Almond Growers Sue USDA to Halt Mandatory Chemical Fumigation of Raw Almonds

Source: Natural News.

After having their organic almond businesses devastated by the USDA’s bizarre decision requiring mandatory chemical fumigation of almonds, the almond industry is fighting back. Fifteen American almond growers have filed a lawsuit against the USDA in an attempt to repeal the requirements that all almonds grown in California be fumigated or pasteurized. (Virtually all almonds sold in the United States are grown in California.)

Since the USDA’s ruling in 2007, organic almond growers in California have been economically devastated by the mandatory fumigation of almonds. Because USDA rules don’t apply to almonds being imported from other countries, however, the industry has seen a huge shift away from U.S. growers and towards almond growers in Spain and other countries. Some American almond farmers have even called the USDA’s decision “a plan to destroy the U.S. almond industry and put small organic farmers out of business.”

The USDA’s plot to deceive consumers over “raw”

The mandatory almond fumigation requirement is seen by health-conscious consumers as not merely bizarre, but downright fraudulent. That’s because the USDA’s regulations allow fumigated and pasteurized almonds to be labeled “raw,” thereby intentionally deceiving the consuming public and instantly destroying consumer trust in the labeling of all almonds.

By any honest measure, the people making these decisions at the USDA can only be described as either idiotic or criminal. To enforce regulations requiring the intentional mislabeling of raw food seems more like the actions of a criminal racket than a government agency. While online pharmacies selling mislabeled pharmaceuticals are routinely raided and shut down by U.S. authorities, when the government itself engages in similar deceptions, it declares itself above the law and immune to prosecution.

This lawsuit by U.S. almonds growers aims to overturn the USDA’s deception. These fraudulent actions on the part of the USDA have generated an enormous amount of criticism from the raw food community, whose members depend on almonds to make raw almond milk, raw almond “burgers” and other raw foods preparations. As leaders of the raw foods movement rightly insist, fumigating or pasteurizing nuts destroys as much as 90 percent of their original nutritional value, altering proteins and destroying disease-fighting phytonutrients. The USDA, however, remains remarkably illiterate on this topic, have never made a single statement acknowledging any qualitative difference between cooked foods and raw foods.

Is the USDA actually trying to destroy consumer health?

As the editor of NaturalNews.com, I find the USDA’s ignorance on fundamental matters of nutrition to be nothing short of astonishing. As it is the U.S. government department responsible for much of the food supply, it should be on the leading edge of nutritional knowledge, not stuck in the 1950′s, before scientists knew about plant enzymes and disease-fighting phytochemicals that are easily destroyed by heat or chemicals.

Notably, the USDA has also supported the FDA’s plot to irradiate the U.S. food supply while intentionally misleading consumers over the fact that their foods have been irradiated. See my article, “FDA Plots to Mislead Consumers Over Irradiated Foods” at http://www.naturalnews.com/023956.html

My only explanation for the USDA’s insistence that the U.S. food supply should be fumigated, irradiated and cooked to the point of nutrient destruction is that the USDA is pursuing a campaign of intentional nutrient depletion for the U.S. population. With Big Pharma now deciding key regulatory decisions of the U.S. government, the USDA’s actions seemed designed to create a nation of health degenerates who will demand unprecedented levels of pharmaceutical “treatments” that enrich the drug companies.

If that sounds a little too conspiratorial, rest assured that U.S. corporations engage in conspiracies all the time: Conspiracies to hide negative drug studies, conspiracies to influence the USDA’s Food Guide Pyramid to avoid saying things like “eat less meat,” and conspiracies to ensnare consumers in an endless cycle of consumption, disease and debt.

In fact, most of what happens between government and private industry today is founded on conspiracy — which simply means two people sitting in a room, plotting how to bilk consumers for the most profits.

Whether the USDA is openly conspiring to destroy the U.S. food supply — or is merely run by bumbling idiots who are nutritionally illiterate — is debatable. But the results of its actions are not. By destroying the healing qualities of fresh produce and nuts, the USDA is denying consumers access to the very plant-based nutrients that are just barely keeping people from developing full-blown cancer, diabetes and other serious medical conditions. As more and more fresh foods are destroyed by USDA regulations, our population will spiral downward into a state of degenerative disease and misery.

Why the USDA is more dangerous than terrorists

In doing so, the USDA will have accomplished what all the terrorists in the world could not do: Destroying the U.S. food supply and leaving its population to rot.

It is unimaginable to think that this could be happening accidentally. For government agencies like the USDA and FDA to put such policies into place, somebody at the top must be calling the shots. In other words, somebody wants to deny consumers access to raw food. They want everything to be dead, processed, fumigated, homogenized, pasteurized, irradiated or otherwise destroyed. This is most likely being pursued solely for corporate profits (a diseased population is not only easier to control, it also spends a lot more money on pharmaceuticals and medical services).

I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: No nation that destroys the nutritive value of its food supply has any real future. If such policies are allowed to continue, you can kiss the United States of America goodbye. It will never survive the disease, death and financial bankruptcy that’s sure to follow such assaults on its food supply.

That’s why this lawsuit by California almond growers is so important: It may allow us to free almonds from the destructive designs of the USDA, restoring the integrity of this important source of nutrients.

Of course, suing the USDA is hardly the correct response to such terrorism assaults on our national food supply. If we actually lived in a country that sought to protect its population, the Pentagon would send a team of Navy Seals into the offices of the USDA (and the Almond Board of California) with flashbangs and assault rifles, and they’d arrest these criminals for their attempts to threaten the U.S. food supply. After sentencing, they could be shackled and lined up in a California park where consumers could throw — what else? — irradiated rotten tomatoes at them.

<snip>

Setback for Big Brother: Federal Court Suspends National Animal Identification System

Source: R-CalfUSA.

Court Decision Suspends USDA’s Efforts to Establish a New Privacy Act System of Records for NAIS

Billings, Mont. ­ R-CALF USA was pleased to learn that on June 4, 2008, the U.S. District Court ­ District of Columbia forced the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to suspend indefinitely its plan to establish a new Privacy Act system of records titled “National Animal Identification System (NAIS).” In April, USDA proposed to establish the NAIS system of records, which was to become effective June 9, 2008, and had published a notice soliciting public comments. R-CALF USA and other organizations submitted comments with the agency in opposition to USDA’s plan. The court-ordered suspension was a result of the Mary-Louise Zanoni v. United States Department of Agriculture case. The suspension was published in Tuesday’s Federal Register.

In its comments to USDA, R-CALF USA states: “R-CALF maintains that USDA has misrepresented the purpose, scope and nature of its proposed new system of records, and that USDA’s actual purposes of the proposed new system was simply to develop a national registry of real, personal and private property.”

“In fact, it is R-CALF’s position that the actual scope of this NAIS registry was anything but voluntary, as media reports indicate there likely are thousands of U.S. citizens whose property was added to the NAIS registry against their will or without their knowledge,” said R-CALF USA President Max Thornsberry, a Missouri veterinarian who also chairs the group’s animal health committee.

“It’s also important to note that USDA has provided no evidence to demonstrate that the NAIS registry is even feasible, as no cost/benefit analysis has been conducted to determine if the cost of NAIS to food-animal owners can be recovered in the marketplace, nor has USDA provided evidence to show that things like normal loss of ear tags, data entry errors and/or computer malfunctions would not effectively thwart any traceback efforts,” Thornsberry pointed out. “As a result of this lack of information, USDA cannot justify the need for its NAIS system or its related proposal for a new system of records.

“R-CALF USA will continue to request that Congress put a moratorium on any funding for NAIS, and we are grateful that the judicial system has blocked the agency’s misguided plan,” he concluded. “We believe the pending lawsuit will demonstrate that USDA has improperly acquired information about many U.S. citizens and has wrongfully included their information into its so-called ‘voluntary’ data base without their permission.”

Note: To view R-CALF USA’s comments filed May 30, 2008, on USDA’s proposed new system of records, please visit the “Animal Identification” link at www.r-calfusa.com .

USDA Refuses to Admit What 50 Million Organic Consumers Know: Organic Food is Healthier

Source: Deborah Rich, CounterPunch.

Mum’s the word among federal officials about the health benefits of eating organic foods.

The Department of Health and Human Services defers questions about organic foods to the Food and Drug Administration. But the FDA has no policy on organics because it says they’re the domain of the Department of Agriculture, which will admit to using the “o-word,” but says its mandate is simply to regulate use of the certified organic label, not to judge the relative benefits of organic versus conventional foods.

While the agencies entrusted with safeguarding our food and health pass the potato, a fast-growing body of scientific literature suggests that the connection between farm practices and the healthfulness of our foods merits attention. Organic foods don’t come out ahead of conventionally grown foods in 100 percent of comparative tests, but they rise to the top often enough to suggest that organic farming can increase, sometimes dramatically, the nutrient density of what we put in our mouths.

Even a cursory look at recent peer-reviewed studies should be enough to get public health officials talking.

Researchers at the University of California at Davis found that 10-year mean levels of quercetin were 79 percent higher in organic tomatoes than in conventional tomatoes, and that levels of kaempferol were 97 percent higher. Quercetin and kaempferol are flavonoids that studies suggest protect against cardiovascular disease, cancer and other age-related ills.

Another Davis study compared organic and conventional kiwis and found that “all the main mineral constituents were more concentrated in the organic kiwifruits, which also had higher ascorbic acid (a precursor of vitamin C) and total phenol content, resulting in a higher antioxidant activity.”

A Spanish study measured 1.5 times more carotenoids – associated with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and some cancers – in peppers grown organically.

And Swiss researcher Lukas Rist found that mothers consuming at least 90 percent of their dairy and meat from organic sources have 36 percent higher levels of rumenic acid in their milk. Research suggests rumenic acid may deter cancer and diabetes, and preserve and improve immune system functions.

These and other studies give hope that organic farming can reverse the nutrient decline of fruits and vegetables that appears to accompany the widespread use of agricultural chemicals and produce varieties selected primarily for yield. And while it’s true that nutrition science is still a long way from understanding what the amount of a specific nutrient in a tomato, kiwi or glass of milk means for overall health, ignoring the opportunity to improve the nutrient density of foods at the foundation of the USDA’s food pyramid seems foolhardy.

Based on a review of data collected by the Centers for Disease Control, Brian Halweil, senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute, says, “Thirty percent or more of the U.S. population ingests inadequate levels of magnesium, vitamin C, vitamin E and vitamin A, all nutrients we get from plants.”

Comment: Plant foods only contain carotenoids. Only animal-source foods contain vitamin A.

In a paper he published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Bruce Ames, professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of California-Berkeley, noted that vitamin and mineral deficiencies are common in the United States, and that these deficiencies may accelerate degenerative diseases.

Even our ever-expanding waistlines may be due in part to nutrient declines in our foods. Paul Hepperly, director of research at the Rodale Institute, thinks we may be responding like cattle do.

“Cattle will eat more of hay that’s been rained on and had most of its nutrients leach out than they normally would,” he says. “The animals get these big bellies, and they’re unhealthy, but they’re just trying to get their nutrients. Ranchers know that if they have animals with hay belly, they have poor quality food. What we’ve done with the erosion of nutrient content in our foods – what we’ve done with additives, processing and artificial agriculture production methods – is that we have basically produced a hay belly nation.”

Refusing to enter the discussion about how farming methods affect the nutrient density of our food helps our government duck the question of why it lends so much support to the status quo of conventional, nonorganic agriculture. But failing to acknowledge the connection between what happens on the farm and the healthfulness of foods may be enough to make a nation sick.

USDA papers: Burger recall followed riskier procedures

Here’s one of the many reasons why meat sold in places like Wal-mart are cheap: companies cut corners in safety and testing. It’s best to buy meat directly from farmers; barring that, smaller companies that sell organic foods.

Every single time I’ve been too lazy to drive out to a health food store to buy meat, I’ve regretted it. There’s always a funky smell, strange appearance, and a general vibe of something “off.” One of the best food decisions I’ve made is to buy sides of beef from small farms.

Source: JEFFREY GOLD, Philly.com.

NEWARK, N.J. – While the Topps Meat Co. churned out millions of frozen hamburgers a month, beef ground one day was often stored and “reworked” with meat from another production cycle, government documents show.

A conveyor belt that moved raw patties to packaging was marred by “gouges, cracks and tears,” inspectors said. They found residue on surfaces that fresh meat came into contact with.

But the plant kept operating, until an outbreak of E. coli last summer and fall sickened at least 40 people in eight states and led to one of the nation’s largest beef recalls.

Documents obtained by The Associated Press and interviews show that the now-defunct company cut back on testing for the dangerous pathogen and disregarded sanitary issues, but also that federal food inspectors overlooked crucial evidence that Topps used risky processing procedures and operated under a flawed food safety plan.

“Clearly, something was missed at Topps” when the company became “complacent,” Kenneth Petersen, head of the national Office of Field Operations for the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, conceded in an interview.

The documents present the most detailed picture yet of what was happening at Topps, which sold its products to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and supermarkets and institutions such as schools, hospitals, restaurants and hotels around the country under the Topps brand as well as several private labels.

Topps had been in business for over six decades and claimed to be the leading U.S. maker of frozen hamburgers before it closed its plant in northern New Jersey and went out of business last year within two weeks of initiating the recalls. The Centers for Disease Control said at least 40 people in eight states were sickened after eating Topps beef.

The recall ultimately comprised nearly 22 million pounds of beef , a year’s worth of production.

Former Topps executives declined or did not respond to requests for comment on the U.S. Department of Agriculture documents, which were obtained by The Associated Press through Freedom of Information requests.

According to the USDA reports, regulators examining the plant in Elizabeth, N.J., last fall found the company failed to test some raw meat for the potentially fatal bacteria, botched daily cleansings and ignored parts of its own operating framework.

Topps did not require that every batch of meat received from slaughterhouses be certified to be free of E. coli, inspection documents show.

Suppliers don’t always test certain cuts, such as steaks and roasts, where any bacteria would usually be on the exterior and could be readily killed by cooking. But when Topps ground such “intact” cuts, any bacteria present was mixed into patties, where interior temperatures of 160 degrees during cooking would be needed to kill it.

“They were doing that trimming and putting it into their ground mixture, but not doing any testing on it themselves to determine if it had E. coli,” said Petersen. “That was another avenue for potential contamination.”

In a separate interview, Petersen said Topps had decreased end-of-line testing for E. coli from monthly to three times a year. “Somewhere, I don’t know if lazy is the right word, but they got complacent,” he said.

Topps recalled 332,000 pounds of hamburger on Sept. 25 after authorities in several states reported people becoming ill. The USDA inspection service suspended production the next day, citing deficiencies in sanitation and an inadequate plan that is supposed to outline where contamination might occur and what will be done to prevent it. The plant was barred from reopening without revising its procedures.

Inspectors also questioned Topps’ practice of “re-work,” in which meat ground on one day could be added to meat during another production cycle. No law prohibits mixing different lots of beef, but food safety experts generally agree it expands the risk of contamination.

“That is a very bad process, and hardly anyone in the industry does that,” Petersen said. “If you want to manage E. coli in your plant, it’s just not a good idea to go back in time.” He said his agency is compiling figures on how many processors nationwide use re-work.

Federal inspectors also criticized sanitary measures at the plant, citing “product residues observed on product contact surfaces” and “recurring deficiencies of unsanitary equipment,” including “gouges, cracks and tears” on a conveyor belt.

The deadly bacteria strain, E. coli O157:H7, does not originate in grinding plants. It is harbored mainly in the intestines of cattle, but can get into meat through improper butchering and processing. Grinding operations such as Topps are the last chance to halt the spread of E. coli before the meat is available to the public.

Confronted with those findings, Topps expanded the recall on Sept. 29 to 21.7 million pounds, the second-largest U.S. beef recall at the time , although much of the meat had already been eaten.

Amid an idled production line and the financial fallout from the recall, Topps closed its 67-year-old business on Oct. 5, putting 87 employees out of work.

In late October, the USDA inspection service identified a now-defunct Canadian slaughterhouse, Rancher’s Beef Ltd. of Balzac, Alberta, as a likely source of the multistate E. coli outbreak linked to Topps.

Topps filed on Nov. 21 to liquidate in bankruptcy court, citing thousands of creditors and liabilities that far outstripped its assets.

At least three families have sued Topps, claiming relatives became ill from its hamburgers. With the company out of business, they are seeking shares of insurance payouts that could total $22 million.

“The problem with Topps is it seems they had really low, low frequency of testing their finished hamburger product,” which saved money, said William D. Marler of Seattle, a lawyer for two of the families. “Their testing protocol really was designed never to find E. coli; never to slow the process down.”

Marler examined the inspection documentation at the request of the AP and said many deficiencies should have been caught.

“This report clearly shows that their safety procedures and testing procedures were definitely below par and led to this outbreak and ultimately to their bankruptcy,” he said. “My point is, these things are so obvious, where was the inspector in July and August 2007?”

While acknowledging that inspections could have been better, the USDA’s Petersen said that after the Topps recalls, “we put in place some changes to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

The agency determined that its inspectors were properly trained, but has augmented training and data analysis as a result of the Topps case, Petersen said. For example, if a meat plant’s safety plan includes accepting only meat that has been tested, the inspectors have now been told to look for certificates for each lot that enters the plant, he said.

Petersen said he could not disclose if any discipline was taken against government inspectors who monitored Topps. Typically, one inspector would be at the plant for 60 to 90 minutes during each eight-hour production cycle, he said.

The scope of the recall also prompted the USDA , which had been criticized for dragging its feet , to move faster in encouraging recalls. The agency cannot issue recalls, although several lawmakers are proposing legislation in Congress that would give it that authority.

Marler said Petersen and others at the inspection service were working hard, but are hampered by an outdated meat safety system.

“It really shows how the inspection is relatively antiquated, because what these inspectors are looking for is a bacteria you can’t see, taste or smell,” Marler said.

The nation needs to do a better job of butchering animals and testing for E. coli at slaughterhouses, agreed Felicia Nestor, senior policy analyst at Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit consumer group in Washington.

Meat producers, meanwhile, maintain that the public interest is best served by a broad array of measures, and that last year’s rise in E. coli incidents was of great concern following a steady decline since 2001.

Topps is now winding down its bankruptcy. Its assets were sold Jan. 8 for more than $1.25 million, with all but $107,500 going to RBS Citizens Bank of Philadelphia, which had a secured claim because it had loaned Topps $14.5 million.

More than 5,000 other creditors, which include supermarkets and individuals who bought burgers, have unsecured claims of about $1 million. They could get a share of the $107,500, and eventually see more money through litigation by the court-appointed trustee for Topps.

Topps’ president, David Cohen, declined to speak about the company.

Its executive vice president, Anthony L. D’Urso, declined to comment when presented with the USDA inspection documents at his New Jersey home. He is a member of the family that ran Topps for about 60 years until Buffalo, N.Y.-based private equity firm Strategic Investments & Holdings bought a controlling interest in 2003.

Gary M. Brost, the president of Strategic Investments, said in an e-mail: “Counsel has advised us not to comment or discuss the Topps Meat Co. LLC meat recall since it has resulted in litigation.”

Meanwhile, the former Topps plant reopened in March as Onegreat Burger Co. after an affiliate of Hawthorne-based Premio Foods, a sausage maker, acquired the remainder of the Topps lease and its flash-freezing equipment for $250,000 during the bankruptcy proceedings.

“We’ve made it an entirely new state-of the art operation, focused on food safety and quality products,” Premio and Onegreat Burger President Marc Cinque said.

While D’Urso is a sales consultant, and a company associated with the D’Urso family is the landlord, Cinque said the plant has been refurbished with new manufacturing equipment and the 30 employees include no members of Topps management or ownership.

,,,

On the Net:

USDA: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/

Legal Defense Fund Moves to Stop Animal ID Program

I think NAIS is the perfect program for Big Agra, but not for anyone else. Why does the government want to track my chickens? Why hasn’t this Orwellian program been reported in the mainstream news?

Source: Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund.

Falls Church, Virginia, (May 15, 2008) — Attorneys for the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund today sent a Notice of Intent to Sue letter to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) over implementation of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), a plan to electronically track every livestock animal in the country.

The Notice asks the USDA and MDA to “immediately suspend the funding and implementation of NAIS,” and “fully and fairly examine” whether there is even a need for such a program.

Taaron Meikle, Fund president, said that contrary to USDA’s claim, NAIS will do nothing to protect the health of livestock and poultry. “At a time when food safety and costs are a concern, the USDA has spent over $118 million to promote a program that will burden everyone from pleasure horse owners to ranchers and small farmers to individuals who raise a few chickens or steers on their own land for their own use.”

Once fully implemented, the NAIS program would require every person who owns even one livestock or poultry animal (a single chicken or a pet pony) to register their property with the state and federal government, to tag each animal, and to report “events” to a database within 24 hours. Reportable events would include such things as a private sale, a state fair, or a horse show.

The Notice charges that USDA has never published rules regarding NAIS, in violation of the Federal Administrative Procedures Act; has never performed an Environmental Impact Statement or an Environmental Assessment as required by the National Environmental Policy Act; is in violation of the Regulatory Flexibility Act that requires them to analyze proposed rules for their impact on small entities and local governments; and violates religious freedoms guaranteed by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

“We also think there are constitutional issues at stake here,” Meikle noted. “The requirement to use electronic ear tags or RFID chips violates the religious beliefs of some farmers, such as the Amish, and provisions in a memorandum of understanding between the USDA and the MDA could violate the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution by requiring the state to stop and inspect vehicles carrying livestock without a warrant or probable cause.”

The MDA has implemented the first two stages of NAIS –property registration and animal identification – for all cattle and farmers across the state as part of its mandatory bovine tuberculosis disease control program, which is mandated by a grant from the USDA.

“While touted as a disease control program, the NAIS will drive many small farmers out of business” Meikle noted, “and burden every person who owns even one horse, chicken, cow, goat, sheep, pig, llama, alpaca, or other livestock animal with expensive and intrusive government regulations.”

Joe Golimbieski, a farmer from Standish, Michigan and Fund member, explains: “The cost of the tags is just the start. We’re at the mercy of whatever price the stockyards charge to do the tagging. And our farm doesn’t have extra employees to deal with paperwork. NAIS is likely to put us out of business.”

Gary Cox, General Counsel for the Fund, states that “USDA and MDA have exceeded their authority and they have completely failed to follow the proper procedures. We are calling on the agencies to immediately halt implementation of the program or face appropriate action.”

About The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund: The Fund’s mission is to defend the freedoms and to broaden the rights of sustainable farmers and their consumers to produce and consume local, nutrient-dense foods. Concerned citizens can support the Fund by joining at www.farmtoconsumer.org or by contacting the Fund at 703-208-FARM. The Fund’s sister organization, the Farm-to-Consumer Foundation (www.farmtoconsumerfoundation.org), works to support farmers engaged in sustainable farm stewardship and promote consumer access to local, nutrient-dense food.

Editor’s Note: The Notice of Intent to Sue the (USDA) and (MDA) is available at www.farmtoconsumer.org

Everything looks better when your head’s in the sand: The USDA stops tracking pesticide use

Source: Ethicurean.

When I was four, I ate my mother’s houseplant. (I claimed to have thought it was salad.) As any responsible mother would, she freaked out and called poison control. The friendly folks at the 800 number — who must get these kinds of calls all the time, poor guys — immediately asked her the two most important questions one could ask in this situation: “What kind?” (decorative fern) and “How much?” (the tips of several fronds.) Needless to say, I survived.

Those two basic questions — what kind and how much — are key when considering exposure to anything that could poison us, whether it’s houseplants or, say, pesticides. Indeed, since 1991, the USDA’s statistics arm has asked those same questions of agricultural producers across the nation in order to find out what kinds of pesticides are being used on U.S. crops and how much of them are applied. The results, published in the annual Agricultural Chemical Usage Reports, are the only reliable, national, publicly-available source of data on pesticide use. Want to know how much atrazine was used on corn in Ohio in 2004? The Chemical Use Database can tell you.

That is, it could. Until recently.

Last year, ostensibly because of budget cuts, the USDA scaled back the surveys to cover only a few crops. Then early this year, in a cryptic notice published deep in the Federal Register, the agency announced that all chemical-use surveys would be suspended until at least 2010. In other words, the government will no longer be keeping track of what kinds of pesticides are used on U.S. crops, nor how much.

That means that anyone wishing to know — scientists studying pesticide impacts, government researchers tracking the success of programs that help farmers reduce pesticide use, communities trying to figure out what the hell is in their water — won’t be able to access that information. It’s as if my mom had called poison control and the guy on the line had just laughed and said “Good luck!” (For more info on the history of the survey and the suspension, see this letter [pdf] sent Tuesday by 45 public-interest organizations to the USDA.)

I realize that the suspension of pesticide-use tracking sounds pretty wonky (though coming from me, what else is new?) and may not have you pounding on your keyboard with anger quite yet. So here are three concrete reasons why we should care:

Mounting evidence suggests that pesticides are really messing us up. And I mean really. We already know that pesticides have been linked to myriad health problems, including reproductive abnormalities, developmental delays, and autism. New research from India released last weekend suggests that the effects of pesticide exposure on farmers, farmworkers, and rural communities could be even more profound: Scientists found that some pesticides actually “significantly alter” the DNA of people exposed to them, making them much more prone to cancer than they would be otherwise. Similar research is currently being conducted in California’s Central Valley. To put it bluntly, then, the USDA has just eliminated our access to public data about the use of substances that may be altering the very structure of our DNA. There is other data out there, but it’s proprietary and so expensive that even the federal government has balked at buying it, according to the NGO letter cited above. Chemical companies purchase it — but something tells me they’re not gonna want to share, particularly not when a class-action lawsuit full of cancer victims comes a-knockin’.

Pesticides are killing bee populations, which are critical to a functioning food system. The German government’s Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety announced yesterday that it was revoking its approval of several pesticides produced by chem-giants Bayer and Syngenta based on tests that linked the toxics to widespread bee colony collapse. Hmm… haven’t we been having similar problems here in the U.S.? Now say you’re a scientist looking into the relationship between pesticide use and pollinator populations. You’d probably want data on pesticide use. Yeah — good luck with that.

Our nation’s pesticide body-burden may be growing fast, thanks to GM crops. We’ve all heard the claim that genetically-modified crops such as Monsanto’s Roundup Ready corn reduce pesticide use. (Today, roughly 60% of corn and 90% of soybeans grown in the United States are genetically modified.) Research suggests, however, that while pesticide use was lower on GM crops than non-GM for the first few years that these seeds were on the market, herbicide-resistant weeds have emerged on GM fields at alarming rates, requiring large increases in the amount of pesticides used on those fields.

How do we know this? Why, the USDA’s pesticide use database! How convenient for GM proponents that we won’t have access to that data anymore. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

I’m getting really, really tired of the Bush Administration’s attack on public access to information. From letting CAFOs out of reporting their air pollution to an attempt to prohibit the USDA from telling farmers about less-toxic pesticide alternatives (which, BTW, was not included in the final version of the Farm Bill, yay!), the Bushies seem intent on keeping us from knowing about many of the worst impacts of our food system. It goes without saying — but I’ll say it anyway: Without that knowledge, we’ll have a bear of a time holding anyone accountable for the unforeseen side effects of pesticides on the environment, workers, their children, and our own.

Something tells me that’s just the way they like it.

First photo courtesy of iStock photo; second by me, taken in California’s Central Valley.

Critical Pesticide Program Cut

By Annie Bell Muzaurieta, The Daily Green.

The USDA Is Eliminating a Program That Many Groups Rely on to Track Pesticide Use and Safety – but Why?

Every year the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) conducts research on pesticide use and risk associated with various crops, such as corn, soybeans, cotton, and wheat, and the body then releases its data files. That data is used by chemical groups, trade groups, public interest groups and government agencies to track pesticide use and safety, and several advocates say it is the only reliable, publicly searchable database of its kind.

In 2007, however, the USDA scaled back its data collection, and only gathered information on cotton, apples and organic apples. Now, the USDA has announced it will completely eliminate the program in 2008, due to budget cuts, and won’t be collecting any data.

This has many people concerned.

Letters to the secretary of agriculture have been signed by the various groups who rely on the USDA’s information, including public interest groups such as Greenpeace, NRDC, the Organic Center and the World Wildlife Fund, and industry groups such as Syngenta Crop Protection, Inc., Del Monte Foods and the American Soybean Association.

“It is almost unprecedented to have these diverse interests and stakeholders be on the same side of the issue, including the EPA and federal agencies,” said Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist with the NRDC.

It might seem obvious that public interest groups would want to track safety trends. But why would industry organizations be bothered that data is unavailable to the public? Charles Benbrook, a senior scientist with the Organic Center, says “Commodity organizations recognize that without the USDA data they are vulnerable to claims by a variety of parties about pesticide use in their crops.” The data also allows farmers to see if they are having issues with a certain pest for a given crop.

While the USDA is blaming budget cuts for the elimination, others aren’t so sure funding is the issue. Bill Freese, senior policy analyst with the Center for Food Safety, said, “It’s a really serious blow to efforts to improve the safety of our agriculture. The USDA claims it doesn’t have funding, but that’s no excuse. If you want to do it, you make it a priority and you get it done.”

Freese added that this is an even greater concern now because there has been an upsurge in recent years in pesticide use on genetically modified (GM) crops.
It is interesting to note the one big name conspicuously absent from the letters to the secretary of agriculture: Monsanto. The chemical giant produces Roundup Ready seeds, which are bred to be resistant to Monsanto’s Roundup herbicides, the active ingredient of which is Glyphosate.

Benbrook finds the USDA’s actions curious at a time when herbicide use on Roundup Ready crops has increased: “The 2007 data would have shown an enormous increase in the pounds of herbicides applied on Roundup Ready crops, especially soybeans. The farm media has been full of stories over the past few years of the problems farmers are facing as weeds become resistant to Glyphosate and other herbicides. I find it curious that at the time of peak interest and need for solid information on pesticide use in soybeans that the Department of Agriculture has decided to stop collecting the data. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some quiet lobbying done by Monsanto to let the program lapse.”

While it won’t be possible to go back and collect the data for 2007, Benbrook and others are hoping the USDA comes to its senses, and collects critical data on corn, soybeans, wheat and cotton for 2008.

U.S.: No Funds to Keep Up Pesticide Survey

Plenty of funds for a useless war, but none for these kinds of important programs.

Source: MSNBC.com.

Consumers and farmers will soon be on their own when it comes to finding out which pesticides are being sprayed on everything from corn to apples.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday it plans to do away with publishing its national survey tracking pesticide use, despite opposition from prominent scientists, the nation’s largest farming organizations and environmental groups.

“If you don’t know what’s being used, then you don’t know what to look for,” said Charles Benbrook, chief scientist at The Organic Center, a nonprofit in Enterprise, Ore. “In the absence of information, people can be lulled into thinking that there are no problems with the use of pesticides on food in this country.”

Since 1990, farmers and consumer advocates have relied on the agency’s detailed annual report to learn which states apply the most pesticides and where bug and weed killers are most heavily sprayed to help cotton, grapes and oranges grow.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also uses the fine-grained data when figuring out how chemicals should be regulated, and which pesticides pose the greatest risk to public health.

‘Not much that we can do’ Joe Reilly, an acting administrator at the National Agricultural Statistics Service, said the program was cut because the agency could no longer afford to spend the $8 million the survey sapped from its $160 million annual budget.

“Unless new funds are made available there’s not much that we can do,” Reilly said.

While the agency “hates eliminating any report that is actually needed out in the American public,” he said consumers could find similar data from private sources.

Still, only a handful of the major agricultural chemical companies spend the approximately $500,000 it costs to buy a full set of the privately collected data each year, according to a letter written by an advisory committee to the agency.

Report Slams U.S. Food Safety System

The FDA, USDA, and minions of other waste-of-money alphabet agencies are too busy persecuting Mennonite farmers and stealing their books to worry contaminated food from China and domestic CAFOs.

By Steven Reinberg, Washington Post:

The current system that guarantees the safety of food in the United States is in a state of crisis, a new report finds.

Gaps in the food safety system include out-of-date laws, poor use of resources, and inconsistencies among agencies protecting food safety, according to the reportFixing Food Safety: Protecting America’s Food From Farm-to-Fork, released Wednesday by Trust for America’s Health.

“One in four Americans are sickened by food-borne illness each year, that’s 76 million people,” Jeffrey Levi, executive director of Trust for America’s Health said during a morning teleconference Wednesday. “That number is far too high, and major gaps in our nation’s food safety system are to blame.”

“The major problem with the current food safety system is that no one person is in charge,” Levi said. “Instead, there are total of 15 federal agencies that play a role in administering some 30 laws related to food safety.”

The whole system needs to change from one that responds to threats as they happen to a more preventive system that tackles challenges before they arise, Levi said. At the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, food safety is on the back burner, he added.

According to the report, the U.S. food safety system has not been changed in more than 100 years. Most of the funds spent on food safety are spent on outdated practices of inspecting poultry, beef and pork carcasses, even though changing agricultural practices make this a waste of government money.

Levi noted that despite realizing that the food supply is vulnerable to a terrorist attack, the federal government has devoted very limited resources to the problem, despite a presidential directive and recent serious outbreaks of food-borne illnesses.

Not enough money is spent on fighting bacterial threats such as salmonella andE. coli. About 85 percent of food-borne illness outbreaks occur among foods regulated by the FDA. Yet, the agency gets less than half of all federal funding for food safety, Levi noted.

In the past three years, the FDA has cut back its food safety program by cutting its science staff by 20 percent and losing 600 food safety inspectors, according to the report.

However, on Wednesday, the FDA announced that over the next few months it will be hiring 1,300 biologists, chemists, medical officers, mathematical statisticians and investigators. However, how many of these new positions will be devoted to food safety isn’t clear, Levi said.

The report also criticized the number of federal agencies involved in food safety. For example, the FDA regulates frozen pizza, unless there is meat on it, in which case, it is regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Moreover, only 1 percent of imported food is inspected, even though about 60 percent of fresh fruits and vegetables and 75 percent of seafood is imported.

Recommendations to fix these problems include:

Start inspecting foods throughout the entire food production and processing chain.Enact procedures that will allow the inspection system to be updated as changes occur.Establish standard practices of authority for recall and penalties.Improve inspection of imported foods.Increase FDA funding to improve food safety.

Ultimately, Levi thinks a new federal agency should be responsible for all food safety.

“The goal should be to consolidate and align all federal food safety functions into a single agency, to increase effectiveness, responsibility and accountability,” Levi said. “The agency could then address the food supply as a whole and set priorities accordingly.”

“Some of the critique is right, but we differ with them on some of their recommendations,” said Patty Lovera, assistant director of the consumer watchdog group, Food & Water Watch. “There is a little too much optimism in the report.”

One of the problems is that the FDA has not been forthcoming on what it needs to improve food safety, Lovera said.

“The FDA keeps coming to Congress and saying they aren’t able to assess what they need,” she said. “They need to come up with a number about what it would take to improve oversight.”

In addition, the FDA has so far refused to release data about the extent of its food safety inspections, which has caused Food & Water Watch to sue the agency, Lovera said.

In another criticism of the nation’s food supply system, a report released Tuesday from the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health questioned current animal-rearing practices.

The reportPutting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in Americacalls for limiting use of drugs in animals destined for the food supply. The report also criticizes large feeding lots that bring together tens of thousands of animals and releasing large quantities of animal waste that contaminate water supplies and spread disease.

The report calls for phasing out these troubling animal farming practices over the next 10 years. Some of these practices include crating pregnant sows to prevent them from turning around, which restricts them from nursing, small cages for egg-laying hens, and force-feeding geese and ducks.

USDA Accused Of Bullying Inspectors Who Reported Safety Violations

By Meg Marco, Consumerist.com:

First the FAA makes their own inspectors cry in front of Congress and now the Associated Press says that the head of the federal inspectors’ union is alleging that the USDA told him to “drop the matter” when he reported food safety violations at slaughterhouses. When he refused, he was placed on “disciplinary investigative status.”

The head of the union that represents 6,000 federal food inspectors told a congressional committee Thursday that the Agriculture Department tried to intimidate him and other employees who reported violations of regulations, an allegation denied by the agency.Union chief Stan Painter said that following a mad cow disease scare in 2003, he told superiors that new food safety regulations for slaughtered cattle were not being uniformly enforced. Painter said he was told to drop the matter, and when he didn’t, was grilled by department officials and then placed on disciplinary investigative status.

Painter said he was eventually exonerated, but the incident “has caused a chilling effect on others within my bargaining unit to come forward and stand up when agency management is wrong.” He said that supervisors tell workers to “let the system work” rather than cite slaughterhouses for violations.

Maybe we’re not getting enough rest at night, but isn’t having “inspectors” that “inspect” the slaughterhouses…

Well, um, isn’t that part of the system? The enforcement part? No?

The USDA’s spokesperson says they looked into Painter’s allegations and found no evidence to substantiate them.

The spokesperson also said that the recent (notorious) failure to uncover animal abuse was “not because of a lack of inspectors, adding that he believes the agency has enough to do the job effectively.” We’re not sure, however, whether that statement to the AP was accompanied by a Nancy Nord-style wink.

Union head claims USDA tried to intimidate employees [AP]