A disappointing week for grain-based foods

Where to begin? By many measures, last week was uniquely disappointing for grain-based foods. A bitter decision for baking was the Secretary of Agriculture’s announcement that there would be no penalty-free early release of Conservation Reserve Program acreage. The Bush administration thus missed its last and best opportunity to help reduce market volatility without interfering in markets and without imperiling environmentally fragile land.

Then in California, a ban on trans fats was signed into law in a worst-case example of government overstepping in the aftermath of federal rules mandating labeling of trans fats. Baking has undertaken a dramatic shift away from trans fats, raising serious questions about the need for further steps.

Also last week in California, the city council in Los Angeles approved a one-year moratorium on the opening of quick-service restaurants. The law still requires the signature of the mayor but conjures the most frightening of "Big Brother" images and represents a sour vindication for those several baking industry executives who more than a decade ago warned that government restrictions on tobacco would surely be followed by meddling in consumers’ access to food.

Finally, and most serious, was collapse of the Doha Round of trade talks. The baking industry for decades has had a complex relationship with agricultural trade. Even in its March on Washington earlier this year, baking offered vague warnings that reflected ambivalence, at best, about wheat exports. But now more than ever, baking must understand that if growers are going to plant wheat rather than alternative crops, they must have maximum access to global markets. This is a threat made all the more real by the prospective introduction of drought-resistant corn providing growers with an even more attractive alternative to wheat. Without open and robust export channels, wheat acreage in the United States almost certainly will continue its disheartening downward spiral. The fight for free trade is everyone’s in grain-based foods.