Investigate Midwest (https://investigatemidwest.org/category/opinion/)
Yes it's true, that once in a while a company or individual does something so outrageously stupid that the government wakes up out of a slumber and recognizes a manipulation for what it is.
But when it comes to commodity manipulation the government has been over-matched.
For the purpose of this blog we're going to look at just two major, major commodity manipulations that share a common thread.
As Dave Dickey writes, gaslighting has become a White House weapon of choice in trying to convince individual American farmers all is well while they financially are suffering from the POTUS agricultural policy choices.
Lawsuits filed by the Organic Consumers Association and Food and Water Watch do not seek monetary damages. Instead, the non-profits want Tyson to cease pulling the wool over the public's eye when it comes to marketing chickens.
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in August 2018 already ruled chilorpyrifos unsafe and ordered EPA to revoke food tolerances and take the pesticide off the market.
But that ruling was vacated in February after EPA requested a rehearing which ultimately ordered EPA in a writ of mandamus to issue within 90 days a full and fair decision on the petitioner's objections.
I fully expect the justices over at the Ninth Circuit will leave little tolerance for EPA's decision to continue to allow Corteva to market chlorpyrifos.
Tofurky was suing Missouri over its first-in-the-nation state law banning labeling products with meat names if it doesn't contain traditionally harvested poultry or livestock. A meeting to settle the suit
A Supreme Court decision over the summer reduces government transparency in how it interacts with business, writes Dave Dickey.
About two years ago Maplevale Farms, Inc filed a civil lawsuit against the nation's largest chicken processors – Tyson Foods, Pilgrim's Pride, Perdue Farms, Koch Foods and Sanderson Farms are all plaintiffs – alleging the companies conspired together between 2008 and 2016 to fix poultry prices.
But as Dave Dickey writes, billions of dollars are at stake here. And things are not always as they seem.
If the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization are to be believed, U.S. farmers are in for a very, very bumpy ride over the next decade.
Spearheaded by big ag lobbyists and enabled by big-ag friendly state legislatures, numerous laws have made it illegal to use deception to secretly videotape treatment of animals at private livestock and meatpacking facilities.
There's a difference between corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup.
How this corn syrup question is ultimately decided can have potential implications for other food products made with corn syrup and how they are advertised before the public.