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" I heard it
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AgLine"
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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.
U.S.
regulation of food safety is fragmented -- split up among federal agencies --
and consumer activists have complained that industry is given too much power to
police itself. The bill would cover fruits, vegetables and processed foods but
not meat.
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.
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California approves controversial pesticide
(AP
via Yahoo! News) FRESNO, Calif.
– California
regulators approved a pesticide Wednesday for use by fruit and vegetable
growers despite heavy opposition from environmental and farmworker groups that
cited its links to cancer.
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 California's official list of cancer-causing
chemicals, and the department's own scientific
advisory panel has raised concerns that it could poison the air and water.
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 California
farmers stay in business even as the cost of farmland and labor keep rising.
"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 North America for Arysta LifeScience Corp.,
which makes the pesticide.
This week, a coalition of environmental and farmworker
groups urged Gov.-elect Jerry Brown to reopen the decision immediately and ban
methyl iodide in California
once he is sworn in as governor Jan. 3.
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 Earlimart, the site of a major
pesticide drift incident in which more than 250 people fell sick in 1999, said
she was worried about the fumigant's impact on rural communities.
"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 Ventura County,
growers said the tight restrictions meant the fumigant wouldn't be used widely.
But they welcomed the opportunity to use a chemical that keeps soil free of a
broad spectrum of bugs and weeds before planting.
"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?'"
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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 Texas “emotionally
draining.”
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.”
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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 Ohio
except as a tax shelter, but he said he didn't care if it only broke even. It
was the manure that he was after, for fertilizer. And he had not read what I
had been writing in that regard. Holy shit. I almost
dropped the phone. Most of the farmers in my neck of the cornfields agree with
what one of them told me over a martini one day: "The only shit that is
going to drop on this farm is mine and my wife's." He much preferred
fertilizing with anhydrous ammonia (one whiff of which could kill him and his
wife).
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 Ohio State
University calls Manure
Science Review days. The main reason that manure is suddenly seen as a science
is that chemical fertilizer prices are on the rise. Yes, they rise and fall
with every paranoid scuttlebutt of the marketplace, but the general direction
is definitely north. The price of a specialty fertilizer like ammonium
polyphosphate is nearly $1,000 a ton as I write. Deposits of potash in Canada,
which we have long relied on for potassium fertilizer, are dwindling, and there
is no other known supply as readily available. There is much talk of opening a
huge phosphorus mining operation in the South American rain forest, which will
hardly be hailed with joy by environmentalists. Natural gas, the major source
of commercial nitrogen fertilizer, is rising in cost as other users compete for
it. In fact, there are reasons to believe that the era of reliance on
manufactured and mined fertilizers is passing. A society so utterly urban-ized as ours may not want to face up to what that means,
but the end of cheap chemical fertilizer would be almost as earth-shaking as a
nuclear bomb.
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 China and Japan did. We all need to read
again Farmers of Forty Centuries, by F. H. King, published in 1911, about Asian
agriculture at that time. In Japan,
Korea, and China, manure was treated like a
precious gem because it was a precious gem. Every scrap of animal waste, human
waste, and plant residue was collected and reapplied to the land. So precious
was manure that Chinese farmers stored it in burglarproof containers. The
polite thing to do after enjoying a meal at a friend's house was to go to the
bathroom before you departed. I am not making that up.
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 China
in 1900 was one huge, intensive, raised-bed garden. The Asian farmer had no
choice; population densities were much higher than anything the United States
had or has yet experienced. China
either produced more food per acre or its people starved. And when they could
no longer produce more even with the most rigorous natural fertility practices,
the people did starve. My aunt was a missionary in China in the 1930s and she
fascinated me with stories of Chinese pounding rocks to dust and eating the
dust for food.
Over the last two centuries, cheap manufactured fertilizers
and a seemingly unlimited acreage have allowed the United States to become the
champion wastrel of the world. One can only imagine the famine and chaos that
would result if we tried to continue that kind of extravagance for forty
centuries. As sources of chemical fertilizers decline, either manure will once
more become the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow or population levels will
dramatically decline.
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 Upper Sandusky,
Ohio, not far from his boyhood
home, and he has published more than two dozen books, including Small-Scale
Grain Raising (Second Edition) and The Contrary Farmer.
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Spud-only diet ends -- ‘I’m ready for
ice cream’
(Reuters)
– The head of the Washington
State Potato Commission ended a self-imposed diet of potatoes-only that he said
allowed him to shed more than 20 pounds in two months.
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 Lake
Moses, in the heart of the state's
central potato-growing region, about 180 miles southeast of Seattle.
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 Washington, D.C.,
recommended the exclusion of white potatoes in April 2005 to USDA for those
using WIC vouchers, institute spokesperson Christine Stencel
told Reuters.
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.
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End Transmission