Food

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. [node:read-more:link]

“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. [node:read-more:link]

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. [node:read-more:link]

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. [node:read-more:link]

A majority of Americans want the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

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. [node:read-more:link]

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. [node:read-more:link]

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. [node:read-more:link]

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. [node:read-more:link]

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. [node:read-more:link]