As the Associated Press reported recently, the school nutrition bill to be signed by President Obama today includes provisions giving the federal government authority to regulate (among much else) the frequency of school bake sales. Following a public furor, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack now says he has no intention of using the authority to do that — which may or may not signify much over the long term, since cabinet secretaries depart regularly and his successors will be free to revisit the issue. [ABC/KBOI, Kyle Wingfield/Atlanta Journal-Constitution] Local governments in places like New York City and even Iowa have lately been regulating or abolishing bake sales on nutritionist grounds. I joined Ray Dunaway on Hartford’s WTIC NewsTalk 1080 this morning to discuss the update.
Posts Tagged ‘agriculture and farming’
“If you got a potted plant, that makes you a farmer”
“Duel over sugar beet seeds could create shortage”
“Court decisions that have suspended the planting of genetically modified sugar beets could result in a sharp decline in American sugar production in the next two years, leading to possible price increases for consumers and food processors, according to experts and farmers.” A judge recently ordered crops uprooted after finding that the planting of genetically altered seed stock had not been accompanied by a proper environmental impact statement. [N.Y. Times, The Recorder, earlier]
For livestock and poultry producers, more lawsuits ahead?
As regulatory agencies go, the USDA’s Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration, or GIPSA, generally stays out of the limelight. But lawmakers and agriculture commentators are sounding the alarm about regulations proposed this summer that they say would open up extensive new liability among livestock and poultry producers for marketing violations. Raising murmurs in particular: the Obama administration’s head of GIPSA, J. Dudley Butler, is a Mississippi trial lawyer who had made a specialty in private practice of suing livestock producers. Sample criticism: Troy Marshall/Beef Magazine; Steve Kay/Beef Magazine; Derek Hunter/Daily Caller; Bob Barr/The Hill; Greg Conko/Open Market.
Federal sugar program safe because “it doesn’t cost anything”
Unless you’re a sugar buyer or user, at least [Sallie James, Cato-at-Liberty]
Shirley Sherrod and a Pigford puzzle
“If there are only 39,697 African-American farmers grand total in the entire country, then how can over 86,000 of them claim discrimination at the hands of the USDA? Where did the other 46,303 come from?” [Zombie, Pajamas Media; earlier here and here] More: Dave Zincavage has been checking Wikipedia (“virtually automatic” $50,000 payouts); and lawyers for Native American farmers and ranchers want in too.
$13 million settlement for USDA-er Shirley Sherrod’s group
The immediate controversy over Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s removal of Sherrod from her post is interesting enough — both the NAACP and many conservatives withdrew their initial support for Sherrod’s firing and began defending her as more context emerged — but perhaps the more durable story worth public attention is the background, which includes a $1 billion lawsuit discrimination settlement of which $13 million went to Sherrod’s advocacy group [Rural Development Leadership Network via Tom Blumer, Examiner, h/t reader Aaron W.; ten years ago] More: FoxNews.com.
EPA treats milk spills like oil spills
Sounds like a parody but isn’t; I explain at Cato at Liberty.
“The Charcuterie Underground”
Outlaw meats in Chicago [The Reader] And Katherine Mangu-Ward at Reason reports on the continuing legal travails of food trucks.
Changes in federal fisheries law
It’s being predicted that they’ll drive a lot of smaller operators out of business; I suppose the resemblance to CPSIA is just coincidental. [The Cape Codder]