Foster Farms working to win back customers after chicken sales dip amid salmonella outbreak [Modesto Bee]
The
salmonella outbreak in Foster Farms chicken has cut sales by 25 percent,
company leaders said Thursday while vowing to win back consumers with improved
sanitation and other measures that far exceed industry standards. Ron Foster,
president and chief executive officer, made his first public comments about an
outbreak that has sickened an estimated 317 people around the nation since
March. “We have never been kicked this hard in our company’s history,” Foster
said in an interview with The Bee at his Livingston headquarters. “It has hurt
us to the core.”…The outbreak has brought calls for tougher rules from
food-safety activists and garnered the kind of media attention no producer
wants….Thursday, several consumer groups urged the USDA to do a better job of
inspecting poultry. In a letter to the department, they ask why the government
has not asked Foster Farms to recall its chicken. And they say Congress should
set new performance standards for the industry.
Opinion: California bullet
train a big test of integrity [Sacramento
Bee]
Gov.
Jerry Brown demonstrated this year that he’s willing to skate very close to the
hazy line that separates devotion to duty from political obstreperousness,
virtually daring federal judges to hold him in contempt for stalling on orders
to reduce prison crowding. That performance gives rise to uncertainty about
Brown’s reaction to another loss in the courts – a Superior Court judge’s
finding that his pet bullet-train project, as now envisioned, violates the
ballot measure that authorized state bonds for its construction. Sacramento
Judge Michael Kenny agreed with San Joaquin Valley opponents of the project
that a series of financial and procedural requirements to commit funds from the
bond issue had not been met, thus imperiling plans to start construction on an
initial segment in that region.
Will
Washington state break U.S. logjam on labeling GMO food? [Fresno Bee]
Running
for president in 2007, Barack Obama vowed to push for labels on genetically
modified food, saying, “Americans should know what they’re buying.” But
post-election, Obama didn’t follow up on his promise, showing a reluctance that
now appears to be shared by many. The Food and Drug Administration has done
nothing to advance the cause. A national labeling bill has languished in
Congress. California voters rejected the idea last year. Now the focus is on
Washington state, which might break the national logjam with a vote Nov. 5 on
I-522, a ballot initiative that would require labeling of all genetically
modified foods. If the measure is approved, it would be the first of its kind
in the nation….Mike LaPlant, the president of the Washington State Farm Bureau,
which represents 42,000 farmers and ranchers, said passing the initiative would
create an “unnecessary, badly written law” that would hurt farmers and food
companies alike while making the state’s consumers the only ones in the nation
who were forced to pay the extra costs.
6
tons of walnuts stolen from Sutter County orchard [KXTV, Sacramento]
In
what amounts to a year's production on two acres, thieves stole 12,000 pounds
of walnuts from a trailer parked in an orchard along Highway 99. Although the
number of reported walnut thefts has been rising in recent years, the Tuesday
night ripoff was the largest of the season in Sutter County….California Farm
Bureau Federation regional director Matt Conant, himself a walnut grower, said
the $2 per pound price of Chandler walnuts now coming in for harvest is helping
to drive the thefts. "It's been going on for years and it seems to be
getting worse every year," Conant said.
Agriculture,
technology come together in Daly City [KGO-TV, San Francisco]
Some
people have a hard time putting the words farming and high tech in the same
sentence. But California farmers want high school students to know there is a
lot more technology in farming than they realize. Several hundred of them witnessed
it at agricultural career day at the Cow Palace in Daly City.…The California
Agricultural Leadership Program wants a group of urban high school students to
know if they love technology, agriculture is the field for them.…Students today
are quite surprised to hear that a tractor is somewhat like a smartphone
without the phone. It has a GPS system and it can be programmed to run
itself…."In California we grow over 400 commodities, more than in any
other state in the nation. It's a $43 billion industry," said Stephanie
Etcheverria from the Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom. It's an
industry that wants to embrace the next generation of technology lovers who
have a passion for farming.
Merced
County third-graders learn origin of the foods they eat [Merced Sun-Star]
About
3,200 third-graders from throughout Merced County got a hands-on look at
agriculture through the second annual Farm2U program Thursday morning at the
county fairgrounds. Amanda Carvajal, executive director of the Merced County
Farm Bureau and the event coordinator, said Farm2U is building a connection
between agriculture and students, exactly what was hoped for when the initial
idea was proposed last year. Carvajal said the event has tripled in size since
last year. Seventy-five presenters showed children their expertise in specific
fields in agriculture. More than 100 volunteers, many of them FFA students from
throughout the county, escorted students between information stations and
manned some of the exhibits.
Ag
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