Dear Mr. President…
With roughly a month to go before the election, all are busy writing wish lists to the next president--whomever that may be. There is a groundswell in the sustainable ag. community of farmers, writers, advocates, and like-minded folks who would like to see a major reassessment of our ag. policy, and believe that now is the time to tackle it. Wes Jackson, Fred Kirschenmann, Wendell Berry and others are proposing an alternative to the five-year Farm Bill: a 50-Year Land…
The USDA fails to incorporate funding in its budget for food safety program
"It's disheartening -- even tragic -- that a program that costs so little yet does so much to keep our food supply safe is not being funded," said Dr. Mark Lutschaunig, director of the A.V.M.A.'s Government Relations Division. "We're talking about a cost of less than a penny per American to help keep meat, eggs and dairy products free of drugs and pesticides." It's Really Come to This: Critical Food Supply Safety Program Closing Due to Lack of Funds It's…
Country of Origin Labeling Takes Effect Today
Spam, Still the Mystery Meat, Escapes New U.S. Food-Label Rules By Alan Bjerga and Tony C. Dreibus September 30, 2008 Bloomberg U.S. rules requiring meat and fresh produce to be labeled by national origin are falling short of lawmakers' aims, leaving shoppers in the dark about where mixed vegetables, steaks and Spam come from, some lawmakers say. Six years after being adopted by Congress, country-of-origin labeling takes effect today. Concern about unsafe imports from China and Canada helped overcome food…
Report: Regulators fail to control pollution from giant livestock farms
AP's Erica Werner covers a report released Wednesday by the GAO to a House committee hearing that will examine federal oversight on factory farms. According to the GAO report, EPA does not currently have the information it needs to effectively regulate CAFOs, which have increased in number by 230 percent in the past 20 years. The report reveals that "some large farms that raise animals can generate more raw waste than populations of some U.S. cities produce annually," but the…
Declaration for Healthy Food and Agriculture
I was reflecting on our time at Slow Food Nation and thought we should circle back to the Food Declaration presented there, which encompasses so much of what we believe in as an organization, particularly as related to "preventing the cruel treatment of animals" and enforcing "transparency so that citizens know how their food is produced, where it comes from, and what it contains." The project was Initiated by Roots of Change and developed by a national team of noted…
