Stand up for rural America while you still can
Grist - 6/17/2009.By Dave Murphy – The assault on rural America continues unabated. For the past six months dairy farmers across the country have suffered a historic drop in milk prices while operating costs remain high. Since December 2008, the price that farmers are paid for the milk they produce has plunged over 50 percent, the largest single drop since the Great Depression. |
|
Food safety: how local can you go?
Grist - 6/17/2009.By Robynn Shrader – The Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 (FSEA) draft, was introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Waxman on May 26, 2009 and is expected to move quickly through the House. Consumers, farmers, and manufacturers alike all appear to be for a food safety bill, so the question is not whether a bill will be approved, but whether it will make our food safer. |
|
Food safety sweep
Ethicurean - 6/17/2009.House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman certainly had his ducks in a row today, as a sweeping food safety bill, H.R. 2749, passed unanimously out of the committee. There will be lots more analysis in the coming days, but here’s what we’ve gathered thus far: In many respects, this bill is a vast improvement over the status quo. |
|
New USDA report shows direct-to-consumer food sales way up
Ethicurean - 6/17/2009.A flea on the elephant’s back: The USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service has released a new report on sales from direct-to-consumer food marketing (things like farmers markets and CSAs), using data from the last Census of Agriculture. The good news: sales were up 104.7% from 1997 to 2007, compared with an increase of 47.6% for total agriculture sales. (All six New England states made the top 10 list.) And now the bad news: even when you subtract non-food crops from the total agriculture sales figures, direct-to-consumer food marketing has only an 0.8% share. |
|