After a week-long pause, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) allowed imports of Mexican avocados to resume on Saturday, replenishing US guacamole reserves exhausted by Super Bowl parties. Imports ceased after a Mexico-based avocado inspector from the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) was threatened by crime cartels anxious to pass off Jalisco ‘cados as Michoacán-grown, the only ones currently allowed into the States.
With $3 billion in annual avocado exports, Mexican crime cartels have targeted another US drug of choice, guacamole. Mexico’s avocado growers face cartel extortion and hijackings. The boom crop is also responsible for drought, deforestation, and violence.
While the US has agreed to begin importing avocados from additional Mexican states as their crops are declared pest-free, those harvests will never be crime free.
More:
“United States lifts Mexican avocado ban — averting what could have been a costly crisis,” By María Luisa Paúl, Washington Post
“How the Avocado Became Key to Mexican Drug Cartel Turf War,” Khaleda Rahman, Newsweek
“Smokey Bear, the U.S. Forest Service’s symbol of fire prevention, turns 75 on Friday. Smokey is the longest-running public service ad campaign, first appearing on a poster on Aug. 9, 1944.”
— “Careful With Those Birthday Candles, Smokey: Beloved Bear Turns 75,” Brian Naylor, NPR News
“People talk about food assistance programs as if they were created to help poor people out. Yes that’s true, but almost all of the major food assistance programs were ideas that came from agriculture because we had too much of something.”
Surprisingly, this CNBC video misses two songs named “Government Cheese,” one by Keb’ Mo’ and the first, a less sympathetic take by The Rainmakers:
“Food Will Win the War,” a Walt Disney Studios production for the USDA, 1942. Directed by Hamilton Luske, and narrated by Fred Shields. This WWII theatrical cartoon was for the home front, but Disney produced or contributed to hundreds of military training and propaganda films during World War II.
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On Monday, new Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue got right behind the plow to solve America’s most pressing food problem, the deadly plague of healthy school lunches. The Trump administration has decided that kids should eat the traditional salty slop of their obese, constipated seniors. Chocolate milk is back! Veggies? Gone. Whole grains? Gone. Take that, Michelle Obama!
Official USDA press release: “Ag Secretary Perdue Moves to Make School Meals Great Again.”
More:
“The Trump administration’s tone deaf move on school lunches,” Julia Belluz, Vox
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“New evidence also shows that drinking lots of milk doesn’t protect against bone fractures and may be linked to certain types of cancer. And all the good stuff in milk — calcium, potassium, and protein — can be found in greater amounts in foods like broccoli, kale, and black beans.
But these foods are at a disadvantage when it comes to competing against dairy. They don’t have trade groups giving millions to members of Congress and lobbying for influence over the nation’s nutrition policy.”
— “How big government helps big dairy sell milk,” Liz Scheltens and Gina Barton, Vox
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There’s a cheese glut in America. Cheese inventories are higher than they’re been in over 30 years, while families go hungry. Even a third of those on food stamps need to visit food banks.
The USDA is trying for a twofer by buying $20 million in surplus cheese — 11 million pounds — and distributing it to food banks. While you might question the wisdom of paying tax dollars to support corporate dairy operations, surely no one can object to the government helping food banks feed the hungry, right?
Based on these lofty principles, we’ve developed “Guidelines on How Americans Really Eat Now” (above). Add an RC Cola or a PBR and you have a complete family meal.
And food processing creates millions of jobs too, amiright? Pass the Doritos, bro.
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13 percent of Americans eat pizza each day (no, not the same 13 percent …). That’s a lot of people and lots of calories, saturated fat, and sodium, too.
And Uncle Sam helps. The USDA runs a “dairy checkoff program” though small assessments on milk sales to processors, raising hundreds of millions of dollars annually. The funds are turned over to Dairy Management, Inc. (DMI) to encourage public demand for dairy products. U.S. fluid milk consumption is down, but cheese eating is way up, and 25 percent of that cheese is melted on pizza. DMI has a partnership with Domino’s Pizza, America’s 2nd largest retailer of pizza-like objects, and paid Domino’s $35 million over the past 3 years to develop and market cheesier pies.
Read about it here:
“How the U.S. government spends millions to get people to eat more pizza,” Brad Plumer, Washington Post blog
“USDA reports on pizza consumption and on dairy checkoff program initiatives to increase pizza demand,” Park Wilde, US Food Policy blog
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