table? And if that’s the case, how are the ethics of all the other stuff coming into it?”

Backers of cultivated meat argue it is better for the environment. Traditional meat is one of the top contributors to the average U.S. household’s carbon footprint, according to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In 2019, a sizable portion of the Earth’s greenhouse gas emissions came from the global agriculture industry.

A 2021 article by university researchers in India published in the Journal of Animal Science and Technology suggests lab-grown meat could fulfill the increasing demand for meat using fewer natural resources.

But Badger cited an April preprint by researchers at the University of California, Davis that found lab-grown meat’s environmental impact could be higher than retail beef based on current production methods.

“It’s very early in the whole process,” Badger said, “and there’s a lot of questions to be sorted out.”

This article is republished from Stateline, part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: [email protected]. Follow Stateline on Facebook and Twitter.

Food prices overall increased a tad in July over the previous month, but seafood, eggs and milk prices all declined, according to the Department of Labor’s consumer price index. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is funding projects to create new markets and revenue streams for “climate-smart” practices in farming, including beef production. In this photo, cattle graze in a field outside of North English, Iowa, on Sept. 13, 2017. (USDA photo by Preston Keres)

Kentucky's small farm wineries would be allowed to self-distribute 12,000 gallons annually under a bill that awaits only a House vote. (Photo by Marie LaFauci/Getty Images)

FRANKFORT — Kentucky’s small farm wineries are asking lawmakers to let them sell up to 30,000 gallons of wine annually to licensed retailers, but the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of Kentucky says that’s too much.

Charles George, executive director of the wholesalers group, told a legislative committee that the wholesalers would support direct sales to retailers by small farm wineries of 7,000 gallons a year.?

“That’s more than double or even triple what most wineries in Kentucky are producing,” George told the Senate Licensing & Occupations Committee Tuesday.

The committee moved Senate Bill 28, which would set the limit at 30,000 gallons a year. Several senators voting “yes” expressed reservations about allowing small farms to sell that much wine but said they wanted to get the bill to the Senate floor.

Two representatives of the Kentucky Wineries Association made the case for what the group’s vice president Derrick Huff called “frustrated small farm wineries across our state.”

Huff told lawmakers that wholesalers do not move products from small farm wineries because it is not profitable for them and that Kentucky wine “has been cast aside and ignored by distributors” for decades.

“Imagine how much more revenue we could generate if we had a larger presence in the retail market,” Huff said. “We could grow it here, produce it here and sell it to all who come to enjoy beverages within our commonwealth.”?

Huff’s Traveler’s Cellar Winery, based in Rockfield in Warren County, has been in business three years. While the amount of product varies among small farm wineries, Huff said his typically produces 15,000 bottles. One gallon of wine is about five bottles.

Kentucky law defines small farm wineries as those producing 250 gallons to 500,000 gallons of wine in a calendar year. The 30,000 gallon figure represents 6% of what small farm wineries are allowed to produce.

The wineries would like to build large enough portfolios to attract distributors and not be their own distributor, Huff told the committee.?

Sen. Mike Wilson, R-Bowling Green, said he decided to sponsor the bill after meeting Huff and learning about small farm wineries during an event at one in his district. Wilson, the Senate majority whip, said he “found out that they did not have any distribution, and so that was very concerning to me.”

Both the winery owners and the wholesalers were scolded by Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer who said he was weary of resolving disputes like this.?

“You know when you come before this committee and spend an hour of our lives that we’re never going to get back, you guys come up, you attack the distributors. You come up, you got to play defense, kind of attack the wineries. I’m tired of it.”?

According to the Department of Agriculture’s website, Kentucky has more than 60 small farm wineries. Small farm wineries’ licenses can be found in the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control’s online database. Of the 92 licenses issued, four had out-of-state premise addresses listed.

Nancy Herald shows a photo of her home during the March 2021 flood in Jackson, photographed on Dec. 19. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Arden Barnes)

JACKSON —About five months after deadly flooding and heavy rains displaced thousands of Eastern Kentuckians and killed at least 44, many still need help to replace basic household supplies.?

The plea from many in Breathitt County going into hard winter is, they told the Kentucky Lantern: Don’t forget about us. And: there are still many needs, including permanent housing.?

Over four days from July 26 to July 30, 2022, 6 to 16 inches of rain fell, according to the National Weather Service. The “incredible rainfall also led to significant rises and flooding on many rivers,” NWS reported.?

The result was homes underwater, cars washed away, buildings flipped and people killed.?

That weather event came a little more than a year after floods in 2021 devastated the same region, the worst flooding there in some 50 years.?

In the weeks after the disaster, donations poured into the region—clothes, food, volunteers to muck out damaged homes. Now, as survivors focus on rebuilding, they still need help.?

“The first thing I say when anybody asks (what people need) is: gift cards and money,” said Justina Salyers, who is from River Caney. “And the reason I say that is because they’re spending all their money on fixing their homes. So, they’re buying drywall, they’re buying furniture, they’re buying flooring. So the biggest thing that I see that I can give them, and they’re not overloaded with, is money, and they can go out and buy groceries or whatever they need.”?

Others said there’s a need for building and construction supplies, food and financial planners to come in and help people sort through their money situations.?

“They’ve had a lot of wonderful toy drives and coat drives, but I feel like people really need help with housing,” said Jackson Mayor Laura Thomas. “Whether that’s helping with a rebuild, or helping them get rental assistance or helping them get…into more permanent housing.”?

In the nearby Knott-Perry county line in Talcum, Gov. Andy Beshear announced in late December, 75 acres–with the possibility of 300–has been conveyed for a new community on higher ground that could mean “dozens upon dozens” of houses outside the floodplains.?

Even when people get into permanent housing, Thomas said, “then they’re going to need household supplies…and people need food. We’ve had…kids that have participated in Shop with a Cop that wanted to buy food.”?

Jackson woman Carolyn Combs said the bottom line is: people need everything because they’ve lost everything.?

“Everything that I’ve had the last 15 years of my life is gone,” she said. ?“If there’s nothing that (people) can do when it comes to…physically donating something, we could always use prayers. If it hadn’t been for prayers, and just God working through people…we would have never made it this far.”?

Some said they felt abandoned as some organizations moved on from Eastern Kentucky to the next big disaster.

“There’s other disasters,” Marine and Jackson resident Dexter Dunn told the Lantern. “You got Florida down there. You got the wildfires out west. That’s all it takes. You look at Western Kentucky…they had the tornadoes.”

Dunn swung his son in his arms as he spoke while he cooed and smiled. Baby River Slade got his name because his momma waded through flood water when she was eight months pregnant with him.

They survived.

“We knew given the next national disaster or whatever that it would just fall to the wayside,” Dunn said of the area. “You know, nobody would be here to help…It just doesn’t end after the trucks leave.”

Many Eastern Kentucky flood survivors say the recovery would go much slower without local nonprofits that have stepped up and provided furniture, food and other items to folks in need.?

You can help Eastern Kentucky flood survivors by donating online to such organizations as:?

• Aspire Appalachia?
• Samaritan’s Purse?
• Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky?
• United Methodist Mountain Mission?
• Housing Development Alliance Inc.?
• Mission of Hope?
• Appalachians for Appalachia?
• Appalachian Regional Healthcare Foundation Flood Relief Fund?
• Eastern Kentucky Mutual Aid?
• Save the Children?
• Team Eastern Kentucky Flood Relief Fund?
• American Red Cross?

Did we miss an organization or fund? Please let the author know at [email protected].?

In an ongoing effort to diversify the country’s meat processing and create new markets for smaller livestock producers, the federal government is distributing about $3.9 million of grant money and guaranteeing loans that total $5.7 million for more than two dozen projects in 15 states, including Kentucky.

Danville farmer Dennis Spencer Guinn was awarded a $161,914 Value-Added Producer Grant to expand his family’s beef operation by processing, packaging, and marketing custom retail beef cuts. The project will serve Boyle, Fayette, Jessamine and Woodford counties and result in the creation of one job, according to a release from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Guinn and his wife Carly Guinn founded, own and operate Circle G Farms in Danville, where they raise beef, pork, heirloom corn, garden produce and other grains and hay, according to Circle G’s website.

“It’s getting harder and harder to make a living as a farmer, but investments like this can help bring in additional revenue,” said USDA Rural Development Kentucky State Director Tom Carew. “This is just the latest way we’re trying to reduce bottlenecks and increase opportunities for producers.”

The grants are aimed at strengthening the nation’s meat supply chain and promoting competition. Carew said that under the Biden administration, Rural Development “will continue to help build a resilient food supply chain in rural Kentucky.”

The Biden administration has dedicated billions of dollars to agricultural and food-supply initiatives to make them more climate-friendly and resilient against calamitous market disruptions, such as pandemics.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters last week, “We are just in the beginning processes of this. It takes a while, obviously, for the grant application process to go through, but we’re excited about this. We think they’re going to begin to see some results.”

Jared Strong, a reporter for the Iowa Capital Dispatch, contributed to this report.

The cost of holiday baking will be higher this year as prices for eggs are up 49.1% over last year, according to the Consumer Price Index. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Shoppers hoping for a little relief at the grocery store for their holiday meals will be disappointed by the Consumer Price Index released Tuesday. The CPI shows inflation cooling but food prices — particularly for some holiday staples — remain high.

The CPI increased 0.1% in November, which was lower than some economists expected. Over the last 12 months, it rose 7.1%. Food went up 0.5% last month after an increase of 0.6% in October. The food index climbed 10.6% over last year.

“The headline inflation numbers are encouraging for the general economy but consumers are not being relieved at the grocery store,” said David Ortega, associate professor at the department of agricultural food and resource economics at Michigan State University. “We’re looking at November being the ninth consecutive month of double-digit grocery price inflation. Grocery prices are still 12% higher than they were a year ago.”

In August, the cost of food shot up 11.4% over last year, which is a level not seen since May 1979, according to Marketwatch’s analysis of government data.

“The good news is that food price increases and grocery price increases peaked in August,” Ortega added, “They’re just slowly starting to come down. We’re headed in the right direction but consumers are still not feeling relief at the store and that’s because inflation captures the rate of price increases over time, so just because the inflation rate starts to calm down a bit doesn’t mean that things are getting cheaper. They’re just not rising in price as quickly.”

Supply chain disruptions, the conflict in Ukraine, climate change, the deadliest bird flu in U.S. history, transportation costs, and increased consumer spending on food, are all drivers of higher food prices, Ortega explained.

“We have supply chain disruptions and they’re starting to ease from the pandemic. But then we have the conflict in Ukraine that led to a surge in commodity prices earlier this year. Those have come down significantly, but it takes time for that to be fully realized at the grocery store.”

Climate change has also affected agricultural output, he said, which has meant less food out in the market and increased prices. Ortega said that although it’s hard to say when food prices will begin to come down, he expects that it could happen in the next six months or so. The International Monetary Fund released a report in October that said Federal Reserve interest rate increases will put “downward pressure on prices through the end of next year.”

Donna McCallister, assistant professor at the department of agricultural and applied economics at Texas Tech University, said prices always increase this time of year, compounding the problem for many Americans this month. According to Bankrate’s Nov. 23 analysis of the cost of holiday essentials, six of 10 of the most inflated prices were for food, including turkey, bakery items, eggs, flour and prepared mixes.

Consumers preparing a Christmas ham, buying a frozen pie, or making sugar cookies for a party this month will find significantly higher prices than last year. Ham is up 7.8% year over year, frozen and refrigerated bakery products are up 19.4%, and eggs are up 49.1%, the CPI. shows.

“A lot of that has to do with increased cost of production and transportation, but also increased demand for these things like butter, where people go out and buy things like eggs, butter, and flour for their cooking, so there’s also a demand story here as well,” Ortega said.

McCallister suggests cutting down on food waste by going to stores more frequently for specific meals, buying some items in bulk, or switching from name brand to store brand to save money this holiday season.

Joseph Monroe, holding his son Angus, raises grass-fed calves in Henry County and markets them through Our Home Place Meat. Photo courtesy of The Berry Center

NEW CASTLE?— For more than a century Henry County relied on tobacco to keep its farmers and its economy going.

For most of the second half of the 20th century a federal program?stabilized the price of tobacco, guaranteeing those farmers a steady, predictable income. That all changed in the new century after Congress ended tobacco price supports.

Just as all that change was underway, Mary Berry, the daughter of Henry County’s?renowned author, activist, farmer and environmentalist Wendell Berry, founded The?Berry Center to carry on his vision of “prosperous well-tended farms serving and supporting healthy local communities.”

Thinking about how to help farmers prosper, they began with the mantra, “start with what?you have.” With tobacco gone, what Henry County had was cattle and pasture.

No state east of the Mississippi River produces more cattle than Kentucky.

So the Berry Center began to think about ways small farmers could make more, and more?predictable, money from their cattle operations and landed on the idea of producing veal.

The economics made sense. Typically, weaned calves would be sent off in a tractor-trailer to a feedlot in the Midwest, fattened up and then sold into the industrial meat?complex. Cutting out all the middlemen and harvesting them at weaning for a premium?product could mean more money going directly to the farmer.

And that’s how Our Home Place Meat came to be in 2017. A pilot program created and?supported by the nonprofit Berry Center, Our Home Place took on the challenge of?persuading farmers to raise the veal, guaranteeing them a price for it, and finding markets?for it.

It was a tall order.

The program began with the principle of guaranteeing a price that took into account farmers’ expenses and added a reasonable profit. “With the market you are gambling,” explained Beth Douglas, who directs the program. “At the beginning of the year we tell the farmers how many cattle we will purchase and at what price. That allows the farmers to plan for the year.”

Plus, the farmers don’t have to invest in different equipment or new barns, they just have?to keep raising cattle and, instead of sending them off to feed lots, “we take it to?Trackside Butcher Shoppe,” in Campbellsburg (also in Henry County), Douglas said. “So?it’s literally not changing anything for the farmer. It’s taking them where they are.”

At the same time, Our Home Place began developing partnerships for marketing the?product.

Overcoming veal’s bad rep

Veal had fallen out of the favor in the United States because of inhumane methods —?confining calves in small pens to prevent muscle development, feeding them only milk or?milk solids — used to produce a very white, tender meat.

But in Europe veal is different, a?rosy-colored meat from calves raised outside, nursing and eating grass. This was the type?of veal they wanted to raise in Henry County.

Perry helped with the re-education process by preparing a multi-course meal at The Berry?Center in 2017 using Rose Veal, inviting chefs to taste the product. He cooked sliders,?ribeyes, strips and filets, even veal blanc which he described as “the national French?hangover food” to demonstrate the flavor and versatility of Rose Veal.

But even if chefs wanted it they had to be able to get it. That’s where What Chefs Want!?(formerly Creation Gardens), a Louisville-based wholesaler came into the venture.

John Thomas, a vice-president there, said it is a partnership, not a typical?customer-vendor relationship. His team works with the farmers, Douglas and the people?at Trackside Butcher Shoppe, discussing pricing, production and quality.

“Everybody’s really on the same page and pulling in the same direction,” Thomas said.

That gives What Chefs Want! what it needs to promote Rose Veal to restaurateurs who want to source more of their food locally and support family farmers.

“There’s plenty of beef out there to buy, we didn’t need another beef supplier. We needed a relationship that has a purpose.”

And, he adds, “we’re very, very happy with the product.”

At Red Hog Artisan Meat in Louisville most of the meat comes from whole animals that?are processed in-house by a team of five butchers. But Aaron Sortman, the executive?butcher there, jumped at the chance to get involved when he learned what the Berry?Center was doing “to help out these smaller farms.” He’d always admired Wendell?Berry’s work (“I think he’s the coolest”) and is constantly on the lookout for “local farms?that ethically raise their animals.”

Although Red Hog butchers most of its own meat, they need to fill in the gaps for many?popular items like tenderloins, New York strip steaks and ribeyes, and Our Home Place?has “become our main supplemental supplier.” Sortman buys both Rose Veal and?Berry Beef, meat from older cattle that are finished on grain but on the farm in pastures?not in feedlots.

‘Better product from a taste standpoint’

As with Thomas at What Chefs Want!, Sortman said there’s a personal relationship that?he’d never get with a commodity producer. He met several of the farmers at a dinner?sponsored by Our Home Place and has sent some of his butchers to workshops to learn?more about the product.

As far as he’s concerned, it’s a safer product (less chance of bacterial contamination from?large farms and factory feedlots) and “an alternative to the supermarket food chain.”

Plus, Sortman said, “it’s a better product from a taste standpoint.”

Most new ventures fail because they must make money from day one, explained Douglas,?but the Berry Center’s support has “given us time to build the program and figure out?what works and what doesn’t work.”

Last year the program handled about 100 head and returned $245,000 to the Henry?County economy through direct payments to farmers and to Trackside for processing the?meat. This year Douglas figures that the combination of Rose Veal and Berry Beef will reach about 270 head.

Those aren’t big figures in the sea of the Kentucky agriculture economy but they make a?difference to local farmers, said John Logan Brent, the retiring Henry County judge?executive, a member of The Berry Center board and a farmer who sells to the program —?about 20 head of veal and 10 of beef this year. He figures the contract with Our Home?Place typically adds from $200 to $300 a head to the commodity price. For small?operations that extra income is “something they can count on, (it) certainly makes a?difference at the end of the year.”

Brent sees a future when this pilot program can grow up and become a full-fledged?agricultural cooperative that can pay its own administrative costs but believes it will?have to achieve a scale of about 1,000 head processed annually to get there.

Our Home Place targets young farmers, Brent said, many of whom “desperately want to?be involved in agriculture,” whether they are trying to make a family farm work or are new?to the business. An added benefit of this program is that it gives them a product they can?be proud of. “Who thanks you for your animals at a sale barn?”

Dalla Emerson, food-service director for the Bowling Green Independent Schools, is congratulated by, from right, Wilondja Akili and Quinn Otto after General Mills honored her school-nutrition work by putting her photo on a Wheaties box. The students serve on the Child Nutrition Food Committee at McNeill Elementary. (Photo by Leslie McCoy)

The food-service director at Bowling Green Independent Schools will often get texts from a farmer in a neighboring county asking her if she wants the latest produce, like a fresh batch of purple cauliflower.?

“We’re not ever going to say no. We can always add something fresh,” said Dalla Emerson. “We try to bake them in the oven, salt them a little bit.”?

That cauliflower is just the tip of the iceberg with Kentucky produce in her schools: A salad bar offers local cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce. During the pandemic, her school district handed out 1,200 pounds of blueberries from a Warren County orchard, and bags of local vegetables were also given to families.?

“Farm to School” programs across the country generally work to bring locally-grown food into schools. Emerson said her program is a dedicated effort to make sure students have these local options, a part of their education to show children and teenagers the possibilities with what they eat.?

“We’re expected to produce citizens that are vested in our community, and it starts with us,” she said. “It starts with educating them in the schools, not just about math and science and history, but also nutrition.”

Emerson has used up to about 20% of her school district’s food budget each year to buy locally, but that makes her an exception in Kentucky, according to a recent study by Kentucky agriculture and nutrition advocates.

Only about 5% of food purchased by Kentucky schools was sourced from local farms in 2019, the latest year with federal data available, according to a study published in October by the Kentucky Food Action Network — a coalition made up of the food bank network Feeding Kentucky, the poverty law research center Kentucky Equal Justice Center and other groups.

More farm to school food served in nearby states

Kentucky schools also lagged behind in incorporating local food compared to schools in nearby states such as Ohio, Indiana, and Tennessee, the study found.?

Food and nutrition advocates see these shortfalls as an opportunity to expand on not only providing students with nutritious meals but also to boost the incomes of smaller-scale Kentucky farms. Kate McDonald, who runs the No Kid Hungry campaign for Feeding Kentucky, points to the fact many school children receive multiple meals each day during the school year.

“Farm to School is making sure that kids have access to local foods. It just makes sense. It’s a win-win for Kentucky kids and Kentucky farms,” McDonald said.?

McDonald helped launch the Kentucky Grown Vegetable Incentive Program in 2018 to help support more local fruit and vegetable purchases to include in summer meal programs for children. But the research study McDonald contributed also lists several challenges in trying to adopt Farm to School more widely.?

For one, according to the latest federal agriculture data from 2017, there aren’t enough Kentucky farms that sell to institutions and retail markets such as school districts to supply produce for every school in the state; many more farms sell directly to consumers at farmers markets, for example. It also takes time to build purchasing relationships between farmers and districts, and food service directors in schools want to make sure they have a dependable supply of food.

“It’s just hard for schools to balance wanting to work with local farmers and having a dependable reliable quantity when they need it,” said Tyler Offerman, a food justice fellow with the Kentucky Equal Justice Center.

Offerman said the paperwork and bureaucracy involved with procuring local food is also a burden, with some school districts not wanting to deal with the extra effort.?

Paperwork, bureaucracy, burnout

Leah Feagin, President of the Kentucky School Nutrition Association and food-service director for Mayfield Independent Schools, said these local food service directors often wear multiple hats — such as also directing transportation for the district — and in small school districts, may be the only district employee ordering the food.?

“The director job is a full-time job,” Feagin said. “They’re burnt out. And then how do you say to that director, ‘I know you still don’t have everything you need to get done today and you’ve already put in your nine hours, but what about trying to find some farm to school options?’”

In Bowling Green Independent Schools, Emerson was able to convince the school board to hire a menu coordinator to help with managing the food orders. But the costs of buying local food can also be prohibitive; Emerson has had to fill out paperwork for grants to help support some of her purchases.?

Nutrition advocates behind the Farm to School study point to an incentive program implemented in Alabama that provides school districts extra funding to buy local food, or more collaboration in Ohio between university-run agriculture extension offices and school districts to incorporate local foods. In Kentucky, a farm to school online portal run by the University of Kentucky aims to help connect school districts with farmers interested in providing local meat or produce.?

Tina Garland, the Farm to School coordinator for the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, said she understands there’s a lot of room for improvement with Farm to School programs. But she believes the growing engagement she’s seen in schools with local food, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic when food supply chains were roiled, is something that can be built upon.?

“I see more and more people making that connection of the importance of, you know, connecting with a farmer, and knowing where your food comes from,” Garland said.