Raw-milk market booming
in United States despite
discouragement by officials and legal barriers
Consumers are using ways that are often barely legal
and sometimes illegal to get their hands on raw milk
from producers they trust. They are driven by a variety
of reasons, including the taste, beliefs in superior
healthfulness and a dislike of the conventional dairy
system.
In an August 8 story entitled, “Should This Milk
Be Legal,” the New York Times profiled the extensiveness
of the raw-milk market and a number of its participants.
It notes that California organic, pasture-based raw-milk
producer Mark McAfee expects to gross $6 million this
year—up $4.9 million from last year.
Full
story
Resistance continues
against mandated fumigants on “raw almonds”
Small-scale farmers, retailers and consumers are renewing
their call to the USDA to reassess the plan to “pasteurize”
all California almonds with a toxic fumigant or high-temperature
sterilization process. All domestic almonds will be
required to have the treatments by early next year.
The plan was quietly developed by the USDA in response
to outbreaks of Salmonella in 2001 and 2004 that were
traced to raw almonds.
“The almond ‘pasteurization’ plan
will have many harmful impacts on consumers and the
agricultural community,” said Will Fantle, research
director for The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based
farm policy research group. “Only 18 public comments
from the entire U.S.—and all from almond industry
insiders—were received on the proposal. The logic
behind both the necessity and safety of the treatments
processes has not been fully or adequately analyzed—neither
have the economic costs to small-scale growers or the
loss of consumer choices.”
Full
story
New study shows
risk of antibiotic residue in crops raised with factory-hog
manure
Foods such as corn, lettuce and potatoes have been
found to accumulate antibiotics from soils spread with
animal manure that contains these drugs, a greenhouse
test at the University of Minnesota showed. Study results
are published in the July-August 2007 issue of the "Journal
of Environmental Quality."
A university press release on the study singled out
organics as a consequent area of risk, saying: “The
study results indicate that organic foods are most likely
to contain these drugs because manure is often the main
source of crop nutrients for organic food production.”
Study group leader Satish Gupta, a specialist in the
fate and transport of antibiotics in agricultural systems,
told NewFarm.org that further studies pending publication
show that composting provides only partial degradation
of the antibiotic residue levels tested. He said he
is concerned and that growers should be aware of the
risks involved in importing manure from antibiotic-treated
livestock operations.
He wrote: “We hope the organic and conventional
producers will take our results as a piece of the puzzle
and hopefully will find alternatives that will alleviate
public concerns about antibiotic use on the farm.”
Plant uptake was evaluated on soil modified with liquid
hog manure containing sulfamethazine, a drug commonly
employed in both human and veterinary medicine to treat
bacterial diseases, and to promote growth in cattle,
sheep, pigs and poultry.
Full story
Interactive web tool shows
U.S. factory farms by state and by county
Food and Water Watch, an environmental nonprofit group
focused on empowering the public to challenge policies
that degrade natural resources, provides an interactive
map of the United States showing the location of factory
farms.
The tool, called “Factory Farm Pollution in the
United States,” allows users to zero in on factory
farms at the state and county level to find the number
of sites and animals, and organizes the data by type
of animal, including dairy, beef cattle, hogs, broilers
and layers.
The user can also find the states and counties with
the highest numbers of livestock populations. The “methodology”
tab explains that the chart is populated with data from
USDA 2002 agricultural census data, interpreted by Food
and Water staffers to locate farms that constitute Confined
Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) under the definition
of the Environmental Protection Agency.
The
tool
North Carolina legislature
bans new hog waste lagoons
New hog waste lagoons will be permanently banned in
North Carolina, and enterprising hog farmers may receive
financial incentives if they try new disposal technologies.
Action in July by the state senate makes permanent
a 10-year ban on new hog-waste ponds that would have
expired in September. The bill also imposes stronger
environmental standards designed to minimize air and
water pollution, the spread of pathogens and ammonia
and control the odor from more than 10 million hogs.
Many of the state's 2,300 hog farms are located in
eastern North Carolina. Tons of solid and liquid waste
are captured and stored in open-air lagoons.
“This is clearly a big step,” said Jane
Preyer, director of the state's Environmental Defense
office. “No other state in the nation has said,
‘No’ to more lagoons and at the same time
said, ‘Let’s make our state have the highest
standards on health and the environment that we can
have.’”
The bill does not require farmers to replace existing
hog-waste lagoons. North Carolina is the nation’s
second largest producer of pork products, with more
than $2 billion paid annually in cash receipts to hog
farmers.
Local
news story
Environmental
Defenes release
U.S. Chefs say local
and organic are top trends
The National Restaurant Association reports that when
it surveyed more than 1,000 chefs on “hot items,"
locally-grown produce and organic produce ranked second
and third after bite-sized desserts, according to the
lead story in the July 9, 2007, edition of The Packer,
“The Business Newspaper of the Produce Industry.”
The story reported that 71 percent of U.S. adults
surveyed said they were trying to eat healthier when
eating out.
Organic dairy, meat
products positively affect quality of mother’s
breast milk
A new study shows that organic dairy and meat products
in a mother’s diet positively affect the nutritional
content of her breast milk—markedly increasing
beneficial fatty acids. The study was published in the
British Journal of Nutrition.
Specifically, a diet in which 90 percent or more of
dairy and meat products are organic is correlated with
measurably higher levels of conjugated linoleic acid
(CLA). CLA is a type of fat that is believed to have
anti-carcinogenic, anti-atherosclerotic, anti-diabetic
and immune-enhancing effects, as well as a favorable
influence on body fat composition. For newborns, specifically,
CLA is believed especially to aid immune system development.
Full
press account
Autism in children correlated
with mothers’ exposure to certain pesticides during
pregnancy
Scientists working for the California Department of
Health Services have found that pregnant women living
near fields sprayed with the common insecticides dicofol
and endosulfan were six-times more likely to give birth
to children with "Autism Spectrum Disorders"
(ASD) than women living many miles from treated fields.
It is rare for such a large and statistically significant
difference to be found in a study of this kind, according
to The Organic Center (TOC) in its presentation of the
study. The authors report that the closer the mother
lived to the treated fields, and/or the more pesticides
applied, the greater the risk.
The study—“Maternal Residence Near Agricultural
Pesticide Applications and Autism Spectrum Disorders
Among Children in the California Central Valley”—appeared
in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
Online version of study
TOC
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