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October 5, 2011
· GM foods should be labeled, advocates say
· Listeria lettuce recall hits 19 states, Canada
· Labor shortage hurting Georgia ag economy
· Monsanto Co. reports fourth-quarter loss
· Oregon’s wave of biodynamic vineyards
GM foods should be labeled, advocates say
(stltoday.com) – A Washington-based advocacy group, backed by hundreds of consumer, farming and health organizations, is asking federal regulators to require mandatory labeling of genetically modified foods — something the biotechnology industry has pushed against, but American consumers increasingly say they want.
The Center for Food Safety filed a petition Tuesday asking the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to require labeling of any food product that contains genetically modified ingredients. The agency will have 180 days to respond and will have to open up a comment period.
"President Obama, during the 2008 campaign, said he was for labeling. We want to hold him to that promise," said Andrew Kimbrell, the center's executive director.
"We have an absolutely unprecedented coalition. We have the outreach to get 4 million comments to the FDA. It's an election year, and we think he can do the math."
An estimated 60 percent of the processed food on American grocery store shelves contains genetically modified ingredients, mostly from soy and corn. Roughly half the sugar sold in American stores comes from genetically modified sugar beets. Some whole foods, such as papaya, squash and sweet corn sold in American stores, are also genetically altered. The FDA is also considering a genetically modified salmon.
Monsanto Co., based in Creve Coeur, is the world's largest maker of genetically modified soy and corn seed. The company also owns the technology in genetically modified sugar beets, and recently got approval to sell genetically modified sweet corn. (Sweet corn is the type people eat whole. The majority of genetically modified corn, and the majority of corn grown in the country, is made into high-fructose corn syrup, ethanol and feed for animals.)
Monsanto and the biotechnology industry at large have said they do not support labeling genetically modified foods.
"The safety and benefits of genetically modified crops
are well established. Products being grown by
"The safety has been confirmed by food safety authorities in other countries, and these products have been approved for growing or importing in 59 countries."
The FDA has said that genetically modified ingredients do not require labeling because they are 'substantially equivalent" to conventional ingredients. While American regulators require reviews of genetically modified crops, the FDA does not perform mandatory safety testing.
The European Union,
Listeria lettuce recall hits 19
states, Canada
(CBS/AP)
The lettuce recall over Listeria fears may be bigger than originally thought,
with the
Initially, True Leaf Farms of Salinas announced a recall of
90 cartons of romaine shipped to an
Only 90 cartons went to retail sales, said CEO Steve Church, and those were the ones mentioned in the initial announcement. The rest of the cartons, he said, went to institutions such as restaurants and cafeterias, which were notified about the recall.
The company recalled the 33,000 pounds of lettuce after a check by federal officials found Listeria in a sample from one bag.
No illnesses have been reported.
The chopped, bagged lettuce - grown in
States affected by the recall include Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Vermont.
Anyone who has the lettuce in their possession should not eat it, and should either destroy it or call Church Brothers, LLC for product pickup, the FDA said.
Consumers with questions may call Church Brothers at 800-799-9475 or visit the company's website for updates.
Lettuce currently picked at the
The FDA has not yet identified the source of Listeria, said Stephanie Yao, a spokeswoman for the agency. She said the lettuce recall is unrelated to the recall of cantaloupes due to Listeria.
Listeriosis from tainted cantaloupe from a
Listeria generally sickens the elderly, pregnant women and others with weakened immune systems. Symptoms include fever and muscle aches, often with other gastrointestinal symptoms. Unlike many pathogens, Listeria bacteria can grow at room temperatures and even refrigerator temperatures - and can linger long after the source of the contamination is gone.
Labor shortage hurting Georgia ag economy
(ajc.com) – Georgia’s economy is projected to shrink by $391 million and lose 3,260 jobs as a result of farm labor shortages this year, according to a report released Tuesday by the state’s agricultural industry.
The study also says many fruit and vegetable growers are preparing to harvest fewer acres or mechanically harvest more than they have in the past because of the labor gap.
The report does not cite the reasons for the shortage in
laborers in
The
Researchers studied data from seven fruit and vegetable crops representing nearly half of the acreage available for harvest last spring. They tied an estimated $140 million in crop losses to a shortage of 5,244 farm laborers this year.
The association released some of the report’s findings
Tuesday morning, just hours before it was scheduled to present the information
at this year’s United Fresh Produce Association’s Public Policy Conference in
Also,
Many farmers are critical of state laws such as HB 87 that
will require them to use the federal E-Verify program. The program helps
employers ensure their newly hired employees can legally work in the
Meanwhile, farmers are complaining that the federal government’s guest-worker programs are cumbersome, costly and mired in red tape.
“
Hall said the full report from UGA’s Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development will be released later this week. He released some of the findings Tuesday morning, including a breakdown of this year’s $74.9 million in crop losses:
Blueberries, $29 million
Vidalia onions, $16.3 million
Cucumbers, $5.9 million
Blackberries, $4 million
Watermelons, $2.5 million
Squash, $1.9 million
The report does not explain what could have contributed to
farm labor shortages in
Immigration watchdogs say they are sensitive to the farmers’
concerns. But they wonder whether farmers could attract more
"I would hope the farm industry focuses on using legal
H-2A visas for guest workers and working with the feds to streamline and reform
that federal guest-worker program," said Phil Kent, who serves on
Roy Beck, the executive director of NumbersUSA, a nonprofit that supports lower immigration levels, has suggested in the past that farmers might become more innovative if they did not depend on the labor of illegal immigrants. They might even resort to using more mechanization in harvesting, he said.
But, the Center for American Progress -- a liberal policy
group in
“The only real solution to these problems is a comprehensive federal strategy,” the report says. “These state-based efforts are merely costly, counterproductive skirmishes that distract and prevent progress on reforming our immigration system.”
Monsanto Co. reports fourth-quarter loss
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Monsanto's fourth-quarter results beat Wall Street expectations. But the company says it has to restate the last two year's earnings because of a federal investigation into its herbicide sales.
The world's biggest seed company on Wednesday said a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will prompt it to restate earnings irregularities arising from incentives it paid dealers of its Roundup Herbicide.
The
Analysts surveyed by FactSet had expected an adjusted loss of 27 cents per share on revenue of $1.91 billion.
Oregon
(OregonLive.com) – For thousands of years, humans tilled the soil guided by the phases of the moon and the positions of the stars in the sky. Farms were small patches of land carved out of the wild, sustaining a variety of crops and animals. But with modern times came modern methods.
When a German chemist named Fritz Haber discovered how to “fix” nitrogen, he won the 1918 Nobel Prize and developed modern explosives and chemical fertilizers in one fell swoop. In fact, the same labs that allowed World War I to become one of the deadliest conflicts in world history began producing soil amendments after the war. But for all their promise, those fertilizers were wreaking havoc on farmers’ soil and livestock. In 1924, a group of farmers asked the Austrian intellectual Rudolf Steiner for advice. In response, Steiner delivered a series of lectures that codified biodynamics.
The cornerstone of his philosophy is that the ideal biodynamic farm is a polyculture — a diverse assortment of plants and animals surrounded by a belt of wilderness. The farm should function as a self-contained ecosystem, with no inputs from the outside, while the buffer zone of natural habitat provides plant diversity and predators. After all, a vast expanse planted with a single crop or populated by a single species of animal depletes the soil and invites pests and disease. But diseases and pests are less likely to settle on a property where a variety of crops complement one another, where chickens feast on cutworms and where birds of prey scare off bothersome gophers.
As reasonable and rational as all that sounds, biodynamic agriculture has remained in the shadows for decades while organic farming has gained in prominence. That’s in large part because of the esoteric nature of the biodynamic philosophy — the use of cow’s horns and stag’s bladders and reliance on moon phases that set this agricultural practice apart from any others. Steiner was a deeply spiritual person who drew from ancient religions such as Zoroastrianism in building his belief system. And so his lectures on traditional farming practices are part practical guide, part sermon; they give “astral-etheric forces” as much weight as cover crops and composting.
But even those who don’t dig the spiritual aspect of biodynamics can appreciate its sustainable message. Unlike organic agriculture, which simply aims to do no harm to the Earth, the goal of biodynamic agriculture is to actively heal — to make the soil even healthier than it was when you began to farm it. And since soil health is of the utmost importance in vineyards, where the same vines must grow from the same patch of dirt for decades, more grape growers are embracing the practice — cow horns and all.
The nuts, bolts and preps
That’s not to say biodynamic farming is easy. Like sustainable viticulture, biodynamic vine-tending emphasizes the use of cover crops and careful canopy management (trellising and pruning). Like organic agriculture, composting is key. But biodynamic compost is specifically built upon a base of cow manure. To this, practitioners must add preparations, or “preps.”
The biodynamic preps are referred to by number: 500, 501 and 508 are field sprays, while 502 through 507 are compost additives. And they range from the familiar to the outlandish. Brews made from chamomile or nettle, then sprayed on your crop, are very much like the herbal teas you might sip when you have a stomachache or a cold. A little odd but not completely out of the ordinary. Stuffing a stag’s bladder with yarrow flowers, hanging this from the rafters of your barn for a few months, burying it, digging it up, and then adding it to your compost pile, however, might sound a bit like witchcraft.
The most emblematic preps are 500 and 501, which are prepared using cow’s horns. How do you make 501? Bury a cow horn filled with powdered quartz for a few months, then dig it up, dump a tiny spoonful of its contents into a barrel of water and then stir this water, in opposite directions, alternately, for an hour, to create a homeopathic, “dynamized” treatment to spray on your plants. A tall order, no?
It’s easy to get hung up on the weirdness of the preps and
dismiss biodynamics as the farming equivalent of a cult. But most of the
practicing
Why now? Why
Though biodynamic is totally hands-on in the vineyard, it calls for hands-off winemaking in the cellar, with few or no inputs, and activities such as bottling and racking timed to the phases of the moon, in the European tradition. Thirsty for terroir — or a bottled sense of place — contemporary wine lovers seek out the most handcrafted juice possible. They’re geeky about knowing how the grapes were farmed, and they demand as little manipulation in the winery as possible. That means for cork dorks, biodynamic wine is the epitome of cool.
And
In the following pages, we shed some light on local vintners who are incorporating biodynamic viticulture into their winemaking regimes. Not all of these winemakers have sought Biodynamic certification for their properties or their wineries, just as many small farms in this country operate according to organic principles but are not USDA Organic-certified. But each winegrower is committed to the practice in his own, personal way.
The Traditionalists
Moe and Tahmiene Momtazi at Maysara
Moe and Flora Momtazi fled the
Zoroastrianism is a part of the culture that has been handed
down for generations in the Iranian countryside, where Moe’s grandfather
practiced what he called “natural farming” on his estate before it was
confiscated by the government. Today, Momtazi Vineyard and Maysara winery are
certified Biodynamic. For the Momtazis, whose three daughters help them run the
winery (Tahmiene is the winemaker), farming and making wine biodynamically are
a way of returning to their family roots in
The Soil Tender
Doug Tunnell at Brick House Vineyards
Because he lives surrounded by his vines, Doug Tunnell has
always farmed organically; because he grows grapes, his farm is certified Biodynamic.
“I think the fact that we are growing on hillsides makes it even more important
that we work with the soil,” he says. “It is just so fragile. It dries out so
thoroughly. It needs nourishment. It needs microbial activity. It needs organic
matter. We can’t keep mining fruit out of this place and not put anything back
in. It can’t be a one-way street. Nothing in nature is.” Tunnell’s Old
World-style, handcrafted pinot noir, gamay noir and chardonnay reflect the
terroir of his 40-acre Ribbon Ridge estate. And thanks to his biodynamic
farming and winemaking techniques, Brick House is one of only two
The Obsessive
Michael Etzel at Beaux Frères
“Back when I farmed with chemicals, I would spray Roundup and smell that very bad chemical smell on my skin,” recalls Michael Etzel, managing partner and winemaker at Beaux Frères. “Today, when I’m done spraying chamomile or something, there’s a completely different feeling.” Etzel biodynamically farms his estate with the zealousness of a religious convert: He leases the property across the road just so that he can harvest its hay to build his massive compost mounds. He sprays water from a neighboring pond onto these steaming mountains of compost using a 1969 firetruck. And he does all this work for only 34 acres of vines. Is there a link between biodynamic farming and the fact that Beaux Frères produces some of the top pinot noirs in the state? “My intention is to make the best possible wine,” says Etzel. “I believe that biodynamics can do that.”
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