"agriculture" news and stories

Even if you don't follow big agriculture as closely as Eric Schlosser or Michael Pollan might, we're pretty sure that at some point in the last few years you've recoiled at brutal undercover footage of poultry workers stomping chickens to death, or cringed watching sick cattle being prodded on their way to slaughter. The images, captured by groups like The Humane Society of the United States or PETA, reflect a disturbing reality for some of the animals we raise for meat in our country, and have helped propel issues of humane handling and greater food safety much closer to our dinner tables.

Now the government is hoping meat and poultry producers might choose to do some videotaping of their own.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued draft guidelines designed to help producers implement in-plant video monitoring as a way to improve operations. Federally inspected processing plants may chose to use video or other electronic recording equipment "for various purposes including ensuring that livestock are handled humanely, that good commercial practices are followed, monitoring product inventory, or conducting establishment security," according to the release.

Farmed-animal welfare advocate, Dr. Temple Grandin, is supportive of video monitoring in meat processing plants.

Things are not so sweet for the U.S. sugar beet market. A federal judge's ruling may prevent farmers from planting genetically modified sugar beets.

The controversy stems from a case in which the Center for Food Safety, Organic Seed Alliance, High Mowing Organic Seeds and the Sierra Club challenged the U.S. Department of Agriculture for allowing farmers to plant GM sugar beets before enough research had been conducted to determine their possible environmental impact. A judge ruled in favor of the environmental groups in August, but by September, the USDA had issued four "non-flowering" permits to growers in Oregon and Arizona -- where most sugar beet seedlings are grown. The action prompted environmentalists to challenge the government in court yet again.

On Friday, Judge Jeffrey White of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California will hear more arguments in the case. His ruling could have a significant impact on the industry. Nearly 95 percent of the U.S. sugar beet production is grown from GMO seeds -- a speedy and considerable change from 2005 when the GMO seeds were first approved. Over half of all U.S. sugar production comes from sugar beets; the rest is derived from sugar cane.

The Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources is taking "buy local" to the next level with a new program that will help consumers identify locally grown food.

Beginning in January, the program lets qualified Massachusetts produce, lobster and dairy, aquaculture and forestry products sport a "Seal of Commonwealth Quality" label, the Boston Herald reported.

"It's a branding program," department Commissioner Scott Soares told the paper. "A big part of this is promoting the continuance of buying local and supporting local agriculture."

The CAFO Reader is meaty. Maybe it's the fact that I read it while on vacation in Iowa, smack dab in the very heart of hog and egg laying hen confinement operations. These industrial "farms" have been here for years. Pass them on the highway, and the smell can be eye-watering, even if you can't see the operation itself from the road. Locals are fond of saying, "That's the smell of money." And it is, but too often that cash doesn't make it back into the very communities where these operations live.

That's just one of the points editor Daniel Imhoff makes as he sets out on a myth-busting mission in this book. Chapters are voiced by some of the most notable thinkers in our country's sustainable food movement -- Michael Pollan, Wendell Berry Fred Kirschenmann, Dan Barber, Tom Philpott, and Eric Schlosser among them.

From intensively farmed beef, pork, chicken, fish, dairy and eggs -- the curtain of "Big Agriculture" is pulled back with fact-driven arguments on the true costs of pollution, animal cruelty, overuse of antibiotics, immigrant labor and more, which many feel has mired our food system. Republican speech writer Matthew Scully says "instead of redesigning the factory farm to suit the animals, they are redesigning the animals to suit the factory farm."

Some local food advocates in Kentucky are questioning a new Department of Agriculture program that will slap "Kentucky Proud" labels on beef processed in the upper Midwest.

A Business Lexington columnist reported there was an "outcry" from readers after learning of the state's plans to partner with Minnesota's PM Beef to overcome economy of scale issues that have prevented beef from becoming a major component of Kentucky's nine-year-old homegrown foods initiative. The situation's familiar to many cattle-farming southern states: Consolidation in the meatpacking industry has left Kentucky without the processing facilities it needs to keep its citizens supplied with affordable red meat.

"If we assume everyone in Kentucky eats an average of 80 pounds a year, with the processing capacity we have in Kentucky, we can provide only four percent of that consumption," Kentucky Department of Agriculture spokesman Bill Clary explains.

Under the new program, Clary says, PM Beef will purchase certified Kentucky-raised Angus cattle through Kentucky markets.