Investigate Midwest (https://investigatemidwest.org/category/opinion/)
The last major independent U.S. cattle trade organization, the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (R-CALF), says enough is enough. R-CALF has filed a class action lawsuit alleging four beef packers manipulated the cash market. R-CALF Chief Executive Officer Bill Bullard pulled no punches in suggesting the Big 4 is dirty.
As Dave Dickey writes, the chicken industry says consolidation has benefited consumers through increased productivity. But chicken farmers say weakening of the Packers and Stockyards Act had done little beyond lining Big Ag's pockets at their expense. And this could mean some voters may change their mind in 2020.
Federal Research and Development dollars are crucial to help farmers produce more food, fiber and fuel while at the same time consuming fewer natural resources and protect public health.
It's a huge job.
You would think funding for this sort of stuff would be a no brainer. But federal agriculture research and development funding has stagnated in recent years.
A Midwest restaurant is buying Calyno™ High Oleic Soybean Oil from Calyxt that fashions itself as a “consumer-centric, food- and agriculture-focused company.” It is also the first commercial use of a gene-edited food in the U.S.
As early as this month, the Trump administration could allow pork plant employees rather than federal inspectors to be responsible for hazard analysis and critical control points inspection measures.
Whoever emerges as leading U.S. lights to develop policy will need to take into consideration just how the deck is stacked against implementing climate change policy that can make a difference and what cracks to exploit to save Earth from itself.
Enter the National Cattlemen's Beef
Association and the highly anticipated joint agreement between the Food and Drug Administration and United States Agriculture Department over oversight of
cell-based meat technology.
The deal – released last month – calls for FDA and USDA to each do what they do best. FDA will regulate cell collection, cell banks, and differentiation.
Later this month – April 22 to be exact – the newly minted conservative U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media.
USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service says in 2018 there have been dozens of recalls involving millions of pounds of sausage, calzones and chicken whatnots contaminated with metal, plastic and other foreign non-food bits of dangerous materials.
Costco sells its rotisserie chicken at the back of its stores at a loss to lure customers into the story to buy other things. Up until now those chickens by and large have come from Big Ag poultry producers like Tyson, Pilgrims Pride, and Perdue. But Costco is now bringing chicken production in house.