Category Archives: environment

Three Food Safety Rules Grow Moldy at OIRA as Import-Related Outbreaks Continue | Food Safety News

In January 2011, President Obama signed the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), a set of sweeping reforms that would be fleshed out in rules issued by the FDA. Two and a half years later, only two proposed rules have been released—one on produce safety standards, and the other on preventive controls for human food. The FDA has drafted three other proposed rules that could significantly improve the safety of imports, but they are currently languishing at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), an office inside the White House that is notorious for blocking, weakening, and delaying the rules that it reviews.

These three rules, described below, are already many months beyond their statutory deadlines, and OIRA has held them well past the 90-day limit established by Executive Order 12866. Whenever these rules finally emerge, we should be alert to the ways that OIRA may have undermined their effectiveness, just as it substantially weakened the FDA’s preventive-controls rule before it was released in February.

via Three Food Safety Rules Grow Moldy at OIRA as Import-Related Outbreaks Continue | Food Safety News.

Beef 101: NCBA Addresses Congress on Antibiotic Use in Livestock

The best Congress money can buy! SuperBugs? Propaganda! Profit before People…

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) gave an overview Monday to more than 70 congressional staff members on antibiotics used in food producing animals as part of NCBA’s “Beef 101” educational series.

“Beef 101” is an educational program for members of Congress and their staff, developed to continually educate those on Capitol Hill on issues important to the beef industry. Today’s session featured a presentation by Dr. Mike Apley, DVM, PhD, a clinical pharmacologist with Kansas State University, who discussed with attendees the judicious use of antibiotics in the beef industry as one of the critical tools to prevent the spread of disease and maintain a healthy herd.

via Beef 101: NCBA Addresses Congress on Antibiotic Use in Livestock.

These women deliver food from farm to table by bike, in minutes | Grist

In Tallahassee, two women are upping the urban farming ante. Claire Mitchell and Danielle Krasniqi started Ten-Speed Greens last November. They not only grow lettuce, tomatoes, and other produce on a formerly vacant lot in the city, they literally pedal their wares to local restaurants and cafes on a pair of bicycles.

If that wasn’t eco-friendly enough, Mitchell and Krasniqi make their deliveries with a pair of bikes made by a Tallahassee-based cycle-maker who uses their city-grown veggies to supply his other business — a vegan restaurant.

via These women deliver food from farm to table by bike, in minutes | Grist.

Europe Firm on GM Food Stance

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel says Europe will defend its restrictions on genetically modified food in talks on a new free trade agreement with the United States.

Negotiations on the proposed trade deal are set to start in July. They will focus on lowering tariffs and rules that hinder trade in goods and services, and the deal is seen as a way of promoting new economic growth.

Potentially tricky areas include agricultural issues, such as EU restrictions on the use of genetically modified foods and pesticides.

Asked in her weekly video appearance Saturday whether the idea is to align European standards on genetic engineering with America’s, Merkel replied: “No. Above all, we do not want to simply minimize standards now — that is a concern many have.”

via Europe Firm on GM Food Stance.

Haze update: Burning ‘the cheapest way to clear farm land’

If you look at the size of fires, it is clear that it is the large plantations and not just “poor farmers” burning to clear land for planting palm oil farms and plunder the earth and globe for short term profit and quickening the death of the planet – which they delude themselves into believing that can buy their way to safety.!

For poor farmers in Indonesia, it is hard economics and not green issues like environment protection that dictates what they do.

This is why they are likely to continue with a practice that has been used for generations, Mr Fadli said. “But we are not like that,” he was quick to add.

He insisted his company does not use the slash-and-burn method, but was hard put to explain why there were burnt logs and branches in some parts of the plantation. Also, a worker was using an excavator to flatten land that had obviously been burned.

Mr Fadli declined to reveal the name of the company he works for or the size of the firm.

via Haze update: Burning 'the cheapest way to clear farm land'.

Strawberry grower fined, told to destroy crop – AP State News – The Sacramento Bee

GOP controlled US House of Representative voted to not enforce tighter regulations on food safety that they voted in 2011 – cause you can trust farmers to do the right thing… The California Department of Pesticide Regulation announced a settlement agreement with Lorenzo Lopez of Watsonville-based V.L. Farms on Thursday. They say Lopez acknowledged illegally using the insecticide methomyl and has agreed to destroy 10 acres of his 20-acre farm in addition to a $15,000 fine.

Methomyl was once used by California growers to control lygus bugs in strawberries, but DPR stopped allowing its use in 2010.

The agency says it discovered methomyl residue on the strawberries in April during routine produce residue sampling at a food warehouse in Southern California. DPR says it then traced the berries to Lopez.

via Strawberry grower fined, told to destroy crop – AP State News – The Sacramento Bee.

 

3,000 Americans die a year from food based illnesses according to the CDC. But that’s science and not ideology or profit…

House Votes to Delay Food Safety Rules and endanger you and your children

The House voted late Wednesday to delay sweeping food safety rules that would require farmers and food companies to be more vigilant about guarding against contamination.Lawmakers adopted an amendment by voice vote to a wide-ranging farm bill just before midnight that would delay the rules signed into law in 2011 until the Food and Drug Administration conducts a study on their economic impacts.The proposed rules would require farmers to take new precautions against contamination, to include making sure workers hands are washed, irrigation water is clean, and that animals stay out of fields, among other measures.The amendment was offered by Republican Rep. Dan Benishek of Michigan, who said the regulations would be burdensome to farmers in his district.

via House Votes to Delay Food Safety Rules.

CDC estimates of illness and deaths – not burdensome enough to tighten regulation according to US Rep. Dan Benishek: CDC estimates that each year roughly 1 in 6 Americans (or 48 million people) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of foodborne diseases. 

3,000 deaths not so bad according to Dan and certainly not reason enough to make corporate farmers in his district more careful.

Big tomato grower shuts down this year – Toledo Blade

(Complicated issue – since many of the migrant workers used to come up to Ohio from Texas, not just from Mexico. Resistance by big growers to paying labor more or agreeing to representation by unions is a big part of problem, as well. Spin, politics, and not wanting to pay more for labor or agree to union representation kill off jobs and income to Ohio.)

“The significance of what’s happened in Oak Harbor needs to be understood; it’s affecting more than just the Latino population.”

Those 500 migrant farm workers usually employed by Charles Jones earn a combined annual payroll of about $2.6 million, Mr. Velasquez said. A significant portion of that income is spent locally on food, clothing, gas, and big ticket items like new vehicles. Restaurants, grocery stores, laundry facilities, gas stations will all lose business, he said.

Growers annually spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on seeds and other materials and products, which generates income for businesses and sales income tax, revenue that will be missing this year, Mr. Velasquez said.

Many northwest Ohio restaurants and grocery stores have contracts to purchase tomatoes from Mr. Jones, Mr. Velasquez said. That means these businesses will have to have their tomatoes trucked in from other states instead of grown in Ohio this year, he said.

“This will be a significant hit to the local economy, particularly, Oak Harbor, Fremont, and Woodville,” Mr. Velasquez said. “It’s not just the grower and farm workers who feel the repercussions.”

Mr. Velasquez said he did not know specifically how much money Mr. Jones would lose from not growing tomatoes this year. He would also not estimate the possible financial impact to the local economy.

Justin Darisse, vice president of communications for the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, said as a rule-of-thumb, the presence of each farm worker supports two to three additional jobs in a community.

The U.S. Senate is debating an immigration reform bill that would allow growers to hire more guest workers — 122,000 per year for the next three years and up to 337,000 by 2020

via Big tomato grower shuts down this year – Toledo Blade.