food supply

The Necessary Revolution: Creating a Sustainable Future

necessary revolutionPeter Senge and Bryan Smith - "The Industrial Era is ending. Its extraordinary successes—advances in literacy, life expectancy, human rights, and technology—have propelled us headlong into a myriad of side effects: food and water shortages, cyclonic destruction, prolonged drought and rising sea levels. To delay acknowledging the need for lifestyle and business changes—'The Necessary Revolution'—risks our very survival.

Food Insecurity - China Recalls All Milk Over Melamine Contamination

China Recalls All Milk Made Before Sept. 14

All liquid and powdered milk made in China before Sept. 14 has been ordered removed from shelves and tested for the chemical melamine. It's the first time since the tainted dairy scandal erupted last month that the government has ordered a blanket recall of products.

"Regardless of the brand or the batch, they must be taken off shelves, their sale must be stopped," the official news agency Xinhua said Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.

The diary products will only be allowed back on store shelves after they pass quality tests and are labeled as safe, said Xihhua, which did not provide any more details or explain why the recall was taking place now.

Until this week, only some types of milk powder and milk had been recalled in mainland China, the AP reported. A Sept. 16 recall was issued for 69 batches of milk powder made by 22 companies and a Sept. 19 recall was issued for liquid milk.

World Food Day 2008

"World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy"

World Food Day, October 16th, is a worldwide event designed to increase awareness, understanding and informed, year-around action to alleviate hunger.

World Food Day activities aim at expanding global awareness in an effort to reduce the effects of increasingly severe climate patterns on agriculture and the impact of biofuels on food production.

High food prices and related issues, challenges food security at the present time, as rapidly rising food prices risk increasing the number of hungry people, notes Food And Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’s Chief of World Food Day events, Sidaty Aidara.

With the number of undernourished people currently estimated at more than 850 million, high food prices are not only putting at greater risk the hungry but those also on the brink of poverty.

USDA Prohibits Meatpackers from Testing Your Meat for Mad Cow Disease

Life-Saving Testing Banned – Mad Cow Screening “Inconsistent” with U.S.D.A. Agenda

Written by Tiffany Sanders
Monday, 01 September 2008 04:19

Back in 2006, a meatpacking company in Kansas had a great idea: it would test every cow for bovine spongiform encephalitis (BSE), commonly known as “mad cow disease”. It was a great idea because the U.S. Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A.) tests only a very small percentage of cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat beef from infected cattle.

Creekstone Farms Premium Beef was willing to undertake the testing of every cow at its own expense. In fact, the company built a laboratory and sent its employees to France for training with the company whose test kits it intended to use. But then Creekstone ran into a problem: test kits for BSE could be sold only to laboratories approved by the U.S.D.A., and the U.S.D.A. said no to the testing.

USDA Admits Organic Fraud is Increasing

The Organic Consumers Association reports that the amount of fraud related to organic food certification is on the rise and is gathering signatures for a petition to the National Organic Program (NOP) to implement the Peer Review Panel.

USDA Admits Organic Fraud is Increasing

The U.S. Department of Agriculture National Organic Program (NOP) announced on August 5th that 15 of the 30 accredited organic certifiers they recently inspected failed the USDA audit and will have 12 months to make corrections or lose their accreditation with the NOP. It is clear that there are numerous violations of organic standards taking place in the U.S. and across the world. (Read the August 5 NOP Audit Report here)

Food Insecurity - 2008 Ground Beef

In addition to the ongoing contaminated tomato crisis, now comes word that there is a widening ground beef E. coli contamination outbreak.

The outbreak of E. coli was initially tied to ground beef made from beef from Nebraska Beef Ltd. The beef was sold in Kroger stores in Michigan and Ohio. Nebraska Beef initially recalled 531,707 pounds of ground beef as a result of the outbreak, but expanded its recall July 3 to approximately 5.3 million pounds.

The outbreak is now in five states: Kentucky, Indiana and New York each confirmed one case of E. coli infections shown to be identical to the strain which already sickened 41 people in Ohio and Michigan.

The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the E. coli-related illnesses began showing up between May 30 and June 24. No deaths have been reported, but 21 people have been hospitalized and one person developed kidney failure.

Food Insecurity - National Tomato Recall

Another month and yet another food recall. Over the past few years high profile food recalls have seemingly become the norm. These national or regional recalls, whether it's beef, toys from china, spinach, tomatoes, or peanut butter, is a failure of our food and trade agencies. They have failed to do their job and these failures are catching up with us. The 'us' doesn't only include the consuming public, it also means the produce growers in this particular case because the Food and Drug Administration has not yet identified the source of the contamination. It has been several weeks since the start of the outbreak and with no source identified, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of tomatoes have gone to rot because they can't be sold or unharvested or destroyed by tomato growers. Lost revenues often means lost jobs.

Why organic gardening?

Organic food is that which has been grown or produced without the use of chemicals, additives or pesticides. Organic food is produced with an emphasis on the use of renewable resources and the conservation of soil and water to enhance environmental quality for future generations. Organic meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products come from animals that are given no antibiotics or growth hormones.

Depending on where you live there are different government agencies to monitor the food supply, but yet many foods are still found to be dangerous, unhealthy and full of chemicals. In the United States there are many people who suggest that the Food and Drug Administration needs to be overhauled in the wake of several food contamination scandals and the link found between many of it's employees and the major food manufacturers.

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