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December 3, 2010
· Senate misstep stymies food safety overhaul
· California approves controversial pesticide
· Tough rules may hinder black farmer claims
· Inside poop: Why farmers are flocking to manure
· Spud-only diet ends -- ‘I’m ready for ice cream’
Senate misstep stymies food safety overhaul
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Senate may have to vote again on a sweeping overhaul of U.S. food safety rules due to a procedural misstep, giving opponents a chance to rewrite or derail the bill, a top congressional aide said on Thursday.
The legislation, inspired by massive food recalls including last summer's recall of half-a-billion eggs due to salmonella, seemed on a fast track to signing by President Barack Obama after the Senate passed it in a bipartisan 73-25 vote Tuesday.
It hit a roadblock, however, when some members of the House of Representatives objected that the Senate bill created fees, a violation of a constitutional requirement that federal tax bills originate in the House.
The aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it could be next week before the problem was resolved.
Any bills that have not won final congressional approval when Congress adjourns, as it hopes in the middle of this month, would die.
"There are a few different options," the aide said, suggesting the most likely solution was to attach the Senate language as an amendment to a House bill. Once cleared by the House, the package would go to the Senate for a final vote.
"We are confident that we can work with our House colleagues to find a path forward and get this bill to the president before the end of the year," said an aide to Democratic Chairman Tom Harkin of the Senate Health Committee.
Harkin is a sponsor of the bill, which would be the largest change in food safety rules since the 1930s. It would empower the government to order a food recall and require foodmakers to write a plan to prevent in-plant contamination.
Pressure to overhaul the food safety system has grown after high-profile outbreaks of illness involving lettuce, peppers, eggs, peanuts, spinach and, most recently, eggs that have shaken public confidence in the safety of the food supply.
Returning the bill to the Senate could inspire new objections and an effort to change it. Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, slowed debate on the bill, saying it would expand federal regulation without improving food safety.
The United Fresh Produce Association, the largest trade group representing fruit and vegetable processors and retailers, said there was now an opportunity to fix "discrepancies" between the two versions of the bill. It objected particularly to Senate language allowing a softer regulatory hand for small farmers and processors who sold food directly to nearby customers.
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the largest cattle group in the country, said food regulations should be uniform "no matter the size of the producing entity."
Advocates of small farmers said the Senate language was a common-sense recognition of the different scale of production and the limited finances of small producers.
California
(AP
via Yahoo! News)
The state Department of Pesticide Regulation will register methyl iodide as a substitute for the pesticide methyl bromide, which is being phased out by international treaty because it depletes the Earth's protective ozone layer.
California's $1.6 billion strawberry industry will undoubtedly provide one of the biggest markets for the chemical, as will the Central Valley's nut orchards and the fresh flower nurseries dotting the coast in Ventura and San Diego counties.
The pesticide is included on
The agency tentatively approved its restricted use in April and Wednesday's decision made it final.
Regulators insist the fumigant can be used safely and say permits will be required and strict guidelines will be followed.
"The process has been more complex because of methyl iodide's toxicity as well as because of the intense public interest," director Mary-Ann Warmerdam said. "Methyl iodide can be used safely under our tough restrictions by only highly trained applicators at times, places and specific conditions approved by the county agricultural commissioners."
The new precautions — which include setting up buffer zones within which it can't be applied and the use of special tarps to keep fumes from escaping the soil — go further than those imposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or by any other state, and will be in place later this month, Warmerdam said. Tests have found no traces of the carcinogen in fruit from treated soil.
Still, Assemblyman Bill Monning, D-Monterey, whose temperate coastal district produces strawberries year-round, said he was disturbed by the approval after several hearings on Sacramento about the pesticide's health impacts.
"I think there is sufficient scientific evidence to say that this chemical is unsafe at any speed," he said. "With a limited state budget, it is going to be very different to rely on agricultural commissioners to provide enough oversight and monitoring if this goes into use extensively."
Methyl iodide was championed as a safe replacement for methyl bromide when the EPA approved it for use in 2007.
The pesticide is now registered in 47 other states. Current users include growers of tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and other crops in southeastern states.
Officials with Tokyo-based pesticide giant Arysta
LifeScience Corp., which markets the product under the brand name Midas, said
the approval will help
"The end result is you've got good quality fruit and
vegetables to consume, and you have an abundant supply at a cost that the
consumer is interested in," said Jeff Tweedy, head of business development
in
This week, a coalition of environmental and farmworker
groups urged Gov.-elect Jerry Brown to reopen the decision immediately and ban
methyl iodide in
Californians for Pesticide Reform, Pesticide Action Network North America, the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation and the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment made the request as part of a broader set of agricultural recommendations the group formally presented to the incoming administration this week.
Teresa DeAnda, a resident of the
Central Valley town of
"There is just no way you can prevent these accidents from happening," said DeAnda, who represents Californians for Pesticide Reform. "It hurts my heart to know that people will be exposed when this pesticide is applied."
In the strawberry fields of
"The industry wasn't going to go under without it, but it's important to keep these tools available," said John Krist, CEO of the Ventura County Farm Bureau. "I appreciate people's concerns about the health risk, but the mere fact that the chemical is toxic is not the issue. It's 'Can it be used in a safe manner with these restrictions?'"
Tough rules may hinder black farmer claims
(The Hill) – Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) are complaining that legislation funding a settlement for discrimination against black farmers sets too high a bar for claimants.
The lawmakers argue language added by the Senate, which is meant to prevent fraud in the program, sets higher standards for proving a claim than were required for other groups trying to prove loan discrimination by the Department of Agriculture.
“There's no question. The bar is much higher,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), a CBC member and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.
The legislation to be sent to the president would provide $4.55 billion to settle longstanding discrimination claims with the Department of Agriculture from black and Native American farmers.
The additional steps added to the claims process include an audit by an inspector general and oversight by the attorney general's office, as well as a review by the secretary of Agriculture, who must sign off on a farmer’s claim.
Attorneys involved in cases must swear in writing that the claims are legitimate, and a special federal “adjudicator” must also take an oath that the claim is legitimate and may request additional information and documentation. At the end of the process is another round of oversight and review from the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Justice at the top levels.
Thompson argues the additional standards are unfair, and that black farmers are being treated differently from other groups.
“Even when black people are about to receive a settlement, just because they raised the issue they are being treated differently. There should be a uniform standard for everybody,” Thompson added.
House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.), another CBC member, agrees with Thompson and said fewer deserving people could get help because of the standards.
“I have concerns with language added in the Senate that could have a chilling effect on farmers settling claims,” he said in a statement about the bill. “I hope the unprecedented processes laid out in this bill do not become tools for witch hunts and intimidation.”
The legislation follows a 1999 ruling by a federal judge approving a settlement agreement in the class-action lawsuit filed by black farmers alleging that USDA discriminated against them in their applications for loans and other assistance. The judge ruled in the settlement that if claimants farmed between 1981 and 1996, and had filed a complaint of discrimination by July 1, 1997, they were eligible for compensation.
Thousands of farmers failed to file complaints by the July 1997 cutoff, however. Congress then authorized a cause of action for the late filers known as Pigford II. Those looking to win claims under Pigford II must meet the higher standard.
Another CBC member, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), said lawmakers might look for administrative help if it becomes too difficult for claimants to win relief.
“If the bar becomes overly difficult, we're going to look
for administrative relief so that people who are truly in need are not
overcome,” said Jackson Lee, who has found meetings with black farmers in
The new standards for the Pigford claimants were added by the Senate after several attempts to move the legislation failed. The additional requirements were meant to meet concerns about fraud that were raised most notably by Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Steve King (R-Iowa).
“We need to have an investigation of every single claim going out,” Bachmann said in an interview. “This is $50,000 of the taxpayers' money to every single claimant.
“What we have heard from whistleblowers is that there are people in urban areas living in highrises getting $50,000 who have never been on a farm and have never lived on a farm,” Bachmann said.
But Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who had opposed earlier versions of the legislation, said he was satisfied with the new requirements.
“I'm very happy with it; I think they fixed all my concerns; that's why I let it go,” said Coburn.
Coburn said there will still be some cases of fraud.
“There's fraud in everything the government does,” he said. “There's just not gonna be as much fraud.”
Other Republicans also said they were satisfied with the stronger standards.
“The bar was pretty low to start with in the first classes of Pigford claims, and it has been raised and it should be,” Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said.
He said requirements added to the bill on the demands of Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) “hopefully ensure there won't be any fraud under the settlement at the end of the day.”
Inside poop: Why farmers are flocking to manure
(theAtlantic.com) By Gene Logsdon
I half-jokingly suggested about a year ago that animal
manure—used livestock, horse, and chicken bedding—was going to be the hottest
commodity on the Chicago Board of Trade one of these days. Shortly after that I
got a call from a close acquaintance who manages an awesome business of growing
8,000 acres of corn and soybeans—which he knows I consider insane. He wanted to
tell me something I never expected to hear from him: He was thinking of going
into the feedlot beef business. I reminded him that this is rarely profitable
in
It has taken us about 100 years to reduce soil organic matter to dangerously low levels—from about 5 percent, on average, to below 2 percent.
My 8,000-acre friend is no fool, believe me. There are
indications now that such a seemingly absurd prediction about manure might not
be so absurd after all. Even the agricultural colleges (almost always among the
last to recognize either agricultural or cultural shifts) are scheduling what
If we run out of cheap sources of commercial fertilizer, there will be no way to avoid a precipitous decline in crop yields, no matter how rapidly farmers try to switch to organic methods. And as they switch, the demand for organic fertilizers will also rise precipitously. It has taken us about 100 years to reduce soil organic matter to dangerously low levels—from about 5 percent, on average, to below 2 percent—and experts say it might take at least that long to build them back up again using organic methods on a large scale. Getting all the manure and other organic wastes needed to maintain yields high enough to support rising populations without a full complement of commercial fertilizers would be an enormous challenge requiring new agricultural and cultural attitudes.
It is difficult, however, to suppress a smile at the irony of the situation. For years shit has been seen as something so repugnant that the word itself was scrubbed from polite conversation. The real reason for the ancient prejudice between urban and rural cultures was that before Fels-Naptha—the favorite heavy-duty farm soap—the odor of manure lingered on the skin and clothing of farmers. To become truly civilized meant to escape the barn and pretend that excrement was not a part of life—flush it and forget it. Even farmers bought into the notion. In 1961 Farm Journal, the leading farm magazine of the day, published an article arguing that manure was not worth hauling to the field. To its credit, the magazine renounced the error of its ways in April of 1976 and rather lamely admitted that, in fact, manure was very much worth applying to cropland.
The almost totally urban society of today has energetically opposed gigantic animal confinement operations mostly because of the stench of factory manure. (There are better reasons.) A few years ago, things looked bleak—they couldn't give their manure away. Not enough farmers were interested. ("The only shit that will drop on this farm . . . ," et cetera, et cetera.) Their huge lagoons of liquid manure regularly overflowed and polluted the landscape. Drying the manure artificially cost heaps of money. Trying to make fuel and energy from it took a heap of money too. Occasionally operators tried to get rid of the stuff in bad weather, when it could not be spread on farmland, by letting it leak out into waterways, but the manure police caught and fined them.
So precious was manure that Chinese farmers stored it in burglarproof containers.
Today, the situation has changed rather dramatically. In 2009, with no assurance that grain prices would be high enough to cover the high cost of manufactured fertilizers, farmers lined up at animal confinement operations willing to fork over good hard cash for the manure, since it seems to be cheaper (depending on how you jigger the figures) than commercial fertilizers for farms close by. Manure brokers now flourish. With farmers willing to buy the stuff, animal factories can almost afford to partially compost it, even dry it (with government subsidies to cover some of the cost), to make manure more appealing to farmers—and especially farmers' neighbors. The farmer next door to me spread dry, partially composted chicken manure from an egg factory on his acres this year, and wonder of wonders, there was no odor. Thank you, American taxpayer. The laugh of the day now is that maybe manure will become more pricey than food—that the confinement operations will become, in fact and not in jest, manure factories that just happen to produce meat, milk, or eggs as by-products.
The idea that all of agriculture might have to rely on
animal (and human) waste to maintain the necessary soil fertility to keep the
world from starving is not at all new. Only in the last hundred years or so has
it been possible to lard enough anhydrous ammonia, superphosphate, and muriate of potash on crops to attain record-breaking yields
(while burning and beating organic matter out of the soil). Before this
"progress," human society had no choice but to consider manure—animal
and human—to be more precious than gold. At least humans did so in countries
that sustained an ample food supply for long periods of time, as
As a result, for hundreds of years the Asian farmer
maintained an unbelievably productive agriculture. The food harvested per acre
was at least five times the amount that American farmers were producing. Those
yields exceed that of American agriculture even today, except where we practice
intensive gardening. Indeed, for all practical purposes, a large part of
Over the last two centuries, cheap manufactured fertilizers
and a seemingly unlimited acreage have allowed the
It is impossible to spread manure from a manure spreader with the same precision with which you can apply powdered or liquid fertilizer with a mechanical applicator.
So, how much is manure worth right now, when there is still a ready supply of chemical fertilizer available? You can Google reams of figures from agricultural colleges to answer this question, arrived at by multiplying the amount of plant nutrients in the manure times the current cost of these nutrients in manufactured fertilizers. These assessments are interesting, but not satisfactory. There are too many variables. Nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash levels in manure vary depending on the richness of the soil that provided the food the animals ate, while a sack of fertilizer will contain these nutrients in the amounts the label says it contains. The quality of the nutrients in manure and in chemical fertilizers may vary as well—a debate as old as the hills.
Even if everything else were equal, it would still be difficult, even for a computer, to compare the nutrient value of bulky manures with that of bags of fertilizer. A truck will hold by volume a certain weight of a certain fertilizer, while manure on a manure spreader, from one load to another, might vary not only in plant nutrient analysis but also in weight, depending on moisture and the ratio of dung to bedding in each load. In other words, it is impossible to spread manure from a manure spreader with the same precision with which you can apply powdered or liquid fertilizer with a mechanical applicator. These calculations become critical when determining the net value of hauling manure from an animal factory. Someone has to pay the freight, and the amount of plant nutrients in a truckload determines how far you can haul it profitably. And based on the amount of nutrients in both materials by weight, it is much cheaper to haul fertilizers than manure. Fuel cost becomes part of the equation too, of course.
Most important of all, agronomists have not yet been able to agree on a precise figure for the value of organic matter and humus that manure adds to the soil. I doubt if a precise figure is possible. It gladdens my heart to think that organic matter in the soil is so priceless that not even science can put a dollar value on it.
But it is fun and instructive to muse on the relative value of manure versus chemical fertilizer—a good thing to contemplate. For example, let us muse that Farmer A milks forty cows on an organic dairy farm. He has lots of manure as a free by-product of his dairying—the amount varies, of course, but you can roughly figure at least 15 tons of manure and bedding for each milk cow and half that for calves and replacement heifers. The manure, in fact, is essential to his operation because it would be very difficult (if not impossible) for him to make a profit organically without it. Since he gets a premium for his organic milk, his manure is worth even more than it would be for the dairy farmer not selling organic milk. Let us say that non-organic farmers in his neighborhood routinely apply fertilizer that costs—in summer 2009, as I write—about $80 per acre. Last year it could have cost twice that. For every acre Farmer A fertilizes with animal manure and green manure instead, he saves that much money right off the whirling blades of his manure spreader. If he manures 100 acres that way, he's saved $8,000, less the hauling and labor, before he puts a milker on his first cow.
Farmer B, however, grows 1,000 acres of corn and soybeans. His situation is vastly different when it comes to making decisions about fertilizer. He must buy all of his. Let us say he is not close enough to an animal factory to make hauling manure cost-effective, even if he could buy it cheaper than chemical fertilizer. He must buy the chemical stuff instead, at least for the 500 acres of corn. We'll assume that he doesn't put fertilizer on his soybeans, as many farmers do not. At $80 per acre, he has already spent $40,000 on his corn crop before he even climbs on his planter. You can readily see why my friend with 8,000 acres just might be getting interested in a cattle feedlot even if the beef side of the business only breaks even. With 4,000 acres of corn, his fertilizer bill is in the $320,000 range. And what if next year fertilizer prices go up again? The cow manure to replace that fertilizer begins to look like a very hot commodity indeed.
Then there is Farmer C, the garden farmer. He—or, just as likely, she—operates a vast spread of five acres upon which she produces much of the food for her family and produce she sells at a local farmers' market. She keeps a flock of 50 hens for eggs to eat and to sell, and she uses the manure and bedding to fertilize her gardens. She also has a composting toilet and uses her family's manure to fertilize the orchard and hardwood trees in her two-acre woodlot, from which she derives wood for home heating, bean poles, and fence posts, nuts, maple syrup, and an occasional meal of fried squirrel. What her manure is worth to her may be insignificant in terms of money, but what if 50 million other Americans did likewise?
Think of the excrement of 50 million people and 2.5 billion chickens helping to enrich soil rather than pollute water. Think of the food being produced without dependence on manufactured fertilizers or the need even for much fossil fuel. Think of all those people interacting with one another in their communities instead of running all over the world learning about nothing particular in any kind of deep, thoughtful way. Think of all those people feeling happy and important because they are involved in the meaningful work of feeding themselves and others, not overwhelmed by a paranoid fear that they are helpless before the dragons of a self-destructing economy. Think of something approaching an earthly paradise. If it gives you joy and contentment, who gives a shit what it's worth in money?
Gene Logsdon is the
author of Holy Shit: Managing Manure To Save Mankind.
He farms in
Spud-only diet ends -- ‘I’m ready for ice cream’
(Reuters)
– The head of the
Chris Voigt, 45, began his spuds-only regimen to protest a U.S. Department of Agriculture rule barring low-income recipients of food vouchers under the federal Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program from using their benefits to purchase white potatoes.
And while Voigt is not recommending his diet to others as a "healthy sustainable" weight-loss plan, it did help him lower his blood sugar, cut his total cholesterol by over a third, and reduce his weight from 197 to 176 pounds, he said.
Voigt, the executive director of the state-funded Washington State Potato Commission, stands 6-feet 1-inch.
"The whole purpose of this diet is to get white
potatoes in WIC," said Voigt, who lives in
By the time his self-imposed diet ended at midnight Monday, Voigt had consumed 400 pounds of potatoes -- about 20 spuds a day for 60 days -- and in virtually every shape and form imaginable, he said in a telephone interview.
He typically cooked up two boiling pots each night for the next day's meals and snacks: 3 pounds of mashed, 2 pounds of sliced and fried, and 2 pounds of roasted, snack-cubed red and fingerling potatoes.
"If I found something I liked, I would eat it for two days straight," he said.
Seasonings -- rosemary, thyme, oregano, dill, mustard seed, cinnamon and nutmeg -- spiced up the otherwise bland fare.
For a special treat, Voigt prepared potato gravy, mixed up with bouillon cubes and potato starch.
"In a restaurant you would send it back, but to me, it was heaven," he said.
On Thanksgiving Day, Voigt created a "tur-tato," a 5-pound chunk of mash, molded into the shape of a turkey, basted with olive oil and broiled. "When we carved away, it was tender."
USDA interim rules for the WIC program allow recipients -- usually low-income pregnant women and mothers with young children -- to use vouchers to buy "any variety of fresh whole or cut vegetable, except white potatoes."
The National Institute of Medicine in
Orange yams and sweet potatoes are permitted.
"Americans consume white potatoes in ample quantities," Stencel said. "The issue is more about improving the diversity and range of vegetables."
The USDA's Food and Nutritional Service, which administers the WIC program, plans to issue a final decision on the potato-ban rule next year.
Voigt celebrated his diet's end with a dinner feast of steak fajitas and -- he said -- roasted potatoes, topped off with apples and milk.
"I'm looking forward to eating real ice cream," he said.
End Transmission