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September 1, 2011
· Americans give farming high image marks
· US farm income on a record pace -- USDA
·
· Lawsuit puts food safety cops on edge
· A sampler of the weirdest food festivals
Americans give farming high image marks
Farming and agriculture was the fourth industry with the most positive image.
The results range from a +62 net positive rating for the computer industry to a -46 net positive rating for the federal government.
The sectors Americans view most negatively have all had well-publicized problems in recent years. The federal government has been near the bottom of the list in previous years, but is at the absolute bottom this year for the first time, displacing the oil and gas industry. Seventeen percent of Americans have a positive view of the federal government -- the lowest of any sector tested this year -- while 63% have a negative image. Only one sector, oil and gas, has a higher negative percentage, 64%. Other poorly ranked sectors include real estate, healthcare, banking, and the legal field.
Federal Government's Image at All-Time Low
The positive and the negative ratings for the federal
government this year are the worst since
The deterioration in Americans' views of the federal
government began in 2004 -- correlated with a downturn in President George W.
Bush's job approval rating and rising concerns about the
Other
Images of Federal Gov't, Real Estate Industry Drop the Most Over the Past Decade
Americans' views of a number of sectors have worsened
dramatically between 2001 and 2011, or, in the case of the federal government,
between 2003 -- the first year
The images of the federal government and the real estate industry have dropped the most over the past decade. The percentage of Americans rating the government positively has declined 24 points since 2003, and the real estate industry's positive ratings have fallen 23 points since 2001. Other sectors with double-digit drops include the banking sector, education, accounting, and healthcare.
Americans view four industries more positively now than they
did in August 2001: the Internet industry, electric and gas utilities, and the
computer and movie industries. The current 72% positive rating for the computer
industry is the highest such rating of any industry since
Implications
The continuing high ratings for the computer and Internet
industries likely reflect the global success of such American companies as
Google, Apple, and Facebook, the technology
industry's apparent success even in this time of economic uncertainty, and the
increasingly major role that technology plays in Americans' lives. It is less
clear why food-related sectors such as the restaurant industry, farming and
agriculture, and the grocery industry do so well in the eyes of Americans, but
it could reflect the
At the other end of the spectrum, poorly rated sectors have been associated with various well-publicized political or economic problems in recent years. Americans' frustration with politicians and Washington -- exacerbated by the contentious debt ceiling negotiations -- comes through in the federal government's all-time low image rating. The oil and gas industry has never done well in these image assessments, which is likely tied to swings in gas prices and the overall high price of gas.
The bad image of the real estate industry most likely reflects the housing crisis that has beset the country in recent years, and the poor image of the healthcare industry may reflect the rising cost of healthcare and uncertainly about access issues. Americans continue to view banks poorly, which clearly reflects lingering concerns from the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent failure of many banks around the country. Lawyers and the legal field have never had positive images.
US farm income on a record pace -- USDA
(Bloomberg)
--
The U.S. Department of Agriculture boosted its forecast from $97.3 billion forecast in February. Income last year totaled $79.1 billion. Receipts from sales of farm commodities will jump 18 percent from last year, with values for crops including corn, soybeans, wheat and cotton surging to $33.6 billion and livestock sales climbing to $22.4 billion, the department said today in a report on its website.
Rising farm incomes, which increase land values and spur
purchases of Monsanto Co. seeds, Agrium Inc. fertilizer and Deere & Co.
tractors, have been driven by greater demand for exports and biofuels. The
"The variability of yields has made a huge difference for individual farmers," Daryll Ray, the director of the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, said in an interview before the report was released.
Futures Rise
Before today, corn futures soared 74 percent from a year ago, soybeans were up 42 percent and wheat 13 percent while cotton reached a record in March. The increases are offsetting lower yields for some grains and oilseeds and a projected smaller cotton crop, pushing profits above the USDA's February prediction.
Expenses such as diesel fuel and animal feed were projected to rise by $32.5 billion, exceeding $300 billion for the first time, the USDA said. Government payments will increase almost 18 percent to $10.2 billion, according to the report.
The increase in farm income drove agricultural real-estate prices to a record $2,350 an acre this year, the USDA said in a report earlier this month. Deere, the world's largest farm- equipment maker, reported fiscal third-quarter profit on Aug. 17 that topped analysts' estimates and raised its full-year earnings forecast as global demand improved.
Today's estimates will be revised in November.
California
(therecordnet.com) – California's farmers and ranchers received a record high $37.5 billion for their fruits, vegetables, meat and milk in 2010, up 9 percent from the year before, federal farm officials reported Tuesday.
Those gains were led by higher prices for milk, as well as soaring receipts for tree nuts: almonds, walnuts and pistachios.
As previously reported,
State dairy producers received $5.93 billion for their milk in 2010, up 31 percent from 2009 but down 14 percent from 2008. Higher prices made the difference as farmers received an average of $14.69 per hundred pounds of milk in 2010, compared with $11.49 in 2009.
Still,
Farm officials said 2010 was a banner year for nut crops, with almonds, pistachios and walnuts all setting records for estimated values.
Of 11
In
Milk revenue totaled $341 million in 2010, an increase of nearly $83.7 million or 32 percent.
The value of the county's walnut crop jumped $46.7 million, or 29 percent, to $207 million last year. Almonds reached $157 million, up $22.5 million or 17 percent.
Major county crops seeing revenue declines included grapes, which totaled $249 million in 2010, down $36 million or 13 percent from the year before. Also, the cherry crop was down an estimated $28.2 million to $184 million and asparagus revenues were off nearly half to $27.7 million.
Lawsuit puts food cops on edge
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A major fruit company's lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration could have a chilling effect on regulators' efforts to get tainted food off the market.
Florida-based Del Monte Fresh Produce is striking back at the FDA with a lawsuit after the agency halted imports of its Guatemalan cantaloupes, saying they may be contaminated with salmonella. Such a lawsuit is extremely rare, and the threat of litigation could make officials more reluctant to tell the public about the possibility of contamination in food.
"If this case is successful from an industry perspective, it will change the attitude of regulators," said former FDA assistant commissioner David Acheson, now a food safety consultant. "They will obviously be more reluctant."
Michael Doyle, the director for the Center for Food Safety
at the
"More often than not the public health authorities and the epidemiologists are correct," Doyle said. "If you start putting public health officials in the crosshairs of the lawyers it's probably going to have a major dampening effect on whether foods are recalled in time to prevent a substantial amount of illnesses."
The case could also become a major test for the imperfect science of epidemiology that is used to traced out breaks and determine what is causing a series of illnesses.
Del Monte conducted a voluntary recall of the cantaloupes,
imported from a farm in
In a suit to get a court to lift the alert, filed Aug. 22 in
federal court in
The company has threatened to sue Oregon Public Health and its senior epidemiologist, William Keene, for playing a part in gathering evidence against the company.
"Responsible government agencies must be careful to protect public confidence and not inflame public fears by making statements about the safety of a particular food product or producer without sufficient evidence or without conducting a reliable investigation," said Dennis Christou, a vice president at Del Monte.
The FDA, which relies on the CDC and state health
departments to do much of the investigation in foodborne
illness outbreaks, declined to comment because of the pending litigation.
Led by CDC scientists, the government conducts foodborne illness investigations by interviewing victims who are confirmed to have a similar strain of illness and attempt to connect the dots. CDC has also started using shopper card information to pinpoint exactly what the victims purchased and consumed, a method that was used in the cantaloupe investigation.
The CDC said on March 29 that 11 of the people who fell ill
had eaten cantaloupes purchased at eight different locations of an unnamed
national warehouse club, and information from membership card records helped
determine those sickened all purchased cantaloupes sourced from a single farm
in
As this epidemiology has developed and been perfected, there is less of a need for a "smoking gun" or direct evidence that a pathogen exists in food, like a sample of the salmonella itself. That is often hard to find in fresh produce, where the evidence may be long gone. Government scientists have to determine when they have enough evidence to urge a company to recall its food and warn the public.
Former officials say it is often a hard call for the regulators who make those decisions.
"That is the difficulty FDA is dealing with -- when do you warn, when do you not warn, when do you urge a recall," says Fred Degnan, a former FDA lawyer who now specializes in food law in private practice. "This is a brave new world for FDA and for industry."
Acheson said the lawsuit sends "the appropriate message to everybody that if you are going to make these decisions and put pressure on companies to recall, you ought to be right."
Public health officials have occasionally stumbled in their
efforts to identify the source of an outbreak quickly. In 2008, FDA and CDC
investigators struggled for weeks to identify the cause of a salmonella
outbreak initially blamed on tomatoes. No contaminated tomatoes were found, and
the outbreak strain eventually was discovered in hot peppers from
The Agriculture Department was criticized in August for taking months to identify the source of a salmonella outbreak in ground turkey. Though illnesses began in March, the CDC and USDA did not positively identify the source of the outbreak as Cargill ground turkey until they found a positive sample in late July. The recall came in early August, after one person had died.
In the end, tracking down the source of an illness is a difficult, complicated business and those making the calls say they are aware of the risks. Kirk Smith, a senior epidemiologist for the Minnesota Department of Health, said lawsuits won't affect his work.
"We always make sure our evidence is rock-solid before we go public with information that might trigger a recall or impact a company," he said.
A sampler of the world’s weirdest food festivals
(MSNBC.com) – From launching tomatoes to heaving tunas, people love to throw food, and some of the most spirited annual events offer an excuse to do so.
Rumored to have originated as a local brawl (possibly an
attack on city council members by disgruntled townspeople), La Tomatina in
A horn signals the start of the event, but only after an agile attendee manages to climb a greased pole and reach a dangling leg of jamón. The free-for-all continues for an hour and ends when another horn is sounded. There are few guidelines, but participants do squash tomatoes before throwing them (it hurts less), and many wear masks (tomatoes can make eyes itch).
Click here to check out photos of the great splatter.
Not to be outdone,
That way, they are guaranteed to be good and mushy when the first pitch is tossed out around 6 p.m.
Another bizarre food activity takes place at the Tunarama Festival in Port Lincoln, Australia. Going on its 50th year, the festival’s main attraction is the World Champion Tuna Toss Competition, where contestants sling 20-pound tunas. The record of approximately 40 yards was set in 1998 by a pro: former Olympic hammer thrower Sean Carlin.
Instead of throwing food, visitors to the Cheese Curd
Festival in
The food is unusual at BugFest,
held by the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in
End Transmission