Tag: agribusiness

Food Firms Threaten Possible Sugar Shortage

Seth Anderson0 comment

Sounds to me like there’s more to this story than simple shortages of sugar.

Margies Candies

In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack, the big brands — including Kraft Foods Inc., General Mills Inc., Hershey Co. and Mars Inc. — bluntly raised the prospect of a severe shortage of sugar used in chocolate bars, breakfast cereal, cookies, chewing gum and thousands of other products.

The companies threatened to jack up consumer prices and lay off workers if the Agriculture Department doesn’t allow them to import more tariff-free sugar. Current import quotas limit the amount of tariff-free sugar the food companies can import in a given year, except from Mexico, suppressing supplies from major producers such as Brazil.

While agricultural economists scoff at the notion of an America bereft of sugar, the food companies warn in their letter to Mr. Vilsack that, without freer access to cheaper imported sugar, “consumers will pay higher prices, food manufacturing jobs will be at risk and trading patterns will be distorted.”

Officials of many food companies — several of which are enjoying rising profits this year despite the recession — declined to comment on how much they might raise prices if they don’t get their way in Washington.

[Click to continue reading Food Firms Warn of Sugar Shortage – WSJ.com]
[non-WSJ subscribers use this link]

The world’s biggest sugarcane producer, Brazil, is of course diverting much of its crop to make ethanol instead of sugar. But is it really such a horrible thing if sugar become expensive? Maybe food manufacturers will stop using so much of it in every damn thing they make? Ha.

Moto Watermelon Cucumber

U.S. sugar producers doubt whether any price savings would be passed along to consumers in any case: historically, just has helped the profits of food manufacturers:

Jack Roney, the alliance’s1 chief economist, said food companies probably wouldn’t pass along any savings to consumers from a widened import quota. But each one-cent drop in the price of sugar costs U.S. farmers about $160 million, he said.

“We take offense at any notion of reducing producer prices for sugar having any benefit for consumers, because historically we’ve never seen any pass-through of lower commodity prices of ingredients,” he said. “It really is a profit-increasing opportunity for user companies.”

Footnotes:
  1. American Sugar Alliance – a trade organization of sugar-beet and cane farmers [↩]

Pesticides in your peaches

Seth Anderson0 comment

Monica Eng of the Chicago Tribune writes about peaches, pesticides, and best practices:

Preliminary 2008 U.S. Department of Agriculture tests obtained by the Chicago Tribune show that more than 50 pesticide compounds showed up on domestic and imported peaches headed for U.S. stores. Five of the compounds exceeded the limits set by the Environmental Protection Agency, and six of the pesticide compounds present are not approved for use on peaches in the United States.

These are the types of findings that have landed peaches on one environmental group’s “Dirty Dozen” list — 12 fruits and vegetables that retain the highest levels of pesticide residues — and give many consumers pause as they shop grocery aisles. It seems that peaches’ delicate constitutions, fuzzy skins and susceptibility to mold and pests cause them to both need and retain pesticides at impressive rates.

…

To get some hard facts and new insights, the Tribune paid for lab tests on California organic peaches bought here and local farmers market peaches from Illinois and Michigan.

The newspaper sent these samples to the same federal lab where the USDA does its pesticide testing and found promising results. Of the 50 compounds the Tribune had tested for, one showed up on the organic peaches and three or fewer pesticides were detected on the Michigan and Illinois peaches.

[Click to continue reading Pesticides in your peaches: Tribune and USDA studies find pesticides, some in excess of EPA rules, in the fragrant fruit — chicagotribune.com]

Blueberries, Peaches, Strawberries, Plums et al
[fruit at the Green City Market]

This factoid disturbed me:

More surprising, however, was the presence of the unapproved pesticide fludioxonil on the organic peaches from California. According to Shane, the pesticide is often used on conventional peaches postharvest to slow rot and extend shelf life.

University of Illinois entomologist and extension specialist Rick Weinzierl suggested that the unapproved pesticide could have come from drift or cross-contamination at processing facilities. “But there is always the chance that a farmer is not doing what he is saying,” he added.

Rayne Pegg of the USDA’s agriculture marketing service confirmed that fludioxonil is not an approved compound for organic farming but added, “as long as the concentrations don’t exceed 5 percent of EPA tolerances, it can be sold as organic.” In fact, the USDA allows such levels of any legal pesticide to be present on organic produce. In the wake of recent allegations about slipping standards in the USDA’s National Organic Program, Congress has widened a probe into the NOP and recently USDA announced an independent audit of the program. The organic world was further rocked last month by a controversial British review of nutrient studies that challenged the nutritional benefits of organic produce.

Exactly why we should be paying attention to the Food Safety Enhancement legislation – organic produce shouldn’t have pesticide on it, that defeats the whole purpose of being organic. The testing should be rigorous as well, most of the items labeled organic in the supermarket have never been tested by a federal scientist.

As to Ms. Eng’s last point, not many people who choose to purchase organic produce do so believing they are buying extra nutrients, we buy organic foods so as to avoid ingesting toxic chemicals1

According to the Environmental Working Group, there are twelve kinds of produce (PDF) that contain the most pesticides. They call them The Dirty Dozen, and suggest avoiding non-organic versions of these as much as possible. There’s even an iPhone app that lists the Dirty Dozen, and the Clean Fifteen.

What are the Dirty Dozen? In reverse order (the items with the most pesticide residue first):

peaches, apples, bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, kale, lettuce, grapes (imported)2, carrots, pears. The list of 47 fruit and veggies is here check it out. Avocado, for instance, has one of the lowest pesticide loads – so there’s no need to purchase organic avocados.

Footnotes:
  1. well, as much as possible – there is too much toxicity to avoid it completely. But if you can, by choice, remove some known carcinogens from your diet, why wouldn’t you? [↩]
  2. domestic grapes 21 of 47 [↩]

Food Safety Enhancement Act fails

Seth Anderson0 comment

The Food Safety Enhancement Act we mentioned yesterday failed, but isn’t quite dead yet.

Waste Not Want Not

The U.S. House rejected a bill to overhaul the nation’s food-safety laws amid complaints from Republicans that they weren’t given enough time to read the measure.

The legislation, which would give regulators more power to enforce tougher safety standards, fell seven votes short of the two-thirds majority needed for passage. The vote was 280 in favor of the bill, 150 against it.

The measure needed two-thirds support because it was considered under expedited procedures that bar amendments and limit debate to 40 minutes.

Democrats will bring up the bill again tomorrow under regular procedures requiring a simple majority for passage, said Katie Grant, a spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat.

[Click to continue reading Measure to Overhaul Food-Safety Laws Fails in House (Update1) – Bloomberg.com]

I’m not sure why it was introduced under the expedited procedure, why not treat it as normal legislation?

You know conservatives like Frank Lucas are never going to support any such bill, why not just ignore them?

Representative Frank Lucas of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the Agriculture Committee, said the measure would add hundreds of millions of dollars in fees and taxes and burdensome regulations that “will increase the cost of food for consumers” and drive producers overseas.

House to Vote on Food-Safety Legislation

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Speaking of food safety and the FDA, The House is expected to vote on a new, long-awaited food safety bill giving more authority to the FDA.

corn_bush.jpg

The House is expected to vote Wednesday on legislation that would significantly increase the Food and Drug Administration’s funding and authority to police food safety.

Democratic leaders will bring up the legislation under a procedure that allows limited debate and no amendments and requires a two-thirds supermajority vote to pass. The bill unanimously passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee in June.

The vote was scheduled after negotiations averted a prolonged turf battle between two powerful Democrats: House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin C. Peterson of Minnesota and Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, the Commerce Committee’s chairman emeritus. The committees were still working on the final language Tuesday afternoon.

Mr. Peterson had threatened to stop the legislation if it didn’t explicitly exempt livestock or grain farmers and others that are regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Mr. Dingell, the legislation’s main sponsor, has said the legislation wasn’t intended to overlay FDA rules on USDA regulations.

[Click to continue reading House to Vote on Food-Safety Legislation – WSJ.com]

sausage making

and since the FDA is toothless at the moment, consumer groups are becoming more impatient with the slow moving process of making legislation. There are problems with the US food safety, why can no changes be made?

Consumer groups, however, urged lawmakers to pass the bill, saying Congress already has held more than 20 hearings on food safety in the aftermath of a string of widespread food-borne illnesses involving products such as hot peppers, spinach and lettuce. The outbreaks exposed gaps in the FDA’s ability to prevent large-scale outbreaks and trace the source once they begin.

Under the legislation, the FDA would be able to order food recalls. The bill would also require the agency to inspect food facilities more often and would give FDA authority to set production and record-keeping standards to prevent contamination and more easily trace outbreaks. Food facilities would be required to register and pay an annual $500 fee.

The Senate, on the other hand, is more concerned with going on vacation and avoiding bills like health-care reform, and food safety. The Senate also likes to ride the corn-porn pony of corporate lobbyist dollars.

corn_porn.jpg