News from the farm

by Max Odland

Feeling out of the loop on recent occurrences in food and agriculture?  I was too, so here's a brief recap of news from the farm over the past week and a half.  Please feel free to add any Ag news you've come across.  Enjoy!

For those who find themselves in Vermont this summer, NOFA VT has released its summer workshop series schedule:
http://nofavt.org/annual-events/summer-workshops/index

NYTimes article about agricultural runoff in the Mississippi River:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/science/earth/03runoff.html?ref=science

Another E. coli outbreak, this time in Germany, has left 20 dead and 600 sickened.  There has been some controversy and conflict over the source of the outbreak, and four weeks after the outbreak began, we can’t point to a culprit:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13639617
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13624554
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/science/earth/07ecoli.html?ref=science&gwh=C1130B898B104F975D6F499F0EEBA91C

A new strain of MRSA in Britain is the first believed to have originated in antibiotic-treated cattle.  The new strain is not detectable by some of the tests commonly used to identify MRSA because it uses a new variation of the signature mecA gene that typically confers resistance in S. aureus.  It’s not proven, but there is evidence that the strain ha been transferred from cows to humans:
BBC:            http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13632369
NPR:            http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/06/03/136917429/mrsa-bug-found-in-cows-and-humans-can-evade-some-tests?ps=sh_sthdl
The actual scientific article:  http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099%2811%2970126-8/abstract

The USDA has released a new ‘food pyramid’ (actually this one is a plate), and this time it makes sense!  The icon is simple and intuitive, and maybe lacks much in the way of actual information, but the website that accompanies it certainly fills in the gaps.  Overall, this new eating guide is a big step in the right direction for setting a healthier table in America:
http://www.choosemyplate.gov/index.html
Still, there are some large discrepancies between what we say we should eat and what federal subsidies make it easy to eat:
http://www.pcrm.org/newsletter/jun11/usda_food_plate.html

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