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Tom Brady: Visit my farm and lean food facts

Global Farmer Network | Posted on October 5, 2017

Then again, who is Tom Brady to tell me how to farm? In “The TB12 Method,” the bestselling book he released last week, Brady offers a lot of opinions about farming and food production. He’d do well to learn a few facts, which I’d be glad to teach him. Tom, I want to personally invite you to visit my family farm so we can talk about your food and farming concerns.I happen to be a fan of Brady and his team. I was born in Massachusetts and grew up watching the Patriots.  I was a Patriots fan before Brady was ever on the team. Brady gets sacked for a loss, however, when he takes up the subject of GMOs: “Then of course there’s genetic engineering,” he writes. “Does that sound like something you’d want to eat? It sounds like a chemistry experiment to me.”The quarterback may think this is a clever quip, but in fact it exposes his ignorance. Genetics have nothing to do with chemistry: They’re a feature of biology. They’re also essential to agriculture.On our farm, we grow two kinds of soybeans. One is a non-GMO variety that becomes tofu sold to Asian food processing companies. The other is a GMO crop—in other words, the kind that Brady condemns as a “chemistry experiment,” even though it’s a safe and proven technology for farmers and consumers.Here’s the irony: Our GMO soybeans are high in oleic oil, which allows our customers to extract from them an oil that is free of trans fat.Brady ought to cheer us on: “Basically, trans fats are the worst kind of fat out there,” he writes in his book. He advises his readers to avoid them.


Golden rice – a miracle tarnished by irresponsible activism

The Hill | Posted on October 5, 2017

“Their eyes tell their sad stories as ghostly white irises give way to vacant stares. We can look at them but they can’t look back at us. They’ve gone blind because of malnutrition.,” V. Ravichandran, a farmer in Tamil Nadu, India, describing children suffering from vitamin A deficiency. This is a dual tragedy — first, because more than two-thirds of the children referred to in Ravichandran’s commentary will be dead within a year — blindness from vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is an early sign of life-threatening debilitation — and second, because VAD could be prevented with an accessible, modern agricultural technology. The most elegant and practical approach to preventing VAD is a group of genetically engineered rice varieties known as Golden Rice because of its color, which is imparted by the presence of beta-carotene, the precursor of vitamin A.


Genetically modified wheat used to make coeliac-friendly bread

New Scientist | Posted on October 5, 2017

People forced to avoid gluten could soon have their bread (and cake) and eat it. Now there are strains of wheat that do not produce the forms of gluten that trigger a dangerous immune reaction in as many as 1 in 100 people. Because the new strains still contain some kinds of gluten, though, the wheat can still be used to bake bread. “It’s regarded as being pretty good, certainly better than anything on the gluten-free shelves,” says Jan Chojecki of PBL-Ventures in the UK, who is working with investors in North America to market products made with this wheat.


MD:Wanted: proposals for a small processing facility

Meatingplace (free registration required) | Posted on October 5, 2017

The Southern Maryland Agricultural Development Commission has issued a request for proposals for an entity to develop, manage and operate a meat processing facility for the region's farming community. The facility is planned to be a public-private partnership with minimum processing capability of 500 bovines and 2,000 sheep/goats/hogs and an optional ability to process additional livestock species including poultry. The ideal capacity is 3,000 animals per year, the group said. The contract will be awarded for a term of up to 9 years.


Americans want required food labels even if they don't read them

Reuters | Posted on October 5, 2017

A majority of Americans want the U.S. government to require nutrition labels on food packaging, including people who do not read them, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released as the Trump administration delays tougher new requirements.The government has delayed the introduction of mandatory labeling of sugars added to packaged food and use of genetically-engineered ingredients, marking a change from the Obama administration and a victory for food companies which lobbied against them as too costly and confusing for consumers.Eighty-four percent of adults agreed that “the government should require nutrition information labels on all packaged food sold in grocery stores” and 64 percent wanted similar requirements for restaurants, according to the poll.Most people wanted those labels even though relatively few said they read them. Only 13 percent said they “always” read the nutrition facts when deciding to buy a product.


Michigan Senate votes to ban local soda taxes

Detroit News | Posted on October 5, 2017

The Michigan Senate on Wednesday voted to prohibit local governments from taxing food, drinks or chewing gum, a pre-emptive strike against local control over so-called “soda taxes” enacted in other parts of the country. Cook County, Illinois, is one of the latest local governments to slap a tax on the sugary beverage, which supporters say will discourage unhealthy diets, but officials there are now considering repealing the penny-an-ounce tax.The Michigan Constitution exempts groceries from the state sales tax, and sponsoring Sen. Pete MacGregor said his bill would close “loopholes” he warned could allow local excise taxes on food and drinks.


2016 National Beef Quality Audit shows room for improvement

High Plans Journal | Posted on October 5, 2017

After years of trying to improve beef cattle, have we made enough progress yet? That question was asked and answered in the 2016 National Beef Quality Audit, the most recent since 2011.For those waiting for the answer, it’s still “no,” Mark McCully said. The Certified Angus Beef brand’s vice president of supply grants cattle are better, but there’s plenty of room for improvement. The NBQA cites a lost opportunity of $15.75 per head in quality grade alone. A glance at actual beef grades vs. the NBQA targets of 5% Prime, 35% Premium Choice, 35% Low Choice, 25% Select and no Standards could lead some to proclaim, “Mission accomplished.” McCully sees more to achieve and said ranchers have the tools and beef genetics to do it.“We can still get better,” he said.Breeding time sets up the most marbling improvement, but that’s only potential.“Anything throughout the management of that animal that sacrifices quality grade is an economic loss to the whole beef enterprise,” McCully said. That’s an opportunity, McCully said, for seedstock producers to use selection tools available to maintain upward pressure on marbling while creating more value down the line. “As genetic designers of the cattle and as the people who manage them, we need to keep yield grade and cutability in mind. Same with carcass weight,” he said.McCully suggests multi-trait selection to produce cattle that capture more of all the money left on the table.


Bill Introduced to Crack Down on Fake Organic Product Imports

Growing Produce | Posted on October 5, 2017

Reps. John Faso (R-NY) and Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM) announced the introduction of the Organic Farmer and Consumer Protection Act. The bipartisan legislature provides for a modernization of organic import documentation, new technology advancements, and stricter enforcement of organic products entering the U.S.“Protecting the integrity of organic is critical for the advancement of organic, and we applaud Rep. Faso for introducing this important bill. Our farmers have to have a level playing field, and organic consumers have to be able to trust that they are getting what they pay for when they buy organic,” said Laura Batcha, Executive Director and CEO, Organic Trade Association. “We’re operating in a growing global market. It is essential that we modernize and get up to speed to prevent organic fraud and to ensure that every stakeholder in the organic chain is playing by the rules. This bill takes important steps towards making that happen.”When fraudulent organic products enter the U.S, local producers are hurt by lower prices and consumers are hurt by inauthentic products.


Scientists join forces to save Puerto Rico’s ‘Monkey Island’

The Conversation | Posted on October 4, 2017

The Cayo Santiago Field Station is the longest-running primate field site in the world. Since it was founded in 1938, generations of monkeys have lived out their life with humans watching. Only monkeys live on the island; people take a 15-minute boat trip every day from Punta Santiago on Puerto Rico’s east coast. The huge amount of data on each individual monkey’s life, death and contributions to the next generation allow scientists to ask questions in biology, anthropology and psychology that can’t be answered anywhere else. This microcosm of monkey society opens the door onto these highly intelligent and social primates’ lives – thereby allowing us to better understand our own. After Hurricane Maria made landfall 30 minutes south of Cayo Santiago, scientists in the United States scrambled to make contact with students, staff and friends in Puerto Rico. Several days later we finally managed to reach Angelina Ruiz Lambides, the director of the research station. Scientists arranged a helicopter so that she could survey Punta Santiago and Cayo Santiago. The photos and videos she sent back were devastating. Punta Santiago, where many of the staff live, was destroyed. A phototaken from the helicopter showed a large chalk message: “S.O.S. Necesitamos Agua/Comida” – We need water and food. Cayo Santiago, formerly two lush islands connected by an isthmus, was unrecognizable. The forests were brown, the mangroves were flooded and the isthmus was submerged. Research labs and other infrastructure were in pieces. Yet the monkeys were spotted! Somehow, defying our expectations, many of the Cayo monkeys had weathered the storm. Over the next few days other staff traveled to Cayo in small boats and started searching for each individual monkey, like 00O – a process that will take weeks. Some observers might question our focus on saving animals when people across Puerto Rico are suffering, but this is not an either/or choice. The Cayo Santiago Field Station is the livelihood of many dedicated staffers who live in Punta Santiago. We cannot aid the monkeys without helping to rebuild the town, and we aim to do both.The staff and researchers who work at Cayo Santiago are stewards of these animals, who cannot survive without our help. Many of the Puerto Rican staffers on site have spent years caring for monkeys like 00O. Now they are spending their mornings rebuilding Cayo Santiago, and then working on their own homes in the afternoon.


San Francisco requires grocers to disclose antibiotics used in raising food animals

Meatingplace (free registration required) | Posted on October 4, 2017

Lawmakers in San Francisco this week passed an ordinance requiring major grocery chains to report information about antibiotic use in the raising of livestock that the approximately 120 stores eventually sell as meat to the public. The order by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors wants the grocery chains to collect the information and provide annual reports to the city’s Department of Environment for distribution to consumers. The goal is to spark a marketplace shift toward antibiotic-free meat and poultry. The report adds that the use of antibiotics to speed up growth or protect confined animals has been partly blamed for an uptick in antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The new ordinance does not target processors or producers but includes penalties --including a civil penalty of as much as $1,000 per day -- for grocery chains that do not comply with the reporting standards, the report said.


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