Congress Reaps Pizza Harvest

Tuesday, by act of Congress, pizza was declared a vegetable. The Spending Bill before our elected officials contained an Agriculture Department provision recognizing that school kids are dangerously obese, and that subsidizing school lunches of frozen pizza and french fries is unwise and unhealthy. The Congressional response: a slice of pizza = a serving of vegetables.

The American Frozen Food Institute spent over $5 million convincing Congress to protect their juicy $11 billion annual school lunch harvest from the pestilence of nutritional common sense, and they prevailed. Result: kids will still eat government-subsidized carbs, fat, and salt, and Big Food will get fatter, too.

In other farm news, Monsanto announced that Roundup-Ready Pizza Seeds will be available in time for spring planting, and February pizza crop futures rose at the Chicago Board of Trade after predictions of  increased Super Bowl party demand.

Space Cucumbers

Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa has been lifted to the International Space Station by a Soyuz rocket. What will Dr. Furukawa do in outer space? Grow cucumbers. And maybe some tomatoes.

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine

Exploding Melons!

The melons of China are exploding. They’re not bursting with goodness, but with chemicals. Chinese farmers have been speeding the watermelon harvest by treating plants with a little too much Forchlorfenuron (FCF), a growth regulator.

Cat Poop and World Hunger

World food prices are rising at a frightening rate, resulting in uprisings, hunger and death. U.S. government policy diverts food into the nation’s gas tanks by subsidizing production of corn ethanol, and not enough American farmland is planted in corn to meet demand. Millions go hungry or starve, governments are destabilized, and world food prices continue to rise.

How does American industry respond?  It turns corn into kitty litter.

Beef Peepers!

A severe  homeland security threat endangers rural America: farm animal video stalkers. A bill introduced in the Iowa State Legislature by Representative Annette Sweeney would forbid taking videos of animals on farms or in abattoirs without permission of the property owners. Getting busted for a first video would be an aggravated misdemeanor; sequels would be Class “D” felonies.

Not to be outdone, Florida State Senator Jim Norman introduced a bill that would make it a first-degree felony to photograph a farm or domestic animal facility without written permission from the owner. No photos from the road, either, just like at any other high-security area. Senator Norman has predictably earned the scorn of reporters, photographers and treehuggers; even right-wing militia members pronounced him a “jackass” and Drovers CattleNetwork observed “When Cameras are Outlawed ….”

Be Inspired … By Pork

The National Pork Board has decided to use a slogan that transcends “The Other White Meat.” The agency’s new motto for swine flesh is “Pork: Be Inspired.”

This carnivorous creative concept comes via the muses of Chicago’s Schafer Condon Carter ad agency and Chicago, as Carl Sandburg reminds us, is “Hog butcher for the world.” Like all 21st Century inspirations, this one has a website.

The National Pork Board “is itself a bit of pork,” notes Tom Laskawy:

Fresh. Local. Sustainable. Walmart.

Walmart has announced a local food initiative, pledging to carry more locally grown fresh produce and seafood in its stores. The company plans to increase sales of locally grown produce to $1 billion worth of food from 1 million small and medium-sized farms by 2015.

Groceries account for more than half of Walmart’s business; many of these products are packaged, processed, and imported. There are 40 Walmart food distribution centers in the U.S.A. The company’s Heritage Agriculture program will double the amount of fresh, locally sourced food in Walmart stores, especially in the East coast’s I-95 corridor, the Delta region of the South, and the Mid-America region.

Virginia Is For Meat Lovers

Former Virginia hunters just got a postcard from the Commonwealth’s Department of Game and Inland Fisheries inviting them back to the woods to kill deer. Deer hunting season opens Saturday, and the Old Dominion’s forests, farmlands, highways, and suburban yards are chock-full of whitetails (Odocoileus virginianus). They’re pesky and hungry, but also tasty.

Attention locavores: the average deer yields 50 pounds of organic, free-range red meat. Vegetarian hunters can donate venison to needy meat-eaters at local food banks.

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine

Brave New Watermelon

They’re round and green, and open with a pop. They’re the experimental watermelons of the 21st century, “small hybrid triploid beauties with names like Precious Petite and Orchid Sweet,” writes Kim Severson in the New York Times.

Hopocalypse!

We warned you but you were too busy ranting about BP to listen. Now the plague is nearly upon us, a grasshopper infestation of epic proportions. The critters are poised to devour rangeland and crops in Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming, all across the American West. It will be the worst grasshopper outbreak in 30 years. Stockpile food now.

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine