" I heard it through the AgLine"

July 28, 2010

 

 

·        Raw food raid raises issues of freedom

·        The race is on to convert algae to fuel

·        DuPont sees profits nearly triple in 2Q

·        Ocean Mist expands Mexican operations

·        Scientists stalk cemeteries for signs of life

 

 

Raw food raid raises issues of freedom

 

(latimes.com) – With no warning one weekday morning, investigators entered an organic grocery with a search warrant and ordered the hemp-clad workers to put down their buckets of mashed coconut cream and to step away from the nuts.

 

Then, guns drawn, four officers fanned out across Rawesome Foods in Venice, a beach town near Los Angeles. Skirting past the arugula and peering under crates of zucchini, they found the raid's target inside a walk-in refrigerator: unmarked jugs of raw milk.

 

"I still can't believe they took our yogurt," said Rawesome volunteer Sea J. Jones, a few days after the raid. "There's a medical marijuana shop a couple miles away, and they're raiding us because we're selling raw dairy products?"

 

Cartons of raw goat and cow milk and blocks of unpasteurized goat cheese were among the groceries seized in the June 30 raid by federal, state and local authorities — the latest salvo in the heated food fight over what people can put in their mouths.

 

On one side are government regulators, who say they are enforcing rules designed to protect consumers from unsafe foods and to provide a level playing field for producers. On the other side are " healthy food" consumers — a faction of foodies who challenge government science and seek food in its most pure form.

 

They want almonds cracked fresh from the shell, not those run through a federally mandated pasteurization process that uses either heat or a chemical to kill off salmonella and other possible contaminants. They hunger for meat slaughtered on the farm. And they're willing to pay a premium — $6, $8 or more — for a gallon of milk straight from the cow.

 

So despite research outlining the dangers of consuming raw milk and other unprocessed foods, they're finding ways to circumnavigate federal, state and local laws that seek to control what they can serve at the dinner table. Such defiance, they said, comes from growing distrust of a food sector that has become more industrialized and consolidated — and whose products have been at the root of some of the country's deadliest food contamination cases.

 

"This is about control and profit, not our health," said Aajonus Vonderplanitz, co-founder of Rawesome Foods. "How can we not have the freedom to choose what we eat?"

 

Scientists and regulators point to epidemiological evidence linking disease outbreaks to raw milk: The milk can transmit bacteria such as E. coli O157:H7, salmonella, campylobacter and listeria, which can result in diarrhea, kidney failure or death.

 

"This is not about restricting the public's rights," said Nicole Neeser, program manager for dairy, meat and poultry inspection at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. "This is about making sure people are safe."

 

Demand for all manner of raw foods — including honey, nuts and meat — has been growing, spurred by heightened interest in the way food is produced. But raw milk in particular has drawn a lot of regulatory scrutiny, largely because the politically powerful dairy industry has pressed the government to act.

 

It is legal for licensed dairies to sell raw milk at retail outlets in California and 10 other states, according to research by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Twenty states allow people to buy unpasteurized milk directly from farms, or take part in a "cow sharing" program (in which a person buys part ownership of an animal and gets some of its milk).

 

But in the case of Rawesome, regulators allege that the group broke the law by failing to have the proper permits to sell food to the public. While the raid was happening at Rawesome, another went down at one of its suppliers, Healthy Family Farms in Ventura County. California agriculture officials said farm owner Sharon Palmer's processing plant had not met standards to obtain a license. Palmer could not be reached for comment.

 

Rawesome's fans, though, shrugged off such concerns.

 

"I always had problems with my stomach and digestion with normal milk," said Darin Nellis, 41, who runs a nonprofit production company in Culver City and has been a member of Rawesome for three months. "I like how raw goat milk tastes, and I feel better."

 

Such sentiments exasperate officials at the Food and Drug Administration, which bans interstate sales of raw milk and advises that both milk and honey should be pasteurized.

 

The debate has boiled at the state level for years. Alta Dena Dairy founder Harold J.J. Stueve fought for decades to help keep raw milk sales legal in California. This year, Wisconsin legislators approved a bill aimed largely at allowing the state's struggling small farmers to sell more raw milk products. But Gov. Jim Doyle vetoed that bill under pressure from large producers. In neighboring Minnesota, whose official state drink is milk, authorities recently raided a private club similar to Rawesome in south Minneapolis.

 

Such battles have had a chilling effect on some retailers. Whole Foods Market used to carry raw milk and raw milk products in California and three other states. But in March, the chain pulled all but a few cheeses off its shelves. Part of the reason, it said in a statement, was "the realities of the very high additional costs for liability insurance … because of the potential risks from selling unpasteurized milk and milk products."

 

Rawesome was born of consumer frustration. In 1998, James Stewart — a vegetarian who drank raw milk — couldn't find the stuff in Southern California grocery stores. So he started making road trips to dairies in northern California and to Whole Foods in San Jose, which at the time carried raw milk. Word spread. Family and friends wanted it too.

 

So Stewart and Vonderplanitz created a private food club where, for a $25 annual fee, members "lease" the land and livestock directly from a farmer. Then, members pay an additional service fee attached to each grocery item, which they say covers the cost of transporting each food item from the farm to Venice.

 

The pair reasoned that they didn't need to obtain a license from state or local agencies because they weren't technically retailers. In 2004, Rawesome opened on Rose Avenue in Venice. "We're just a place where people come to pick up the products they already own," Vonderplanitz said.

 

The L.A. County Public Health Department didn't see it that way. Vonderplanitz said that in 2005 the agency told Rawesome staff they needed a food-business license. Vonderplanitz said that he objected in a letter, and that the county never replied or followed up. (County officials declined to comment.)

 

Five years passed. Rawesome now boasts 1,600 members, who battle for street parking every Wednesday and Saturday when the club is open.

 

Squeezed between a coffee shop and a vintage guitar store, Rawesome looks from the outside like a forgotten storage unit. A tiny club sign hangs on the 10-foot-tall corrugated fence that hides the windowless storefront.

 

But inside, the shop is bright and airy, a bohemian farmers market surrounded by burnt-orange walls and a white tarp roof to keep out the rain. Boxes of coconuts and ginger from Hawaii sit nestled next to crates of California squash. Labels identify where each bite of produce was grown: onions from the Viva Tierra farm in Harlingen, Texas, and King's Crown Organic farm in King Hill, Idaho.

 

The members — a mix of tattooed young people and middle-aged executives in Italian shoes — chat as they head to the walk-in cooler in the back. It is jam-packed with meat and dairy. Ziploc bags are filled with chicken, beef and pork. Many don't have an expiration date. The other side is stocked with Amish buttermilk ($7.95 a quart), Amish cream cheese ($12.75 a pound) and whole milk ($8.59 per half-gallon).

 

Agencies that participated in the raid on Rawesome included the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the FDA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Investigators confiscated the club's computer and 17 coolers packed with, among other things, 24 bottles of organic honey, 10 gallons of raw whole milk and two bottles of raw cane syrup. Stewart said the health department slapped a closure notice on the club's front door that said it was "operating a food facility without a valid public health permit."

 

The health department, district attorney's office and the FDA declined to comment, citing the pending investigation. The state Department of Food and Agriculture, which was the agency of record on the search warrant, said it continues to work with the district attorney's office.

 

Co-op members are undeterred. Four days after the raid, Rawesome reopened its doors. The shelves were restocked. They have remained so ever since.

 

On a recent Wednesday afternoon, the line stretched halfway down the block. A stern young man in baggy cargo pants and sunglasses guarded the entrance, checking drivers' licenses. Lela Buttery, a Rawesome volunteer and professional biologist, handed out legal waivers to sign.

 

One woman, digging into her green grocery bag for a pen, asked, "You guys got shut down last week?"

 

"Yes," Buttery said.

 

"That's nuts," the woman replied. "You're not going to stop, right?"

 

Buttery grinned. "Can I see your membership card?"

 

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The race is on to convert algae to fuel

 

(The New York Times) – SAN DIEGO — In a laboratory where almost all the test tubes look green, the tools of modern biotechnology are being applied to lowly pond scum.

 

Foreign genes are being spliced into algae and native genes are being tweaked.

 

Different strains of algae are pitted against one another in survival-of-the-fittest contests in an effort to accelerate the evolution of fast-growing, hardy strains.

 

The goal is nothing less than to create superalgae, highly efficient at converting sunlight and carbon dioxide into lipids and oils that can be sent to a refinery and made into diesel or jet fuel.

 

“We’ve probably engineered over 4,000 strains,” said Mike Mendez, a co-founder and vice president for technology at Sapphire Energy, the owner of the laboratory. “My whole goal here at Sapphire is to domesticate algae, to make it a crop.”

 

Dozens of companies, as well as many academic laboratories, are pursuing the same goal — to produce algae as a source of, literally, green energy. And many of them are using genetic engineering or other biological techniques, like chemically induced mutations, to improve how algae functions.

 

“There are probably well over 100 academic efforts to use genetic engineering to optimize biofuel production from algae,” said Matthew C. Posewitz, an assistant professor of chemistry at the Colorado School of Mines, who has written a review of the field. “There’s just intense interest globally.”

 

Algae are attracting attention because the strains can potentially produce 10 or more times more fuel per acre than the corn used to make ethanol or the soybeans used to make biodiesel. Moreover, algae might be grown on arid land and brackish water, so that fuel production would not compete with food production. And algae are voracious consumers of carbon dioxide, potentially helping to keep some of this greenhouse gas from contributing to global warming.

 

But efforts to genetically engineer algae, which usually means to splice in genes from other organisms, worry some experts because algae play a vital role in the environment. The single-celled photosynthetic organisms produce much of the oxygen on earth and are the base of the marine food chain.

 

“We are not saying don’t do this,” said Gerald H. Groenewold, director of the University of North Dakota’s Energy and Environmental Research Center, who is trying to organize a study of the risks. “We say do this with the knowledge of the implications and how to safeguard what you are doing.”

 

At a meeting this month of President Obama’s new bioethics commission, Allison A. Snow, an ecologist at Ohio State University, testified that a “worst-case hypothetical scenario” would be that algae engineered to be extremely hardy might escape into the environment, displace other species and cause algal overgrowths that deprive waters of oxygen, killing fish.

 

A week earlier, at an industry-sponsored bioenergy conference, David Haberman, an engineer who has worked on an algae project, gave a talk warning of risks. Many scientists, particularly those in the algae business, say the fears are overblown. Just as food crops cannot thrive without a farmer to nourish them and fend off pests, algae modified to be energy crops would be uncompetitive against wild algae if they were to escape, and even inside their own ponds.

 

“Everything we do to engineer an organism makes it weaker,” said Stephen Mayfield, a professor of biology at the University of California, San Diego, and a co-founder of Sapphire. “This idea that we can make Frankenfood or Frankenalgae is just absurd.”

 

Dr. Mayfield and other scientists say there have been no known environmental problems in the 35 years that scientists have been genetically engineering bacteria, although some organisms have undoubtedly escaped from laboratories.

 

Even Margaret Mellon of the Union of Concerned Scientists, who has been critical of biotech crops, said that if genetically engineered algae were to escape, “I would not lose sleep over it at all.”

 

Still, some algae researchers worry they will be engulfed by the same backlash aimed at biotech foods and say care must be exercised. “About 40 percent of the oxygen that you and I are breathing right now comes from the algae in the oceans,” the genetic scientist J. Craig Venter said at a Congressional hearing in May. “We don’t want to mess up that process.”

 

Dr. Venter’s company, Synthetic Genomics, is getting $300 million from Exxon Mobil to create fuel-producing algae, in part by using synthetic genes. When the two companies cut the ribbon on a new greenhouse here earlier this month, Dr. Venter assured local dignitaries in attendance that no algae would escape. “Nothing will go into the drains, Mr. Mayor,” Dr. Venter said, only half-jokingly. “San Diego is safe.”

 

In the long run, Dr. Venter said, the algae should be given “suicide genes” that would kill them if they escaped the lab or fuel production facility. Some companies are sticking with searching for and breeding natural strains. “Re-engineering algae seems driven more by patent law and investor desire for protection than any real requirement,” said Stan Barnes, chief executive of Bioalgene, which is one of those companies. But Dr. Venter and Mr. Mendez argue that there are huge obstacles to making algae competitive as an energy source and that every tool will be needed to optimize the strains.

 

Sapphire Energy seems one of the best-positioned companies to do that. The company, which is three years old, has raised $100 million from prominent investors, including Bill Gates. Sapphire is also getting $100 million in federal financing to build a demonstration project containing 300 acres of open ponds in the New Mexico desert.

 

The company has inserted a gene into algae that allows the organisms to make a hydrocarbon they would not naturally produce, one that would help make fuel. “You don’t want to take what algae gives you,” said Mr. Mendez, who previously worked for medical biotechnology companies. “You want to make the best product.”

 

The company is also developing algae that can thrive in extremely salty and exceedingly alkaline water.

 

It has even developed what might be called Roundup Ready algae. Like the widely grown Roundup Ready soybeans, these algae are resistant to the herbicide Roundup. That would allow the herbicide to be sprayed on a pond to kill invading wild algae while leaving the fuel-producing strain unhurt.

 

Not all these traits are being developed by genetic engineering, because in many cases scientists do not know what genes to use. Instead, the company screens thousands of strains each day, looking for organisms with the right properties. Those desirable traits can be further enhanced by breeding or accelerated evolution.

 

In one room at Sapphire’s lab, parallel tubes contain algae with identical traits growing under identical conditions. But each strain is slightly different, and only the fastest growing one — determined by which tube turns the darkest green — will be chosen for further development.

 

“If you can’t outcompete your wild cousin, it doesn’t make it out of this room,” said Mr. Mendez. Algae can reproduce rapidly, doubling in as little as a few hours. And they can be carried long distances by the wind. “They have the potential to blow all over the world,” said Richard Sayre of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis.

 

Dr. Sayre, who is also chief technology officer of Phycal, an algae company, is using genetic engineering to develop algae that capture less light. Right now, he explained, algae capture more light than they need and waste a lot of it as heat. If each organism captured less, then a given amount of light could be shared by more organisms, increasing biomass production.

 

Instead of using open ponds, some companies are using bioreactors, which typically contain the algae in tubes. Some experts say, however, that these would not totally prevent escapes. “The idea that you can contain these things and have a large-scale system is not credible,” said John R. Benemann, an industry consultant in Walnut Creek, Calif. He said, however, that he saw absolutely no risk from genetically engineered algae.

 

Sapphire says it is not growing any genetically engineered algae in open ponds yet. When it is ready, it says, it will comply with all regulations.

 

Genetically engineered algae, whether in open ponds or enclosed bioreactors, are likely to be regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, which now regulates genetically engineered microbes under the Toxic Substances Control Act.

 

Still, there has been at least one case in which genetically modified algae seem to have fallen between the regulatory cracks. When Mera Pharmaceuticals, which is based in Hawaii, wanted to test the feasibility of producing human pharmaceuticals in genetically engineered algae in 2005, none of the three federal agencies that regulate the various areas of biotechnology — E.P.A., the Food and Drug Administration and the Agriculture Department — claimed jurisdiction.

 

Steven G. Chalk, acting deputy assistant secretary for renewable energy at the Energy Department, said any federally financed project, like Sapphire’s New Mexico demonstration, would have to undergo an environmental assessment. But risks would be assessed case by case, he said, not for all conceivable genetically modified algae.

 

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DuPont profit nearly triples in 2Q

 

(Reuters via Yahoo! News)  NEW YORK – DuPont (DD.N) on Tuesday said its second-quarter profit nearly tripled due to a surge in sales and volume across all six of its business segments, sending its shares up 3.3 percent in premarket trading.

 

The results from the third-largest chemical maker in the United States offer a positive outlook on the global economic recovery, and come as Wall Street is looking for a ray of sunshine after an unusually glum past few weeks.

 

The Wilmington, Delaware-based company, known as E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co, also raised its 2010 earnings guidance to a range above Wall Street's expectations.

 

"This is as good a quarter as I've seen DuPont report in a long time," said Deutsche Bank analyst David Begleiter. "The fact that they're raising guidance ... and noting some signs of recovery, is evidence that there hasn't been a market slowdown of macroeconomic activity yet."

 

The company said net income rose to $1.17 billion, or $1.26 per share, from $417 million, or 41 cents per share, a year earlier.

 

Excluding one-time items, the company posted a profit on Tuesday of $1.17 per share.

 

Analysts expected earnings of 94 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. If was not immediately clear if the numbers were comparable.

 

Revenue rose 25.6 percent to $8.62 billion. Analysts expected $8.27 billion.

 

DuPont raised its 2010 earnings forecast to a range of $2.90 to $3.05 per share, excluding one-time items. It had previously forecast $2.50 to $2.70.

 

Analysts expect 2010 earnings of $2.64 per share.

 

UNIT SPECIFICS

 

The company's agricultural & nutrition unit, which holds its Pioneer business, saw sales rise 16 percent and operating profit increase 31 percent.

 

DuPont rival Monsanto Co (MON.N) posted a 45 percent drop in fiscal third-quarter income last month, due in part to weakness in its herbicide business.

 

"Pioneer has taken advantage of what the marketplace has to offer right now," Deutsche Bank's Begleiter said. "They're executing very well."

 

In May, the Environmental Protection Agency approved DuPont's "refuge-in-the-bag" version of Optimum AcreMax I seeds, a product that is expected to help the company better compete with Monsanto.

 

Elsewhere, the company's safety & protection unit, which makes Kevlar bulletproof vests, saw sales and volume jump 27 percent. The electronics and communications unit saw sales rise 53 percent with volume up 48 percent. And the performance materials unit reported sales rose 45 percent and volume increased 35 percent.

 

Bank of America (BAC.N) named Charlie Holliday, DuPont's former chair and chief executive, as its chairman in April.

 

Shares of DuPont, a component of the Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI), rose $1.29, or 3.3 percent, to $40.28 in premarket trading. The stock has traded between $29.19 and $41.45 in the past 52 weeks.

 

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Ocean Mist expands Mexican operations

 

(Wire Services) – Ocean Mist Farms is expanding its  production facility, Baja Mist, located in Mexicali Valley, Mexico, in order to accommodate sales growth for its year round program of product grown in Mexico with commodities such as green onions and Brussels sprouts.

 

Ocean Mist Farms has been growing product in Mexico since 2003.

 

“We wanted to design, develop, and construct a state of the art green onion processing and cooling facility which integrated all aspects of food safety in an environment that allows us to create superior iceless products with extended shelf life,” said Ocean Mist Farms Vice President of Production Troy Boutonnet. “Our goal is to modernize our entire facility and all of its subsystems and practices in order to create the cleanest, safest products in their class.  Expansion, coupled with modernization is the starting line of our goals toward complete customer satisfaction.”

 

Including the new concrete and asphalt areas, process water retention areas, etc., the company is improving more than a total of 75,000 feet of the property in some capacity.

 

The original Baja Mist facility was 9,100 square feet; the total square footage of the upgraded area, and new construction is 17,710 square feet plus ancillary buildings that will contain , ice making, refrigeration equipment, and chiller room and an office, which adds another 6,000 square feet to the project.

 

Additionally, a new receiving dock will prevent washed product crossing paths with inbound field totes and two finished product shipping doors in the new cold room will ensure that cooled product never breaks cold chain compliance during the truck loading process. 

 

 “We are very proud of what we have designed and look forward to showcasing the Baja Mist facility in Mexico to our customers once it is completed.” Boutonnet said.

 

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Scientists stalk cemeteries for signs of life

 

(npr) – Across the U.S., development and agriculture have fundamentally altered the American landscape.

 

In some cases, the change has been so dramatic that conservationists and researchers are now looking for what they call "hidden habitats."

 

Among those are cemeteries that serve as refuges for some of America's most endangered native plants and insects.

 

These sites are providing critical data on big issues, such as climate change and species diversity.

 

When Lewis and Clark left St. Louis to explore the Louisiana Purchase in 1804, their journals describe the sight of wave upon wave of rolling prairie grass. One species in particular, called big blue stem, reached well above their heads and stretched as far as the eye could see.

 

"It's a big grass that can grow 6 feet easily," says Erin Shank, an urban wildlife biologist with the Missouri Department of Conservation. "You would have seen it all the way from the Great Plains even into western Ohio, from Manitoba down to Texas."

 

Shank is walking through Calvary Cemetery in north St. Louis, not far from the graves of famous locals — like Dred Scott and Tennessee Williams.

 

The tombstones eventually give way to tall golden stalks of dried grass.

 

"Essentially, the Archdiocese of St. Louis just hasn't gotten around to burying anybody here, so this has been pretty untouched," Shank says.

 

These 13 acres, preserved by chance over 150 years ago, represent the last patch of native tall grass prairie in the St. Louis region.

 

Shank says habitat remnants, like cemeteries, are becoming increasingly critical as sources of native plants and seeds.

 

"The future of conservation is in fragments, unfortunately," Shank says. "We're working with private landowners and public land to try to best manage what we have left, down to small pieces that we just happen to be lucky, honestly, through history to still have intact."

 

Despite cases like the Calvary prairie, many conservationists regard cemeteries as little more than "sacred lawns," without the same benefits as wild habitat.

 

But in the Midwest, where agriculture has spread to nearly every corner, finding those natural areas is a challenge.

 

"We spend a lot of time driving around, looking for these remnant forested areas and there are not a lot of them left," says Laura Burkle, an ecologist at Washington University in St. Louis. "It's really, really rare."

 

With research partner Tiffany Knight, Burkle paid a visit to Moore Cemetery, a rural graveyard outside Carlinville, Ill.

 

A tiny island amid a sea of corn and soybeans, Moore is one of the few places where native plants and ground-nesting bees still thrive.

 

Burkle points to a patch of bluebells and small white lilies. Just then she notices a low-flying bumblebee and charges with her insect net.

 

"I think it's a queen," she says, having snagged her prey. "She is not psyched about being in here. All we want to do is identify her, and then we'll let her go."

 

Knight says the big question they're trying to answer is whether the critical relationship between plants and bees is getting thrown off.

 

"One of the things that we know is happening with climate change is that plants and pollinators are active earlier because it's warmer," Knight says. "The problem is that they might go out of sync — meaning the pollinators are active earlier than the plants are flowering."

 

After recording the bumblebee's information, Knight releases the insect from the vial and moves on to a new spot.

 

Although she's here to study flowers and bees, Knight appreciates the fact that cemeteries connect both — the history of humans and the landscape — into one complete story.

 

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