Agriculture

"The Secret Life Of California's World-Class Strawberries"

"May is the month we see strawberries explode in the market. There are strawberry festivals in every corner of the nation celebrating the juicy ruby beauties, and Strawberry Queens crowned galore. Those traditional harvest time festivals make us think our strawberries are mostly grown on the farm just down the road. But in fact, one state — California — supplies 80 percent of America's strawberries, and the percentage is growing."

Source: The Salt/NPR, 05/22/2012

"Raw Milk, and Raw Emotion, Go To Court"

"Melinda Olson has given her 12-year-old son raw milk for years. When he walked away virtually unscathed from a serious bike accident last year, she credited his healthy diet of raw milk dairy products. Matthew Caldwell fed his 2-year-old son, Owen, raw milk in the spring of 2010. The boy was hospitalized for 13 days, victim of an E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak traced to raw milk producer Mike Hartmann."

Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune, 05/22/2012

"Maryland Set To Ban Arsenic-Containing Drug in Chicken Feed"

Maryland is set to ban the arsenic-containing drug Roxarsone in chicken feed. Maryland is a major chicken producer, and that puts it ahead of most other states as well as the federal government. It is all the more remarkable, given that 'Big Chicken' is a major force in Maryland politics.

"At his family farm on Maryland's Eastern Shore, Lee Richardson raises thousands of chickens from fuzzy hatchlings to the juicy broilers stacked at grocery stores far and wide. Like a lot of farmwork, this seems simple, but it's not.

Source: Wash Post, 05/21/2012

"USDA To Test Beef for More Strains of E. Coli"

"On her 14th birthday, Kayla Boner got her driver's permit and then went home complaining of stomach-bug symptoms that landed her in the hospital two days later. Antibiotics didn't work. Kayla's condition deteriorated. Her kidneys failed. She had a seizure and went on a ventilator. Soon after, her brain activity ceased. Just 11 days after her symptoms surfaced, Kayla's distraught parents decided not to keep her on life support."

Source: Wash Post, 05/14/2012
May 16, 2012

Sustainability and Certification Impacts

To air the evidence that sustainability certification is achieving its goals, the Rainforest Alliance presents this daylong workshop in New York where leading executives, producers and sustainability experts from around the world will gather to share and contextualize current data on diverse impacts of the sustainability certification movement. Journalists and bloggers are invited to attend and cover.

Visibility: 

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - Agriculture