FEED - August 2008
Contents
- MRSA is rampant at Arkansas chicken hatchery
- Food and Farm Bill enacted into law
- Off-label use of cephalosporins banned by FDA
- USDA directly supports confinement agriculture
- Long-distance groceries take a toll on the environment
1. MRSA is rampant at Arkansas chicken hatchery
Employees at a chicken hatchery in Arkansas have been infected multiple times with a dangerous bacterium called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). A local TV station reported that 30 of the 32 workers at the Pilgrim's Pride hatchery have had MRSA multiple times. MRSA, which can be passed by skin-to-skin contact, can cause potentially fatal infections. Read more about antibiotic resistance from UCS or read more about the Arkansas hatchery from KTHV news.
| "Recently, scientific research on MRSA in agriculture has focused on pigs and cattle. This incident should broaden the focus to include poultry." ~Margaret Mellon, director of UCS's Food & Environment Program |
2. Food and Farm Bill enacted into law
The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act, otherwise known as the Food and Farm Bill, was finally enacted in June over a presidential veto. Although the bill is backward looking and misdirected in many respects, it produced significant gains for more modern and sustainable forms of agriculture. These gains include increases in funding to help small-scale organic farmers cover the cost of organic certification fees, financial support to help farmers transition their operations to organic, and research into how best to grow and market organic foods. In addition, the bill expands the Conservation Stewardship Program, which rewards farmers who follow conservation practices, and provides new programs for research on traditional plant and animal breeding and on the prudent use of antibiotics in agriculture. Past experience demonstrates the need to follow through with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to assure that good programs are implemented as Congress intended. Read more about the bill in an article by UCS Senior Analyst Karen Perry Stillerman.
3. Off-label use of cephalosporins banned by FDA
In an important victory for public health, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has banned all off-label uses of two generations of cephalosporin antibiotics in food animals. These drugs are approved for use to treat respiratory infections in livestock and prevent infections in chicks, but veterinarians, like doctors, often prescribe medications for uses other than their official purposes. The FDA stepped in to ban this off-label use because these cephalosporins are particularly valuable to human medicine and because scientific studies showed that off-label uses pose a risk of creating antibiotic-resistant diseases. Read a press release about the ban from the Keep Antibiotics Working coalition (pdf), or read an article about it from Bloomberg.com.
| "The resistance picture continues to worsen. We praise the FDA for this aggressive use of its authority to reduce unnecessary uses of valuable human drugs." ~Margaret Mellon, director of UCS's Food & Environment Program |
4. USDA directly supports confinement agriculture
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is directly subsidizing producers who raise hogs in CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) by buying surplus pork and donating it to nutrition programs. The agency explained its decision as an effort to help producers who were suffering from the soaring cost of feed grain. A Kansas newspaper says that the decision was made at the request of a pork producers lobby and criticizes it as a prop for the hog industry. The USDA is hoping to increase the price of pork by buying up the excess product to reduce current oversupply. CAFO owners may be especially vulnerable to high grain prices because their costly facilities force them to incur more debt than many sustainable producers, so CAFOs may stand to gain the most from this bailout. Read the article in the High Plains/Midwest Ag Journal.
| "Supplying pork to food programs is okay, but the amount should be driven by the nutrition program needs, not the needs of industrial hog production, and sustainable alternatives that are better for society should have priority as suppliers." ~Doug Gurian-Sherman, senior scientist and author of CAFOs Uncovered |
5. Long-distance groceries take a toll on the environment
Grocery chains are increasingly buying foods from around the world in an effort to cater to consumer tastes and to take advantage of cheap labor in other countries. But shipping Norway cod to China for processing and back to Norway for sale has a hefty cost, not just in fuel but in the global warming pollution generated by these long trips. The European Union is at the forefront of a movement that aims to make shippers and shoppers pay for this pollution through taxes or new emissions trading rules. Measuring total emissions is a complex business because miles traveled, form of transport, and time in storage all contribute to food's carbon footprint. Read more about the costs of long-distance groceries from the New York Times, or celebrate National Farmers' Market Week (August 3-9) by visiting a market in your area to pick up some truly local groceries.
