East of Athens, in Marathon County, Joseph Zaiger's herd of about 40 cows produces a type of milk that could shake up the dairy industry. It's like conventional milk but doesn't have a beta-casein protein that some studies have said makes milk less digestible, almost intolerable, for a large number of people. [node:read-more:link]
Northeast dairy farmers who have been strapped for months by low milk prices say a voluntary insurance program that was supposed to be a safety net isn’t helping. The margin protection program provides financial assistance to enrolled farmers when the gap between the price of milk and national average feed costs falls below the coverage levels picked by individual farmers. “It’s a complete failure,” said Les Pike, of Keewaydin Farm in Stowe, Vermont, which has been losing money for months. [node:read-more:link]
Kentucky Mist Moonshine - an upscale distillery that sells fruit-infused moonshine in Whitesburg, KY, has spent 8 months in a trademark dispute with the University of Kentucky over who owns the rights to the name "Kentucky". UK trademaked the name Kentucky in 1997 for use on clothing. Judge Danny Reeves accepted that the university was immune to being sued and Kentucky Mist can not trademark his business name. [node:read-more:link]
Four mothers whose children have food allergies raised $10 million to get the project started. [node:read-more:link]
FDA director says the percentage of in-house environmental samples that are positive for SE has declined, but the rate of human illnesses attributed to eggs hasn’t improved. Out of 1,355 FDA inspections of U.S. registered egg farms, only 10 farms received warning letters from the agency. Unfortunately, just as the reduced percentage of Salmonella-positive broiler carcasses after chilling hasn’t seemed to reduce human cases of Salmonellosis, neither has the reduction in SE contamination on layer farms. [node:read-more:link]
Oyster boat captains last year thought they were suffering through one of the worst years in decades for the Texas oyster industry as freshwater from heavy rains flooded Galveston Bay and killed oysters. This year is turning out to be much worse. Galveston County Judge Mark Henry on Tuesday issued a disaster declaration for the Galveston Bay oyster industry, but the problem is not restricted to Galveston Bay. Persistent downpours throughout eastern Texas are swamping oyster beds with deadly freshwater all along the Texas Gulf Coast. [node:read-more:link]
Philadelphia became the first major American city with a soda tax despite a multi-million dollar campaign by the beverage industry to block it. The City Council gave final approval to a 1.5 cent-per-ounce tax on sugary and diet beverages. [node:read-more:link]
Out of 1,355 FDA inspections of U.S. [node:read-more:link]
Living Ocean Productions has posted a new film “The Working Waterfront” — which aims to educate consumers about the current status of aquaculture in the United States — on YouTube. The 25-minute video looks at four fish farms in different areas of the US. The farmers discuss several topics including the challenges to growing a robust US-based aquaculture community. Over 90% of the seafood Americans eat is imported from overseas, and half of that amount is from aquaculture. Lack of a consistent permitting processes [node:read-more:link]
A new study reveals the full extent of globalization in the world's food supply. The researchers put together a series of interactives that visualize the results. The idea that crop plants have centers of origin, where they were originally domesticated, goes back to the 1920s and the great Russian plant explorer Nikolai Vavilov. He reasoned that the region where a crop had been domesticated would be marked by the greatest diversity of that crop, because farmers there would have been selecting different types for the longest time. [node:read-more:link]
