U.S. House bill would prevent mandatory GMO labeling. Ag Minute for July 27, 2015

The bill scheduled for a vote Thursday is backed by the food industry, which has fought state labeling efforts around the country. So far, Vermont is the only state set to require the labels. Click here for full story.

Study predicts Ag jobs available, not enough graduates to fill them - AgMinute for May 13, 2015

The USDA study predicts nearly 58,000 job openings annually through 2020 in food, agriculture, natural resources and environmental fields – and not nearly enough college graduates to fill them. For more information visit www.capitalpress.com

EU approves more GM food as controversy simmers - AgMinute for April 29, 2015

The EU’s executive commission said Friday that it has approved 10 GM foods and two types of GM flowers. Click here for the full story

Consumers buying more organic products, new data show - AgMinute for April 16, 2015

Organics now make up 5 percent of total food sales in the United States, but much of the growth is also in nonfood items like textiles and personal care items. Click here for the full story

GM food labeling memorial passes House committee - AgMinute for February 27, 2015

A joint memorial from the Idaho Legislature to Congress urging the federal government to create a national policy for the labeling of genetically engineered foods has passed a House committee. For more information visit www.capitalpress.com

Farm groups hope for clearer food safety regs - AgMinute for December 25, 2014

Food safety rules leave some farm sectors with questions about on-farm processing. Click here for the full story

Amy’s Kitchen factory bodes well for Idaho organic ag - AgMinute for October 30, 2014

The arrival of a large manufacturer of organic convenience food in Pocatello, Idaho, could lead to considerable growth in the state's organic agriculture industry. Click here for the full story

Celebrate the onion — AgMinute for July 16, 2013

The Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onion Festival returns this year after a seven-year absence. It will be held Aug. 3 during the Malheur County Fair and include cooking contests, tasting demonstrations and an onion dressing competition.

Read about how farmers are confronting controversy over biotechnology in "Surviving a Biotech Backlash," available at http://bit.ly/BiotechBacklash

Aid anger — AgMinute for May 17, 2013

U.S. farm groups are alarmed by the president's proposal to eliminate the country's international food aid program, which purchases U.S. commodities and ships them abroad, and switch to a new cash-based system that can buy food overseas closer to where it's needed.

Idaho AgMinute for Dec. 14, 2012

The Idaho Grower Shippers Association is considering a partnership with the Idaho Food Bank that could entail sheds sending fresh spuds to help the needy throughout the year.

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Five Guys and whole lot of fries - Idaho AgMinute for Oct. 3

Americans recently chose Five Guys Burgers and Fries as their favorite fast-food burger chain and Idaho spud farmers can be counted among the company's biggest fans.
With 1,078 stores around the nation, Five Guys is now the largest purchaser of fresh potatoes from Idaho.

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Feeding the hungry - Idaho AgMinute for Sept. 26, 2012

Several Idaho cattle producers were on the giving end at the Gooding County mobile food pantry, handing out beef roasts to about 200 families. The event was part of the outreach the beef industry committed to when it partnered with the Idaho Foodbank two years ago.

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AgMinute for July 19, 2012

A first-of-its-kind conference will bring together Idaho farmers, school foodservice directors and educators with the goal of bringing more local food to school cafeterias.

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Rancher's death mourned online

One of the most read stories on www.capitalpress.com over the last 24 hours has been the report on the death of Country Natural Beef co-founder Doc Hatfield.  Hatfield and his wife Connie created the cooperative more than 20 years ago.

His passing is drawing reaction an mourning from ranchers, the Oregon ag community, and foodies throughout the West and the country.

Research: Strawberries may prevent cancer

From the California Strawberry Commission:

A new study by The Ohio State University suggests strawberries may help prevent human esophageal cancer. This news comes at a time when, according to the American Cancer Society, more than 16,000 new cases of the disease will be diagnosed in the United States this year.

According to lead researcher, Tong Chen, M.D., PhD, strawberries may help protect those at risk of esophageal cancer. This study builds on previously published research by Chen and colleagues in China, who found that freeze-http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifdried strawberries significantly inhibited tumor development.

These results were presented at the 2011 anhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifnual meeting of the American Association for Cancer
Research in Orlando, Florida. This study examining the beneficial impact of strawberries on cancer prevention was funded by the California Strawberry Commission.

Researchers from The Ohio State University are also investigating the effects of strawberries on reducing inflammation-associated colorectal cancer.

For more details regarding the study, please visit: http://bit.ly/gtXlFC

Esophageal cancer is the third most common gastrointestinal cancer and the sixth most frequent cause of cancer death in the world.

Do vegetarians have smaller brains?

So suggests a study cited by blogger/author Barry Groves (hat tip: Stevie Stewart Ipsen at California Cattlemen's)

Scientists at the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, have discovered that going veggie could be bad for your brain – with those on a meat-free diet six times more likely to suffer brain shrinkage.

The study involved tests and brain scans on community-dwelling volunteers aged 61 to 87 years without cognitive impairment at enrolment, over a period of five years. When the volunteers were retested five years later the medics found those with the lowest levels of vitamin B12 were also the most likely to have brain shrinkage. It confirms earlier research showing a link between brain atrophy and low levels of B12.

Vegans are the most likely to be deficient because the best sources of the vitamin are meat, particularly liver, milk and fish.

Celebrate Earth Day -- by eating steak

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[ Photo caption: Dinner cook John Mockles keeps ribeye steaks handy for orders at Vic's Branding Iron restaurant in Cottonwood, Calif. ]

With Earth Day coming April 22, the Cattlemen’s Beef Board is urging people to celebrate it by eating steak.

Cattle raised today require less land, water and energy than before and each serving provides nutrients essential to the diet, the board asserts.

From its press release:

Producers can be proud of so many things:

* About two-thirds of cattle farms and ranches have been in the same family for two generations or more.
* On average, each cattleman has 13 different practices in place to accomplish environmental goals such as nurturing wildlife, preventing erosion and conserving and protecting water.
* Thanks to smart practices, raising livestock in the United States today accounts for less than 3 percent of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

Not only that, but the average American farmer feeds about 155 people worldwide, compared to 26 just a few decades ago. And experts estimate global food production will need to increase 70 percent by 2050 to feed a growing world population. Many experts agree U.S. livestock production practices are an environmentally sustainable solution for raising food and should be considered a model for the rest of the world.

“As we prepare to celebrate Earth Day, we’d like to remind beef and dairy producers to share their production story with everyone they know – family, friends, neighbors and even those they just met at the grocery store. We need to let them know that we’re proud cattle producers, providing 20 percent of the world’s iron-rich beef with just 7 percent of the cattle,” says Daryl Berlier Owen, chair of the checkoff’s Joint Public Opinion and Issues Management Group, and cow/calf producer from Amarillo, Texas. “That means people can enjoy a good steak as part of a healthy, balanced diet, knowing that it is being produced in such a way that’s good for their personal health and the health of the planet.”

For my story, check CapitalPress.com later in the week.

Michelle Obama's 'junk science'

Michelle Malkin today skewers Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign, and uses a study done in the Pacific Northwest as ammunition. (Hat tip: Laura Ingraham)

Take another East Wing pet project: leaning on private businesses to print expanded front-package nutrition labels warning consumers about salt, fat and sugar. The first lady's anti-fat brigade assumes as an article of faith that her top-down designer food labels will encourage healthier eating habits. It's a "no-brainer," Mrs. Obama insists.

However, the latest study on this very subject -- funded by no less than the left-wing Robert Wood Johnson Foundation -- confirms other recent research contradicting the East Wing push. A team led by Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School's Eric Finkelstein, published in the peer-reviewed American Journal for Preventive Medicine, found that mandatory menu-labeling in Seattle restaurants did not affect consumers' calorie consumption. "Given the results of prior studies, we had expected the results to be small," the researchers reported, "but we were surprised that we could not detect even the slightest hint of changes in purchasing behavior as a result of the legislation."

Will the first lady and her food cops be chastened by the science that undermines their spin? Fat chance.

It's official: U.S. meat exports break records

The U.S. Meat Export Federation has the details here. The upshot:

December statistics released by USDA and compiled by the U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) confirm that 2010 was the best year ever for U.S. beef export value. A final total of $4.08 billion breaks the pre-BSE high from 2003 of $3.86 billion by more than 5 percent and exceeds the 2009 total by nearly $1 billion. Total volume was 1.067 million metric tons, an increase of 19 percent over 2009.

Pork export value posted the second-best year on record at $4.78 billion, falling just 2 percent short of the 2008 high and besting 2009 by more than 10 percent. Total volume was 1.918 million metric tons - an increase of 3 percent over the previous year.

USMEF spokesman Jim Herlihy told me this morning that overseas consumer confidence in American meat has been growing, and the U.S. has been benefiting from some misfortunes facing some of its competitors, including foot and mouth disease in South Korea, drought in China, unfavorable weather in Australia and restrictions on beef exports from Argentina.

For more on this, check CapitalPress.com later this week.

Local 4-Hers help the homeless

Sharyn Cornelius of the East Valley Times in Palo Cedro, Calif., reports:

Members of local 4-H clubs have formed a mobile soup kitchen to provide a hot lunch for homeless people one day a month. On Monday, Jan. 17, a school holiday, three members of the Twin Palms and Cow Creek clubs—Dani Plake, Karah Harbuck, and Ruth Bailey–gathered in the Millville kitchen of Adrienne Hulst, Cow Creek 4-H community leader, to cook up a batch of chili and bake cornbread muffins. They will also hand out bottled water and canned peaches.

Hulst, who is also the goat project leader, had to help one of her young charges with a goat-birthing emergency that morning, but she left the young cooks under the capable supervision of her daughter Sierra, Twin Palms community leader Lynette Plake, and mothers Heather Dyer and Jennifer Collins.

As the girls poured cornbread batter into muffin cups and stirred the chili, they talked about what it meant to them to be able to help the homeless and what they had learned from the experience.

More here.