Food News
Vermont Attorney General Will Not Enforce GE Food Labeling Law
Vermont.gov | Posted on August 8, 2016The Vermont Attorney General will no longer be enforcing Act 120, Vermont’s first-in-the-nation law requiring the labeling of food produced with genetic engineering. “We successfully defended our law for two years, and as a result many companies are now disclosing that their products are produced with genetic engineering,” said Attorney General William H. Sorrell. “We hope they will continue to do so going forward, not because our law requires it, but because it is the right thing to do,” he continued.
Jeffrey Smith: “Our ultimate goal, to eliminate GMOs”
Biotech-now | Posted on August 8, 2016A post on the Food Science Institute blog details how anti-GMO activist Jeffrey Smith admits that his goal was never to give consumers more information about GMOs through a mandatory labeling program. Smith says "although this is clearly a defeat in our campaign to get mandatory labeling in the United States, we are still winning the bigger, more important effort to eliminate gmos from the market all together."
Exclusive: Tyson Foods runs high-revenue, low-cost business
Watt Ag Net | Posted on August 5, 2016Tyson Foods is being transformed into a multi-protein consumer brands company that is defying earnings growth expectations. It’s on its way to eliminating perhaps a billion dollars in costs in three years and giving earning per share guidance of $4.20 to $4.30 in 2017. The catalyst for Tyson’s transformation from a commodity products company to consumer brands protein powerhouse is, of course, its acquisition of Hillshire Brands in 2014. In the world of mergers and acquisitions, investors and analysts are notoriously skeptical of the pre-acquisition rationale until the newly formed company puts up the numbers. Tyson is doing just that – with projected compound annual growth rate in earnings per share greater than 21 percent from fiscal year 2012 to 2016.
All 'milk' products not the same
Feedstuffs | Posted on August 3, 2016While plant-based “milk” products, such as beverages made from almonds and soybeans, have some nutritional promise, they have a difficult time replacing milk from a cow, J.M. Madigan of North Carolina State University-Raleigh reported. To examine whether plant-based beverages hold the same nutritional aspects as cow’s milk and are overall better for the consumer, Madigan studied multiple research papers on cow-based milk and plant-based "milk" products and analyzed the potential benefits and limitations of each. One key point of analysis was that soy milk was shown to reduce cholesterol in one study but showed no effect in another study, even with increased isoflavones in the samples taken. This is an area that requires further study. Almond milk seemed to cause hyperoxaluria and genitourinary disorders in children due to its richness in oxalate, although she said it was found to be a good option for lactose-intolerant individuals.
Michael Pollan, Ten Years After The Omnivore’s Dilemma
National Review | Posted on August 3, 2016‘Ethical eating’ has taken the food world by storm, but the farms that produce most of our food have changed very little. Thank goodness. Ten years on, it is hard to think of a book that has influenced the public conversation on food more, and Pollan in his foreword is too modest about the impact of his masterpiece. As a farmer, I’ve participated in this discussion, in the same way a pig participates in a pig roast, though I should be clear that the pig roast is a metaphor, because no dedicated disciple of Pollan would ever attend such an event — unless the pig had a backstory complete with pastures, bucolic nature, local origins, and a life worthy of E. B. White’s Wilbur. In the wake of Pollan’s blockbuster success, the main course on the food movement’s menu has become the “industrial” farmer, a farmer like me, who specializes in only a couple of crops or animals and uses the latest technology to grow his wares economically. Although identified with the political Left, the movement Pollan inspired is profoundly conservative, if one defines conservatism as a nostalgia for a romanticized past that existed only in children’s storybooks and in the reminiscences of forgetful farm wives. Pollan today is happy that he’s helped move “the question at the heart of [his] book” to the “heart of our culture.” That’s quite an accomplishment for a journalist whose only experience in agriculture is the four years he spent writing the book. Clearly, as Pollan notes, the public was already questioning the food system as it existed in 2006. But as I sit here on my front porch, surrounded by the kind of “monoculture” that food activists detest, I’m struck by how little has changed in the process by which genetically modified seed hits heavily fertilized soil. We’re still raising corn and soybeans, even more than we did in 2006. In fact, in 2016, farmers planted 94 million acres of corn in the United States (as Pollan himself notes), up from the 78 million we planted in 2006. Soybean planting has increased from 64 million acres to more than 80 million acres.
An egg in every skillet
Meatingplace (registration required) | Posted on August 3, 2016It is becoming increasingly obvious that the supermarket shoppers have very little understanding of what it takes to release a hen from a cage and most do not even understand what “cage-free” actually is; but then neither do I. There are free range systems, aviary systems and birds on the floor of a house like the broiler breeders inhabit today and likely some other arrangement that I have not yet encountered. Regardless of the system, a change to cage free is not simple. The number of birds that can be maintained must be significantly reduced or a new, larger facility must be constructed. If a farmer has the land to expand, he must plan not only for the building but for the birds. Thus far, retailers still have plenty of the less expensive eggs available, so they have no reason to rush to achieve the cage free status in advance of the promised deadline. So, until we are approaching the magic year of 2025, there is no rush to pay a higher price.
Why Has Organic Farming Flatlined?
Science20.com | Posted on August 3, 2016Organic farming should be in a Golden Age. The public is already spending $13,000,000,000 on organic food in the U.S. alone, and margins have shown to be much higher. I have long wondered why everyone doesn't switch to organic farming. It's that pesky free market. The GMO and pesticide apocalypse we were assured is just around the corner never actually came to pass. Over 100 billion animals have eaten genetically-engineered food over 20 years and we've seen no difference in the animals, their meat or their milk. Meanwhile, in that 20 years, notes The Economist, we've had up to 60,000,000 dead kids from malnutrition. Thanks, environmentalists. And farmers who have switched looking for a big payday haven't seen it comes to pass. They say all the right things about eco-friendly pest and soil management practices, they do the paperwork and pay for the sticker, they pay for toxic organic pesticides instead of toxic synthetic ones - and then it turns out processors they sell to don't actually want to pay more. Organic farmland remains stuck at around 1% because organic food itself is for the 1% - it is lots of things; a lifestyle, a world-view, a way of self-identification and being distinct from the peasants - but it is not a mass movement. Vermont was able to get a warning label law passed on foods containing GMOs because, well, it's Vermont, and they exempted everything that might annoy people there, like alcohol and restaurants and the Whole Foods deli counter. In the rest of the country, unprompted, only 7% of the public cares whether food is mutagenesis or hybrid or RNAi or GMO or kosher or free-range or shade-tree grown. Over half of Americans think the organic label is just a scam, a way to charge more for nothing. They may be right, if you look at all of the exemptions that organic lobbyists have created under which you can still claim to be "organic." The public has Label Fatigue, as anyone in a California store or hotel or coffee shop can tell you, with the warnings about BPA and Prop 65 and pregnancy. And the market for lettuce, which is the big organic seller, is only so large. The public does not care about organic corn at all, despite that being the top GMO product, and they can't buy an organic banana. When General Mills announced Cheerios were going GMO-free, sales went down, not up. Now that company is trying to incentivize farmers to switch to organic also, so that it might bring the cost lower.
Soylent, a food startup with a cult following, is using gmos— and it isn't about to stop
Business Insider | Posted on August 3, 2016Soylent, Silicon Valley's favorite meal-replacement drink, is using the boogeyman of ingredients in its product. And no, it's not people. The startup, which has attracted a cult following with its convenient powders and ready-to-drink bottles designed to replace eating actual meals, is made with genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. But are GMOs harmful? The makers of Soylent don't think so. And guess what? Scientists agree. As the company's founders write, "GMOs currently on the market provide ample cases of tangible benefit with relatively negligible risk."
Sanderson calls antibiotic-free chicken a 'gimmick'
Watt Ag Net | Posted on August 3, 2016Sanderson Farms is going on the offensive against consumer perceptions antibiotic-free birds are better than conventionally raised animals. Sanderson Farms wants consumers to know the truth about chicken. On August 1, the Laurel, Mississippi, integrator announced the launch of an advertising campaign taking on the concept that broilers treated with antibiotics are inferior to antibiotic-free birds.
Jeffrey Smith admits GMO labeling was never his goal
Foos Science Institute | Posted on August 2, 2016In a letter sent out yesterday, anti-GMO activist Jeffrey Smith says "Labeling GMOs was never the end goal for us. It was a tactic. Labels make it easier for shoppers to make healthier non-GMO choices. When enough people avoid GMOs, food companies rush to eliminate them. Labeling can speed up that tipping point—but only if consumers are motivated to use labels to avoid GMOs. Although this is clearly a defeat in our campaigns for getting mandatory labeling in the United States, we are still winning the bigger, more important effort to ELIMINATE GMOs from the market altogether."