Economics, legislation pushing egg producers to move away from cages
Lewiston Sun Journal - 4/12/2009.By Scott Taylor - The future doesn't involve cages, Dave Radlo said. He's banking on it. "This is my dream, my goal for the future," he said. He's just being rushed into that future sooner than expected. Radlo, president and CEO of Massachusetts-based Radlo Foods, committed last week to selling eggs exclusively from uncaged hens within a decade. That's going to be quite a feat for a business that ships an estimated 800 millions of eggs per year to consumers from Texas and east - as well as Puerto Rico, Cuba and Hong Kong. Most of them come from factory farms like the one in Turner that state agriculture agents raided last week. |
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Apple whisperer takes bite of poster contest
Village Soup - 4/11/2009.John Bunker of Palermo is the 2009 Common Ground Country Fair poster art contest winner. Bunker's painting features 16 apples varieties, one from each of Maine's counties. According to the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, the varieties and their counties of origin are rendered in the artist's handwriting along the contours of each apple.
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A chicken’s life
Bangor Daily News - 4/11/2009.Editorial – The reports of animal abuse at Quality Egg of New England in Turner raise some challenging philosophical questions about the nature of animal-based food. The egg producing operation is at the former DeCoster Egg Farm in Turner, which was infamous for mistreating migrant workers and polluting land and water in recent decades. But this time, it was the alleged abuse of the chickens that led to the new headlines. |
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Kids dig vegetables?
Portland Press Herald - 4/11/2009. By John Richardson – A dozen sixth-graders at Bonny Eagle Middle school spent their Friday afternoon study hall doing a little manual labor – and smiling about it. It was time to plant the tomato seedlings and stake up the peas in the school's new greenhouse, a 48-foot by 28-foot structure built last fall and winter on the south side of the school. |
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