Photo from mes_tiza's flickr stream
The U.S. Olympic team will be dining on American food during this year's Games in Beijing. Major sponsors will be Tyson's, which is shipping around 25,000 lbs of meat to China for this purpose; and Kellogg's. Apparently, we're scared of possible contamination in Chinese-produced foods, which, given the stakes, is not surprising. But come on now. We all know there are no weird growth hormones in American food....right?
Photo from Tracy O's flickr stream
The American Farm Bureau is concerned with possible means-testing in the Farm Bill up for debate in Congress right now. Apparently, $500,000 in adjusted gross income shouldn't be too much to exclude you from receiving government aid. Again, damn! Why don't I have my hand out?
Photo from iLoveButter's flickr stream
Beef magazine is reporting that high fertilizer prices could drive producers to reconsider their pasture management practices. I don't think it's good news when American farmers and ranchers face higher production costs, but perhaps there's a silver lining here somewhere?
2 comments:
As I understand (and I'm certainly not an expert) there is a silver lining indeed, if ranchers adopt management-intensive grazing. That's where cattle provide the fertilizer (aka manure) and "trim" the grass at intervals to maximize plant growth. The result is much less use of artificial fertilizers and much less of a problem with manure management.
Here's an accessible, if still sort of wonkish intro on the subject:
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/rotategr.html
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