Big Ag Watch (http://big-agwatch.org/category/opinion/page/2/)
This section features commentary and opinion pieces. The views reflected in the content are the author’s own and do not represent the views of Big Ag Watch.
Costco sells its rotisserie chicken at the back of its stores at a loss to lure customers into the story to buy other things. Up until now those chickens by and large have come from Big Ag poultry producers like Tyson, Pilgrims Pride, and Perdue. But Costco is now bringing chicken production in house.
I’ve watched with interest the twists and turns of the U.S.-China trade war. Reportedly, the two nations have made significant progress in sketching out a series of memorandums of understanding on forced technology transfer and cyber theft, intellectual property rights, services, currency, agriculture and non-tariff barriers to trade. At the core all these issues have one thing in common – money. In a nutshell: How will the China U.S. trade pie and associated issues be financially sliced and diced? That’s fine as far as it goes, but making U.S. trade with China about the Benjamins is a massively lost opportunity to deal with the nuclear threat that is North Korea.
I think tofu (curdled soy milk) is delicious. Tofu is a foodies’ blank canvas, a vehicle for other ingredients and bold flavors, that create healthy, creative meals. And it can serve as a tremendous meat substitute.
And that’s where Missouri is drawing a line in the sand. Missouri has become the first state in the nation to make it a crime for food manufacturers to label their products as “meat” if “not derived from harvested production livestock or poultry.” Violators face fines up to $1,000 and a year in state slammer.
At some farming operation in Iowa animal activists may legally be running an undercover sting operation to reveal inhuman treatment of animals. That’s because last month the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, and senior Judge James Gritzner, threw out a 2012 Iowa law that made it a crime for people to gain access to agricultural facilities by “false pretense.”
I remember when I took my first college news writing class back in the 1980s one of the first things the professor drilled into us was that news stories must have balance … full stop. For example, if one wrote a story about how humans contribute to climate change it was imperative that the reporter find people representing all sides of the issue … including “experts” who think human action has no impact on climate change … and maybe for good measure folk believing that climate change was a hoax. Balance. Well … having watched and reported on the climate change issue for decades I’ve come to some interesting conclusions. Most importantly for years Big Oil played journalists as suckers, weaponizing balance to spew and spin oil industry views.
The Food Marketing Institute is trying to conceal how taxpayer dollars are being spent by recipients of the Supplemental Food Assistance Program. To date it’s been an almost eight-year court battle between South Dakota’s Argus Leader newspaper and USDA and FMI.
When it comes to China rarely are things as they seem, there is no deal till there is a deal, and even after the ink dries China is fully capable of ignoring what they promised if it suits their national interests.
Breaking out major prognostic tools (including an 8-ball, Ouija board, paper fortune teller and dart board…yeah we’re high tech around here) here are some of the big agricultural issues on the horizon for 2019.