More Americans seek food stamps than ever September saw record numbers of Americans on food stamps, up 17% from last year to 31.5 million this year. That’s about one tenth of the population.
CIW takes Subway The 3rd largest fast food chain in America and the #1 buyer of Florida tomatoes has finally come around and agreed to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers‘ penny-a-pound price increase. Now, all eyes shift to Chipotle.
Whoops! Last month, Monsanto accidentally contaminated about 60 tons of animal feed with GE cotton that is unauthorized for animal consumption. The FDA, EPA and USDA are all on the case, trying to determine how best to discipline Monsanto. Don’t hold your breath.
Throwing out the baby with the bathwater After a nine year fight around organic standards, the Bush USDA has let fly an end-of-term hail mary pass that would create new organic rules “so restrictive that it would likely put the majority of family farmers producing organic milk and meat out of business,” yet still allow for non-organic cattle to be milked on “organic farms.”
Getting organized? Smithfield and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union have announced that workers will vote next week on whether or not to unionize.
Fire devastates heritage farm in South Dakota Last month, Maverick Heritage Farm Co suffered a heartbreaking loss when one of their barns burned down, killing many rare-breed pigs (including several sows with litters of piglets), their stallion, all of their cats, all of their feed and much of their tools. Click through for more info and to donate.
Hong Kong chefs are in the sustainable fish tank Three top chefs in Hong Kong have been named Ocean Friendly and are designing seafood menus comprised of approved species from WWF’s Sustainable Seafood Initiative.
As I finish this post, my “idea for change,” “Support the real green revolution, small farms” is in 4th place in the ag policy section at change.org (not to be confused with Obama’s change.gov) and needs 46 more votes to make it to the next round. It’s not like me to stump for votes, but there are lots of great ideas there, so pop in and add your own or vote on the ones you like the best.
1 response so far ↓
1 devra // Dec 6, 2008 at 11:32 am
The new, overly restrictive organic regulations are still at the comment stage, and the 60-day comment period is really too short for folks to wade through and actually understand them, especially since the allotted time includes several major holidays. Cornucopia Institute is urging folks to email USDA secretary Ed Schafer (agsec@usda.gov) to ask for a 30 day extension on the comment period. The docket # is AMS-TM-06-0198; TM-05-14. Be sure to include it.
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