The next med fly?: A new insect pest, ravenous and quick to multiply, is threatening California agriculture and horticulture. Native to Australia, the apple moth (Epiphyas postvittana) eats nearly everything — fruits, vegetables, native shrubs. The San Francisco Chronicle has articles about how home gardeners can help stop the spread and what it means for your garden. The short story: if you live in the Bay Area, don’t transport any plant matter from your garden (or community garden) to other cities or counties.
rBST is good for you and me: The Trib delves deeper into Monsanto’s campaign to get dairies banned from using “rBST free” in their labeling — the maker of the artificial bovine hormone claims it’s misleading advertising — including asking Whole Foods what it thinks. Chicago Tribune
What you don’t know can hurt you: A survey by the University of Regina found that 25% of the Canadians surveyed do not remember hearing or reading about the massive nationwide “spinach alert” of October 2006. And even those consumers had known about the recall, most were unsure what to do or how long the recall was in effect. A significant problem is that the number of consumer alerts has increased dramatically: in all of 1997, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency issued 33 alerts, but in March 2007 alone the number was 26. CTV
Natural switch: Profile of a Wyoming rancher raising natural beef, with shout-outs to local eating. Finally, a small-town paper that takes the time to explain that “natural” doesn’t mean much unless it also includes mention of “hormone free” and raised without antibiotics.” Wyoming Tribune-Eagle
When pills kill: Rattlesnake pills, a Latino folk remedy for just about everything that ails, have been found to often carry salmonella. Reuters
A day without day laborers: With immigration reform shining a spotlight on undocumented workers, fruit growers wonder if they will have enough hands to pick the fruit when it ripens. Already, apple growers are worried. Grand Rapids Press
Still no test for conservation: A more detailed look at the science behind the new tool developed to test whether produce was organically or conventionally grown. Scientific American
Slow food tourism: An article for the Times travel section argues that “there is no better way to get to the heart of any city than through its cuisine” — and that means not just eating it, but shopping for it and actually cooking it while on your vacation. New York Times
Rep. DeLauro (D-CT) plans FDA import hearings (Connecticut Post)
40,000 Spanish farmers demonstrated to protest E.U. farm policies and low prices. (Int’l Herald Tribune via AP)
New York, six other states pushing for tougher U.S. controls on mercury emissions to save fish (Reuters)
To fight global warming, some hang a clothesline (New York Times)
Food, Farming, & Food Politics events calendar
Humor:
April 17th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
I have a question about antibiotic use. Overuse is obviously bad for a number of reasons, but what about when an animal is sick? I shudder every time I see “antibiotic-free” because I picture little chickens and cows coughing up mucous or suffering from an infected wounds. What is actual practice out there on “antibiotic-free” farms? Do the farmers just sell or destroy sick animals, or can they treat them with antibiotics until they are better? On a related note, do small farms starve the chickens the way factory farms do?
I’m a city girl, so I know little about the details of animal farming, factory or not. There’s a big difference between understanding the science behind it and how things are actually done! Thanks for any info you might have - this isn’t really the sort of thing that can be googled.
rBGH is an interesting animal health issue too. Cows who produce too much milk get mastitis and a host of other health problems (the same problems happen in cows that naturally produce more than their sisters). People should avoid rBGH because it can hurt the cows, but no study has shown a difference in the milk. It’s another case of avoiding something for the wrong reasons!
April 18th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Hi Anastasia: My understanding from the farmers I’ve talked to is that when an animal is sick, of course they treat them with antibiotics or whatever medications are warranted. Some farmers have both organic and non-organic herds; they would just shift the animal into the non-organic one. Others who don’t would have to sell it to a “conventional” operation, or sometimes, sadly, slaughter it and sell it for pet meat. That is why many organic farmers are very paranoid about disease and end up confining animals like chickens, which are prone to them. If you’ve read “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” you’ll remember that when Pollan visits Rosie the Organic Chicken he’s surprised to find the “free range” flock roaming around a big shed; the owners explain they can’t risk the parasites an microbes the birds would pick up outside.
By the way, the USDA does not allow “antibiotic free” as a label: see Eco-Label’s entry on this subject. It does allow “raised without antibiotics,” but this claim is not verified.
As for rBGH, I have not talked to any dairy farmers about it. From what I have read, yes mastitis (which is painful inflammation of the udders) does accompany use of rBGH, and that often requires antibiotics to treat it. So cows that get rBGH often need other medications to ameliorate its effects. Also, last year the Journal of Reproductive Medicine reported on a small study indicating that women who drank a lot of milk were more likely to have twins. You’re probably better equipped to evaluate the study than I am, but there are others like it looking at whether milk from cows given rBGH indeed has higher levels of insulin-like growth factor, whose presence is looking less and less benign.
April 19th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
So the animal can’t be returned to the “raised without antibiotics” herd even if they simply needed a short treatment of antibiotics? Avoiding ALL hormones makes sense, but the rules for other medicines just don’t seem right. I suppose the rules are so strict to avoid improper labeling. Just another reason to try to buy from someone you know!
That study is a good measure of consuming dairy vs not consuming dairy, but not of rBGH vs not rBGH. Really, no conclusions about rBGH can be drawn at all from this study. You can however make the conclusion that maybe people shouldn’t be consuming cow milk so much, if at all.
I think the majority of issues with milk are due to the ‘natural’ milk itself. To test this, they’d really need to follow large populations of vegans, organic milk drinkers, commercial milk drinkers, and rBGH-only milk drinkers. I would hypothesize that even the most perfect cow milk would have some effect on humans. If there was no significant difference between these 4 populations, we might look to plastics or other chemicals in our environments as possible causes for things like higher incidence of twins and early puberty onset.
As for IGF, levels in milk are increased in rBGH treated cow milk, but they are still within ‘normal’ levels. In other words, there is a lot of variation in IGF levels in milk of untreated cows. It should be denatured anyway during pasteurization, but I’m not certain. Apparently IGF is denatured during infant formula production. This Canadian Dairy site has a nice summary of research on IGF, focusing on infant safety. The other links on the site are really informative about the biology of making milk! It’s so interesting to learn about these things - I can’t believe that most people don’t care where their food comes from!