House to vote as early as Wednesday on GMO-disclosure bill
The Republican leaders of the House may call the GMO-in-food disclosure bill for a vote as early as Wednesday, the last hurdle before sending the bill to the White House to be signed into law. The advocacy group Just Label It, which opposes the bill but considers passage certain, said "the fight for national mandatory GMO transparency now shifts to USDA and the marketplace."
Sultan urges attention to high obesity rate in Brunei
The Sultan of Brunei, where nearly two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese, "called for swift action to address the issue of unhealthy lifestyles and diet," said The Brunei Times. The new edition of Global Nutrition Report by the think tank IFPRI named the country as having the highest obesity rate in Southeast Asia.
Federally subsidized crop insurance reached 297 million acres
Farmers bought crop insurance policies on 297 million acres in 2015, covering 85 percent of land planted to major field crops such as corn, wheat, cotton and soybeans, an increase of 16 percent from the coverage area in 2010, according to Risk Management Agency data. Coverage of fruit, vegetables and other specialty crops has grown more slowly, to reach 8.3 million acres last year.
Major impact of El Niño: ‘a food and agricultural crisis’
More than 60 million people worldwide, including 40 million in eastern and southern Africa, are at risk of hunger due to the El Niño weather pattern that is now waning, said leaders of three UN agencies.
FAO: farmed surpasses wild-caught in terms of fish available for human consumption Â
Global per-capita fish consumption surged beyond 20 kilograms (44 pounds) in 2014, thanks to the booming aquaculture industry in China and elsewhere, according to a report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture organization.
The military wants to grow veggies on warships
The military is in the midst of a $100,000-project to grow hydroponic vegetables on submarines, says The Christian Science Monitor. So far the experiments have been on land, but researchers are hopeful that they’ll soon be able to take the technology to sea and improve the notoriously tired fare served to sailors.
Climate change jeopardizes your morning tea
Tea plants around the world are getting too much rain, says Eater. The excessive precipitation is lowering the number of secondary metabolites they produce—the chemicals responsible for caffeine, antioxidants and flavor .
Ernst will focus on Iowa, not Trump
irst-term Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, an Agriculture Committee member, says she wants to focus on her home state rather than running for vice president with Republican businessman Donald Trump, reports Politico.
U.S. turns to WTO when India keeps poultry market closed
A year ago, the United States won a WTO decision against India for its ban on imports of U.S. poultry meat. And now the U.S. is back in Geneva, asking for trade compensation because India has complied with the WTO decision, said Reuters.
Make-or-break vote on a ‘take it or leave it’ GMO-disclosure bill
Senate backers of the GMO-disclosure bill are optimistic of winning a showdown vote today that would allow passage of the bill this week. With little time for Congress to act before its summer recess, Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley said the Senate bill would arrive as a "take it or leave it proposition" for the House — and Rep. Mike Pompeo, sponsor of a successful GMO bill, said the House probably would accept the Senate version.
Agricultural trade is best-performing sector in new WTO trade indicator
The new World Trade Outlook Indicator (WTOI) will "provide 'real time' information on trends in global trade," said its parent agency, the World Trade Organization. Launched ahead of the meeting of G-20 trade ministers in Shanghai over the weekend, the indicator showed trade in raw agricultural products was growing faster than expected while overall, global trade would continue to be sluggish in July and August.
Floods damage Chinese farmland and crops
State media say more than 1.9 million hectares of crops were damaged by flooding in central and southern China, reports Reuters. It was not clear whether heavy rains and the resultant floods would affect the summer grain crop, forecast for 140 million tonnes.
How to get higher-value meat? Cloned cattle are one way.
Researchers at West Texas A&M say they got consistently high-grading meat from calves that were the offspring of cloned cattle, says U.S. Farm Report. Seven of the calves were slaughtered as a test of the research project last month and one of the carcasses was graded Prime, a grade given to less than 5 percent of carcasses, three graded High Choice and three were Average Choice.
Senate passes GMO-disclosure bill that also pre-empts state law
Two decades into the era of agricultural biotechnology, the Senate passed, 63-30, a bill that requires foodmakers nationwide to say if their products contain GMO ingredients. The bill, which also pre-empts state GMO food-labeling laws, now goes to the House for action one week before Congress adjourns for the summer.
EU-U.S. trade pact ‘impossible’ this year, says French minister
France's junior minister for trade, Matthias Fekl, said it will be "impossible" for the EU and the United States to complete a free-trade agreement this year, reports the EurActiv news site. Fekl threw cold water on the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) on the same day the EU announced a slow-down in the approval process for a sweeping EU-Canada trade pact.
Four years of decline in rural population may be ending
The latest Census Bureau estimates of people living in each county raise the possibility that four years of modest population loss in rural America may be ending, says the USDA. "The 2014-15 improvement in non-metro population change coincides with rural economic recovery and suggests that this first-ever period of overall population decline, from 2010 to 2015, may be ending," says Amber Waves, a USDA publication.
Farmers, foresters and fishermen have highest U.S. suicide rate
Farmers, fishermen and forestry workers together had the highest suicide rate by far among occupational groups in a Centers for Disease Control analysis of data from 17 states in 2012. Overall, the prevalence of suicide increased from 2000 to 2012 and is now the 10th leading cause of death among all Americans aged 16 or older.
Study: governments don’t know if spraying invasive species hurts public lands
Government agencies in the U.S., Canada and Mexico can't say for sure whether the herbicides they spray on pubic lands to control invasive species are doing more harm than good, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Montana and their Canadian colleagues. The huge amount of herbicides applied by land managers every year—largely glyphosate (the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup)—may in fact prevent native species from germinating.
Looking for organic honey produced by U.S. bees? Good luck.
Virtually no organic honey sold commercially in the U.S. comes from domestic hives, as commodity-crop farmers convert ever more grassland into cropland, leaving honeybees with fewer pesticide-free fields to forage, reports Civil Eats. North Dakota, for instance, which produces more honey than any other state, lost more than 100,000 acres of grassland over the past decade.
Biggest increase in FAO Food Price Index in four years
Surging grain, sugar, meat and dairy prices worldwide drove up the FAO Food Price Index 4.2 percent, the steepest one-month increase in the index in four years. June was the fifth month in a row for an increase in the index, which tracks the average international price of a basket of food commodities, now at its highest reading since last July.