Seeking economic justice for the family-scale farming community. Through research, advocacy, and economic development our goal is to empower farmers - partnered with consumers - in support of ecologically produced local, organic and authentic food.
President-elect Barack Obama launched his campaign in Iowa with a promise to create genuine opportunity for rural people and family farmers. Obama proposed changing the failed rural policy of Washington by capping payments to megafarms and enforcing rules against unfair practices by meat packers to strengthen family farms. To revitalize rural communities, he proposed investing in small business development and value added agriculture.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Andrew Schneider
When it comes to sizing up the purity of the honey you buy, you’re pretty much on your own.
You may be paying more for honey labeled “certified organic” or feel reassured by the “USDA Grade A” seal, but the truth is, there are few federal standards for honey, no government certification and no consequences for making false claims.
For American-made honey, the “organic” boast, experts say, is highly suspect. Beekeepers may be doing their part, but honeybees have a foraging range of several miles, exposing them to pesticides, fertilizers and pollutants on their way back to the hive. Read the rest of this entry »
www.MEATPOULTRY.com
by Keith Nunes
WASHINGTON — The Food Safety and Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is accepting nominations for membership on the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection. The deadline to submit a nomination is Jan. 23.
CommonDreams.org
by Jim Goodman
As 2009 approaches, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) notes nearly a billion people a day go hungry worldwide. While India supplies Switzerland with 80% of its wheat, 350 million Indians are food-insecure. Rice prices have nearly tripled since early 2007 because, according to The International Rice Research Institute, rice-growing land is being lost to industrialization, urbanization and shifts to grain crops for animal feed.
Yet, according to FAO statistics, world food supplies have kept pace with population growth. There is enough food to adequately feed everyone. Clearly, root causes of the food crisis lie in politics, problems with food distribution, poverty and a failure of the industrial food system to deliver its promises. Read the rest of this entry »
Industry experts and businesspeople in China say that the industrial chemical has been routinely added to fish and animal feed to artificially boost protein readings.
LA Times
By Don Lee and Tiffany Hsu
Reporting from Los Angeles and Shanghai — Melamine in Chinese-produced milk powder has sickened hundreds of thousands of children and added to a growing list of made-in-China foods banned across the globe. Now, some scientists and consumer advocates are raising concerns that fish from China may also be contaminated with the industrial chemical. Read the rest of this entry »
