25 things about me and other top news

I have been "tagged" by a couple of friends on facebook to write "25 things about me," a "tagged you're it" exercise in self revelation I might have to work myself up to. Here is number one: The Fresh Talk blog has published 3,335 posts since its inception in 2006. One down, 24 to go.

Other big news of the day:

Tom Daschle's tax problems were related to taxes he had not previously paid for a car and driver provided by a big Democratic donor, a fact - as Jay Leno pointed out tonight - that seems especially ironic because of this early campaign ad from Daschle.





More headlines snatched from the Web:

Businesses fare better in Senate stimulus plan

Foreclosures dominate home sales More than half in California

Kroger calling customers who bought recalled foods

Supermarket groups urged to notify customers in event of recalls

Global firms buy out seed companies From The Monterey Herald
This week, GeneFresh Technologies, the company he founded in 2002, was acquired by Harris Moran, the Modesto-based arm of global seed giant Vilmorin & Cie, a French company which calls itself the world's largest independently owned seed company.

USDA tightens farm payments
In hopes of making it possible to enforce the law, Congress is expected to consider a bill to allow the USDA to access farmer's tax statements from the IRS.

Tesco's market share erodes slightly in UK

Potatoes, America's favorite vegetable From Idaho Potato Commission...
When asked to select their favorite vegetable, consumers picked potatoes (26%), corn (19%) and broccoli (17%).

Research: kids may not need vitamins

Sign up for pilot program begins Allows for program crop growers to plant veggies

Boxer vows cap and trade bill this year

On dining: let's be honest about local-organic-sustainable From Seattle PI
Please don't preach the local-organic-sustainable sermon, then turn around and sell duck from California, strawberries in the dead of winter or the ubiquitous mixed greens grown in Mexico. Most menus have an asterisk by those lofty claims, stating, "We'll serve local-organic-sustainable whenever it's possible" (and/or cost-efficient).

I think there's going to be a sea change as far as the whole local-organic-sustainable movement at restaurants is concerned. At least, I hope that change is coming. Chefs can be more upfront about their desire to put quality first, maybe calling their efforts "best practices fare."

Economist sees more dead banks walking Banks should be nationalized, say some

Federal officials to help with Salinas gang problem


Local or organic, which is more important From Washington Post, an opinion piece

Cold weather again in Florida

Radanovich: our water supply has been hijacked

From the office of Rep. George Radanovich, bringing it strong against the ESA:


Congressman George Radanovich (R-Mariposa) spoke today on the House floor regarding the devastating impact that the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is having on California agriculture, arguing that suspending the ESA would be an effective and cost free stimulus for the California economy. The following is a transcript of his speech:

“Last week I joined a bipartisan group of colleagues in opposing a recklessly wasteful economic ‘stimulus’ package that promised $32 billion to my home state of California, currently suffering from 9.3 percent unemployment.

“California doesn’t need $32 billion of superfluous spending to ‘stimulate’ the economy. Our state water supply has been hijacked by the radically irresponsible Endangered Species Act. We don’t need to spend a dime of the taxpayers money—a simple flip of a switch at the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta pumps would save 40,000 jobs and rescue a $90 billion industry from the brink of disaster.

“Instead, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle seem more interested in spending money like drunken sailors, and watch the ESA, literally dehydrate one of America’s most prosperous industries. Every one of my colleagues from California has no excuse not to join with me in calling for a temporary suspension of the ESA to immediately start the flow of water from the Delta Pumps.”

Bruce Springsteen's shoutout and the state of avocados

Talked to a SoCal avocado grower/shipper who smiled at the shout out from Bruce Springsteen at the Super Bowl, "Step away from the guacamole" Some other observations:

This season's California avocado crop is fairly light - about two thirds of a crop
Mexico is about 40% to 50% finished , but still has a lot to go through June
With Mexico supply at about 20 million pounds a week, California growers may not get the premium they want. "It's a different market out there these days."

Reaction from the CAC meeting in Fallbrook
Commission Chairman Rick Shade won praise for his handling of the meeting and fielding questions from growers, taking heat for all current and former commissioners. "It's our fault - we have nobody to blame but ourselves," the source said.
"The major stakeholders really know what went on, they know Mark, they know the culture up there at the avocado commission and understand it completely. We are all outraged. At least those larger packers and growers understood the situation - didn't like it - but understood it."

How damaged is the commission staff?
The grower shipper had strong words of praise for Jan DeLyser and expressed hope she would stay with the commission. "She is a first class lady, we've got good staff up there and we need to make sure we make the corrections, we answer the CDFA, we make those changes and this doesn't happen again, and we move forward promoting California avocados." Tom Bellamore also is highly regarded, the grower-shipper said.


The CAC will have a planning session in April, and the source said the group will look at how to reorganize. "We are no longer 75% of the market; we may be a third of the market in the future, what kind of structure, what kind of model is that?"

One question being asked: should the commission be all growers and no packers?

I asked if there is/will be peace with Mexico...
The source said Rick has gone out of his way to reach out to importers of Mexican and Chilean avocados. There is some discussion of getting merchandisers of various groups to work together.

The bar also may be raised for the Hass Avocado Board. HAB may have new responsibilities in generic promotions.

Thursday oversight hearing - Senate Agriculture Committee

Next couple of weeks should be a time to take measure of legislative efforts to reform food safety. Senate Ag this week, House Energy and Commerce next week. From the office of Sen. Tom Harkin:

Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, today announced the list of witnesses who will testify during a hearing “Examination of Federal Food Safety Oversight in the Wake of Peanut Products Recall.” The committee will meet in open session at 10:00 AM on Thursday, February 5, 2009 in Room 216 of the Hart Senate Office Building.

Witnesses for the proceeding will include:

Panel I

Dr. Stephen Sundlof, Director, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Rockville, MD

Dr. Ali S. Khan, Assistant Surgeon General and Deputy Director of the National Center for Zoonotic, Vector-borne, and Enteric Diseases, Center for Disease Control, Atlanta, GA

Panel II

Ms. Gabrielle Meunier, Mother of affected child, South Burlington, VT

Ms. Caroline Smith DeWaal, Director, Program on Food Safety, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Washington, DC

Mr. William Hubbard, Former Senior Associate Commissioner for Policy, Planning and Legislation, Food and Drug Administration, Chapel Hill, NC

CSPI: Use retail loyalty cards for food recalls

Retailers should use loyalty cards to alert customers to food recalls. One journalist asked a valid question, akin to the thought "No good deed goes unpunished." The question: would doing so increase a retailer's liability and increase likelihood of a lawsuit? CSPI says no. Packer coverage coming....

From the Center for Science in the Public Interest:


Besides helping consumers save a little money on their grocery purchases, retail loyalty card programs help supermarket and drugstore chains assemble gigantic databases on the shopping preferences of their customers. The nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest is urging retailers that collect this kind of information to use it to notify consumers when they purchased tainted peanut-butter products or other items subject to a food safety recall.

Costco, which requires a membership, and Wegmans Food Markets and Price Chopper, which run bonus card programs, have all used their data to notify consumers who purchased recalled items. In fact, Costco made over 1.5 million automated phone calls and mailed even more letters to customers in the current recall alone. But most chains, including CVS, Food Lion and Safeway, that collect purchasing data do not notify their customers.

"Supermarkets enjoy using purchasing data for marketing purposes," said CSPI staff attorney Sarah Klein. "We're calling on supermarkets to also use that information to protect their customers' health by alerting them to identify and return tainted foods. Several major chains are already doing that, and every other chain should do the same."

In a letter to retailers that use bonus cards, CSPI said that the companies have a responsibility to assist their customers in returning contaminated foods. The current outbreak due to Salmonella-tainted peanut-butter products, which have killed eight and sickened well over 500 people, makes a compelling case for a bonus-card recall notification system, the group says. Peanut butter is an inexpensive ingredient used in thousands of products, and peanut butter's long shelf life means many such products might linger on supermarket shelves and in kitchen cupboards for many weeks or months. The Food and Drug Administration's list of recalled peanut products has grown to nearly 900.

"Peanut butter is obviously popular with children, including very young children who are particularly at risk of serious complications or death if they contract a foodborne Salmonella infection,"said Klein. "It would be outrageous if some of the deaths in this latest outbreak could have been prevented had a supermarket just used the phone numbers and addresses in its database to notify its customers."

Of those sickened in the current Salmonella outbreak, 20 percent are under age five and 50 percent are younger than 16. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 76 million people are hospitalized each year due to foodborne illnesses and 5,000 die.

"It's not enough just to take the tainted products off the supermarket shelf," Klein said. "Wherever possible, supermarkets should reach out to their customers and help get contaminated food products out of their home.

Sasha's peanut butter other top headlines

The widening peanut butter recall continues to grab headlines, and the scope of it has caught the attention of President Obama. Look for more news today about what one consumer group wants retailers to do in the context of the recall.....

Obama: FDA too slow in tracking tainted food From AP

Concerned about a salmonella outbreak involving peanut products that has sickened 550 people and is blamed for at least eight deaths, Obama says he wants to review how the Food and Drug Administration operates."I think that the FDA has not been able to catch some of these things as quickly as I expect them to," Obama said in an interview aired Monday on NBC's "Today" show.The president said Americans should be able to rely on the government to keep children safe when they eat peanut butter and that includes his 7-year-old daughter Sasha."That's what Sasha eats for lunch probably three times a week. And you know, I don't want to have to worry about whether she's going to get sick as a consequence to having her lunch," Obama said.

Firm tied to salmonella ran unlicensed Texas plant From AP
Once inspectors learned about the Texas plant, they found no sign of salmonella there. But new details about that plant — including how it could have operated unlicensed for nearly four years — raise questions about the adequacy of government efforts to keep the nation's food supply safe. Texas is among states where the FDA relies on state inspectors to oversee food safety.

EU consumers and traffic light labeling on food USDA FAS report
A Pan-European consumer study reveals that color-coded nutrition labeling schemes (also known as traffic light schemes) have the tendency to be misleading. Particularly red signals are often misunderstood as "Avoid eating the product". The German food processing industry strongly opposes color coded labeling schemes.

Rise of generation O From Australiaand The Canberra Times

The Federal Government's Obesity Working Group, which is due to report its recommendations to the National Preventative Health Taskforce in June, admits no country has yet been successful in reversing the trend of rising levels of overweight and obese people.

Buying local isn't always better for the environment From Science Daily

Shopping locally may not be as good for the environment as having food delivered, according to new research by the University of Exeter.Published in the journal Food Policy, the study shows that, on average, lower carbon emissions result from delivering a vegetable box than making a trip to a local farm shop.

Organic growers call for more fertilizer oversight From Mercury News
William H. Bent, a USDA compliance officer, wrote in a July 2007 letter to CDFA organic program manager Ray Green that the USDA had received complaints that Green's program had long-standing knowledge that California Liquid's product contained ingredients that couldn't be used on organic farms "but failed to act appropriately to enforce the organic rules and penalize the cheaters."


House bill would boost FDA power From Pork

As introduced, the legislation would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration stronger investigative powers. The bill, H.R. 758, is called the FDA Globalization Act and was introduced to the House last week. It would require that foreign factories producing drugs and medical devices be inspected at least every two years, which is the standard for companies producing such goods in the United States.

New fees on imports would help pay for the enhanced inspection requirements. The bill also would allow FDA officials to impose larger fines on companies for faulty imported and domestic products.

Judge cancels Whole Foods hearing Denver Post

Whole Foods Market Inc. and the Federal Trade Commission were granted a joint request to cancel hearings set for this month on possible antitrust remedies to the grocer's $565 million acquisition of Wild Oats Markets Inc., which was based in Boulder.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington, D.C., vacated the hearings set for Feb. 17 and Feb. 18 at the request of both parties. No reason or other details were provided.

Growers on notice in NJ From Press of Atlantic City:relating to pesticide fines

Immigration effect?: gangs responsible for up to 80% of crimes USA Today

Davidson County, Tenn., Sheriff Daron Hall, whose jurisdiction includes Nashville, says MS-13 started growing there about five years ago, corresponding with an influx of immigrant labor.

Last April, county officials began checking the immigration status of all arrestees. "We know we have removed about 100 gang members, including MS-13," to U.S. authorities for deportation, Hall says.

China announces principles for halting unrest Washington Post

There are now nearly 20 million unemployed migrant workers, or 15.3 percent of the total 130 million migrant worker population, Chen said. They are competing with the 6 million who enter the migrant worker job market each year, according to figures from a Ministry of Agriculture survey of 150 villages in 15 provinces conducted before the Lunar New Year last week, when most migrant workers return home from cities for the holiday.

Dole: Results for 2008