Selective Enforcement by USDA Alleged — Kid Glove Treatment for Dean Foods/WhiteWave In an open letter published today and addressed to USDA National Organic Program chief Miles McEvoy, The Cornucopia Institute accused the regulatory agency of abdicating its enforcement responsibilities. Cornucopia, an organic industry watchdog, charged that the USDA had allowed Dean Foods and its… Read more »
Search Results for: GMO
10 Things to Know About Food on World Food Day
Huffington Post By Lester R. Brown October 16 is World Food Day. It offers the opportunity to strengthen national and international solidarity in the fight to end hunger, malnutrition and poverty. With falling water tables, eroding soils and rising temperatures making it difficult to feed growing populations, control of arable land and water resources is… Read more »
‘Pink Slime’ Returns to School Lunches in 4 More States
Politico By Bill Tomson and Helena Bottemiller Evich Kids are going back to school and so is the ground beef filler dubbed “pink slime.” Thousands of schools across the U.S. rushed last year to stop feeding their students meat that contained the ammonia-treated beef, known by industry as lean finely textured beef. Their action followed… Read more »
Counterfeit Food More Widespread Than Suspected
New York Times By Stephen Castle and Doreen Carvajal GREAT DALBY, England — Invisible from the roadway, hidden deep in the lush English countryside, Moscow Farm is an unlikely base for an international organized crime gang churning out a dangerous brew of fake vodka. But a quarter of a mile off a one-lane road here,… Read more »
Pesticide Poisoning Our Children Was Out, Now Maybe Back In
Cornucopia’s Take: After five years of study, the EPA found that the commonly used pesticide chlorpyrifos is likely causing lasting harm to our children, in utero. With President Trump’s planned regulatory cuts, it is unclear whether chlorpyrifos manufacturers, Dow Chemical, may be able to override science and continue to peddle their lucrative toxic chemical. Protect… Read more »
UN/WHO Panel in Conflict of Interest Row over Glyphosate Cancer Risk
The Guardian by Arthur Neslen Source: 401kcalculator Chairman of UN’s joint meeting on pesticide residues co-runs scientific institute which received donation from Monsanto, which uses glyphosate A UN panel that on Tuesday ruled that glyphosate was probably not carcinogenic to humans has now become embroiled in a bitter row about potential conflicts of interests. It… Read more »
Why the United States Leaves Deadly Chemicals on the Market
Independent Science News by Valerie Brown and Elizabeth Grossman Source: Kate Ter Haar Scientists are trained to express themselves rationally. They avoid personal attacks when they disagree. But some scientific arguments become so polarized that tempers fray. There may even be shouting. Such is the current state of affairs between two camps of scientists: health effects… Read more »
The Cost of Organic
Burlington Free Press (link no longer available) By Terri Hallenbeck, Free Press Staff Writer NORTH HERO — Behind the lettuce, beans and zucchini that sit in bins at Amanda Gervais’s farmstand was a lot of planning and paperwork. Before the heads of broccoli and Swiss chard ever emerged from the ground, Gervais had to document their… Read more »
Why Small Farms Are Safer
The Atlantic by Josh Viertel In 2006 I was–among other things–a vegetable farmer. In New Haven, Connecticut, using Ivy League labor, we grew and sold over 300 varieties of vegetables. Today I am struck with memories of one in particular: a gorgeous crop of spinach we couldn’t sell. During the summer of 2006, an intelligent,… Read more »
To Save Organic Dairy, Obama Must Change the USDA Mindset
Excerpted from The Milkweed Mark Kastel The state of the (organic) dairy nation is not good. That shouldn’t be too much of a surprise since the entire dairy industry, and general economy, is in freefall. But for many of us who have been involved in building the organic dairy sector over the last two decades,… Read more »
