Cattle Network: Another surprising, must-read article this week from this beef-industry news site is an interview with Mary Zanoni, executive director of Farm for Life. A former lawyer, Zanoni positively shreds the USDA’s proposed National Animal Identification System from privacy, cost, and accountability standpoints. Her parting words to the thousands of cattlemen reading? “You don’t have to eat whatever slop the government puts in front of you. Send the slop back to the kitchen and demand a better chef.”
New York Times:* Thousands and thousands of pounds of fruit have rotted this year because of a labor shortage caused by tighter immigration controls. Farmers are heartbroken, some vowing to plow under their trees rather than witness such waste again.
SignOnSanDiego: More on the possible E. coli contamination of raw milk that may have sickened four kids, including quotes from Mark McAfee, owner of the suspected dairy supplier Organic Pastures.
New York Times*: Traditional supermarkets are having an identity crisis. Article has lots of interesting market data about how people rate cleanliness, quality meat and good produce highest — along with some mixed messages. “People today are craving more intimacy and personal contact. Folks want to get to a supermarket and feel connected to a store they feel knows them,” say some experts. [DQ interjects: they should go to a farmers market then!] Others claim consumers are “cheap and lazy.”
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