BusinessWeek.com: Another great article about the raw-milk business by David Gumpert tells how after a Kentucky raw-milk farmer was busted, his shareholders milked his cows, delivered the milk, and paid his medical and legal bills. Now that’s community-supported agriculture. Gumpert has more about all the various raw-milk crackdowns on his blog.
Time : Interesting back story on why the government dropped the word “hunger” from its annual survey on Household Food Security.
Salon*: The always-amusing Rebecca Traister rants about those on calorie restricted diets in honor of Thanksgiving. “Do I want another 80 years with my loved ones in which we all eat Quorn? In which we measure arugula onto our plates using postal scales?…Of course there is shared joy in life that doesn’t revolve around food. But honestly — there’s so much less of it.” We agree with her.
New York Times**: Playing Santa to an Ethicurean? A new $55 book called Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food sounds mighty tasty.
San Francisco Chronicle (via AP): Some of the farmers evicted from an urban farm in South Central L.A. Los Angeles are now growing produce on public land in Watts, along a narrow power-line right-of-way.
Seattle P-I: In the face of much opposition, the USDA is backpedaling on its plan to make the National Animal Identification System mandatory.
San Francisco Chronicle: Celebrating the weird and wonderful world of fungi.
UC Santa Cruz: Researchers at two UC campuses, Santa Cruz and Davis, are launching a two-year study of the feasibility of “farm-to-institution” programs. They plan to survey college students’ food preferences and priorities of institutional food buyers, and evaluate distribution models for getting more fresh, locally grown food into institutions, including schools, universities, and hospitals.
Parade magazine: The annual “What America Eats” survey shows that more Americans are looking to healthy foods and portion control for well-being instead of fad diets.
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November 24th, 2006 at 8:39 am
Re: In the face of much opposition, the USDA is backpedaling on its plan to make the National Animal Identification System mandatory.
Ah,no, it’s not really the truth. What they have done is to change tactics. Interesting time announcement over the Thanksgiving holiday. What USDA, Inc. has done is foisted the responsibility onto the States. If you were to read the new plan you’d see that the words “voluntary at the Federal level” occur everywhere. So, voluntary at the Federal level while making the States pay up for having taken grants, means the States, like Wisconsin (who has already made it mandatory), will be encouraged to make it mandatory.
And then there is that pesky word, “producers”. Hey, I am not a producer. I grow food for us to eat. My sheep or meat birds do not make it into the global food system. I am not a producer.
Please click your way to nonais.org and see what the truth behind this wicked scheme is.
November 24th, 2006 at 8:45 am
PS.. Libby Quaid’s article in Seattle Pi is wrong about “The Bush administration is abandoning plans to make farmers and ranchers register their cows, pigs and chickens in a nationwide database intended to help limit disease outbreaks.”
It isn’t the Bush administration, it is USDA/APHIS/NIAA (National Institute of Animal Agriculture) who are behind NAIS. I went to NIAA’s ID Expo in Kansas City last August where the take home message was they mean to tag and track every livestock animal in this country. They are not going to go gently into that good night with NAIS. They stand to make so much money from it. One must bear that in mind when reading the New Plan.
November 24th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
Hi Hen: Thanks for the clarification, espeicially about the use of the term “producers.” I know that the biggest objection to the system is the unfair burden it will place on small farmers. We’ll be watching this more closely in the future.
November 26th, 2006 at 5:02 am
DairyQueen, the biggest objection isn’t the unfair burden it will place on small farmers. The biggest objection is that NAIS amounts to a license to farm and the taking away our inalienable (supposedly) right to own property without undue governmental interference. For example, you own a car, you have a license plate for it, a driver’s license, yes, but you do not have to tell the government where you drive it to and when you get back. NAIS is much worse than that.