El Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (Puerto Rico)
Written by Eliván Martínez

The largest producer of transgenic seeds in the world is leasing some of the best agricultural lands on the Island with a pattern of questionable legality, while receiving incentives from the Fortuño administration.

When environmentalist Juan Rosario traveled to an Amish religious community in Iowa, to learn to make compost, he was surprised that they had a laboratory and the services of an expert in chemistry. What was a scientist doing in a place where people live far from technology and practice ecological farming with the simplest of methods?

An Amish dressed in their style, with a wide-brimmed black hat, white shirt, and black pants and black jacket, pointed toward a large cornfield on a nearby farm. “The scientist helps us verify that pollen from genetically modified corn does not contaminate our crops,” he told Juan Rosario. “It’s the same corn that you develop in Salinas.” Read Full Article »

Posted in Media/News

Big Food’s Co-optation of Nutrition Professionals

Food Safety News
by Michele Simon, Opinion

For years now, I have been hearing about the food industry’s influence on the annual conference of the American Dietetic Association — the nation’s largest gathering of nutrition professionals–with some 7,000 registered dietitians in attendance. Last month, I witnessed it for myself and discovered the corporate takeover by Big Food was worse than I even imagined.

The top-paying sponsors, whom ADA called “partners,” were Coca-Cola, Aramark, the National Dairy Council, and Hershey (their “Center for Health and Nutrition” – really). “Premier sponsors” included PepsiCo, Mars, and General Mills.

The exhibit hall seemed more like a processed food trade show than a nutrition conference. I saw very few booths with actual information, apart from that being peddled by the likes of Nestle, Kraft, and McDonald’s, along with (of course), ubiquitous product samples, tastings, and myriad swag. (Oddly, Monsanto’s booth featured its branded, soy-based lip balm.)

But the worst cooptation came during the “educational sessions,” which should have been off limits to marketing. Read Full Article »

Posted in Opinion/Editorial

Bangor Daily News (Maine)
By Kevin Miller, BDN Staff

BLUE HILL, Maine — Small-scale farmers and Mainers who buy directly from them held a boisterous rally Friday to support a Hancock County man sparring with agriculture officials over his right to sell “raw milk” and other products from his farm without a license.

Farmer Dan Brown admitted to the crowd of 150-plus people gathered outside Blue Hill’s Town Hall Friday that he has become a reluctant spokesman for his side in the potential legal fight emerging over Maine’s vibrant “local foods” movement.

“I would like to be nowhere else than on my farm,” said Brown, clearly uncomfortable in front of a large group and a microphone.

But Brown has, indeed, become the public face in a court case that could test the legality of a “local food” ordinance that seeks to exempt him and other farmers from state or federal inspections and licensing. Read Full Article »

Posted in Media/News

Antibiotics and other drugs are common in the turkey that thousands of Americans eat every day.

AlterNet / By Martha Rosenberg

So far, 2011 has not been a great year for turkey producers. In May, an article in Clinical Infectious Diseases reported that half of U.S. meat from major grocery chains–turkey, beef, chicken and pork–harbors antibiotic resistant staph germs commonly called MRSA. Turkey had twice and even three times the MRSA of all other meats, in another study.

In June, Pfizer announced it was ending arsenic-containing chicken feed which no one realized they were eating anyway, but its arsenic-containing Histostat, fed to turkeys, continues. Poultry growers use inorganic arsenic, a recognized carcinogen, for “growth promotion, feed efficiency and improved pigmentation,” says the FDA. Yum.

And in August, Cargill Value Added Meats, the nation’s third-largest turkey processor, recalled 36 million pounds of ground turkey because of a salmonella outbreak, linked to one death and 107 illnesses in 31 states. Even as it closed its Springdale, Arkansas plant, steam cleaned its machinery and added “two additional anti-bacterial washes” to its processing operations, 185,000 more pounds were recalled the next month from the same plant. Read Full Article »

Posted in Media/News

FreshPlaza.com

Organic crop systems can provide similar yields and much higher economic returns than a conventional corn-soybean rotation, according to thirteen years of data from a side-by-side comparison at Iowa State University’s Neely-Kinyon Research and Demonstration Farm. The University’s Long-Term Agroecological Research Experiment (LTAR) began in 1998 with support from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. LTAR is one of the longest running replicated comparisons in the country. Kathleen Delate, PhD., professor in ISU Agronomy and Horticulture, leads the project.

“The transitioning years are the hardest years,” Dr. Delate said, explaining that the project was originally designed to help farmers make the shift into an organic system. Read Full Article »

Posted in Media/News