The lead news story on the home page of my Yahoo! Australia account was an Australian Associated Press brief report that the Victorian government was expected to lift the ban on growing genetically modified crops when it expires at the end of February next year. “Pressure has come from farm groups and the federal government,” the story suggested. GM supporters claim a surge in agricultural productivity could happen, with farmers able to plant crops resistant to weeds, insects, and salinity, and that need less water.

Tana at I (Heart) Small Farms has the latest in the face-off between Slow Food leader Carlo Petrini and Ferry Plaza farmers who felt insulted by his description of the market, its clientele, and their prices.

Digest: More China troubles, save the fish, Ohio farmland dropping

A news release from the House Agriculture Committee announced that subcommittees will begin marking up several parts of the Food and Farm Bill next week. Coverage of the announcement at Agriculture Online and the Des Moines Register is indicating that Agriculture Committee Rep. Peterson (D-MN) is planning some significant changes to conservation programs. (At […]

NEWSFEATURES & COMMENTARYON THE BLOGS, ETC.Treehuggers meet rabblerousers: Labor and environmental groups are working together to influence the conservation portion of the Food and Farm Bill…. Many labor union members hunt and fish, pasttimes that will be a lot more difficult if the entire Midwest is covered with corn (which, environically, would be used to make ethanol to fuel some of the gas-guzzling vehicles made by union workers). (The Hill)Locavorism on the air: Barbara Kingsolver and Steven Hopp visit the KQED-FM studio to talk about their new book on a year of local eating…. (MILive (AP))You’ll probably have something good to add to this:Not being nice with our rice: The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has approved a plan to use GM rice to produce human proteins, despite over 20,000 comments opposing the plan, compared with 29 in favor…. We’ve heard that before…We’ll probably also hear that rice yields in Geary County are too low, so the next crop needs to be in the heart of rice country to increase the yield and boost Ventria’s profit margins.

I apologize for not posting last week, but I’ve been quite busy lately. I’ve spent the better part of the last two weeks playing drums for a college production of the musical “Hair” and I also celebrated my birthday last week.
Noshette kindly took me out to an early dinner (I had a 7pm curtain call) […]

NEWSFEATURES & COMMENTARYUCcandy bars off-limits to strict vegetarians: Masterfoods has begun using whey containing rennet, an animal product, in famous chocolate bars such as the Mars Bar, Bounty, Snickers, Twix, and Milky Way. Since we know very few junkfood-eating vegetarians, as opposed to vegans, who actually avoid products made with gelatin or cochineal, we’re guessing this is not going to hurt sales.

The sun was not yet warm enough when, in the company of my chef friend Alice Waters, I entered an elegantly refurbished area of the docks; pretty little coffee shops were serving warm mugs of excellent organic fairtrade coffee; sumptuous bakeries were putting out all sorts of good things, spreading the fragrant aroma of some wonderful kinds of bread…. The former, with long hair and a plaid flannel shirt, held his lovely little blond-haired daughter in his arms and told me, in a conspiratorial tone, that he had to drive two hundred miles to come and sell in that market: he charged incredibly high prices for his squashes, it was “a cinch,” and in just two monthly visits he could earn more than enough to maintain his family and spend hours surfing on the beach…. He replied: There are many cases of organic farming that are not sustainable, because they create a vast monoculture, one that relies on the use of integrated pesticides which greatly reduce the surrounding biodiversity: vast stretches of vineyards in Chile and in Italy, huge plantations of vegetables in California, hectares and hectares of olive groves in Spain…. Social sustainability can be achieved through public intervention, through politics: in Brazil, in those regions where the Workers’ Party con-trols the local government, all food served in public cafeterias must by law be organic and must be produced by small local producers at fair but accessible prices. Agroecology has a scientific basis, but it also has profound political implications, because it is badly in need of public intervention: before an agroecological approach can be established in Latin America, there must be agrarian reform and public intervention in the market to protect small farmers or to guarantee fair prices for producers and consumers.

NEWSFEATURES & COMMENTARYON THE BLOGS, ETC.Transparency special on aisle 7: Steve Balogh writes to his local grocery store - Wegmans - to see how they intended to keep melamine and cyanuric acid tainted food off of store shelves…. Contrast their compete and detailed response to Balogh’s inquiry with Whole Foods’ response to reporter/blogger David Gumpert’s similar one…. Some, including Michael Pollan, think not: “If you’re concerned about your health, then you should probably avoid food products that make health claims…The problem with nutrient-by-nutrient science is that it takes the nutrient out of the context of food, the food out of the context of diet, and the diet out of the context of lifestyle.” (The Observer)The obesity epidemic hits avatars: Kraft Foods, Inc. has set up a supermarket in the online world of “Second Life.” The story mentions Kraft’s “Sensible Solution” label for “healthier food choices,” but does not mention that Kraft ch which items are “Sensible.”

On May 10 Dairy Queen and I went to a lecture by Slow Food International founder Carlo Petrini, who’s on the road to promote the English-language release of his book “Slow Food Nation.” The book, which we have not yet read, is about the future of food, and what we must do to prevent […]

Digest: Milk ads restricted, worrisome hormones in all milk, the oyster wars

There has been plenty of discussion about the 2007 Food and Farm Bill in past weeks and months, but no one has been quite sure when exactly when the bill would be written. A short post at Congressional Quarterly changes that:
Rep. Collin C. Peterson, D-Minn., chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, said today that […]

There’s something weirdly fascinating about seeing what your friends really eat, and even more compelling if it’s people who care a lot about food. Whenever I go to people’s houses for the first time, I wish I could rummage around in their fridge. I’m never tempted to snoop in medicine cabinets, however, like people do in the movies. That seems weird.

NEWSFEATURES & COMMENTARYAmen to that: The USDA would be the wrong agency to consolidate all food safety functions, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, calling it “the nation’s booster club for American agricultural products.” Added CSPI food safety director Caroline Smith DeWaal, “During the last few years, the Secretary of Agriculture has spent far more time trying to convince Japan to buy U.S. beef then he has on ensuring that that beef is free of contamination.”

Digest: Nix that Chinese chicken salad, additives drive kids nuts, chefs band together for salmon health