Ch.5. Corporations in Agriculture

The USDA on Mad Cow: Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Raj — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 09:48:43 -0600

In case you missed it, here's the USDA's two-pronged approach to containing mad cow disease:

1. There are no mad cows.
2. Lalalaalalaalalalalaalala.

Although the nattering nabobs of negativity might suggest that, perhaps, it might be a good idea to verify claim #1, the USDA has recently had its Mad Cow Disease vindicated in federal court. Last week, a federal court sided with the USDA in a case involving a small-scale beef producer who wanted to test more than 1% of its livestock for BSE. The federal ruling is this: you aren't allowed to test for Mad Cow Disease unless the USDA lets you.

The argument turned on whether testing dead animals for Mad Cow disease might be considered a treatment. If it were a therapeutic treatment, it'd fall under the USDA's domain.

A federal judge had previously ruled that, since the cows were dead, it seemed clear enough that testing them from mad cow disease couldn't really be considered a treatment since, despite scientific progress, death remains fatal. ... read more »

Monsanto-Free Hormones

Raj — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:35:01 -0600

Some good-ish news from the world of agribusiness. Monsanto has reported that it's leaving the recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone business. The Ethicurean asks whether Monsanto's exit from the market might be because people are worried about the toxic effects of rBGH in their milk. Monsanto, however, insists that "This is really a great product… Business has been strong. Sales have been strong." So that's all cleared up then.

Start the Spray

Raj — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:27:46 -0600

A little while ago I hailed a popular victory against a NAFTA-compliance measure that would spray large parts of Northern California with a toxin that hadn't been tested on people before, to eliminate a threat that wasn't a threat at all.

Turns out I was a little premature.

From the Retort mailing list comes this update... ... read more »

Monsanto Raises Price of Seed by $100/bag during food crisis

Raj — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:14:01 -0600

The headline says it all, and the article gives the details.

What's curious for me, though, is the organisation that sponsored the research. On its 'about' page, the Organization for Competitive Markets advertises itself thus:

We are "pro- business" because we believe in free markets and the law of supply and demand to allocate resources properly. We are "conservative" because we view American values such as honesty and morality should be demanded of our businesses and politicians. We are "liberal" because we believe government has a regulatory role to create and enforce the rules of doing business, thereby avoiding crony capitalism. We are "populist" because we have determined our nation is made economically and culturally wealthy by preserving the ability of independent families to produce our food without fear of the economically dominant firms in agribusiness.

In other words, they think that capitalism would be great if it weren't for the capitalists. It's something that my libertarian readers might like to chew over and, if they're libertarian, agree with. Oo, and that reminds me, I know I owe Luddhunter a fuller response, and I'll try to get to that in a couple of weeks time (I'm married to a lapsed libertarian, and have a rehab system that I'm happy to share). Until then, though, I get to post my favourite libertarian joke, as told to me by the excellent Martin O'Neill:
Q: What's the difference between anarchism and libertarianism?
A: Under anarchism, poor people get to shoot back. ... read more »

Obesity Researchers Need to Understand Capitalism...

Raj — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 23:45:57 -0600

Yep, I've been a very delinquent blogger over the past week. Trying to work on the next book while keeping up with the developments in food politics this week has rather overwhelmed me.

While I figure out my time-management skills, here are a few gobbets of good things. First, via Marilyn, is a piece from SciDev, in which an epidemiologist points out the blindingly obvious to his peers:

To stem the spread of obesity, we must study the web of commercial interests and strategies driving it. ... read more »

Stop the Spray

Raj — Fri, 30 May 2008 22:03:45 -0600

My friend Patrick Wilkinson has put together a fine video about the upcoming spraying of large parts of California in the ongoing war on the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM, pronounced el-bam).

As Patrick's film suggests, there'd better be something mighty scary about this moth to warrant monthly aerial spraying over most of Northern California over the next five years.

So what's the danger? Will the moth summon forth the apocalypse? No. Is it the harbinger of some strange Africanized disease? Not even. Will it ravage California's agriculture? Kinda. But not actually by eating anything or laying anything or causing anything to be damaged.

The reason LBAM is a menace is, er, NAFTA. ... read more »

Monsanto's Harvest of Fear

Raj — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 07:17:17 -0600

We recently stumped up not-very-much money to subscribe to Vanity Fair, and it's a subscription we're likely to keep, especially now that we're practiced in ignoring the large wodge of adverts for cosmetics and high fashion that fill out the space between articles.

This month's issue is "The Green Issue". Again, ignoring Madonna on the front cover, there's some fine journalism to be found. In particular, there's a very good exposé of Monsanto's seedy practices. (An unintentional pun but worth keeping, I feel.)

Check it out here. ... read more »

Dying to Lose Weight

Raj — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 03:58:43 -0600

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A reporter at Bloomberg dropped a line with this story about diet pills in India. What with Indians ballooning (as we all are) there's something of a demand for weight-loss remedies.

The remedies that make sense (eat less, be a little more physically active, don't eat processed food, enjoy fresh food more) aren't terribly popular. Generating far more interest are the solutions that let you carry on eating unhealthily, but where you don't have to bother trying too hard. The chemical companies have been lining up to provide something like this, a magic regulator of free will that can help take the edge off our food cravings.

Through the cunning use of cannabis, specifically the discovery of how to switch off that part of the brain that makes you crave Mars bars when you're high, the drug giant Sanofi-Aventis has hit on a billion dollar weight-loss drug: Acompli. ... read more »

Going Bananas

Raj — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:03:55 -0600

America's going bananas, with two books on the subject out recently with almost, but not quite, identical titles: Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World by Dan Koeppel and Bananas!: How The United Fruit Company Shaped the World by Peter Chapman.

I ought not to opine without having read Koeppel's work, but the interview I heard with him on the radio hinted at a key difference between the two books, one that appears in titles. Dan Koeppel appears to care a little more about the taste and fate of the banana, with a narrative that portrays everyone's yellow source of potassium as the real victim of industrial monoculture. ... read more »

A Tax on Meat

Raj — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:32:06 -0600

Source

Eric Holt Gimenez over at Food First sent along this wee nugget from Grand Island, Nebraska.

It's a story about biofuels, based on a report from, er, the American Meat Institute, which ascribes the rise in the price of meat to biofuels. The estimates per animal are striking: "the costs [are] 53 cents per chicken; $3.40 per turkey; $38 per hog and $117.50 per fed beef animal." These are the costs associated with higher corn-feed for the animals, the price of which has been driven up by the US governments hare-brained biofuels schemes.

But statistics, like love, is a battlefield. ... read more »