Investigate Midwest (https://investigatemidwest.org/category/opinion/page/2/)
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.
At some farming operation in Iowa animal activists may legally be running an undercover sting operation to reveal inhuman treatment of animals. That's because last month the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, and senior Judge James Gritzner, threw out a 2012 Iowa law that made it a crime for people to gain access to agricultural facilities by “false pretense.”
The Food Marketing Institute is trying to conceal how taxpayer dollars are being spent by recipients of the Supplemental Food Assistance Program. To date it’s been an almost eight-year court battle between South Dakota's Argus Leader newspaper and USDA and FMI.
When it comes to China rarely are things as they seem, there is no deal till there is a deal, and even after the ink dries China is fully capable of ignoring what they promised if it suits their national interests.
Breaking out major prognostic tools (including an 8-ball, Ouija board, paper fortune teller and dart board...yeah we're high tech around here) here are some of the big agricultural issues on the horizon for 2019.
In the past year Dave Dickey has blogged and waxed on a number of consequential agricultural events. Find out which ag story was the the most consequential in 2018.
I expect an increase in retail prices for pork, veal and eggs until enough farmers in California change animal housing systems. The big question is whether the courts will require that out-of-state ag-giants comply with Prop 12 in order to trade with California ... and if so, what will the Smithfield Foods of the world do?