As the summer growing season approaches, farmers across the county are experiencing widespread frustration over the federal H-2A visa program for seasonal agriculture workers….A bipartisan group of six U.S. senators, from Idaho, Florida, Ohio, Colorado and Wyoming, recently wrote the Department of Labor to express concerns with the system “and its serious implication on producers and our nation’s food supply.”…Employers say that to use the program they have to deal with complicated paperwork and go through multiple federal agencies: the Department of Labor, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State. The recent letter to the Labor Department from the six senators – Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Michael Enzi, R-Wyo., Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Jim Risch, R-Idaho – cited “numerous cases in which unnecessary administrative delays resulted in not having enough labor to perform needed work.”
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/05/07/148051/seasonal-farm-worker-visa-program.html
Occupiers give conditions for leaving UC farmland [Associated Press]
Occupy activists who set up an encampment and planted crops on land owned by the University of California, Berkeley said Monday they would only leave if campus officials give them continued access to the 10-acre parcel and meet other demands. A group called Occupy the Farm said in a proposal issued Monday night that it wants the university to let its supporters use city water at the site to tend their fledgling farm and for researchers who do agricultural work there to stop using pesticides and other chemicals….UC Berkeley officials say the protesters have disrupted agricultural research by faculty scientists and students. The activists pruned a diseased branch from a fruit tree before learning that researchers had intentionally infected the tree to study the impacts of disease.
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/05/07/4472538/occupy-protesters-urged-to-leave.html#storylink=misearch
Beef Products to shut plants over 'pink slime' fallout [Wall Street Journal]
Beef Products Inc., the maker of a ground-beef additive dubbed "pink slime" by critics, said it would close three of its four plants as it struggles to recover from the controversy. Beef Products plans to close facilities in Amarillo, Texas; Garden City, Kan.; and Waterloo, Iowa, on May 25. The move will trigger more than 650 job cuts. The South Dakota company said it would continue to operate its plant in South Sioux City, Neb., at reduced capacity….Beef Products suspended operations at the three plants about five weeks ago, when the beef additive fell victim to a social-media feeding frenzy after celebrity chef Jamie Oliver criticized how it is made in a television special.
Obesity fight must shift from personal blame-U.S. panel [Reuters]
America's obesity epidemic is so deeply rooted that it will take dramatic and systemic measures - from overhauling farm policies and zoning laws to, possibly, introducing a soda tax - to fix it, the influential Institute of Medicine said on Tuesday. In an ambitious 478-page report, the IOM refutes the idea that obesity is largely the result of a lack of willpower on the part of individuals. Instead, it embraces policy proposals that have met with stiff resistance from the food industry and lawmakers, arguing that multiple strategies will be needed to make the U.S. environment less "obesogenic."…The IOM committee also grappled with one of the third rails of American politics: farm policy. Price-support programs for wheat, cotton and other commodity crops prohibit participating farmers from planting fruits and vegetables on land enrolled in those programs. Partly as a result, U.S. farms do not produce enough fresh produce for all Americans to eat the recommended amounts, and the IOM panel calls for removing that ban.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/08/us-usa-health-obesity-idUSBRE8470LC20120508
Price of rice is going up [Wall Street Journal]
Bad news: That cheap bowl of rice you were counting on to stretch your paycheck may soon get pricey. Good news: You’ll be able to profit off the coming move, although you’ll need to be nimble. It’s happening because Western Hemisphere farmers are cultivating less rice while inventories are set to plummet. “Stocks are running low now, and rice prices do not go down when acreage goes down,” writes Milo Hamilton, in a recent edition of his newsletter, The Firstgrain Rice Market Strategist. “Never [has that happened] in any year that we have traded rice, which is for over 30 years.” In short, prices are going higher. U.S. land dedicated to rice planting will hit the lowest level since 1987, about 2.6 million acres, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That’s down 30% from 3.6 million acres in 2010.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/05/07/price-of-rice-is-going-up/?KEYWORDS=price+of+rice
Opinion: Our too-thirsty forests [Los Angeles Times]
…Today, the hottest and thirstiest parts of the United States are best described as over-forested. Vigorous federal protection has stocked semiarid regions of public land with several billion trees too many. And day after day these excess trees deplete a natural resource that has become far more precious than toilet paper or 2-by-4's: water. Scientists and water managers report that 39 states face water scarcity. Much of the nation's freshwater shortfall comes from our population growth, waste, hunger and contaminants. But we must also now implicate the escalating thirst of unnatural forests. Water depletion from afforestation — the establishment of trees or tree stands where none previously were — is the unintended consequence of a wildly popular federal policy.
Ag Today is distributed to county Farm Bureaus, CFBF directors and CFBF staff, for information purposes, by the CFBF Communications/News Division, 916-561-5550; news@cfbf.com. Some story links may require site registration. To be removed from this mailing list, reply to this message and please provide your name and e-mail address.
No comments:
Post a Comment