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USDA

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    Battle for the soul of organic dairy farmers goes on behind the scenes

    There is a battle going on in the White House for the very soul of the organic dairy movement — and possibly over the future of small family-operated dairy farms — and you don’t even know it. I’d like to think that I’m overstating things but no. At issue is an obscure rule in the […]

    Tom Laskawy Politics

  • USDA’s Deputy Secretary discusses local, organic farming

    Cross-posted from Civil Eats. Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan It was by no means Kathleen Merrigan’s first trip to the Ecological Farming Conference (EcoFarm). But when the Deputy Secretary of Agriculture stood at a podium to address last week’s annual gathering of farmers, retailers, processors, and advocates, it was clear she had never had […]

    Twilight Greenaway Politics

  • And the winner of the USDA food safety sweepstakes is …

    Dr. Elisabeth Hagen! No, you’re not expected to know who she is. Suffice it to say that, as anticipated, USDA Chief Tom Vilsack turned to an under-the-radar choice for Under Secretary of Food Safety. Hagen, currently the USDA’s Chief Medical Officer, will, if confirmed, take charge of the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), which […]

    Tom Laskawy Politics

  • Lesson for schools: sweetened junk shouldn’t count as food

    Sugar in school: give the people what they want? Reporter Ed Bruske spent a week working in a Washington, D.C. public school lunchroom. His series of articles (1, 2, 3) that resulted are fantastic reading for anyone following the ongoing debate regarding school lunches and the challenges for enacting real reform. Today’s entry looked at […]

    Tom Laskawy Politics

  • [UPDATED:] FDA’s food safety blogger doesn’t think meat safety is a problem

    The WaPo and the NYT are now reporting that Michael Taylor has been officially named deputy commissioner for foods at the FDA. What remains fascinating is that both articles, like Taylor’s blog post at the Atlantic, continue to ignore meat safety. It’s only mentioned in passing in the context of Taylor’s past stint as head […]

    Tom Laskawy Politics

  • Industrial farming head just says ‘no’ to call for civility

    For those of you wondering if we can have a more civil discourse over food and agriculture in this country, American Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman has an answer for you: Fat chance! According to Stallman [MS Word], the top challenge facing farmers isn’t the rising cost of seed, fertilizer, and pesticides. Or the alarming […]

    Tom Laskawy Technology

  • Johnny, Can You Spell Salmonella?

    How is it that a country can put a man on the moon, but can’t seem to feed it’s children school lunches that are safer than those eaten at McDonald’s or Jack in the Box? In the past 10 years more than 23,000 school children have become sick as a result of hundreds of food […]

    Dave Murphy Politics

  • Winter growers get some love from the USDA

    It’s tempting to hear the news (and watch the video!) telling us that the USDA will study winter gardening and wonder why the USDA needs to study something that Eliot Coleman, a farmer in Maine, has been doing successfully — and writing about — for decades and something that Will Allen’s urban farming company Growing […]

    Tom Laskawy Politics

  • USDA sustainable-ag czar Merrigan hits youtube

    Way back in August 2006, I wrote a column arguing that farmers in northern areas could grow a lot more vegetables in the winter, if the USDA would invest in research and infrastructure for it. I wrote: If we wanted to make that vision come true for the nation’s northern climes, all it would take […]

    Tom Philpott Politics