Sounds much more complicated than just saying, “hold the potatoes and salt.” - Elena, Neon Tommy

“The proposed changes — the first in 15 years to the $11 billion school-lunch program — are meant to reduce rising childhood obesity, Agriculture Department officials say. Food companies including Coca-Cola, Del Monte Foods and the makers of frozen pizza and French fries have a huge stake in the new guidelines and many argue that it would raise the cost of meals and call for food that too many children just will not eat.

 With some nutrition experts rallying to the Obama administration’s side, the battle is shaping up as a contentious and complicated fight involving lawmakers from farm states and large low-income urban areas that rely on the program, which fed some 30 million children last year with free or subsidized meals. Food companies have spent more than $5.6 million so far lobbying against the proposed rules.”

Read on here

It seems a rare act of civic sacrifice: in the name of deficit reduction, lawmakers from both parties are calling for the end of a longstanding agricultural subsidy that puts about $5 billion a year in the pockets of their farmer constituents. Even major farm groups are accepting the move, saying that with farmers poised to reap bumper profits, they must do their part.

But in the same breath, the lawmakers and their farm lobby allies are seeking to send most of that money — under a new name — straight back to the same farmers, with most of the benefits going to large farms that grow commodity crops like corn, soybeans, wheat and cotton. In essence, lawmakers would replace one subsidy with a new one.

“We are very much aware of the budgetary constraints of the federal government,” said Garry Niemeyer, an Illinois farmer who is president of the National Corn Growers Association. “We want to do our part as corn growers to help resolve those issues, but we only want to do our proportional part. We don’t want to have everything taken out on us.”

But Vincent H. Smith, a professor of farm economics at Montana State University, called the maneuver a bait and switch.

Read on here

Cantaloupe. (Creative Commons)

“To reduce the risk of infection, the Food and Drug Administration warns consumers to keep their refrigerators set at or beneath 40 degrees Fahrenheit, clean their fridges often, and wash fresh produce.”

Read on here

And it continues. Interesting considering cantaloupes only have a shelf life of 2 weeks. If more people grow ill past this point, is it possible that ‘the source’ may not be the source of the listeria?

- Elena, Neon Tommy

@ClosetHippie

Khadija Musame, right, with a customer from Somalia at the New Roots Farm stand in San Diego.

With language and cultural hurdles, and the need to gain access to land, financing and marketing, farm ownership for refugees can be very difficult. Programs like New Roots, which provide training in soil, irrigation techniques and climate, “help refugees make the leap from community gardens to independent farms,” said Hugh Joseph, an assistant professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition at Tufts, which advises 28 “incubator” farms representing hundreds of small-scale producers.

Read on here

You may have heard that there’s a massive new ozone hole in the Arctic—the first time there’s been one there. Well, ThinkProgress has a good rundown (tag-teaming it seems with Jeff Masters from Weather Underground) on why its really potentially bad for food security, thanks to impacts on crop yields.

Left: Ozone in Earth’s stratosphere at an altitude of approximately 12 miles (20 kilometers) in mid-March 2011, near the peak of the 2011 Arctic ozone loss. Right: chlorine monoxide–the primary agent of chemical ozone destruction in the cold polar lower stratosphere–the same day and altitude. Image credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech.