Big Oil [hearts] biofuels

Update [2009-3-19 12:37:25 by Tom Philpott]:Also on the theme of Big Oil loving biofuels: Valero Energy, the largest U.S. oil refiner, just snapped up seven ethanol plants from bankrupt ethanol maker Verasun for $1 billion. To get the plants, Valero beat out corn-processing giant Archer Daniels Midland, which had bid $700 million. ——————- From  Reuters: […]

Following USDA dietary guidelines can be hazardous to your health

Jill Richardson flagged this op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle co-authored by a nutritional biochemist and a doctor. In their commentary, they indicate that current government dietary guidelines might be an eensy bit flawed: Here is a daily diet that meets those nutrition guidelines: Breakfast: 1 cup Fruit Loops; 1 cup skim milk; 1 package […]

Farmers markets need rules if we want them to help the food system

Daniel Duane in Mother Jones warns you about farmers markets becoming “farmers markets”: In 1994, there were 1,755 farmers markets in the United States; by 2008, there were 4,685. In the big scheme of things, this is terrific news; it means Americans are learning to feed themselves properly. But not all parts of the country […]

New legislation would make the meat industry ‘just say no’ to antibiotic abuse

As debate around food safety regulation heats up — some might say, overheats — sublimely named Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) has introduced a House bill that would significantly affect farming practices in the United States. Called the Preservation of Antibiotics for Human Treatment Act, the bill would effectively prevent CAFOs (confined animal feedlot operations) from dousing […]

African ethanol producers accepting employment applications

Wanted: Young cane cutters for part time seasonal work. Must be willing to work ten hours a day swinging a machete in tropical sun while wearing gloves, long sleeved shirt, and hat — no retirement benefits (because you won’t live that long). Apply within. The comment below ElMarto’s photo on Flickr titled “Truck Shadow Escape” […]

Did you know Alice Waters invented the slow food movement!?

The city that ended hunger did it by going local

What struck me in Frances Moore Lappé’s piece at Yes! on Belo Horizonte, Brazil — the city that ended hunger — was how simple the solution was: [The city] offered local family farmers dozens of choice spots of public space on which to sell to urban consumers, essentially redistributing retailer mark-ups on produce — which […]

The National Pork Board tries to spin Nick Kristof's MRSA column

In the wake of Nick Kristof's column on MRSA infections among hog farmers, Obamafoodorama found evidence of Big Pig (the National Pork Board) conspiring with the CDC in prepping its response. And after all that, this is the best they could come up with:

"We also know that MRSA is not just staph bacteria that can be found in pigs, it also can be found in horses, dogs and even marine animals. It is not a problem that is solely related to pigs," DeMirjyn says.

MRSA, in fact, can be found anywhere in nature, according to Paul Ebner, a livestock microbiologist at Purdue University. While he says there has been an increase in the number of these infections and that pigs and other animals can be carriers, the vast majority of infections come from skin-to-skin contact with infected humans.

In industrial-tomato country, workers suffer squalid living conditions and even slavery

Note: Last week, I visited Immokalee, Fla., with nine other food-politics writers and activists. We were there to check out conditions in the area where 90 percent of winter tomatoes consumed in the U.S. originate. Part I of my diary is here. ——— Update [2009-3-13 15:3:13 by Tom Philpott]: After refusing for two years, Florida […]

Would new food-safety legislation 'criminalize organic farming'? No

The Internets are abuzz with accounts of a House bill, allegedly sponsored by Monsanto and pushed through Congress by its lackeys, that would "criminalize organic farming" and even backyard gardening. The object of frenzy: H.R. 875, known as the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, a bill that attempts to bolster the broken food-safety system.

Here's how one critic, whose work circulates widely on sustainable-food listservs, characterizes it:

The bill is monstrous on level after level -- the power it would give to Monsanto, the criminalization of seed banking, the prison terms and confiscatory fines for farmers, the 24 hours GPS tracking of their animals, the easements on their property to allow for warrantless government entry, the stripping away of their property rights, the imposition by the filthy, greedy industrial side of anti-farming international "industrial" standards to independent farms -- the only part of our food system that still works, the planned elimination of farmers through all these means.

Wait, did she just say "the planned elimination of farmers"?

I've been reading hysterical missives about H.R. 875 for weeks. I could never square them with the text of the bill, which is admittedly vague. For example, the bill seeks to regulate any "food production facility" which it defines as "any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation."

But then again, the USDA already regulates farms. And "24 hours GPS tracking of ... animals"? Not in there. "Warrentless government entry" to farms? Can't find it.

More recently, reading around the web, I found more reasoned takes on H.R. 875. The bill may not be worth supporting -- and from what I hear, it has little chance of passing. But it hardly represents the "end of farming," much less the end of organic farming. The Organic Consumers Association, an energetic food-industry watchdog, recently called the paranoia around H.R. 875 the "Internet rumor of the week."