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The government of Mexico has voluntarily suspended shipments of meat and processed poultry to the United States after U.S. officials raised concerns about the quality of Mexican food processing and inspections, an Agriculture Department official said Thursday. The department's Food Safety and Inspection Service identified systemic problems with sanitation controls and recordkeeping during an annual audit that took place in Mexico between June 24 and July 31. The voluntary suspension began Aug. 29, said Amanda Eamich, a spokeswoman for the service. About 2 percent of beef and poultry in the U.S. comes from Mexican producers. "Safety concerns in multiple establishments...

Juxtaposed on opposite pages of the BBC International newspaper were two stories: "..thousands of people (in Seoul, South Korea) protesting against resumption of U.S. Beef imports..." and "The U.S. announced that it will send half a million tons of food aid to North Korea." How can two so closely connected groups of people hold such strong opposite opinions about the safety of U.S. food exports? Easy. It's the haves vs. the have-nots. South Korea is a strong democratic nation, our ally, who owes its existence to the U.S. and the United Nations. It has the luxury to be choosey. Its...

A Georgia company looking to solve America's energy problem has finally teamed up with the federal government, hoping to make millions of barrels of oil every day from virtually anything that grows out of the Earth. Bell Bio-Energy, Inc. says it has reached an agreement with the U.S. Defense Department to build seven test production plants, mostly on military bases, to quickly turn naturally grown material into fuel. "What this means is that with the seven pilot plants – the military likes to refer to them as demonstrations – with those being built … it gives us the real-time engineering...

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Up to 12.3 billion bushels of corn are expected to be harvested this season in the U.S., despite the recent Mississippi flooding which inundated many farms in the Midwest. With 600 million extra bushels for the summer harvest, it will be the second-highest corn yield on record, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.Prior to the confirmation of the bountiful harvest, there were fears the Midwest flooding could lead to food shortages and major economic losses for American farmers. Before perfect weather was enjoyed by farmers recently, corn future prices rose to $8 per bushel. On...

Companies throughout the food chain are changing the way they do business in response to soaring grain costs, and consumers are likely to bear the brunt in the form of rising food prices. Farmers are making the broadest cuts to their livestock herds in decades, meaning meat at the supermarket will likely cost more in coming years. Middlemen are trying to shorten the duration of supply contracts to 90 days from one year so they can pass on higher costs more quickly. And food brands are shrinking the contents of their packages, from ice-cream cartons to beverage containers. ...In another...

Barack Obama's vice presidential search team has floated the name of a member of President Bush's first-term Cabinet, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, as Obama's running mate. The search committee, now led by Caroline Kennedy and Eric Holder, raised Veneman's name — among others — in discussions with members of Congress, two Democrats familiar with the conversations said.

Obama veep team floats Republican name By AMIE PARNES & BEN SMITH | 7/25/08 6:41 PM EST Ann Veneman Obama's vice presidential search team has floated the name of a former member of President Bush's first-term cabinet, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, as Obama's running mate. Photo: AP Barack Obama's vice presidential search team has floated the name of a member of President Bush's first-term Cabinet, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, as Obama's running mate. The search committee, now led by Caroline Kennedy and Eric Holder, raised Veneman's name — among others — in discussions with members of Congress, two Democrats familiar...

<p>TSN 17.11, +0.13, +0.8%) dropped 8% to close at $16.98 Tuesday following a report that 15,000 chickens in a northwest Arkansas plant had tested positive for a mild strain of avian influenza.</p> <p>U.S. Dept. of Agriculture spokeswoman Angie Harless said the National Veterinary Services Laboratories confirmed the presence Sunday of avian influenza antibodies in Tyson chickens, indicating that they had a mild strain of avian flu.</p>

USDA report says climate change affecting crops, livestock By JUDITH KOHLER | Associated Press Writer 12:06 AM CDT, May 28, 2008 Article tools DENVER - Climate change is increasing the risk of U.S. crop failures, depleting the nation's water resources and contributing to outbreaks of invasive species and insects, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a report released Tuesday. Those and other problems for the U.S. livestock and forestry industries will persist for at least the next 25 years, said the report compiled by 38 scientists

I may have neglected NAIS in recent months, but the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund hasn’t. Shortly after I received the reminder, the FTCLDF made its first foray beyond raw milk cases, announcing its intention to file a major suit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Michigan Department of Agriculture over enforcement of NAIS in Michigan. USDA and MDA have cooperated over the last few years to make Michigan in effect a prototype for the full NAIS program of premises and animal regisration. I wrote extensively about the MDA’s grueling effort to implement NAIS in Michigan via its campaign...

WATERBURY -- The first thing that Hill Street brings to mind probably isn't farming, but in a small way, Sue Pronovost is hoping to change that image, one vacant lot at a time. "This is our crown jewel," said Pronovost, director of Brass City Harvest, a newly organized agency focusing on growing food in the inner city. Pronovost, whose specialty is grant writing, became a convert to urban agriculture several years ago and is now trying to bring the city up to speed on a movement that has been having a big impact in tough urban areas. With the Crownbrook...

WASHINGTON -- The head of the union that represents 6,000 federal food inspectors told a congressional committee Thursday that the Agriculture Department tried to intimidate him and other employees who reported violations of regulations, an allegation denied by the agency. Union chief Stan Painter said that following a mad cow disease scare in 2003, he told superiors that new food safety regulations for slaughtered cattle were not being uniformly enforced. Painter said he was told to drop the matter, and when he didn't, was grilled by department officials and then placed on disciplinary investigative status. Painter said he was eventually...

WASHINGTON -- The only U.S. facility allowed to research the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease experienced several accidents with the feared virus, the Bush administration acknowledged Friday. A 1978 release of the virus into cattle holding pens on Plum Island, N.Y., triggered new safety procedures. While that incident was previously known, the Homeland Security Department told a House committee there were other accidents inside the government's laboratory. The accidents are significant because the administration is likely to move foot-and-mouth research from the remote island to one of five sites on the U.S. mainland near livestock herds. This has raised concerns about...

WASDE-456 March 11, 2008 WHEAT: Projected U.S. wheat ending stocks for 2007/08 are lowered 30 million bushels this month on higher projected food use and exports. Food use is raised 5 million bushels based on the latest mill grind data from the U.S. Bureau of Census. Hard red spring wheat food use is increased on indications that discounts for spring wheat relative to winter during the first half of the marketing year encouraged heavier use. Exports are raised 25 million bushels based on the pace of export sales and shipments and on continued export restrictions by major competitor countries. Despite...

Washington - -- As Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton toured the land denouncing special interests, giveaways to the rich, home foreclosures, job losses and a middle-class squeeze, back in Washington House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats met behind closed doors on a plan to raise taxes and cut food stamp money to protect billions of dollars for agribusiness, a sector of the economy that is booming. The negotiators agreed Tuesday to find $10 billion in extra money in a last-ditch effort to save the farm bill, once seen as an opportunity to reform commodity programs and...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- The Agriculture Department abruptly ordered congressional auditors to leave its headquarters and told its employees not to cooperate with them. "You are hereby instructed not to meet with any member of the (Government Accountability Office) today, or until this matter is resolved," Michael Watts, a top USDA attorney, wrote to employees Wednesday in an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press. The auditors were seeking information for an ongoing audit on Agriculture's office of civil rights and its handling of discrimination complaints. Specifically, they were investigating allegations that the department had previously provided false information for the audit....

The United Nation’s agency responsible for relieving hunger is drawing up plans to ration food aid in response to the spiralling cost of agricultural commodities. The World Food Programme is holding crisis talks to decide what aid to halt if new donations do not arrive in the short term. Josette Sheeran, WFP executive director, told the Financial Times that the agency would look at “cutting the food rations or even the number or people reached” if donors did not provide more money. “Our ability to reach people is going down just as the needs go up,” she said. WFP officials...

When William Lapp, of US-based consultancy Advanced Economic Solutions, took the podium at the annual US Department of Agriculture conference, the sentiment was already bullish for agricultural commodities boosted by demand from the biofuels industry and emerging countries. He added a twist – that rising agricultural raw material prices would translate this year into sharply higher food inflation. “I hope you enjoy your meal,” Mr Lapp told delegates during a luncheon. “It is the cheapest one you are going to have at this forum for a while.” His warning that a strong wave of food inflation is heading towards the...

This is one of my recent columns, addressing ill-advised corn subsidies... From the 10 December 2007 Lockport Union Sun and Journal (Lockport, NY) CORN SUBSIDIES SHOULD GO DOWN By Bob Confer Federal subsidization of agriculture has become a necessary evil, more or less out of its own existence. Such is the outcome when government so greatly interferes in capitalistic endeavors: once the dominoes are set into motion by its "invisible hand" the damage is done and the pieces can never be put back to normal. We cannot go back to a true free market economy in regard to our foodstuff...

Government plans clampdown on vandalism after lobbying from biotech firms Genetically modified crops may be grown in hidden locations in Britain amid fears that anti-GM campaigners are winning the battle over the controversial technology, the Guardian has learned. Officials at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirmed they are looking at a range of options to clamp down on vandalism to GM crop trials, after intense lobbying by big crop biotech companies. The firms have warned that trials of GM crops are becoming too expensive to conduct in Britain because of the additional costs of protecting fields...

BREAKING NEWS updated 9 minutes ago LOS ANGELES - The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Sunday recalled 143 million pounds of frozen beef from a Southern California slaughterhouse that is being investigated for mistreating cattle. Officials said it was the largest beef recall in the United States, surpassing a 1999 ban of 35 million pounds of ready-to-eat meats. The federal agency said the recall will affect beef products dating to Feb. 1, 2006, that came from Chino-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., which supplies meat to the federal school lunch program and to some major fast-food chains.This breaking news story will be...

A federal database of animals to fight disease outbreaks is a threat to privacy and family operations, critics say. WASHINGTON — After days of parading around her beefy black steer in the dung-scented August heat at the Colorado State Fair, Brandi Calderwood made the final competition. For months, the 16-year-old worked from dawn well past dusk, fitting in the work around school, to feed, train and clean her steer. But just before the last round, when the animals are sold, fair officials disqualified her. They alleged that Brandi had not properly followed a new and controversial rule that required children...

Sex offenders are required to register their premises and report to the government when they move. Similarly, the USDA is implementing a so-called "voluntary" program that requires owners of livestock animals to register their premises and report to the government when any animal is moved off the premises.

As Americans hunger for healthier food, new efforts to define the term turn messy Federal meat regulators this month are soliciting public comments on a label they believe will better define "natural" meat. The label, dubbed "naturally raised," would attest that a cut of meat came from an animal free of antibiotics and growth hormones. Here's a comment from Urvashi Rangan, a senior scientist at Consumers Union: "It's not quite as bad" as regulators' definition of "natural" itself. Ouch. Welcome to the complicated battleground over a seemingly simple word. "Natural" is an increasingly important claim to American consumers searching for...

Antibiotics in the meat, pesticide used as preservatives, mercury in the drinking water -- Chinese author Zhou Qing says China's food industry is poisoning the country in its greed for profit. If ordinary people knew, there would be a revolution, he adds. Chinese journalist Zhou Qing, a critic of the regime, unearthed political dynamite in his two-year investigation of China's food industry. He interviewed grocers, restaurant owners, farmers and food factory managers for an exposé for which he won a prize as part of the German "Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage" in 2006. His book is a...

NAIS, which the US Department of Agriculture has been rolling out in concert with many states since 2003, is stunning in its projected scope. Over the next few years each of the nation's 1.4 million farms (plus thousands of veterinary facilities, export/import stations, livestock barns and genetic facilities) will be affected, with all their approximately 95 million cattle, 1.8 billion chickens, 60 million pigs, 93 million turkeys, 6.3 million sheep, 2.5 million goats and every other livestock species, including bison, camelids, cervids, horses and llamas. In all, more than twenty-nine species and more than two billion animals are slated to...

Smithfield — A judge has told a Johnston County farmer that he cannot open his farm to Muslim families planning to slaughter lambs as part of an annual religious celebration. The judge issued a 10-day injunction Friday, meaning that about 250 Muslim families in Wake County will have to make other arrangements for slaughtering lambs they bought in advance of the three-day Festival of the Sacrifice, which begins on Wednesday. Kenneth and Eddie Rowe have tangled before with the state over the mass slaughter of lambs on their 300-acre farm. They said they have been conducting the slaughtering in their...

Some of the nation's largest retailers and grocery chains sold milk labeled "organic" that was not truly organic, recently filed lawsuits allege. The federal complaints focus on the sale of milk from Boulder, Colo.-based Aurora Organic Dairy, which recently agreed to change its practices after the U.S. Department of Agriculture found more than a dozen violations of organic standards. The lawsuits allege that Costco Wholesale Corp., Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp., Safeway Inc. and Wild Oats Markets Inc. sold Aurora's milk under their own in-house brand names. The brands include Costco's Kirkland and Target's Archer Farms, and the milk was...

Here's today's quiz: What do Scottie Pippen, David Letterman and Ted Turner have in common? Answer: None of them are farmers, but all three have received thousands of dollars in federal farm subsidies this decade. We could add to that list of non-farmer farm-aid recipients David Rockefeller, Leonard Lauder of the cosmetics firm, Edgar Bronfman Sr. of the Seagram fortune, and Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen. Our point is that you don't have to drive a tractor, plant seeds, or even live anywhere near rural America to qualify for Uncle Sam's farm largess. And you sure don't have to be poor.

sugar tariffs, put in place by law and enforced by the USDA, are so complicated that many people give up worrying about it. After all, paying $2.25 for a five pound bag of sugar is no big deal. Unless you consider that we could be paying as low as a dollar for that five pound bag, and wholesale purchases of sugar by companies like Coca-Cola, Heinz, and Kraft would pay even less. So here's the Sugar Tariff in action: First, USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation lends money each year to sugar cane processors at a specific rate per pound of sugar....

<p>U.S. sugar policy stands for all that's bad about our political system. The government restricts imports through a series of quotas, pushing U.S. sugar prices to between two and three times the global market rate. As a result, a handful of sugar producers, notably in Florida, a battleground electoral state, pocket $1 billion a year in excess profits. To protect this cozy arrangement, the sugar barons plow a chunk of their revenue back into the political system. During the 2004 election cycle, two Florida sugar companies gave a total of $925,000 to election coffers.</p>

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- The Senate on Friday approved a $286 billion farm bill with an election-year expansion of subsidies for growers and food stamps for the poor. The bill, passed on a 79-14 vote, expands subsidies for wheat, barley, oat, soybeans and several other crops and creates new grants for vegetable and fruit growers. It also increase loan rates for sugar producers, extends dairy programs and provide more dollars for renewable energy and conservation programs to protect environmentally sensitive farmland over the next five years. President Bush has threatened to veto the legislation, saying it costs too much and should...

The end of farm subsidies. What would happen then? The common belief is it would be the death of the American farmer. That scare tactic insures the farm bill will return and be approved and signed. But is that really what would happen? Do you honestly believe that the fields in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa would be fallow, year after year? Neither do I.

Operators of free food banks say they are seeing more working people needing assistance. The increased demand is outstripping supplies and forcing many pantries and food banks to cut portions. Demand is being driven up by rising costs of food, housing, utilities, health care and gasoline, while food manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers are finding they have less surplus food to donate and government help has decreased, according to Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks. "I've been doing this for 20 years, and I can't believe how much worse it gets month after month," she...

AP Business Writer Tyson Foods Inc. plans to revise labels that say its fresh chicken is "raised without antibiotics" after the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it made a mistake in approving labels that use that term. The world's largest meat processor said it has been in discussions with the USDA since at least September about the label it introduced this summer in a major marketing campaign for its fresh chicken. According to a Nov. 6 letter from the USDA, the agency told Tyson it had mistakenly overlooked a feed additive, called ionophores, used for Tyson's chicken when it approved...

JACKSON, Miss. -- More than 500,000 people in Mississippi struggled with hunger in 2006, making the state the hungriest in the nation, according to a federal report. The U.S. Department of Agriculture report released last week ranked Mississippi as the worst in the country, followed by New Mexico, Texas and South Carolina. The report stated 18.1 percent of Mississippi's households faced hunger in 2006, up from 16.5 percent in 2005. Warren Yoder, the executive director of the Public Policy Center of Mississippi, said the numbers are "really bad -- astonishingly bad. " The increase in Mississippi, the nation's poorest state,...

U.S. agriculture giant Cargill recalls ground beef Agricultural giant Cargill Inc. said on Saturday it is recalling over 1 million pounds of ground beef distributed in the United States because of possible E. Coli contamination. Cargill Meat Solutions said the 1.084 million pounds (491,700 kg) of ground beef was produced at the Wyalusing, Pennsylvania, facility between October 8 and October 11, and distributed to retailers across the country. The U.S. Department of Agriculture returned a confirmed positive for the E. coli bacteria on a sample produced on October 8, the company said. Symptoms of E. coli 0157:H7 illness, the strain...

Yesterday (Monday) Andrea received a call from an inspector with the New York Department of Food and Markets in Albany that he planned to come by the farm for a special inspection, based on “a complaint” made to the department’s Division of Milk Control and Dairy Services. Andrea couldn’t imagine who might have complained, and what the complaint might have been about.

It is believed, with some cause, that partisanship is the reason "nothing gets done" in Washington. So what if there was an issue, involving the poorest of the poor, on which there was bipartisan agreement, and still nothing got done? Our most battle-scarred readers will guess immediately what is at issue -- farm subsidies! At the moment, the sun and moon have aligned to form a left-right coalition to raise the lot of some of Africa's farmers. Arguably the greatest misfortune to befall these farmers is their crop: cotton. In the U.S., the lords of King Cotton still have the...

The feds need more power to close down meat-packing plants tainted with potentially deadly germs, Sen. Chuck Schumer said Sunday. "The USDA has become a toothless tiger when it comes to keeping our meat clean and safe," Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. "There's no reason to allow meat processing plants that repeatedly fail inspections for E. coli to remain open." The U.S. Department of Agriculture can recommend recalls, but cannot force a shutdown, Schumer said. Schumer said he will reintroduce legislation that would give the USDA the clout it needs to shutter plants once contamination is discovered. The law would also expand...

Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns has decided to resign from President Bush’s cabinet to return to Nebraska and enter the 2008 Senate race. Johanns, the former two-term Republican governor, began placing phone calls to a number of friends and supporters in the state Tuesday night to inform them of his decision. A formal announcement is expected in Nebraska next week after Johanns has submitted his resignation to the White House, according to a source close to Johanns. Johanns and his wife, Stephanie, went house-hunting over the weekend when he was in Lincoln to attend a Saturday event at which...

Zeke lived with an FFA teacher because he had no other home. He worked for his room and board; he fed the pigs and chickens, and helped with the milking. The summer between the 8th and 9th grades, Jasper, the FFA teacher, took Zeke to a neighbor's ranch and let him pick out a day-old Hereford bull for his first FFA project. The deal was that Jasper would pay for the calf, and for the feed, and Zeke could repay Jasper when the calf grew to become the Grand Champion Steer at the state fair, and sold at the fair's...

As immigrant population grows, so do the imports of exotic edibles Federal food cops in Houston are used to confiscating bizarre concoctions. In the past year they've seized earthworms from China and untreated lentils from India. And they're still talking about the 2,000 pounds of duck and chicken feet illegally shipped to Houston from Vietnam. As the immigrant community in Houston continues to expand, so does the number of local ethnic markets where exotic — and sometimes contaminated or untreated — food products are sold, authorities say. ''Without a doubt as the immigrant population grows, we've seen more and more...

Law would streamline regulations -- if it passes The apple-blackberry sauce sold widely in Seattle supermarkets, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture organic seal on the label, says it comes from Chino, Calif. It also says "Product of Canada." So how do you know where it's from? You don't. Dried banana chips are labeled as being from Sumner. But banana trees don't grow in Sumner. Peanut butter from Canada? There are no peanut farms in that country. Congress passed a law in 2002 saying that consumers were to be told where the food they buy comes from. But five years...

Yesterday, August 13, 2007, the USDA blocked FR from government computers. It can't be because of the "hate site" hype because the Daily Kos and Demoratic Underground sites are fully accessible. Because FR publishes articles from news sources all over the world and has a pretty decent search engine, there are often articles that relate to the work we do. No they will be very difficult to find.

The head of an Agriculture Department agency said Wednesday that she was prepared to take "appropriate action" against any employee who is found to have used government equipment to lobby against pending legislation. "Obviously, we take this very seriously," said Teresa Lasseter, administrator of the Farm Service Agency, in reference to an e-mail circulated last Thursday within the agency urging recipients to contact their senators to express their opposition to a provision in the House version of the Farm Bill that would reopen thousands of discrimination claims by black farmers. Those found to have been involved with the e-mail could...

It’s 9 a.m. and workers are rolling up the giant doors at Grand Central Market in downtown Los Angeles. Grocers are ready for business, their stalls colorfully stocked with vegetables and fruit – green beans, squash, tomatoes, lettuces, asparagus, oranges, apples, avocados, nectarines. This open air market, and scores of groceries and supermarkets throughout Los Angeles, once offered nothing but the bounty of California, the largest agricultural state in the nation. Long the salad bowl for the nation, we became the envy of easterners who face limited selections of vegetables and fruits during winter months. It’s still true that every...

ARIS (AP) - Got milk? Well, you're going to need more cash these days to get it. Growing appetites for dairy in Asia and limited worldwide supply are among a number of factors driving prices of the dairy drink to record highs. In China and elsewhere in Asia, chains such as McDonald's and Starbucks are introducing unfamiliar taste buds to cheeseburgers and lattes, increasing the region's demand for dairy. Rising costs of animal feed, shrinking European production and long- standing drought in Australia and New Zealand, the world's largest milk-exporting region, are also pushing up the price. Paying more for...

FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. — For decades, the fiercely independent fruit and vegetable growers of California, Florida and other states have been the only farmers in America who shunned federal subsidies, delivering produce to the tables of millions of Americans on their own. But now, in the face of tough new competition primarily from China, even these proud groups are buckling. Produce farmers, their hands newly outstretched, have joined forces for the first time, forming a lobby group intended to pressure politicians over the farm bill to be debated in Congress in January. Nobody disputes that competitive pressures from abroad are...

Espy donates to Jefferson’s legal defense fundBy Susan Crabtree and Kevin Bogardus August 01, 2007 Former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy, who was forced out of office in 1994 after allegations surfaced that he improperly took gifts from businesses and lobbyists, donated $1,000 to Rep. William Jefferson’s (D-La.) legal expense fund in early June. Espy, the first black person to hold the position of Agriculture secretary, was acquitted of 30 corruption charges brought against him by an independent counsel four years after leaving office. The charges included accusations that he took $35,000 in gifts. He was also the first USDA chief...