Illinois hog producers who filed more than 120 expansion notices with state regulators in 2015 already have filed half as many this year. Consumer demand and the best pork prices in years are driving the expansion. [node:read-more:link]
Nearly 90 percent of Americans have a favorable view of farmers, and 92 percent said it was important to provide them with federal funding, according to a new national poll. This is an important finding since the public’s view of farmers and support for crop insurance are critical policy issues. Budget-cutting bureaucrats and anti-agriculture activists have long mounted attacks on crop insurance in an effort to derail the program. [node:read-more:link]
A poultry processing firm that also happens to be the only USDA-inspected poultry operation in Maine hopes to expand the operation to handle 6,000 birds per week using grant funds. Wilson hopes to boost production to 6,000 birds per week during the busy summer season, but said he is hampered by a lack of enough trained workers, according to the report. Common Wealth Poultry is seeking $100,000 from the state program for employee training. [node:read-more:link]
The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) has called on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to more clearly define the term “natural” in food labeling. [node:read-more:link]
What the heck is going on? Since when did producing safer food in more plentiful supply at highly efficient plants located strategically close to raw materials and/or markets at lower costs become bad? I am trying to understand the “produce and buy it locally” movement and why it is so good for us and should be supported as the food production system of the future. Yes, I support farmer’s markets, but I realize that all those fruits and vegetables not to mention the locally raised and slaughtered (ask to go see these local abattoirs some time) meat and poultry are usually at substantiall [node:read-more:link]
Cage-free hens have the freedom to defecate wherever they want, and that will lead to more contaminated eggs. Animal welfare advocates espouse the five freedoms, but it is the sixth freedom that cage-free hens exercise that causes food safety concerns. One of the problem behaviors that cage-free hens have the freedom to exhibit is to defecate wherever and whenever they want. This “sixth” freedom can create food safety issues, bird health issues, and increase ammonia emissions from the layer house. [node:read-more:link]
Recent studies show that the effect of food store access on dietary quality may be limited. Most consumers—both low-income and higher income—consider store characteristics other than proximity in deciding where to shop, as they seek the products, prices, and other features they value. [node:read-more:link]
A program that offers Tyson Foods the opportunity to provide fresh proteins to an expanding online grocery program is part of a strategy to grow Tyson’s “non-store retail” presence, President and CEO Donnie Smith told analysts this week. [node:read-more:link]
First question out of the mouth of one of the Docs during Q and A was, “So I am now OK with the use of most antibiotics used in animals and can better answer my patients’ questions about that practice. But what about hormones used in animals and their effect on earlier ages of puberty?”
I asked him if he ate ground beef. He answered yes. I suggested to him that the hormone levels in the meat from a spent dairy cow were certainly much higher than that in a steer with an implant. [node:read-more:link]
Chances are you’ve picked up an issue of Consumer Reports at some point, or navigated their website. The publication is typically viewed as a trusted source of product reviews of cars, appliances and electronics. What you may not realize is that Consumer Reports affiliated with Consumers Union – a nonprofit group that has decided to give modern agricultural practices a bad review. [node:read-more:link]
