Fresh Produce Discussion Blog

Created by The Packer's National Editor Tom Karst

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Farm Bureau Kicks Off 2015 Photo Contest




WASHINGTON, D.C., May 13, 2015 – The American Farm Bureau Federation, in conjunction with the American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture, has announced the 2015 Farm Bureau Photo Contest. The contest is open to all state and county Farm Bureau members and staff above 18 years of age at the time of entry, including professional photographers.

Photo submissions will be used to accurately portray today’s agriculture and the safe practices of farmers and ranchers, and also for future publications, promotions and social media by AFBF and related companies. All photos submitted must exemplify safe practices on the farm or ranch.

The contest will run May 15, 2015, through March 31, 2016. Photos may be entered in four categories: Farm Families, Farm Labor, Technology and Consumer Outreach. Monetary prizes will be awarded to the top three placing photos from each category. First place winners will be awarded $150, second place $100 and third place $75.

Judges will also select a “Best in Show” winner for the most dynamic photo entered across all categories as well as two runners-up. The Best in Show winner will receive $400, with first runner-up and second runner-up receiving $300 and $200, respectively.

“The timeframe for this competition opens up vast possibilities for members interested in capturing farm and ranch photos throughout the four seasons,” said Kim Baker, AFBF’s assistant director, creative services. “We look forward to seeing a bumper crop of diverse submissions from photographers around the country for this contest.”

Contest winners will be announced April 15, 2016, on Farm Bureau’s social media platforms and website.

For more information on how to register and to view the contest rules and regulations, visit the 2015 Farm Bureau Photo Contest webpage at http://photocontest.fb.org. Questions about the contest may be sent via email to photocontest@fb.org.

WHAT’S THE BEST BURGER IN THE COUNTRY? RANKER RELEASES RESULTS OF BEST FAST FOOD BURGER POLL BASED ON 42,000 VOTES



In-N-Out Double Double and Five Guys Hamburger Top Poll
Millennials Prefer Wendy’s Baconator
West Coasters More Partial to In-N-Out & Fatburger
Five Guys and Wendy’s Earn 2 Spots Each in Top 10

Los Angeles, CA – May 13, 2015 – When you’re under a time crunch or just hungry, there’s nothing better than a fast food burger. With burger sales in 2014 increasing to nine billion served (NPD Group, 2015), people are consuming one of the most iconic foods in record numbers. In honor of National Burger Month (May), Ranker.com, the #1 online destination for crowdsourced rankings of everything, today released the results of its public poll asking voters to rank The Best Fast Food Burgers to determine which ones are a cut above the rest.

The poll, which closed voting on May 11, included 46 burgers for consumers to rank.
The Top 10 as determined by over to 42,000 votes are as follows:

1. In-N-Out Double Double
2. Five Guys Hamburger
3. Five Guys Bacon Cheeseburger
4. Whataburger Original Whataburger
5. Burger King Whopper
6. Wendy’s Baconator
7. Fuddruckers The Original Fudds
8. Wendy’s ¼ LB Single
9. Steak ‘n Shake Double ‘n Cheese Steakburger
10. Fatburger Burger

Full Poll Results

While In-N-Out, Five Guys and Wendy’s dominated the Top 10 overall, Ranker’s poll also reveals:

• Men’s top choice is Five Guys Hamburger and also voted the Burger King Whopper in their Top 3.
• Women chose the In-N-Out Double Double as their top choice and also ranked the Wendy’s Baconator in their Top 3.
• Millennials #1 choice was the Wendy’s Baconator. They were the only group to also vote the McDonald’s Quarter Pounder with Cheese and the McDonald’s Big Mac in their Top 5.
• While the In-N-Out Double Double was #1 for West Coasters, Fatburger’s Burger and Carl’s Jr. Western Bacon Cheeseburger followed close behind.
• Midwesterners #1 choice was Culvers Butter Burger.
• Southerners top pick was the Whataburger Original.
• Northeasterners voted Five Guys Hamburger #1 and also voted White Castle Sliders in their top 3.

About Ranker:
Ranker.com is a crowdsourced destination where consumers view, rank, and vote on broad opinion-based Rankings ranging from “The Best Board Games” to “The Best Movies of All Time” to “The Best Inexpensive Cars". While lists and opinions are all over the web, Ranker’s technology is based on user engagement, turning these lists into the “best possible rankings” based on the wisdom of crowds.

Ranker, a Quantcast Top 200 site, attracts over 19 million monthly unique visitors, and over half a million people a month vote on various lists on the site. As a result Ranker has one of the world’s largest databases of opinions with more than 100 million votes gathered on 50,000 items. For more information visit www.Ranker.com and follow Ranker on Twitter and Facebook.

Extreme bee losses highlight urgent need to restrict pesticides to protect pollinators



WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today the Bee Informed Partnership, in collaboration with the Apiary Inspectors of America and the United States Department of Agriculture, released its annual report on honey bee losses in the United States based on a national survey of beekeepers. Most significantly, beekeepers reported losing 42.1 percent of the total number of colonies managed over the last year (total annual loss, between April 2014 and April 2015). This represents the second highest annual loss recorded to date.

Preliminary results indicate that during the winter of 2014-2015 U.S. beekeepers lost 23.1 percent of their hives on average, which is lower than average losses in recent years, but considered too high to be sustainable. U.S. beekeepers lost an average of 27.4 percent of their hives in the summer of 2014 (April-October), which is higher than 2013 summer losses.

A large and growing body of science has attributed alarming bee declines in recent years to several key factors, including exposure to the world’s most widely used class of insecticides, neonicotinoids. In 2013, the European Union banned the three most widely used neonicotinoids based on the weight of scientific evidence indicating that these pesticides can kill bees outright and make them more vulnerable to pests, pathogens and other stressors. However, these pesticides are still widely used in the U.S. despite massive bee losses that threaten vital food crops, from almonds in California to apples in Washington.

Tiffany Finck-Haynes, food futures campaigner with Friends of the Earth, said “These dire honey bee numbers add to the consistent pattern of unsustainable bee losses in recent years that threatens our food system. The science is clear -- we must take action now to protect these essential pollinators from bee-toxic pesticides.”

More than 4 million Americans have signed petitions to the Obama administration demanding immediate restrictions on systemic neonicotinoid pesticides linked to bee declines. The White House Task Force on Pollinator Health is expected to release a plan for bee protection in the near future. This plan is required by a Presidential Memorandum, issued by President Obama in June 2014, which called for a federal strategy to protect pollinators and called on the EPA to assess the effect of pesticides, including neonicotinoids, on bees and other pollinators within 180 days.

On April 2, the EPA announced a moratorium on new or expanded uses of neonicotinoids while it evaluates the risks posed to pollinators. In October, 2014, the Council on Environmental Quality issued guidance for federal facilities and federal lands which included acquiring seeds and plants from nurseries that do not treat these items with systemic insecticides.

In response to a campaign by Friends of the Earth and allies, more than twenty garden stores, nurseries, and landscaping companies, including Lowe’s (NYSE: LOW) and Home Depot (NYSE: HD), the two largest home improvement retailers in the world, BJ’s Wholesale Club and Whole Foods (NASDAQ: WFM)  have taken steps to restrict neonicotinoids in their stores.

Last April, Friends of the Earth released a report, “Follow the Honey: 7 ways pesticide companies are spinning the bee crisis to protect profits,” which documents the deceptive PR tactics used by agrochemical companies including Germany-based Bayer (DE: BAYN), Switzerland-based Syngenta (NYSE: SYT) and U.S.-based Monsanto (NYSE: MON), to deflect blame from their products’ contributions to bee declines and delay regulatory action on neonicotinoid pesticides.

“Bayer, Syngenta and Monsanto make billions from bee-killing pesticide products while masquerading as champions of bee health,” Finck-Haynes said. “Are their profits more important than our food supply? Are they more important than the livelihoods of America’s farmers? The Obama administration must act now to restrict neonicotinoid pesticides that threaten America’s bees, farmers and food security.”

A recent study by Newcastle University recommends that reducing pesticide use “may be the only certain” way to halt bee and pollinator decline. A study by Oxford University researchers came to a similar conclusion, documenting that organic agriculture supports 50 percent more pollinator and bee species compared with conventional, pesticide heavy agriculture.

“The solution to the bee crisis is to shift to sustainable agriculture systems that are not dependent on monoculture crops saturated in pesticides. It’s time to reimagine the way we farm in the United States and incentivize organic agriculture practices that are better for bees and for all of us,” Finck-Haynes said.

DeLauro, Slaughter Introduce Legislation to Strengthen USDA’s Power to Protect Public Health



WASHINGTON, DC –Congresswomen Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Louise M. Slaughter (D-NY), two of the leading food safety advocates in Congress, today reintroduced the Pathogen Reduction and Testing Reform Act, which would strengthen the ability of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to keep Americans safe from contaminated meat, poultry, and eggs. Currently, the USDA will only issue a recall if a meat, poultry, or egg product is considered “adulterated,” which is ambiguously defined in current law. Because of that ambiguity, USDA claims they do not have the authority to issue recalls for meat, poultry, or egg products.

Although DeLauro and Slaughter strenuously object to USDA’s interpretation of the law, they are reintroducing their bill to ensure American families are protected. The legislation would require USDA to recall any meat, poultry, or egg product contaminated by pathogens associated with serious illness or death or that are resistant to two or more critically important antibiotics for human medicine.

“The USDA has failed to recall meat contaminated with antibiotic-resistant pathogens because they do not believe they have the legal authority to do so. This bill would ensure there is no confusion,” said DeLauro and Slaughter. “We urge Congress to pass this legislation before more Americans are sickened by contaminated meat, poultry, or egg products. We need federal agencies that will protect public health, not bend to the threats of deep-pocketed food producers seeking to escape regulation, or choose inaction due to the fear of lawsuits.”

DeLauro and Slaughter first introduced their legislation on the heels of an outbreak of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella Heidelberg. The outbreak, which lasted for 10 months and sickened 634 people, was traced back to chicken produced by Foster Farms.

“USDA should ensure that all the food that reaches our plates is safe from harmful pathogens, yet all too often, FSIS is hamstrung because it lacks the statutory authority to protect public health,” said Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter. “This sad fact was even revealed in a recent Oregonian exposé that revealed that FSIS was unable to take action against a major poultry processor that was eventually implicated in four separate food borne illness outbreaks dating back to 2004 that sickened hundreds of people. This bill will prevent these unacceptable food safety problems from arising in the first place.”

“USDA should take swift action whenever any meat and poultry is contaminated with a dangerous pathogen,” said Chris Waldrop, director of the Food Policy Institute at Consumer Federation of America. “This important legislation provides USDA with clear authority to protect consumers.”

“It’s time to stop treating Salmonella, particularly antibiotic resistant Salmonella, as just a natural part of meat and poultry.  This legislation does away with the outdated notion that it’s okay for food companies to sell us food that’s contaminated with dangerous bacteria,” said David Plunkett, Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

DeLauro is a former Chairwoman of the Subcommittee that funds USDA. Slaughter, the only microbiologist in Congress, is the author of the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA), which would ban the routine overuse of eight critical classes of antibiotics on healthy food animals.