The Farm Bill is back. (Admit it — you’d been missing it.) House and Senate ag staffers have taken to lurking in each other’s offices and furrowing their brows over what could be a protracted conflict between members of the conference committee, that group of reps and senators assigned to turn the meat grinder on […]

PETA’s smartest PR move ever may be hiring Free Range Studios, the geniuses behind The Meatrix, to co-produce their latest campaign, "The Road to the Greenhouse."
The go-vegetarian message is a lot more palatable when served up as a mock debate featuring the presidential candidates of both parties reimagined as vegetables  — among them Broccoli […]

This is a special edition of the Digest devoted to reactions to the Food and Drug Administration’s determination that clones and their milk are safe for consumption.
Rick Weiss reports on the USDA’s request for a "voluntary moratorium" on selling clones to allow consumers to adjust to the idea (i.e., let them forget about this week’s […]

At a meeting of the South Dakota Corn Growers Association on January 5, 2008, Acting Secretary of Agriculture Chuck Conner had much to say about the current state of corn and renewable fuels. After extolling our nation’s glorious efforts in making ethanol from corn, Conner commented:

Our growing appetite for renewable fuels and the standards […]

These days, votes in the Senate are usually either along party lines (51-49), or lopsided like 98-2 or 100-0. However, the vote on the Dorgan-Grassley amendment, which would have set a $250,000 limit for farm subsidy payments to any one farm, was unusual. The No votes were cast by 31 Republicans, 11 Democrats and […]

I’ve recently learned (thanks to a little birdie from Capitol Hill) that Tyson, Smithfield, and pals are on the rampage this morning, circulating memos and e-mails against two important livestock amendments to be offered today on the Farm Bill. These amendments — the Grassley competition amendment and the Tester amendment — would help make it […]

In my last post, I took a lengthy look at the role that farmers play in the livestock production system. In case you didn’t make it that far, here’s my conclusion: In their role as feed-growers and animal-raisers, farmers are an important but virtually powerless piece of the system. Wedged between big companies selling them […]

In a recent post on Grist, Tom Philpott ran down the list of problems that this year’s Farm Bill debaters have blamed, loudly and repeatedly, on subsidies: “everything from the obesity epidemic to the explosion in CAFOs in the late 1990s to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico… [to] steamrolling farmers in Mexico, […]

Following last fall’s crisis over E. coli contamination of spinach, the growers, distributors and retailers of salad mix started talking about improving their safety practices. A fair amount of activity in this area has been happening in California, including some bills in the legislature and voluntary standards like the Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement. (Be […]

The stinginess and lack of ethics shown by Burger King and its contractors in balking over giving Florida tomato pickers a penny-a-pound raise is outrageous.
Eric Schlosser, the journalist who exposed the dirty underbelly of the fast-food industry in "Fast Food Nation" has a scathing op-ed in the Times today about the injustice. After reviewing […]

The other day I got a press release from the USDA (PDF) announcing that Brian Wansink had been appointed the Executive Director of the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP):

Dr. Wansink will be responsible for overseeing the planning, development and review of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the food pyramid known as MyPyramid.gov […]

The second in our new series contributed by Barry Foy of The Devil’s Food Dictionary, that “pioneering culinary reference work consisting entirely of lies.” We’re publishing installments of Ethicurean-related terms whenever we need to cheer ourselves up. (Yes, stubborn old Farm Bill, we’re talking to you!)

Here’s something that might make you feel a bit less secure about the safety of your food: the director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) is becoming the senior vice president and chief science and regulatory affairs officer at the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA).
Robert E. Brackett, Ph.D. has extensive […]

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

Today the American Meat Institute unveiled a 6-minute-long, “consumer-friendly video” on YouTube, just like all the cool-kid companies are doing.