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Radical agtivism: California Senate’s new Food and Ag Committee chair
Flowers for Florez: We (heart) California Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, new chair of California's ag committee, which in January took the unprecedented step of adding "food" to its name. This piece from a trade newspaper looks at how he's broken with the herd on animal welfare, animal use of antibiotics, and all sorts of other topics that have agribiz
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Digest – News: Anti-biotics, working for the (corporate) man, and the price of obesity
More squealing from the porkers: The National Pork Producers Council objects to federal legislation introduced Tuesday by Rep. Louise Slaughter (no pun intended, really), the only microbiologist in the U.S. Congress, that would restrict the use of medically-important antibiotics in livestock production.
Digest – News: The California conundrum, Monsanto at large, and tuna testing (not to be tried at home)
A new growth export market - the revolving door: U.S. government agencies are imploring foreign countries to bring their food safety regulations up to the (arguably pretty low) U.S. par, but the buck doesn't stop there: countries like India are being pushed to develop regulations on GM crops, industrial
Digest – News: Seeds grow, even in prison; allergy nuts; and the return of the pear
Growing hope: U.S. prisons are notoriously bad at rehabilitating inmates and preparing them to return to public life, but San Quentin is trying to change that. How? By providing an organic garden that residents can care for. "It reminds me of being with my grandmother," says one inmate. "It saved my
All steriled up: Produce safety guidelines throw sustainability out, keep toxic bathwater
Readers may remember back in November when I announced the first installment of a two-part post on produce safety. It's taken me a few months to get around to it, but here we are: part 2! Photo of a "sterile farm" courtesy of the
Digest – News: Dairy cows on the moove, Big Corn throwdown, a locavore loses it
Industry pail-out: California's dairy industry announces a plan to cull 300,000 dairy cows, or roughly 1/6th of the state's herd, in an attempt to raise market prices for milk from the $0.97/gallon producers have received recently. Mass sell-offs have happened before, but often the cows were bought by
Digest – News: Mega-McDonald’s, bathing moo-ties, and CA Senate embraces food
No budget, but an awesome mandate: The California state Senate reforms its agriculture committee - traditionally a buddy of the state's industrial produce contingent - to prioritize issues such as sustainable agriculture, food safety, animal welfare, and food security. Berkeley/Oakland Senator Loni Hancock
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Oprah show torpedos CAFOs, gives props to Prop. 2
As just about everyone probably knows, most of Oprah's Tuesday show was devoted to reporter Lisa Ling's "How We Treat the Animals We Eat" investigation. I don't have cable, and thought I could watch the episode one way or another
Judge tells UDSA to stop interfering with the California election
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ruled that the USDA has been improperly inserting itself into California electoral politics by planning advertisements that would advocate against Proposition 2, an initiative on the November 4th ballot. Proposition
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Alice Waters in conversation with SF Mayor Gavin Newsom
Mayors of major American cities are usually the ones answering questions in interviews. So when the mayor is the one doing the interviewing, the subject must be someone special. That was the case on Monday night, when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newson sat down with chef, food activist, and Slow Food International
Coming home to industrial ag: A tour of the Central Valley
There’s an image that’s stuck with me from the cross-country drive that my dad and I took last summer. It was one of many late-night stints at the wheel, perhaps 11 p.m., and we were hurtling along through the Utah desert. A sign at the last gas station had warned us of a nearly 100-mile
Eco-Farm snapshots
Proving that sustainable agriculture is hotter than a compost pile in July, the 28th annual Ecological Farming Conference known to all as Eco-Farm — from which I've just returned — completely sold out in record time. More than 1,500 farmers, ranchers, educators, and activists descended on
California raw milk update: A new commission, instead of a reversal
The hopes of more than 700 California raw-milk supporters following last week's seeming victory in Sacramento were dashed today in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. The issue of raw-milk safety and California bacteria standards
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Some good news from California on raw milk — and genetically modified crops
Raw, raw, raw milk!: Hundreds of people showed up in Sacramento Wednesday to support the rolling back or amending of AB 1735, the sneaky amendment to the California code that would likely have put the state's two raw-milk suppliers out of business. Most encouragingly, the Assembly Agriculture Committee
Two new Ethicureans
I'm still crippled — reduced to mousing and typing with left hand while standing with an ice pack strapped to my back (yeah, I know how sexy I look — you should see me in my cervical collar!). Sorry, but that means no Digest, and believe me, those 7,142-and-counting unread headlines are
