For the first time ever, the version of the Farm Bill that passed the House Agriculture Committee last week will, if approved by the full House (probably later this month) and Senate, contain funding for the fruit and vegetable industry. It's a pittance—$1.5 billion over five years versus the $12 to $25 billion doled out to growers of big commodity crops such as corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton, and rice per year —but it's a start. According to the San Francisco Chronicle some of the new money will flow to organic research, inclusion of more fruits and vegetables in school lunch programs, promotion of farmers markets, and environmental programs. There was another morsel of good news in the Bill—maybe. The new law allows for full implementation of mandatory country of origin labeling for meat. I say maybe because the last Farm Bill, passed in 2002, also called for such labeling, but the powerful meat packing lobby, whose members don't want consumers to know where their beef and pork was raised, has managed to block the rule from taking effect. (Here's an earlier post on that debacle.) And of course, this being politics, there's one giant loophole. Even if the bill does pass, ground meats will be able to get by with labels bearing the names of countries they might have come from. Kind of scary. I'll stick to buying a piece of chuck and whirring it for a few seconds in the food processor. Tastes better, and if Congress stands up to big meat this time, at least I'll know where it comes from.
Politics of the Plate: A Farm Bill Update
07.23.07
- Keywords
- barry estabrook,
- politics of the plate,
- food policy,
- agriculture,
- seafood
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