Breaking news and developments, such as contaminated-food outbreaks, Farm Bill milestones, and how the farming community is faring around the world.

Breaking news and developments, such as contaminated-food outbreaks, Farm Bill milestones, and how the farming community is faring around the world.

In-depth, offbeat, or thought-provoking features about aspects of SOLE food, from eating locally to farms marketing to methods of food preservation.

Breaking news and developments, such as contaminated-food outbreaks, Farm Bill milestones, and how the farming community is faring around the world.

Breaking news and developments, such as contaminated-food outbreaks, Farm Bill milestones, and how the farming community is faring around the world.

Breaking news and developments, such as contaminated-food outbreaks, Farm Bill milestones, and how the farming community is faring around the world.

Thanks to Marc R. for calling my attention to the Government Accountability Office’s recent report on the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). NAIS, which first saw the light of corner offices at the USDA in 2002, flaunts a meaty goal: to identify and track the movement of all livestock animals and poultry in the United […]

The age of agri-tourism: Small farms are increasingly diversifying into non-agricultural activities like farm tours, cheese-making classes, and photo safaris. The income from such activities often dwarfs their revenues from crops. New York Times
Idea ripe for U.S. implementation: The new Farmers’ City Market shop in south-west London aims to bring the farmers market indoors, while […]

The ethics of cloning: Most of the op-eds we’ve seen about eating meat and dairy from cloned animals have tried to appeal to Americans’ personal health fears. This one aims for the heart of animal lovers. Business Week (Thanks, Marc)
This is your food-chain on drugs: Federal legislation introduced by Senators Edward Kennedy (D–Massachusetts) and Olympia […]

Bird-flu CSI: It’s official — comparison between the UK and Hungarian strains of the avian-flu virus reveals the highest genetic match, much more so than the strains found in wild birds. Press release
Dept. of About Time: A federal judge ruled yesterday that the USDA failed to adequately assess possible environmental impacts before approving Monsanto’s genetically […]

Hoofbeats of the food apocalypse: A mysterious plague is killing off U.S. honeybees, threatening to disrupt pollination of a range of crops. Affected hives are often empty except for the queen and a few bees, with no sign as to what happened. Fact nugget: There are rent-a-bee services? Reuters
Norway to the rescue: Norway is building […]

Future of food: Peter Melchett has an excellent op-ed on what England’s bird-flu outbreak means for the future of farming — will it be high-tech, dependent on genetic engineering and biosecurity, or low-tech, meaning organic and local? Guardian (UK)
Overkill: A chillingly sad story about how so-called “disease containment” practices work in the United States, based […]

Farm Bill pressure: Those who wanted Americans to realize just how broadly the Farm Bill affects all those who eat or grow food may have done their job a bit too well — it seems everyone has an opinion on what the new bill ought to cover. The latest to weigh in:

General policies: A Register […]

Bird-flu vs. mad-cow trading: The U.S. might start importing cooked poultry products from China, which has had several deaths from avian flu; some think it’s a bid to get China to drop its ban on U.S. beef, in place since a 2003 case of mad-cow disease. Less than 1% of the chicken Americans eat comes […]

Bird-flu biosecurity failure: Forget the wild-bird-acting-alone theory. Bird flu was found last night to have spread through the Bernard Matthews turkey complex in Suffolk, England, and the H5N1 strain of the flu was also linked to the company’s processing plant in Hungary, from which meat is sent all over Britain. The revelations are embarrassing for […]