Floods decimate farms
in Southwest Washington
Last week, floods devastated numerous family farms
in Southwest Washington. The Olympia Farmers Market
and the Washington Farm Bureau have established relief
funds and are helping coordinate volunteers.
The
Chronicle, December 8
The
Olympian, December 9
Local
efforts
Hog-based MRSA infection
spreading to farmers in Europe, Canada
A new study published in the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention’s Emerging Infectious Diseases
links a new strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus
aureus (MRSA), once found only in pigs, to more than
20 percent of all human MRSA infections in the Netherlands.
The resistant strain—NT-MRSA—emerged in
the Netherlands in 2003 and increased steadily until,
by 2006, it accounted for more than one out of five
human MRSA infections, many of them in either pig farmers
or cattle farmers. The cases clustered in regions of
the country with high densities of pig and cattle farms.
The new strain has high rates of hospitalization, suggesting
that it causes severe disease.
Despite these studies and others from Europe dating
back to 2005, the United States does not systematically
test pigs, cattle or other food animals for MRSA. As
a result, the U.S. public health establishment does
not know whether the use of antibiotics in food animals
in the United States is contributing to the reported
surge of MRSA cases.
Full
story
Actual
study
Organic undersupply
stunts market growth
Unreliable organic supplies are stunting the growth
of more than half of U.S. organic food manufacturers,
according to a new report by the Organic Trade Association
(OTA). Despite supply challenges, the market continues
to see strong growth, mirrored by the expansion in the
range of organic products available, and the retail
outlets that carry them. According to the OTA 2007 manufacturer
survey, organic foods are one of the fastest growing
segments in the industry, with sales in 2006 increasing
21 percent to reach $16.7 billion. Results from the
group's latest survey of organic manufacturers reveal
that, as more organic products are being churned out
onto the market, securing raw materials is becoming
a growing challenge.
Full
article
Oil expert says in 100
years all farming will be organic
Richard Heinberg, one of the world's leading experts
on oil reserves, used last week's Soil Association Lady
Eve Balfour Lecture to warn that the lives of billions
of people are threatened by a food crisis caused by
our dependence on dwindling supplies of fossil fuels.
The only way to avert a global food crisis, he said,
was a planned and swift reduction in the use of fossil
fuel use and a switch to organic or other zero petro-chemical
input farming systems.
Full
story
Safety fears prompt Europe
to consider first ban on GM crop
Cultivating GM crops in Europe is under unprecedented
threat after top European officials recommended a ban
for the first time on two modified varieties. Confidential
documents reveal that Stavros Dimas, the EU's Environment
Commissioner, wants to refuse approval of two types
of maize genetically engineered to resist pests because
they pose "unacceptable" risks.
The move, which is seen by environmentalists and by
the biotech industry as setting an important precedent,
has come as a shock, because all previous GM applications
have been nodded through in Brussels. Clare Oxborrow,
GM campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said: "This
could—and should—be the beginning of the
end for GM crops in Europe."
Full
story
Soil
Association press release
If it’s fresh and
local, is it always greener?
A team of researchers from the University of California,
Davis, have started asking provocative questions about
the carbon footprint of food. Tom Tomich, director of
the University of California Sustainable Agriculture
Research and Education Program, said the fact that something
is local doesn’t necessarily mean it is better,
environmentally speaking. The distance that food travels
from farm to plate is certainly important, he says,
but so is how food is packaged, how it is grown, how
it is processed and how it is transported to market.
Gail Feenstra, a food-system analyst at the Davis campus,
says her group hopes the research will help consumers
decide if buying local is better than buying organic
food that has traveled hundreds of miles. “Maybe
you can buy organic within a certain geographic range,
and outside of that the trade-offs won’t work
anymore,” Ms. Feenstra said.
Full
story
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