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August 28, 2009
· Tomato festival a splattering success
· DuPont, Monsanto escalate war of words
· Feds foot the bill for school fruit, veggies
· Watermelon juice eyed as biofuel source
· Urban farming a fat deal for hip-hoppers
Tomato festival a splattering success
Ninety minutes before the start of the tomato battle, the
streets of Bunol, 40 km from
Click here to check out tomato fight photos
Despite the ban on throwing wet shirts due to the damage they can cause to other participants, a few minutes before the official start of the Tomatina there was a "pitched battle" in which clothes, towels and garments of different colours were hurled back and forth by the excited crowd.
At 11 a.m., the firing of a rocket was the signal for the multitude to grab ripe tomatoes from six large trucks and start sending salvoes back and forth at each other.
For the next hour, local residents and visitors engaged in a tomato battle that ended up with virtually everyone covered head to toe with red sauce and fragments of crushed tomato.
The participants, most of them dressed in old clothes and wearing goggles or other eye protectors, hurled tomatoes at the closest targets, or at people they knew, and some even fired their missiles at the balconies overhanging the street, where onlookers, reporters and photographers perched to view the fray.
As the minutes passed and the barrages flew, the streets, storefronts and shouting and smiling participants became steadily more covered in smashed tomatoes. Some people crushed their tomatoes before they threw them to minimize the pain they might cause when they hit their targets.
Although many of the participants just wore bathing suits for the melee, some fashioned improvised raincoats out of trash bags, or sported various costumes and shower caps.
At the firing of a second rocket at noon the 2009 Tomatina finally came to an end and the sauce-coated participants headed for the river and the public showers set up by the municipality to help people clean the remains of thousands of tomatoes from their bodies, hair and clothing.
About half an hour later, local residents and municipal workers began using hoses to start cleaning the streets, which - incredibly, in just a matter of minutes - were spic and span, showing no signs of the recent tomato tussle.
More than 40 police personnel, 70 members of the civil protection service, nine ambulances and assorted first aid stations were positioned along the street where the battle took place.
Municipal officials reported at the close of the Tomatina that there had been no serious incidents, although some people had received first aid for bruises, small lacerations, overheating or hypothermia.
Thus ended another edition of the "most enjoyable fiesta in the world", in the words of Bunol Mayor Fernando Giraldos, a celebration that decades ago began as a friendly battle among neighbours.
DuPont, Monsanto escalate war of words
(Washington Times) – Agribusiness giant DuPont, charged by its chief rival Monsanto of being "dishonest, disingenuous and downright deceitful" in a literal food fight over control of the seed business, has accused Monsanto of unfairly attempting to "distract attention" from a public battle over competition in the crop biotechnology business.
In an Aug. 25 letter to Hugh Grant, Monsanto's chairman, president and chief executive officer, Thomas L. Sager, DuPont's senior vice president and general counsel, dismissed allegations by Monsanto earlier this month that DuPont had engaged in covert attacks on its seed business practices.
Mr. Sager said Monsanto was trying to raise "two-year-old accusations that were all proven false," adding that DuPont's right to speak out was "constitutionally protected." He said DuPont would "welcome and encourage broad participation" in a wide-ranging public debate over competition in seed production and biotechnology.
Monsanto and DuPont have maintained high profile positions in the seed industry and each has sought to keep from falling behind. DuPont has recently been concerned that Monsanto had moved to gain an unfair advantage in selling genetically engineered seeds to better protect crops from insects and weeds.
DuPont has provided support for a farm advocacy group called the Organization for Competitive Markets, which has been critical of Monsanto for what it has described as a "virtual monopoly" of the seed business. The group sponsored a conference earlier this month on "confronting the threats to market competition" where Monsanto and other agribusiness issues were discussed.
The Agriculture and Justice departments will hold public workshops on the concentration in agriculture early in 2010.
"All interested parties have a constitutionally protected right to be heard,and Monsanto should not discourage those who disagree with you from participating in this dialogue," Mr. Sager said, acknowledging DuPont's support of the Organization for Competitive Markets "just as we support dozens of organizations whose views coincide with ours."
Earlier this month, Mr. Grant accused DuPont in a separate letter of using third parties to attack Monsanto, activities which he said "were misleading to the public and a serious breach of business ethics far beyond honest competitor behavior."
He demanded a special committee be named to investigate a pattern of covert attacks on Monsanto's business practices by DuPont. He made the request for an investigation by DuPont's independent directors in a letter to Charles O. Holliday Jr., chairman of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co.
In May, Monsanto filed a lawsuit against DuPont for patent
infringement and DuPont countersued, accusing Monsanto of being anti-competitive.
The case is pending before a federal court in
Monsanto spokesman Lee Quarles said the DuPont letter was not responsive to the Monsanto request.
"Unfortunately, this response does not address the core issue raised in our letter - that DuPont is investing in a strategy of attacking a competitor rather than delivering better products for farmers," Mr. Quarles said. "It is also regrettable that DuPont makes no commitment to review legitimate questions about its campaign of defamation against Monsanto."
He said, "The single most important thing in their response is that it further attempts to distract people from the real motives behind all of this - specifically that their product does not work and their continued belief that they can use our product without our authorization. ... We look forward to a trial in court as soon as possible."
DuPont spokesman Anthony Farina said several companies, farmers, nonprofit groups and government authorities are "active participants in the important public discussion about competition in agriculture.
"Our response to Monsanto's latest lawsuit makes clear why Monsanto's business practices are illegal and why Monsanto's anti-competitive business practices hurt farmers, hurt consumers and hurt independent seed companies," he said. "We will not try these important issues through the media and we look forward to having these issues decided in court - where Monsanto initiated this."
The dueling letters are the latest skirmish in a bitter battle between Monsanto and DuPont for control of the crop biotechnology business. Both companies accuse the other of waging misleading campaigns. In 2006 and 2007, DuPont tried unsuccessfully to block Monsanto from buying the nation's largest cotton seed supplier, Delta & Pine Land Co.
Feds foot the bill for school fruit and veggies
(Monterey
County Herald) – It's break time at Jesse G. Sanchez Elementary in
Normally, the third-graders would be enjoying their peeled baby carrots, broccoli tops and oranges in the privacy of their playground.
But Wednesday, the students were the backdrop for national efforts to promote nutritional foods, improve healthful habits and boost the financial fortunes of local growers.
The federal Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program is designed to
increase children's consumption of fruits and vegetables by providing fresh
snacks for free. It has been expanded to all schools in the
Alisal
"For some of our kids, the only meals they have is the meals they have in our school," said Esperanza Zendejas, district superintendent.
The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program is only available to elementary school districts with a high percentage of low-income students. It was launched in 2002 and, with funds from the 2008 Farm Bill, was expanded across the country. In two years, it is expected to reach more than 3 million children.
Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, who championed local agriculture during the 2008 Farm Bill negotiations, said discussions about health care are relevant when it comes to talking about food.
"How do we grow a healthier
Promoters of the federal program report marked and swift changes in children's eating habits after they begin participating in the program. At Jesse Sanchez Elementary, food service worker Estela Sanchez said she has noticed the children's changing habits.
"Now they enjoy vegetables they probably had not tasted before," Sanchez said. "Before they didn't like them at all."
Farr will introduce the Children's Fruit and Vegetable Act after the summer break. The legislation, which could be incorporated into the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act, would direct the U.S. Department of Agriculture to use more of the funds it spends in schools to purchase produce.
"Farr has focused on childhood obesity, there are too
many unhealthy foods and children are eating only about half of the fruits and
vegetables they need to consume," Farr spokesman Tom Mentzer said.
"It's a good bill for the
Watermelon juice eyed as biofuel source
(Scientific American) – Twenty percent of watermelons never make it to the picnic table. Rather, one in every five is left to ripen and rot in the field, rejected for even the slightest of cosmetic imperfections. But U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) researchers may have found a way to elevate these outcasts to an even higher calling than the summer BBQ: biofuel production.
"As consumers, we would not choose that [misshapen or blemished] watermelon if we were in the supermarket," says Wayne Fish of the USDA's Agriculture Research Service's South Central Agricultural Research Laboratory in Lane, Okla., and lead author of a paper on the fruity biofuels idea published today in the journal Biotechnology for Biofuels. "So the growers won't even pick them."
With such a large percentage of their crop simply left to be plowed back into the field, farmers wondered what could be done. "Anything that they can do to add value to the crop is money in their pocket, and could be the difference between a loss for the year and a modest income," Fish says.
After hearing this enough times, the USDA team began to ask themselves: What could watermelon lacking a perfect complexion or physique have to offer? Given a growing biofuel industry, they wondered if the fruit might somehow be turned into fuel.
Ethanol biofuels are created through the breaking down of complex sugars, followed by fermentation. With corn, an increasingly popular biofuel source, the starch must first be treated with special enzymes to break it apart into basic sugar units. Watermelons, on the other hand, naturally harbor simple sugars, allowing more efficient conversion to ethanol.
The resulting quantities of fuel are not insignificant. "If you took 10 tons of watermelon—about the amount of culled watermelons per acre—and fermented both the juice from the flesh and the rind, you would get about 115 gallons of ethanol," Fish says. He notes, however, that the fruit's relatively low sugar concentration, about 10 percent, may lend itself to more efficient use as a supplement or dilutant for other biofuel crops.
This juicy precursor to ethanol isn't the only treasure
lying under the thick green skin. The watermelon is also rich in the nutrients
lycopene—which makes its flesh red—and L-sitrulline. This inspired the
researchers' idea of first harvesting these nutrients, and then fermenting the
sugary fruit juice into a fuel for use on or off the farm. Between labor and
transportation costs, such production may not be practical, but a company in
"Instead of taking Mohammad to the mountain," Fish says, "we can take the mountain to Mohammad." And with the world's heaviest watermelon on record weighing in at over 250 pounds, some harvesters may very well feel like they are moving mountains.
Urban farming a fat deal for hip-hoppers
(TheGiro.com) – When Darren "The Human Beat Box" Robinson was at his improvising best, rapping for "The Fat Boys" during the 80's and early 90's, fat was phat. Their discography is peppered with titles like "Big and Beautiful," "Getting' Hefty" and "All You Can Eat,"
which featured the lyrics:
"Give me some chicken, franks and fries.
And you can pass me a lettuce, I'm a pass it by."
Robinson was known more for what came out of his mouth than went in it, but it was the latter that was his undoing. When he died of a heart attack in 1995 at the age of 28, no coffin was required to house his 450-pound frame. He was cremated.
For the surviving members of the hip-hop generation, fat is definitely not where it's at. 50 Cent pushes diet supplements, Lil' Kim buffs up for "Dancing with the Stars," and one can only imagine the diet and exercise regimens necessary to maintain the sculpted bodies of Beyoncé and Nelly.
For those with more limited resources than those stars (just about everyone else on the planet), access to fresh fruits and vegetables is a more realistic goal, and the increasing popularity of farmer's markets and urban farming will go a long way toward achieving it. Those movements, well established in some areas, and in their nascent stages in others, are being buffeted by the crosswinds of long-held habits, and innovation.
According to the USDA, there are now some 4,800 farmer's markets in the country, the majority of those being seasonal markets. Many of those in urban areas are well-established and stable financially - staples of their communities. But there's a bigger picture.
Ladonna Redmond is a woman who can choose from among many
titles: "Founder, President, CEO, Board Member" among them. She prefers
"food justice activist." An expert on urban agriculture based in
And that starts at the production level. The percentage of
minority vendors at farmer's markets is more than twice that in the general
farming population, but that number speaks more to the dearth of minority
farmers than anything else.
One innovative program in
Targeting children and creating a new generation of
locavores is part of the vision. The image of kids and vegetables as natural
enemies is an antiquated one. Many programs focusing on children have enjoyed
wide success but, as ever, children will take their cues from their parents
more often than not. Says
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently recommended improving the availability of fresh produce to low-income areas as part of a broader effort to combat obesity. Redmond argues that the role of fresh produce in preventing disease - and in people taking responsibility for their own individual health - are topics largely absent in the national conversation on health care reform. "We need to make the link between food access and health outcomes. (and ask ourselves) What is the role of food consumption habits in health reform? "
Reforming our own health habits should be a simpler and cheaper task than overhauling the nation's health-care system. But pricing is an issue for market-goers. As a general rule, eating only seasonally available local produce is 20-50% cheaper than eating fruits and vegetables trucked or flown in from many miles away. But many urban farmer's market vendors tend to gravitate toward the more affluent urban areas, where consumers can expect to pay more for their produce than they would in the supermarkets.
All the more reason,
That's a rap with enough heft to satiate even the most intense craving for fresh produce.
End Transmission