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Food safety sweep
House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman certainly had his ducks in a row today, as a sweeping food safety bill, H.R. 2749, passed unanimously out of the committee. (CQ Politics and Reuters;
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Michelle Obama links WH garden to child nutrition programs and healthcare reform
Give peas a chance: An event for schoolkids in the First Lady's Garden marked a change in tone for Michelle Obama, from fun-filled photo op to homework. "This gorgeous, bountiful garden has given us a chance to not just have some fun…but to shed some light on the important food and nutrition issues
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Tobacco companies were hobbled, now Big Food companies need to be
Those who ignore history are doomed to re-eat it: Civil Eats managing editor Paula Crossfield connects the dots that show how America is a slave of Big Food much as it once was to Big Tobacco. The alarm bells are ringing — obesity rates, contaminated food, spiraling healthcare. "It is time to regulate
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California to shut its Food and Ag Department?
Now really doesn't seem like a good time: Amidst California’s scramble to close its $20 billion deficit, California Senator Dean Florez, chair of the California Senate’s Food and Agriculture Committee, is suggesting perhaps the state should shutter its Department of Food and Agriculture. On June
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Big Food vs. Mother Nature
Money can't buy you cheap oil again: FoE Tom Laskawy has a nice overview of Big Food's recent desperate-seeming lobbying efforts, before launching into how the one threat Big Food hasn't proven itself very adept at handling is "the multiheaded hydra of climate change, drought, and the shrinking supplies
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Ann Wright named Deputy Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs at USDA
All Wright!!!: Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has appointed Ann Wright as Deputy Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs at USDA. Before serving as senior policy advisor to Majority Leader Harry Reid on issues before the Senate Agriculture Committee, she was a policy analyst for Consumers
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Vilsack defends CAFOs at congressional hearing
No, we do want to go down that road: In a House appropriations subcommittee hearing yesterday with Secretary Vilsack on the stand, Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) called out industrial livestock operations as "threats to human health" because of their pollution and contribution to antibiotic resistance.
Family farm advocate named GIPSA head
Sunshine comes to the stockyards: USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack wins some more fans in these quarters by naming Dudley Butler to head the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA). (USDA
USDA to hold listening sessions on national animal ID system
Start packing, Walter: We knew swine flu novel H1N1 virus was going to move animal-tracking to the front burner. AgSec Tom Vilsack today announced that the USDA will hold a series of "listening sessions" on the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) next month in Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut,
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,
What effect will Arlen Specter have on ag policy?
Specter-ulation: Sen. Arlen Specter's jump to the Dem side of the aisle will have "wide-ranging impact on policy, but particularly Ag policy, both domestic and global," says our favorite AgWonkette, Eddie. She dissects his record for those who haven't been paying attention to this senator from the big
Feds sue Hallmark slaughterhouse over beef recall
Good luck getting blood from a stone-dead company: The federal government is suing Chino-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., whose workers were caught on videotape abusing nonambulatory cattle, resulting in the nation's biggest beef recall last year. The federal lawsuit seeks $150 million in taxpayer money
Tom Vilsack has been making friends in both camps
Two-faced Tom?: Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has disarmed sustainable-ag opponents through his organic People's Garden for the USDA and appointment of reformers like Kathleen Merrigan, while reassuring agribiz through support for corn ethanol and GMOs. Vilsack himself sees no contradiction: he's
It’s the environment, stupid
Red-tape red herrings: U.S. Rep. Jerry Moran, Kansas Republican and U.S. Senate hopeful in two years, warns against his greatest concern in agriculture, "increasing environmental and other rules and regulations." Our greatest concern is that anyone with his attitude is viewed as a "leading member" of
Sen. Grassley calls USDA Dep Sec Kathleen Merrigan unqualified
What's her name, you know, that lady the organic people love: During a teleconference today with reporters, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) said he thought most of Obama's USDA nominees were “well qualified”
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