There are a couple of reports worth nothing from the USDA FAS this morning:
Here is a report on China's citrus prospects: China’s MY 2008 citrus production is forecast at 21 MMT, up 10 percent from the revised MY 2007 figure, the result of favorable weather conditions throughout the major citrus producingareas during the crop development period. Orange production is forecast at six MMT in MY2008, up 10 percent from the previous year, as new plantings from a few years earlier have gradually reached full production. Production costs continue to rise in the wake of increased prices for inputs such as fertilizer, pesticides, electricity, fuel, water, and labor
Here is a link to the USDA FAS report on Mexican apples. From the summary:
Apple production for MY 2008/09 (August/July) is forecast at 540,000 MT, a 1.8 percent increase compared to MY 2007/08. Apple imports are forecast to decrease approximately five percent as a result of decreased demand and adverse exchange rates with the U.S. dollar. It is anticipated that the United States will remain the largest supplier of apples to Mexico. Pear production is forecast at 28,000 MT for MY 2008/09 (July/June), which is a marginal increase compared to MY 2007/08. Pear imp orts are forecast to decrease 4.7 percent due to lower demand and the depreciation of the Mexican Peso. Table grape production for MY 2008/09 (May/April) is forecast to decrease 3.8 percent compared to MY 2007/08 due to adverse weather conditions. Likewise, table grape imports are forecast to decrease roughly four percent due to decreased demand.
Safeway Inc. told investors Thursday that it will aggressively cut costs, lower prices and focus on improving its financial position in 2009.
"We are a very strong player in a very weak economy, and we think that creates a very strong opportunity to take (market share)," Steve Burd, the national grocery chain's chairman and chief executive officer, said during the company's annual investor meeting Thursday.
Traditionally, the mothers got nutrition counseling along with their food items, and they were advised to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables.
But until now, the program didn't cover those purchases, except for breastfeeding women -- who were allowed to buy carrots.
After Congress passed the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004, the U.S. Department of Agriculture was required to revise its list of allowed foods for the first time in 30 years.
According to documents the USDA supplied, the act attempted to comprehensively address food programs for kids ranging from school lunches to WIC. It pushed the programs to make the food healthier and more in line with current nutritional guidelines.
In December 2007, the USDA published a new provision for fresh foods that will trickle down to Michigan WIC users next fall.
"That is the best decision they could make. Not only offering fresh produce, but organic, is even better, especially with those families and children that need it most," said Jean Shepherd of Muskegon, 35 and pregnant.
Fresh Produce Consortium tackles salmonella risk in herbs
The FPC would update guidance and host a technical presentation, said communications manager Sian Thomas. Food poisoning outbreaks linked to ready-to-eat herbs were extremely rare in the UK, said researchers who found 0.5% of samples contained salmonella bacteria. The study was by the Health Protection Agency and the Local Authorities Co-ordinators of Regulatory Services, LACORS. The Fresh Produce Consortium responded that good...
Many media outlets, from the New York Times to the blogosphere, have tracked what's been dubbed the "corporate takeover" of organic farming. One of the hottest controversies in this rapidly growing $20 billion industry has been giant factory farms milking thousands of cows each in feedlots and masquerading as organic.
Since the organic community first appealed to the USDA for better clarification and enforcement of regulations requiring organic dairy producers to graze their cattle, nearly 9 years ago, the number of giant industrial dairy operations, with as many as 10,000 cows, has grown from two to approximately 15. Finally the USDA has responded with a proposed rule that they said would crack down on abuses.
The superlatives of the global economic meltdown of 2008 are, well, superlative. Professor Noriel Roubini of New York University says the current crisis is "the largest leveraged asset bubble and credit bubble in history." The International Monetary Fund says, "In advanced economies, output is forecast to contract on a full-year basis in 2009, the first such fall in the post-war period.
The percentage of people who are two months behind on their mortgages shot up in the third quarter from the same period last year, according to credit reporting agency TransUnion LLC.
For the quarter ended Sept. 30, 3.96 percent of people holding a mortgage were at least 60 days behind in payments, compared to 2.56 percent in the 2007 third quarter.
"It's nothing short of staggering," said Ezra Becker, principal consultant in TransUnion's financial services group. Becker noted the rate had hovered at about 2 percent for years, until the second quarter 2007, when it started climbing.
Moreover, the climb is not likely going to slow, he said.
"Our projections are that it's not only going to be increasing but it's increasing at a faster pace," he said.
Today, Schumer's staff will meet to explore how locally grown food can be cost-effective for farmers and school districts. School food directors from Bay Shore, Riverhead and Southampton will attend, along with representatives from the Long Island Farm Bureau, food broker companies and Stony Brook University Medical Center.
In papers filed this week in U.S. District Court, the Department of Homeland Security argued for an accelerated schedule that could allow a regulation known as the no-match rule to take effect by mid-January.
The rule, which the department first proposed in August 2007, would threaten businesses with prosecution unless they fired employees whose Social Security numbers differed from their listings in the Social Security database.
The rule has been held up by a lawsuit filed by the AFL-CIO, other unions and business groups led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Administration lawyers said in their filing that most issues in the case have been resolved and that further delays are unwarranted.
At a hearing Friday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer will consider whether to expedite the case or follow a more conventional schedule, under which a ruling would not come until at least March.
President-elect Barack Obama, who takes office Jan. 20, has not taken a position on the no-match rule. But Ana Avendano, director of the AFL-CIO's immigrant worker program, said Wednesday she is hopeful his approach will differ from Bush's.
Immigration would be one of Napolitano’s top priorities at DHS, and sources who know her say it’s also one of her areas of expertise. Napolitano signed a tough immigration law that revokes the business licenses of companies that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. And she opposes the Homeland Security Department’s plans to build hundreds of miles of new fencing along the Mexican border.
“You show me a 50-foot wall, and I’ll show you a 51-foot ladder,” she has repeatedly said.
Napolitano has criticized roundups of illegal immigrants by federal and state law enforcement, calling them “troublesome.”
But whether she could bring about big changes at the federal level is up for debate. Obama will face vocal opposition from Republicans, who want a more punitive approach to immigration.
The number of overweight children in the U.S. could be reduced by up to 18 percent through a fast food television ad ban, according to a paper by a Lehigh professor and a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
An article on the study, published in the Journal of Law and Economics, was written by Professor Shin-Yi Chou of the College of Business and Economics in collaboration with Professor Inas Rashad of Georgia State University and Professor Michael Grossman of the City University of New York Graduate Center.
The 18 percent refers to children ages 3 to 11 and obesity in children ages 12 to 18 could be reduced by 14 percent, according to the article. There is a higher risk in males than females, according to the article.
The researchers' goal is to try to completely ban fast food from all children's television programming, according to the article.
Talking with former FDA official Bob Buchanan of the University of Maryland today, I brought up the news that Manhattan, Kansas, was apparently selected as the home to the new site for the relocation of a federal animal health laboratory, known as the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility. "That's a sore subject," Buchanan said lightheartedly, noting researchers at Maryland put together what they thought was a very promising and unique bid to house the facility as well. The news is such from Manhattan, as noted by Doug Powell of the KSU Food Safety Network, that KSU President Jon Wefald said it "might very well be the most important thing that has every happened to Kansas State University in the history of the university." What about the Big 12 Championship in football, Jon.? That was tops for me...
It will take years to build the lab, but the hundreds of researchers at the $500 million facility will certainly help the Little Apple's economy in due time. And, unless I'm wrong, it's not the kind of place there will be an organic protest movement to challenge the plan.
From the purple pride of KSU, I turn to a new USDA FAS report which provides more coverage of purple tomatoes. From the report:
News of a home-grown biotech product that could deliver potential consumer health benefitshas been well-received in the UK. The UK has been at the forefront of primary research, funded by European and UK entities, to develop tomatoes with high levels of anthocyanins. These are deep red pigments with antioxidant capabilities thought to protect against a range of serious diseases. Recent surveys in Europe and the UK have shown that there is an increased understanding of the role that biotech crops could play in global food security.However, it is hoped that purple tomatoes and other “second generation” biotech products with tangible consumer benefits could encourage more consumers to accept GM. A UK research center has developed a biotech food product with potential consumer benefit. The John Innes Centre in Norwich, England2, has developed purple tomatoes high inbeneficial anthocyanins. The antioxidant properties of anthocyanins are thought to provide protection against a range of illnesses, including heart disease and cancer. In tests, cancer susceptible mice fed on a diet supplemented with high-anthocyanin tomatoes lived longer. Anthocyanin pigments occur naturally in blueberries, blackberries and blackcurrants, but regular tomatoes contain negligible amounts. Market research from TNS shows only 12 percent of the UK population meet the government target of 5 portions of fruit and vegetables per day. The purple tomato research is an exciting development as consumers are more likely to see and feel the benefit to using biotechnology in such food applications. The aim being used to enrich food products widely and frequently consumed to deliver additional health benefits.UK scientists worked in conjunction with peers from Italy, Germany and the Netherlands to produce high-anthocyanin tomatoes by inserting 2 genes from the snapdragon (Antirrhinum)plant into regular tomato plants. They also added promoter sections of DNA that give rise tohigh levels of anthocyanin pigments in the fruit, but allow plant leaves and stems to grow normally.The research was funded under the EU's Fifth and Sixth Framework Programs (FP5 and FP63), and by the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC4). It was published online in the journal Nature iotechnology on 26 October, 20085.
TK: The USDA analysis concluded that the positive buzz about the purple tomatoes may sway public about genetically modified food, but won't create a dramatic shift in what has been a cautious attitude about biotechnology.
