Friday, November 20, 2009
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Ag and Trade | Food
Monsanto To Sell Milk Hormone Division
08/07/2008
Monsanto is trying to sell the division that makes artificial growth hormones (Prosilac) for dairy cows, according to press reports. This could be seen as a response to consumers, who uniformly seem to avoid milk treated with growth hormones. Wal-Mart, Kroger and Publix sell house brands that feature milk from untreated cows. Dean Foods, the nation's largest bottler, also sells milk only from cows who haven't consumed Prosilac.

Monsanto introduced the hormone in 1993, making it one of the first applications of genetic engineering in food production. A 2007 survey found that only 17 percent of the nation's milk cows were using Prosilac. Monsanto has tried to keep milk labels from saying whether the product comes from untreated cows. Pennsylvania's secretary of agriculture banned these labels after heavy lobbying from Monsanto, but his decision was overturned by the governor after protests from consumers.
Ag and Trade | Food
COOL Labeling Costs Pegged At $2.5 Billion
08/06/2008
Packages of beef, chicken, fresh produce and frozen fruits and vegetables next year will have to carry labels telling where the food was produced, reports the Sacramento Bee. This "country of origin" labeling (COOL for short) will cost $2.5 billion, according to estimates released by U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Most of that cost (less than the Ag Department estimated earlier) will be shouldered by retailers. They will be required to put stick-on labels identifying where food was produced. U.S. food producers have been pushing for COOL for ages, both as a marketing tool and as a way for consumers to have more control over what food they eat.

The USDA estimates that implementing COOL will cost 7 cent a pound for beef and 4 cents a pound for pork.
Ag and Trade | Cool Places | Food | People to Know
Benton's Hams Wait and Take Wing
07/15/2008
bacon thumbCan pigs fly? Well, yes. Once they've hung around Benton's Smokehouse for 10 months or so, they jet all across the nation.
Ag and Trade | Food
Food Shortages Expected to Affect One Billion People
07/09/2008
child drawing with cornThe rising prices of food and fuel — and stalled agricultural production — will leave more than a billion people without the food they need to live healthy, active lives.
Cool Places | Food | Main Street Economics
Hot Dog! Linking Down Highway 25E
07/04/2008
hot dog thumbJudy Owens takes us on a summer culinary tour in search of Southeast Kentucky's true weenie. (Please don't ask for the chili recipe.)
Ag and Trade | Food
Food Producers Urge Congress to Fund Bee Research
06/26/2008
Thirty-six percent of the country's commercial bee colonies have been lost this year. That's a record decline — and nobody knows why the bees are disappearing. The collapse of the commercial bee industry was the subject of a congressional hearing Thursday, as farmers, bee keepers and food producers implored Congress to spend more money on research into the case of the disappearing bees.

Bees started disappearing in 2006. Last year there was a 31 percent decline in commercial bee colonies. At the hearing Thursday both Haagen-Dazs, the ice cream maker, and North Carolina's Burt's Bees asked Congress for help in discovering the malady that affects the nation's bees. "Pollinators are an essential part of our business," Haagen-Dazs brand manager Katty Pien said.

The Farm Bill (passed over a presidential veto) authorizes spending on bee research but sets aside no specific money for the work.
Food | People to Know
Rez Vignettes: No Jam Pie
06/26/2008
rhubarb pie thumbToo late for an apology, too complicated for words: it comes down to the power of pie.
Food | Main Street Economics
For Milk, Bread and Heroes: Kansas Groceries
06/25/2008
steve eisler store thumbMost Kansas "cities" have fewer than 1500 residents, all wanting a local market when it suits them. Who's minding the store and how can they hang on?
Ag and Trade | Environment | Food
In the Last Days of Chesapeake Oysters
06/19/2008
oyster tonger thumbAfter $58 million invested to restore the Chesapeake Bay's oysters beds, the mollusks continue to die. Could the Chesapeake's mighty shellfish be going the way of New England's whales?
Food
Got (Raw) Milk?
05/06/2008
Time Magazine has picked up on the raw milk movement that has been building among urban consumers. One woman drives two hours to upstate New York each month to pick up a supply of raw milk. Another has bought shares in a dairy farm to insure her raw milk take. "In Manhattan," the magazine reports, "some raw-milk drinkers hire a mule to bring the white stuff to an agreed-upon location in the city, where they stock up during a strictly enforced two-hour window."

The Food and Drug Administration since 1987 has required all milk sold across state lines to be pasteurized. Only six states allow raw milk to be sold at stores while 28 allow sales of raw milk straight off the farm. This is not meeting the demands of those who believe that regularly drinking raw milk can relieve asthma and eczema.

All the health experts contend drinking raw milk is not the greatest of ideas. But people want it and dairy farmers are finding it a lucrative product.
Daily Yonder | Keep It Rural
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