FEED - June 2007
Contents
- What you can do: Keep antibiotics working
- Three states consider pharma crop bills
- Conservation program funding may be slashed
- Pet food recall highlights concerns about animal feed
- A consumer's guide to organic food
1. What you can do: Keep antibiotics working
An estimated 70 percent of all antibiotics used in the United States are added to the feed of livestock and poultry that are not sick—a practice with serious consequences for human health. Bacteria that are constantly exposed to antibiotics develop resistance to the drugs. This means that when people get sick from resistant bacteria, the antibiotics prescribed by doctors don't work. Please write to your representatives in Congress today and ask them to support the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act of 2007 (S. 549, H.R. 962), a bill that would preserve clinically important antibiotics for human use.
2. Three states consider pharma crop bills
California, Oregon, and Hawaii are considering bills that could restrict the cultivation of crops that have been genetically engineered to produce pharmaceutical (pharma) and industrial products. In California, a bill pending in committee, AB 541, would ban the outdoor cultivation of pharma crops. An Oregon bill that will soon be signed into law, SB 234, will increase state oversight of pharma crop cultivation and authorize fees for pharma crop production to pay for improvements in regulation and enforcement. In Hawaii, a bill pending in committee, SB 717, would prohibit the cultivation of pharma and industrial crops that are food or feed crops, ban the outdoor testing of these crops, and create a tracking system to regulate them. Learn more about UCS's campaign to ban the outdoor production in food crops of pharma and industrial products, and sign our petition at www.ProtectOurFood.org.
3. Conservation program funding may be slashed
The president's proposed budget would prevent new enrollments in 2007 and 2008 in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), which pays farmers to keep environmentally sensitive lands out of production. The CRP is part of the food and farm bill, the sprawling bundle of legislation currently being debated in Congress that, among many other provisions, subsidizes commodity crops like corn and soy and maintains the food stamp program. According to the Washington Post, CRP funding was cut to encourage farmers to plant corn for ethanol production—despite concerns from environmental and hunting groups that cultivation of these marginal lands will increase erosion, damage water quality, and reduce wildlife habitat. A University of Tennessee analysis found that eliminating CRP contracts as they expire would cost taxpayers an additional $32.6 billion by 2015 in subsidies to prop up commodity crops if the land was converted to crop production. By contrast, expanding the CRP from its current 34 million to 45 million acres would save $12.7 billion. Read the Post article, or the University of Tennessee study (pdf).
4. Pet food recall highlights concerns about animal feed
The recent pet food scandal sparked an investigation that revealed melamine, the contaminant that killed dogs and cats across the country, was also fed to chickens and hogs destined for Americans' dinner tables. The discovery exposed serious inadequacies in the Food and Drug Administration's oversight of the food and feed supply, particularly with regard to imported products. Read more about melamine in livestock feed from the Washington Post. Even without melamine contamination, animal feed contains many ingredients that are unnatural and potentially hazardous, such as rendered carcasses, animal waste, plastics, and arsenic. See UCS information on animal feed ingredients at www.TheyEatWhat.com.
5. A consumer's guide to organic food
The Organic Food Handbook by Ken Roseboro, editor of the monthly newsletter The Organic & Non-GMO Report, makes the case for buying organic food over conventional. The guide includes a myth-busting overview of the organic industry, an explanation of organic standards, and reasons why organic food is worth buying—as well as tips for buying it economically.
