By Nao Nakanishi HONG KONG (Reuters) – Beijing should avoid the U.S. model of letting only a few companies dominate its entire food supply chain, a specialist said as Beijing steps up efforts to improve China’s food safety record. While focusing on the rapid growth of industrial farming, Beijing might not be aware of associated… Read more »
China’s Growing Exports: Food and Fear
As its shipments of fresh produce to the U.S. increase, so do concerns about contamination Business Week by Pallavi Gogoi As the U.S. and China hold high-level economic talks, there’s no shortage of important topics. At the top of the list for Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and China Vice-Premier Wu Yi will be China’s trade… Read more »
Cattle Antibiotic May Pose Human Health Risk
News Channel 5 (link no longer available) Nashville, TN NASHVILLE, Tenn.- There is growing concern about a powerful antibiotic the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to approve for use in treating sick cattle. More than a dozen groups oppose the move, saying the drug’s use poses a serious health risk for humans, according to… Read more »
Common Chemicals are Linked to Breast Cancer
Of the 216 compounds, many in the air, food or everyday items Los Angeles Times By Marla Cone More than 200 chemicals — many found in urban air and everyday consumer products — cause breast cancer in animal tests, according to a compilation of scientific reports published today. Writing in a publication of the American… Read more »
Organic Farmer Sues Over Neighbor’s Pesticides
Santa Cruz Sentinel By Genevieve Bookwalter NORTH COAST — In a case that could reverberate through the county, a judge has ordered a farming service company to temporarily stop spraying pesticides that an organic farmer says are moving with the fog onto his field and destroying his crop. Organic Jacobs Farms is suing Western Farm… Read more »
Food Safety Comes into Sharp Focus
After contamination scares, Congress examines ways to improve regulation, protection Baltimore Sun By Jonathan D. Rockoff WASHINGTON — After months of revelations about deadly contamination of produce, peanut butter and pet food, and with consumer confidence in what they’re eating falling to an 18-year low, Washington is suddenly turning its attention to the problem of… Read more »
Switch to Organic Crops Could Help Poor
Los Angeles Times By Nicole Winfield Associated Press Writer ROME — Organic food has long been considered a niche market, a luxury for wealthy consumers. But researchers told a U.N. conference Saturday that a large-scale shift to organic agriculture could help fight world hunger while improving the environment. Crop yields initially can drop as much… Read more »
Federal Judge Halts Planting of Commercialized Genetically-Altered Crop
Judge Orders Complete Environmental Review of Monsanto’s Gene-Altered Alfalfa San Francisco, CA — A Federal judge ruled on May 3 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) 2005 approval of Monsanto’s genetically engineered (GE) “Roundup Ready” alfalfa was illegal. Judge Charles Breyer called on USDA to ban any further planting of the GE seed until… Read more »
From Concentrate
How food processing got into the hands of a few giant companies Grist By Tom Philpott Two years ago, dairy giant Dean Foods shuttered a milk-processing facility in Wilkesboro, a town at the eastern edge of North Carolina’s Appalachian Mountains. Dean processes 35 percent of the fluid milk in the U.S. and Canada — roughly… Read more »
Farmers Call USDA an Almond Killjoy
CQ WEEKLY – VANTAGE POINT By Shawn Zeller, CQ Staff What should it cost to sterilize an almond? That’s the question that now has many almond growers up in arms at the Department of Agriculture. This month, the Cornucopia Institute, which does advocacy work for small farmers, protested that new USDA requirements to pasteurize the… Read more »
