FEATURES
The right to sell local: Backed by the Weston A. Price Foundation, a nonprofit Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund has been launched to protect the rights of farmers to provide meat, eggs, raw dairy products, vegetables and other foods directly to consumers. (Press release)
Surf vs. Turf: The USDA-FDA split system has resulted in a patchwork process for ensuring that meat, seafood, and produce consumed in the United States is safe. But is either agency good at it? (Washington Post)
Water bottlers defend their reputation with full-page ads (San Jose Mercury News)
Turkey gets its first organic vegetable CSA (we think) (Turkish Daily News)
Tips for growing herbs and salads in your kitchen (San Francisco Chronicle)
ON THE BLOGS & MISC.
A stinging rebuke: Beekeeper James Fischer hints at a much-anticipated paper about colony collapse disorder in bees making its way to publication, and how it fingers a virus brought into the U.S. by foreign bees (as Elizabeth Kolbert did in her New Yorker article, Digested on Thursday). Fischer takes it one step further, and tells just who might be to blame for importing the dangerous immigrants. (The Daily Green)
Holy guacamole!: Tom Karst shines light on a tiny, oh-so-ridiculous provision in the proposed farm bill that requires all Hass avocados sold in the U.S. to meet a "minimum quality requirement" of ripeness. (Fresh Talk)
If only that would be sufficient: Global fishery collapse is financed with tax money. Here’s a simple idea: Let’s stop paying people to overfish. (Gristmill)
Almond do: Consumer outcry and farmer strategizing may have led to the California Almond Board’s rethinking of its decision to require almonds to be pasteurized, reports David Gumpert. (The Complete Patient)
Food, Farming, & Food Politics events calendar
August 5th, 2007 at 11:30 am
I wonder what it would take to switch subsidies to sustainable food production of foods that aren’t already in surplus, in areas where local, nutritious food is hard to find.
Maybe that’s really a story for a fantasy novelist to write.