From lettuce to cookies, avocados to cheesecake, the last few years have seen a number of high-profile food recalls. According to the CDC, an estimated 48 million Americans get sick each year from foodborne illnesses. But the question of whether such outbreaks are getting worse is complicated, due to a combination of improved detection technology, a looser approach to regulation, and growing consolidation in the food industry, as Leah Douglas reports in FERN's latest story, published as part of Time magazine's special issue on the Science of Nutrition.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>

Following an outbreak of foodborne illness that sickened 40 people in 16 states, the FDA urged consumers to "not eat romaine lettuce harvested from Salinas, California." Romaine from other regions is not implicated but if there is any doubt about the origin of lettuce, "throw it away or return it to the place of purchase," said the agency on Friday.

In a look back at last November’s recall of romaine lettuce, the FDA says that although “one farm cannot explain the entire outbreak,” it is now able to identify potential sources of E. coli contamination by using technology that can track foods from field to consumer.

Chicken is America'a favorite meat, with per capita consumption approaching 110 pounds per person this year, roughly twice as much as beef. Five CDC scientists who analyzed U.S. outbreaks of food-borne illness in recent years say chicken caused the largest number of illnesses when outbreaks were ranked by food category.

The Cape bee, a subspecies of honeybee from the southwestern tip of South Africa, sometimes breaks the rules of the bee world. "Female worker bees can escape their queen’s control, take over other colonies and reproduce asexually — with no need for males," reports the New York Times, a strategy that may assure survival in dire times but also reduces genetic vigor.

The first shipment of U.S. beef has arrived in South Africa, part of a reopening of a market that was closed to U.S. beef, pork and poultry for years, said the USDA.

In response to the worst drought in a century, South Africa will relax some of its rules on importing GMO corn so it can ramp up supplies of the grain, says Reuters.

Drought and excessive heat prevented farmers from planting a crop in much of South Africa's corn-growing region and the season is advancing; pollination and kernel-filling takes place in February and March in much of the country. USDA slashed its estimate of the nation's corn harvest to 8 million tonnes, down by one-third from a month ago and far below normal for South Africa, which normally supplies corn to other countries in its region.

The congressionally approved Equity Commission that will address racial discrimination at the USDA will have Arturo Rodriguez, former president of the United Farm Workers union, as one of its leaders, announced the Agriculture Department on Thursday.

Responding to pressure from the environmental group Greenpeace, the world’s largest tuna supplier, Thai Union, has announced a series of initiatives designed to improve its fishing practices and protect workers from abuses. Thai Union owns the popular brands Chicken of the Sea and Sealect.

Pesticide manufacturers Syngenta and Bayer appear to have secreted away studies that showed their pesticides did serious harm to honeybees, rather than revealing the results to the public. After Greenpeace obtained the studies from the EPA through the Freedom of Information Act, scientists are calling on the two companies to operate with more transparency, says The Guardian.

Foodservice giants Sodexo USA, Compass Group USA, and Aramark earned top scores in the Greenpeace report, “Sea of Distress,” which graded 15 major contract-management companies and distributors on their policies around sustainable seafood.

With avocado prices on the rise and American demand booming, Mexican farmers are cutting down trees to plant the fruit. “Avocado trees flourish at about the same altitude and climate as the pine and fir forests in the mountains of Michoacan, the state that produces most of Mexico’s avocados,” says The Seattle Times.

With Robert Lighthizer now at work as U.S. trade representative, the leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee asked the Trump administration to push for fair trade in ultra-filtered milk sales to Canada.

On a bipartisan 82-14 vote, senators confirmed trade lawyer Robert Lighthizer as U.S. trade representative, helping to complete President Trump's team of officials responsible for revamping U.S. trade agreements worldwide. The vote could open the door to renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

As the conversation around food got bigger in the ’90s, the stakes also got higher. Mounting evidence that the American way of eating was causing serious health problems spurred talk of reform. Rather than engage with reformers, however, the right simply broadened its culture war around food, politicizing the debate in ways that had significant consequences, not only for public health but, eventually, for the nation’s response to climate change.<strong>(No paywall)</strong>

Meatpacking giant JBS has agreed to sell Five Rivers Cattle Feeding, the world’s largest feedlot operation, to New York-based Pinnacle Asset Management. Five Rivers feeds 900,000 head in multiple states.

JBS, the world’s largest meat processor, will sell its Five Rivers Cattle Feeding operation as part of a global divestiture plan intended to generate $1.8 billion. Five Rivers operates feedlots in six western states with a combined capacity of 980,000 head and manages a 75,000-head feedlot in Alberta.

One of the world's largest food processors, privately owned Cargill announced sale of its two remaining feedlots, holding 155,000 head of cattle, to ethanol maker Green Plains. The transaction will make Green Plains the fourth-largest cattle feeder in the nation with a feedlot capacity of 255,000 head, said Drovers Cattle Network.

A coalition of public interest and environmental justice organizations filed a lawsuit Friday to compel the EPA to respond to an earlier rulemaking petition, submitted to the agency in 2017, that asked the EPA to overhaul how large-scale animal production facilities are regulated under the Clean Water Act.

The 45Z tax credit, intended to encourage the development of sustainable aviation fuel and other low-carbon fuels, would be available until 2034 and limited to domestic feedstocks under companion bills filed in the House and Senate on Tuesday. Farm groups said the legislation would allow time for domestic production to rise while discouraging a flood of imported oil, grease, and tallow.

U.S. food and ag exports might suffer if the government denies 45Z tax credits to foreign feedstocks used in making sustainable aviation fuel, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Tuesday. The Biden administration intends to issue regulations for the tax credits, worth up to $1.75 a gallon, before leaving office in January, Vilsack told a biofuels group. "I'm confident that we're going to get her done."

Lucrative tax credits of up to $1.25 a gallon should be available only for low-carbon fuels made from U.S.-grown feedstocks, four farm groups told the Biden administration on Wednesday. In a letter, the groups also said the government should broaden its list of climate-smart farming practices that produce lower-carbon “sustainable” crops.

Soybean plantings would have to increase nearly 50 percent if soybean oil became the only feedstock for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), said two analysts from UC-Davis. With its higher yields per acre, corn ethanol as the sole feedstock would result in an increase in area of around 9 percent.

Grocery prices will rise by a scant 0.7 percent in 2025, the smallest increase in seven years, said USDA analysts on Thursday in their first forecast of food inflation in the new year. Grocery price inflation was forecast at a below-normal 1 percent this year.

For the third month in a row, the USDA lowered its forecast of grocery price inflation this year. The monthly Food Price Outlook estimated that grocery prices would rise by an average of 6.3 percent this year, compared to 11.4 percent in 2022.

Grocery prices will rise 7.8 percent this year, three times the usual pace for food inflation albeit slower than in 2022, said USDA economists in the monthly Food Price Outlook.

The 9.9 percent food inflation rate of 2022 will be followed by a 7.1 percent rate this year, the highest rates in three decades, said USDA economists on Wednesday. Egg prices were forecast to rise 27 percent this year, on top of a 32 percent increase in 2022.