USDA-Approved Agent Orange: It"s Coming to a Farm Near You

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USDA-Approved Agent Orange: It"s Coming to a Farm Near You

We Don"t Need a Farm Bill Anymore

(Newser) – In what is being hailed by many as a sign of progress in DC, House and Senate negotiators are finally poised to pass a farm bill next month. But at the Washington Post, Charles Lane has a fundamental question: Why does the US even need a farm bill? The answer, in the days of the Great Depression, used to be food security. But in an era of ultra-cheap food in which farms produce tons more output than farms of yore, that’s “preposterous” now.

“Is there something about farming, as opposed to other businesses, that makes market economics uniquely inapplicable?” asks Lane, who thinks the bill is more about the “hammerlock” that the agriculture lobby has on the Capitol. Yes, the farm bill also includes the nation’s food-stamp program, called SNAP. But that’s simply the result of an old congressional deal that makes little sense anymore. Surely, Congress can find a way to help the poor without providing “corporate welfare for agribusiness.” Click for his full column.

Newser

We Don"t Need a Farm Bill Anymore

Shutdown Spawns Vacuum in Farm Market Information

The shutdown of the federal government is delaying crucial information farmers use to plant and market crops and postponing the payouts of subsidies to the nation’s growers.

That is adding to the uncertainty among producers who depend on both the marketplace and government money.

Among the casualties of the shutdown are the reports put out by the National Agricultural Statistics Service. Farmers use to help them price crops and livestock and decide what crops to grow and when to sell them.

Not only has the agency stopped putting out new reports, but all websites with past information have been taken down.

The Agriculture Department also closed its farm services offices. Now growers can’t apply for loans or sign up acreages for programs. Farm subsidy checks are also not going out.

© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Newsmax – America

Shutdown Spawns Vacuum in Farm Market Information

One million cockroaches on the loose after breaking out of farm

By Metro News Reporter Monday 26 Aug 2013 1:34 pm

One million cockroaches are reportedly on the loose in China after breaking out of a farm (Picture: Alamy)

Having one or two cockroaches inside your house is annoying enough but try having to contend with the million roaches which have reportedly escaped from a farm in China.

The insects, which were going to be used for traditional medicine, are thought to have absconded from an institution in Dafeng.

They are now reportedly nesting in cornfields that surround the farm in the city located in the eastern province of Jiangsu.

The pests are thought to have got loose after an unidentified person destroyed part of the greenhouse they were being kept in.

Wang Pengsheng, who owns the farm, could now lose tens of thousands of pounds after spending half a year mastering his business plan.

Chinese authorities have not yet figured out how they’re going to deal with the large number of escaped cockroaches, but five investigators have been sent to the location to formulate a plan.

Bizarre

Metro » Weird | Metro UK

One million cockroaches on the loose after breaking out of farm

Stomach bug in 2 states linked to Mexican farm

In this image provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a photomicrograph of a fresh stool sample, which had been prepared using a 10% formalin solution, and stained with modified acid-fast stain, reveals the presence of four Cyclospora cayetanensis oocysts in the field of view. Iowa and Nebraska health officials said Tuesday, July 30, 2013, that a prepackaged salad mix is the source of a cyclospora outbreak that sickened more than 178 people in both states. Cyclospora is a rare parasite that causes a lengthy gastrointestinal illness. (AP Photo/Centerd for Disease Control and Prevention)

In this image provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a photomicrograph of a fresh stool sample, which had been prepared using a 10% formalin solution, and stained with modified acid-fast stain, reveals the presence of four Cyclospora cayetanensis oocysts in the field of view. Iowa and Nebraska health officials said Tuesday, July 30, 2013, that a prepackaged salad mix is the source of a cyclospora outbreak that sickened more than 178 people in both states. Cyclospora is a rare parasite that causes a lengthy gastrointestinal illness. (AP Photo/Centerd for Disease Control and Prevention)

Graphic identifies the states where cases of cyclospora infection have been reported to the CDC; 1c x 6 inches; 46.5 mm x 152 mm;

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WASHINGTON (AP) — An outbreak of stomach illnesses in Iowa and Nebraska has been linked to salad mix served at local Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants and supplied by a Mexican farm.

The outbreak of cyclospora infections has sickened more than 400 people in 16 states. The Food and Drug Administration says it is still working to determine whether the salad mix is the source of illnesses in the other 14 states.

“It is not yet clear whether the cases reported from other states are all part of the same outbreak,” the agency said in a statement. “The investigation of increased cases of cyclosporiasis in other states continues.”

Both Olive Garden and Red Lobster are owned by Orlando-based Darden Restaurants. In a statement, Darden spokesman Mike Bernstein said the FDA’s announcement is “new information.”

“Nothing we have seen prior to this announcement gave us any reason to be concerned about the products we’ve received from this supplier,” Bernstein said.

The FDA said it traced illnesses from the restaurants in Nebraska and Iowa to Taylor Farms de Mexico, the Mexican branch of Salinas, Calif.-based Taylor Farms. The company, which provides produce to the food service industry, said its facility located about 180 miles north of Mexico City in San Miguel de Allende is the only one of its 12 sites to be connected to the cases.

In an email, the chairman and CEO of Taylor Farms, Bruce Taylor, said the Mexican plant produced 48 million servings of salads for thousands of restaurants in the Midwest and eastern U.S. in June, the month the outbreak started. He said the facility has an extensive water testing program.

“All our tests have been negative and we have no evidence of cyclospora in our product,” Taylor said. “We are working closely with the FDA to continue this investigation.”

Taylor said Taylor Farms de Mexico does not supply Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants in Texas, the state with the second most illnesses in the outbreak. According to CDC, 113 of the illnesses reported so far were in Texas. Iowa has had 146 illnesses and Nebraska 81.

In an additional statement on the company’s website, Taylor Farms says the Mexican facility is “state of the art and has an exceptional food safety record.” The statement said the product is out of the food supply.

The FDA said it had audited the Mexican processing facility in 2011 and found “no notable issues,” according to the agency. The agency said it would increase surveillance efforts for green leafy products imported from Mexico.

The most recent known illness in the two states linked to the infected salad was in Nebraska a month ago. The typical shelf life for a salad mix is up to 14 days.

There have been more recent illnesses in other states. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the most recent illness was July 23 but centers did not specify a location.

The agency said its investigation has not implicated any packaged salad sold in grocery stores.

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Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

Associated Press

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

U.S. Headlines

Stomach bug in 2 states linked to Mexican farm

Senate leader Reid says no to farm law extension

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives needs to solve its farm bill impasse by enacting the Senate‘s bipartisan bill, Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Monday, warning that the Democrat-run Senate will not extend current law again.

The House defeated its own farm bill last week – the first time such a bill has failed in a House vote – and analysts have said a short-term extension of the 2008 farm law would be the easiest solution.

On the Senate floor, Reid said “the Senate will not pass another temporary farm bill extension.”

“If the Speaker (John Boehner) took up the Senate’s bipartisan measure, it would easily pass the House with Republican and Democratic votes.”

A spokesman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said “no decisions have been made on next steps.”

The Senate farm bill, passed on a 66-27 vote on June 10, would save $ 23 billion over 10 years with $ 4 billion trimmed from food stamps for the poor. The House bill proposed $ 40 billion in savings with half of it from food stamps, the largest cut in a generation.

Congress, months late in writing a new farm law, voted at the start of this year to extend the 2008 law until Sept 30. Without action by then, farm supports would revert to the sky-high levels of an underlying “permanent” law.

One of the first effects at the consumer level could be a doubling of the price of milk at the grocery store.

Budget-cutting Republicans and Democratic defenders of food stamps, groups with contradictory goals, combined to defeat the farm bill, 234-195, on Thursday.

Reid said he and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack agreed that farm law reform was essential, which means passing a new law rather than allowing the 2008 law to stay in effect.

“There’s no shame in passing a bill that moderates from both parties can support,” Reid said.

House Republican leaders canceled plans for a vote this week on an Agriculture Department funding bill. One farm lobbyist said it would have been “round two” on the farm bill since it covers the same contentious subjects.

While disagreeing on food stamps, the Senate and House farm bills called for a hefty expansion of the taxpayer-subsidized crop insurance system and streamlining of soil conservation programs. Both set high support rates for peanuts and rice.

Farm bills, written every few years, are panoramic legislation that set terms for crop subsidy, public nutrition, agricultural research, international food aid, rural development and farm export programs.

(Reporting by Charles Abbott; Editing by Ros Krasny and Carol Bishopric)

Congress News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Senate leader Reid says no to farm law extension

Boehner to support House farm bill

Speaker John Boehner said Wednesday he would vote for the House’s farm bill, despite reservations.

“I’ve got concerns about the farm bill, as I told our members,” Boehner said after a closed House Republican Conference meeting. “But doing nothing means that we get no changes in the farm program, no changes in the nutrition program. And as a result, I’m going to vote for the farm bill to make sure that the good work of the Agriculture Committee and whatever the floor might do to improve this bill gets to a conference so that we can get the kind of changes that people want in our nutrition programs and our farm programs.”

Continue Reading

Passing the farm bill, which will come to the House floor this month, will be one of the toughest tasks for the Ohio Republican’s leadership team. Members of leadership are already working to assuage concerns about several of the bill’s provisions. In a sign of how difficult this legislation is, last year’s bill didn’t even make it to the floor for a vote.

Earlier this week, Boehner announced that he had “concerns about some of the dairy provisions” in both last year’s legislation and this year’s bill.

The Senate easily passed its version of the bill earlier this week.

POLITICO – Congress

Boehner to support House farm bill

Maintaining Balance In Your Lagoon

Typically, the word lagoon conjures up images of a tropical paradise. However, for those in the livestock industry, a lagoon has a far less idyllic ambiance. Livestock lagoons are man-made basins where animal waste is managed and treated.

While having a lagoon is essential, if this area is not taken care of properly, the result may be disease among your animal population and harmful toxins released into the environment thus disrupting local human populations, as well. To keep your lagoon as safe as possible, treatment is necessary, and this treatment should also be as safe and natural as possible.

For example, one easy-to-use product is the AgraSphereLGT. This lagoon treatment product will activate the liquefaction of waste solids and reduce the odor as well as reducing the amount of flies. In addition, it can improve the nutrient value of manure for use in the growing of crops.

This special sphere is completely biodegradable and uses a mixture of helpful bacteria which work to dissolve the waste. Once you toss in a sphere, it immediately begins to go to work and each sphere will last for a full 30 days. Once the month is up, just toss in new spheres. The amount of spheres you need depends upon the number of gallons in your lagoon. One sphere can treat up to 400,000 waste gallons, so just add enough to accommodate your gallons. You cannot over treat, so do not be concerned if you have a little bit more sphere than you need.

If your lagoon already has serious problems, such as excessive crusting, it might be wise to begin treatment with a product such as Activator Plus LGT. This is a specially formulated mix of bacteria that will begin activating the reduction of sludge in an overloaded lagoon.

Veterinarians have approved both of these products and they will not harm your livestock or people or any other animal. There are no chemicals in these mixes so you never have to worry about polluting the environment is any way. As livestock farms do create quite a bit of pollution, finding natural ways to limit this pollution should always be a priority for farmers.

Lianne Derocco loves blogging about products used in livestock waste treatment. For additional information about agricultural products for agricultural waste systems and lagoon treatment, or to find out more about products like Activator Plus, please check out the BioverseAG.com website today.

Maintaining Balance In Your Lagoon