Heirloom Harvest

Feds ready to approve nonorganic ingredients for use under organic seal

The latest battle over what can be called organic involves beer and gelatin, food colorings and casings for sausage. The Department of Agriculture, the final arbiter of all things organic, is poised to approve a list of nonorganic ingredients that can be used in food stamped with its green-and-white organic seal.

The list includes hops for beer, dill weed oil for flavoring pickles, and elderberry juice coloring for making foods bright red to blue purple. There is also chia, an herb from Central America that is used in some baked goods, and fructooligosaccharides, a bulking agent that adds fiber.

In all, the organic advisory board to the Agriculture Department recommended that 38 nonorganic ingredients be added to a list of approved ingredients. Read story here.

Consumers feel the heat from rising food prices, ethanol-driven demand partially to blame

Rising gasoline prices have been getting all the attention, but the cost of another, more-important staple is actually rising even more: food.
In the past year, food prices have increased 3.7 percent and are on track to jump by as much as 7 percent by year's end. The current increase is more than double the 1.8 percent jump seen the year before, according to the consumer price index.

Meanwhile, gas prices rose 2.9 percent. Only the cost of health care rose more, and then just slightly.

While companies up and down the food chain see the increases, they're only beginning to pass them on to consumers. But with the start of grilling season -- meat prices particularly hurt -- some consumers are already tweaking their spending habits.

A recent study shows that more consumers are using coupons. Marilyn Pearson just resorted to clipping them again, though she hasn't changed what she buys. On a recent evening, the St. Paul resident's shopping cart was filled with collard greens, meat and other supplies for a barbecue. She's noticed the price of meat, some vegetables and dairy going up, but figures, "You gotta eat, you gotta buy."

While food prices are rising pretty much across the board, items related to corn are affected the most. That's because increasing demand for ethanol, made from corn, is driving up corn prices, which farmers use to feed their poultry and cattle. The high price of corn is also affecting prices of everything from cereal and other products with corn as an ingredient to the oils used to make potato chips.

But corn is only one culprit. Higher labor, packaging and fuel costs all play a role. Bad weather in California and Florida was the main contributor to a 20 percent spike in citrus fruit prices as well as higher prices for some vegetables. A drought this summer could cause prices to rise even more than current projections.

"We should all hope we have a really good growing season this year," said Ben Senauer, co-director of the University of Minnesota's Food Industry Center.

Eggs up almost 19 percent

Prices are rising in each grocery aisle. In April, eggs cost 18.6 percent more than a year ago. Whole chicken prices increased 7 percent. Bread is up nearly 6 percent and beef steaks up 5.5 percent.

Even watermelons cost more, according to a spokesman for Lund Food Holdings Inc., the Edina-based owner of the Lunds and Byerly's chains. High corn prices pushed farmers to devote record acreage to corn this summer, leaving some crops in short supply.

Senauer said many price increases haven't made their way to all stores yet, and many stores are absorbing the costs rather than passing them on to customers. "Right now the margins are simply being squeezed," he said.

"But that's not going to last forever," said Wells Fargo & Co. agricultural economist Michael Swanson, predicting no end in sight to food inflation. Swanson forecasts that food inflation will have risen at a rate not seen since 1990, when prices ended the year 5.8 percent higher.

Read full story here.

Catnip "cologne" attracts good bugs

Press release from Agricultural Research Service, USDA

A new lure being developed by scientists with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and their collaborators could bring relief to growers trying to guard crops and gardens against aphids and mites. The lure is a natural product that attracts lacewings, a beneficial predator that enjoys devouring destructive aphids and mites.

Chemist Kamal Chauhan and entomologist Jeffrey Aldrich, with the Chemicals Affecting Insect Behavior Laboratory, Beltsville, Md., led the project. Chauhan used the laboratory's patent-pending separation method to extract the key compound--iridodial--from catnip oil.

Laboratory tests showed that the iridodial prepared from catnip extract matches the chemical structure of the male lacewing's pheromone. The attracting vapor-like substance is emitted from thousands of glands that cover the male's tiny abdomen. The separation method offers an economical way to make large amounts of this insect "cologne" that attracts several lacewing species.

Organic farmers and growers purchase lacewings as eggs or larvae to protect crops from aphids and mites. Results from a 2-year field study showed that iridodial attracts both male and female lacewings that later produce another generation of beneficial predators. So a commercial formulation based on iridodial could relieve farmers of the need to repeatedly buy and release beneficial insect larvae.

Iridodial is very potent; just 25 milligrams is sufficient to treat an acre of land. Another advantage is that the attractant is environmentally benign and remains active for five weeks, degrading slowly.

Chauhan is now working with Spokane, Washington-based Sterling International to commercialize formulations that attract specific beneficial insects.

Global warming may lower grassland quality

Press release from Agricultural Research Service, USDA

Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations and air temperatures may lead to an increase in plant production, but a gradual decline in soil carbon and nitrogen. That's according to study findings reported by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and Colorado State University (CSU) scientists in the April issue of New Phytologist.

The findings were the result of combined modeling and experimental exercises that explored the impacts of both warming and rising atmospheric CO2 on the ecology of native Great Plains grasslands. The results supported findings from the group's earlier studies, which indicated that future environmental changes could lead to lower nitrogen concentrations in forage grasses. That condition could negatively affect animal performance, since grazing animals need nitrogen-rich vegetation to facilitate digestion.

Plant physiologist Jack A. Morgan and colleagues at the ARS Rangeland Resources Research Unit cooperated with the study's lead author, William Parton of CSU. The scientists are based in Fort Collins, Colo.

The modeling experiment exercise was designed to test the responses from a new experiment just begun in southern Wyoming, the Prairie Heating and CO2 Enrichment, or PHACE study. The research team has spent two years developing the PHACE study's infrastructure, while the study itself will run for 5 to 10 years.

The scientists tailored an ecosystem model at the PHACE experiment site--based on the earlier experimental results--to help them investigate the effects of changes in climate and atmospheric CO2 in relation to carbon and nitrogen cycling.

A decline in forage quality of the grasslands of eastern Colorado and Wyoming would have a negative affect on not only livestock, but also native animals that have grazed there for thousands of years. The modeling exercise boosted researchers' confidence in the methods being used to assess ecosystems at the PHACE climate change experiment site.

ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific agency.

Mexicans torch tequila fields for ethanol boom corn

The soaring U.S. demand for corn to make ethanol -- and the soaring prices that follow -- have inspired many Mexican farmers to torch their agave fields to replant them in corn. One result is a looming tequila shortage. Read story here.

FDA vouches for perchlorate levels in food, NRDC says not so

Levels of a chemical used to make rocket fuel found in commonly consumed food are not high enough to pose a health risk to most people, including children and pregnant women, U.S. regulators said.

The Food and Drug Administration, in a preliminary estimate, measured perchlorate levels in 27 food items, including fruits, vegetables, fish and grain products. The agency found that, for most people's diets, the levels fell below a standard adopted in 2005 by the Environmental Protection Agency.

That standard, based on recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences, deemed as acceptable the consumption of food and drinks containing up to 0.7 micrograms per kilogram of body weight, more than 20 times the amount of perchlorate contamination in food found to be safe under previous standards. The Natural Resources Defense Council, a lobbying group, opposed the increase in the allowable level.

"I don't think the current standard is safe for vulnerable populations," said Jennifer Sass, a staff scientist at the council. The new FDA estimates show that some food items "come perilously close to what EPA considers an unsafe level," she said.

Perchlorate has been found in 35 states, and more than 11 million people have it in their drinking water at 4 parts per billion, according to a 2005 report by the NAS, a presidential advisory board for the sciences and a research institution. Perchlorate is found in other things, such as milk and produce.

China's food and drug crackdown

BEIJING — By the standards of Chinese corruption cases, the $832,000 that the former head of the State Food and Drug Administration was charged with skimming over a seven-year period was not huge. But the death sentence given in the bribery case Tuesday reflected the growing pressure under which Beijing finds itself in the wake of medical and food scandals that have rattled the nation and spread anxiety abroad. Read story here.

Trouble brews in germany as biofuel boom jacks up price of beer

In the last two years, the price of barley has doubled to euro200 (US$271) from euro102 per ton as farmers plant more crops such as rapeseed and corn that can be turned into ethanol or bio-diesel, a fuel made from vegetable oil.

As a result, the price for the key ingredient in beer -- barley malt, or barley that has been allowed to germinate -- has soared by more than 40 percent, to around euro385 (US$522) per ton from around euro270 a ton two years ago, according to the Bavarian Brewers' Association. Read story here.

Palm oil biofuel puts squeeze on endangered orangutan

Branded pests for venturing out from their diminishing forest habitats into plantations where they eat young palm shoots, orangutans could be extinct in the wild in ten years time, the United Nations said in March. Read story here.

Best quote: Indonesia and Malaysia together produce 83 percent of the world's palm oil. Made by crushing fresh fruit, the reddish-brown oil is riding high in the commodities charts, with crude prices up over 15 percent this year after rising 40 percent in 2006.

Used in cookies, toothpaste, ice cream and breads it is the world's second most popular edible oil after soy.

Demand is also soaring for palm oil-derived biofuel, despite objections from critics who slam the "green" alternative to pricey crude oil as "deforestation diesel" because of the destruction wreaked on forests to make way for palm plantations.

Of 6.5 million hectares cultivated in Malaysia and Indonesia in 2004, almost four million hectares was previously forest, environment group Friends of the Earth calculated.

Chinese imports commonly tainted — But federal inspections rare

When federal inspectors bother to inspect imported shipments of food, medicine, and other products from China (which is rarely), they very often find them tainted with ingredients that could harm human health. Then the federal government does virtually nothing. Read story here

Best quote: Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical.

Frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics.

Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria.

Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.

These were among the 107 food imports from China that the Food and Drug Administration detained at U.S. ports just last month, agency documents reveal, along with more than 1,000 shipments of tainted Chinese dietary supplements, toxic Chinese cosmetics and counterfeit Chinese medicines.

For years, U.S. inspection records show, China has flooded the United States with foods unfit for human consumption. And for years, FDA inspectors have simply returned to Chinese importers the small portion of those products they caught -- many of which turned up at U.S. borders again, making a second or third attempt at entry.

Now the confluence of two events -- the highly publicized contamination of U.S. chicken, pork and fish with tainted Chinese pet food ingredients and this week's resumption of high-level economic and trade talks with China -- has activists and members of Congress demanding that the United States tell China it is fed up.

Dead pets and melamine-tainted food notwithstanding, change will prove difficult, policy experts say, in large part because U.S. companies have become so dependent on the Chinese economy that tighter rules on imports stand to harm the U.S. economy, too.