In a little while

Robert Guenther of United Fresh Produce Association reports that a meeting with House Agriculture Committee Chair Peterson today revealed that Peterson expects to latch on to a budget figure for the farm bill (in consultation with the White House and the Senate) within a day or two. After that, the House will appoint the members of its conference committee and full scale work on hashing out the farm bill will begin. He noted that some in the House would like to see a 10 year farm bill for budget purposes, but interests in the Senate may not agree.

In any case, Guenther notes United wants as much mandatory funding for industry priorities as possible. As it stands now, the House farm bill funded specialty crop industry priorities at about $1.7 billion and the Senate provided about $2.2 billion. From the reports about today's meeting between Peterson and about 75 Washington based lobbyists, the farm bill still has a fighting chance to be completed by Easter.

Fresh blueberry per capita

More from the USDA ERS report on blueberries, found here.

Where's the beef? Retailer names wanted

One upshot of the disturbing video of downer cattle being stuck with electric prods and raised on forklifts is the renewed demand from consumer groups that the FDA release the names of retailers who sold the beef now being recalled. That demand will also be in play in the event of another recall linked to fresh produce items. Here is a link to a story that brings up the issue:

From the Newsday story:

A major question posed yesterday is where's the beef? USDA is not required to list the names of retail outlets when tainted products are recalled."We don't know if any retailers in the New York area were shipped this product and we think that USDA should disclose it and they should disclose it right now," said Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives at Consumers Union in Yonkers, publishers of Consumer Reports.Consumers Union, along with other advocacy organizations, pressed for change in USDA guidelines two years ago, asking that retailers be identified to help protect public health. Although the disclosure rule was approved, it has not been finalized, Halloran said.


TK: Here is more coverage of the issue from "The Daily Green." As much as the retail community may not like it, full disclosure of where recalled product was sold seems reasonable. Writes one reader to The Daily Green:

How can the USDA call this a recall when consumers don't know if they even bought the product? How can they can the USDA call this a recall when they won't disclose what stores and restaurants sold/served this meat?How can they recall meat this was consumed 4-24 months ago? How is this is not a big joke? It's starting to even fail the "Symbolic Recall" test!(Think about any other "Recall" - you get exact product#s and often where they were sold. This doesn't have it, making it "Not a Recall".

Taco John' s investigation posted

Sebastian Cianci of the U.S. FDA alerted me to a link to The California Food Emergency Response Team's Feb. 15 report on the investigation of the Taco John's E. coli outbreak associated with iceberg lettuce. The 41 page pdf report looks closely at the data suggesting microbial cross contamination between dairy operations and nearby lettuce fields linked to the outbreak. Some of the data in the report is redacted.

Tangled up in blue

The USDA Economic Research issued this report on the U.S. blueberry industry.