Wine industry issues

The Agriculture industry in New York is a very divers industry.   The products range from   grapes, apples, a verity of vegetables, dairy, grains and livestock. New York has a number of small family farms to large production farms, totaling about 34,000 farms. There is a vast mix of agriculture in Western New York and Finger Lakes agriculture particularly important to the NY economy. The finger lake region is the largest supplier of grape wines in NY.

Preserving and improving the H2A program for seasonal workers is one issue that concern farmers in NY. The farms have to ensure that they have access to a seasonal workforce within the bounds of the law. The reason farms need foreign seasonal work is because they are more willing to do harder jobs that Americans would prefer not to do.

The Estate Tax is another issue that impacts farmers. Farms in 2009 were able to act later and kept the rate at 35%, as opposed to 55%. Farms were also exempt from the first $5 million when the tax automatically returned in 2011.

One of the best kept secrets of the Finger lakes Region is the excess of wineries surrounding the lakes. Nutrients in the soil give Catawba and other varies of grapes a distinctive flavor which local vintners turn into award-winning wines. Over 100,000 people visit the finger lake wineries between the months of  June to October. The average annual sales for the individual wineries were around $700,000 in 2010. Supporting local agriculture will help the New York State economy.

The Crisis in Japan

            On March 11 at 2:46pm JST a massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake occurred near the northeastern coast of Japan, creating extremely destructive tsunami waves which hit Japan just minutes after the earthquake, and triggering evacuations and warnings across the Pacific Ocean. The earthquake and tsunami have caused extensive and severe damage in Northeastern Japan, leaving thousands of people confirmed dead, injured or missing, and millions more affected by lack of electricity, water and transportation.

“Foods from and near the center of the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan last week had been found to contain high levels of nuclear radiation. Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano confirmed in a press conference, on Saturday (March 19, 2011), that the milk produced by farm in Fukushima prefecture near nuclear installations which are destroyed, and spinach from Ibaraki prefecture had been found contaminated with nuclear radiation slightly above of the standards set by the government. However, Edano said that contaminated foods do not have a direct threat to human health. He stressed that people must remain calm. About the milk, he said, drinking it for a year would only expose consumers to nuclear radiation which is equivalent to a medical scanning ‘CT scan’.” (FDA)

The Japanese food only makes up about 4% of US’s Imports, but that still will have an impact on how we get foods from foreign countries. The FDA States they expect no risk to the U.S. food supply from radiation. Officials and health experts say the doses are low and not a threat to human health unless the contaminated products are consumed in unusually large quantities.

Trends in Dairy

            Dairy products are a very important part of the diet. Humans should consume three to four servings of dairy a day. Either those in yogurt, cheese, milk  etcetera.

Dairy has very many nutritional factors about it. Milk contains nine essential nutrients and vitamins, calcium, potassium, phosphorus ,including protein, vitamins A, D, and B12,  riboflavin, niacin, and zinc.  “Children who drink milk tend to have "superior" overall nutrient intakes compared with children who don't drink milk, according to a study released last year by researchers at Environ International Corp., the University of Vermont, and the National Dairy Council.(Hannon) “The AAP advises parents to not give up on feeding dairy products to lactose-intolerant children and teens. The reason: The calcium in these foods is important for bone health, and dairy products also contain other nutrients important for growth. Roughly 20 percent of U.S. children have some degree of intolerance to lactose, the sugar naturally found in milk. Yet lactose intolerance is often mild enough that affected kids can consume at least some milk and dairy products. Also, yogurt and cheese contain less lactose per serving than milk.” (Hannon)

Over the years from 1987 to the year 2006 there has been an overall increase in the dairy consumption in the US list on the USDA website. The total dairy consumption level increase from 56,834 million lbs in year 1987, to 62,133 million lbs year 2006.  In 2006, the United States dairy industry produced over 20 billion gallons of milk. The milk is pasteurized and sold, or prepared into cheese, butter, cream and ice cream for customers in the U.S. and around the world. This has a lot to do with the rise in technology in the 19th century, dairy manufacturing was able to increase past local dairy consumption to a nationwide industry.

The country with the biggest appetite for dairy, is India, because many of the people are vegetarians. This is because of their beliefs in that animals are sacred and must not eat them.  India’s dairy consumption grew at a steady annual rate of about three percent between 2005 and 2008. (Einhorn) The countries listed in order with the highest dairy production with the numbers in metric tons are as follows: European Union 134.4g million, United States 86.8 million, India 45.1 million, China 38.6 million, Russia 32.8 million. The countries with the highest consumption for dairy products with the numbers in metric tons are India 45 million, European Union 33.6 million, United States 28.2 million, China 16 million, Russia 12.2 million. The countries that import the most nonfay dry milk n metric tons areIndonesia 172,000, Mexico 165,000, Philippines 95,000, Algeria 90,000, China 65,000. (Eirnhorn) The counrties that export nonfat dry milk in order of metric tons are the United States 350,000, New Zealand 288,000, European Union 200,000, Australia 123,000, India 38,000. Butter production and consumption in the countries are in order first in metric tons  India 4.1 million, European Union 2.1 million, United States 740,000, New Zealand 405,000, Russia 310,000. Countries that produce and consume cheese in metric tons European Union 6.9 million, United States 4.6 million, Brazil 660,000, Argentina 550,000, Russia 435,000. The countries that export the most cheese to other countries in order by metric tons are European Union 510,000, New Zealand 325,000, Australia 206,000, United States 101,000, Argentina 56,000. Im porting of cheese in metric tons Russia 280,000, Japan 210,000, United States 160,000, Mexico 90,000, European Union 85,000. (Einhorn) As you can see from the numbers that there is a rising demand for dairy products.

The dairy market continues to grow this is because of the ever rising demand for dairy products. The world’s newest dairy market is China. No. 4 worldwide, “China grew at 10.6% over the three years, even though the Chinese traditionally are not big milk drinkers, and the country experienced a frightening scandal last year involving tainted-milk that hospitalized thousands of children and killed several. For more on all things dairy, including which countries consume the most milk, produce the most milk, import and export the most milk as well as butter and cheese, read on.”(Einhorn)

The milk consumption has dropped radically in the past few years, because of the scare about the increase use of hormones in the cows. But the overall consumption of dairy products are up and this is going to the consumption of cheese and frozen dairy items has increased greatly. In 2001, Americans consumed 8 times more cheese than they did in 1909 and twice as much as in 1975. As a nation, we've gone from eating almost no frozen dairy products at the beginning of last century, to eating around 25 pounds per person per year in 2000.”(Peterson) Mustafa Dogan is Chobani’s Master Yogurt Maker in playing a big part in increasing the sales of dairy products by selling his artisan yougrts. This unique straining process is what makes Chobani Greek Yogurt “Greek” and full of flavor and health benefits:
·      All natural. No preservatives. No artificial flavors.
·      Free of synthetic growth hormones: No rBST-treated milk.
·      Includes 5 live & active cultures, including 3 probiotics.
·      Made with real fruit.
·      Twice the protein of regular yogurts.
·      A good source of bone-building calcium.
·      Gluten-Free and Kosher-Certified.
·      Safe for people with corn, nut and soy allergies.

Works Cited

Chobani Yogurt - About Us. (n.d.). Chobani Yogurt - nothing but good.. Retrieved March 27, 2011, from http://www.chobani.com/about

Einhorn, B. (n.d.). Who Drinks the Most Milk?: The Dairy Industry Worldwide - BusinessWeek. BusinessWeek Slide Shows and Multimedia. Retrieved March 27, 2011, from http://images.businessweek.com

Hannon, K. (2009, March 20). 5 Nutrition Facts About Milk and Healthy Kids - US News and World Report. Health News Articles - US News Health. Retrieved March 27, 2011, from http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/childrens-health/articles/2009/03/20/5-nutrition-facts-about-milk-and-healthy-kids

Peterson, J. (n.d.). Dairy - Featured Article - Sustainable Table. Sustainabletable. Retrieved March 27, 2011, from http://www.sustainabletable.org

Tainted Food

Today in class we had a presentation about how food is grow in other countries and is imported in to the U.S.  Only 1.3 % of food that comes in the U.S. is inspected which means that ONLY 850 container with food were tested for E.coli, Salmonella, Hepatitis A, Shigella and Norovirus.  90% of the  Strawberries, cherries, and  Apples that are inspected are contaminated with one or more of the Big 5 food borne illness causers. And these are the ones that are actually inspected. Can you just imagine that 90% food that we eat everyday is potentially contaminated, because it is not inspected? This makes me not want to eat anything that is imported.

Our teacher today asked the class how we prevent this food coming in to our homes and on to our plates. This has a simple answer do not buy anything that is imported right. Well this is harder than you might think. I went to the local super market to get dinner for myself. I decided to make Spaghetti and meatballs. As I was looking around for the ingredients I need I decided that I would try to get only food from the U.S. I’m very picky on what I eat anyways. So I picked up my favorite sauce, Prego with mushrooms and looked at the back to see where it was made or where the ingredients came from and all it said was packaged in NJ, but it does not state anything else on where the origination came from. You ask why does it not state where the ingredients came from? This is because processed food does not have to state the origin of where the ingredients to make the product come from, it just has to state where it was packaged. Then I picked out the hamburger, it stated about it that the ground beef comes from U.S.A, Canada and Mexico. So I decided would ask where the meat that I was buy came from. I asked the butcher and they stated that is comes in on mix containers from their shipping company and you cannot tell whether the beef came from U.S, Canada or Mexico. So did I buy tainted meat one can only wonder? Then I was looking at the spaghetti and I looked at all of the brands and found one that state Product of the U.S.A, made and processed, here in the U.S. So that was one out of the three products that I got came from the U.S.

Of course I didn’t look for a different sauce because I was not in the mood to make dinner come to find out that I didn’t like the sauce, and not have the spaghetti for dinner. On another note I love shrimp. Today in class we also found out that the U.S imported $376 million dollars of shrimp last year. They also showed us that Thailand has not updated their pesticide regulations, so this means that problem all of the shrimp that I consumed last year was full of pesticides, that can cause cancers and birth defects in children.

The moral of this stories is that we should all care where are food comes from and what harmful things that are in them. But we cant all just stop eating we need to let the public know what’s at stake when they eat tainted food and have them choose for themselves.

Food, Fuel and future: the war between Food and Fuel

Food, Fuel and future: The War Between Food and Fuel

            As the world becomes more developed and populated, there is a concern for the usage of natural resources and food, to sustain the growing population.  This pose the question will we be able to produce enough food and fuel for the future. There has been and introduction of Bio fuel based corn ethanol being the main resource to produce the bio fuel. This purposes the question if we use the land to grow fuel instead of food will there be enough in the future. This paper will discuss the pros and cons of producing bio fuels instead of food.

Ethanol fuel is ethanol (ethyl alcohol), the same type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages. It can be used as a transport fuel, mainly as a bio fuel additive for gasoline.  There are many pros of producing bio fuels such as corn based ethanol. First the production of ethanol will help reduce the dependence on petroleum based fuel. There is use of 10% ethanol gasoline and has been mandated in some U.S. states and cities, that there must be a blend of 10% ethanol. Ethanol is a renewable energy. Ethanol can be made from crops such as potatoes, sugar cane, manioc and corn. Corn is the most widely use because it is easy to grow most anywhere. "Fossil fuel-based gasoline is the largest source of man-made carcinogens and the number one source of toxic emissions, according to the U.S. EPA. Ethanol is a renewable, environmentally friendly fuel that is inherently cleaner than gasoline. Ethanol reduces harmful tailpipe emissions of carbon monoxide, particulate matter, oxides of nitrogen, and other ozone-forming pollutants.”

Growing for fuels vs. food is not the way to go. Food should be the moist important because there is going to be an estimated increase in the population to go to 9 billion in 2050. If the land is being used to produce corps for ethanol rather than food then, how are we going to feed such a large population? The cons especially when it is made from corn because growing corn requires expending energy - plowing, fertilizing, planting, and harvesting all require machinery that burns fossil fuel. Modern agriculture depends on large quantities of fertilizer and pesticides; these are produced by methods that use fossil fuels. Then there is the cost of transporting the corn to an ethanol plant. Where the corn must be fermentation and distillation before it can be used. The first is price, ethanol prices fluctuate on a different cycle than gasoline, meaning that ethanol is sometimes cheaper but sometimes more expensive. This is bad news for consumers because even if the price of gas at the pump is cheaper than gasoline, using ethanol may not be less expensive in the end. At present, fertile cropland, is being lost at an alarming rate, nearly one-third of the world's cropland (1.5 billion acres) has been abandoned during the past 40 years because erosion has made it unproductive (Pimentel et al., 1995). There are about 2 billion humans in the U.S. that are now malnourished, indicating a combination of insufficient food, low incomes, and inadequate distribution of food. This is the largest number of hungry humans ever recorded in history. China about 80 million are now malnourished and hungry, by using the land to produce fuel instead of food is going to cause the number of malnourished people to increase. The food prices are increase because of using the corn for ethanol instead of food. The corn to produce one tank of ethanol based fuel, can feed a human male for one year.

So should corn base ethanol still be produce, not at the current state because it is costing more to produce it than it is worth.  There are other alternatives to use in corn like algae base gases that are more efficient and should be looked into.                                                          

Works cited

Trucks., (n.d.). Ethanol: Is it the best solution? Get to know the pros and cons | PennLive.com. Read your favorite Central Pennsylvania blogs - PennLive.com. Retrieved February 21, 2011, from http://blog.pennlive.com/naturalliving

Alternatives to Corn-Based Ethanol are Coming - BusinessWeek. (n.d.). BusinessWeek - Business News, Stock Market & Financial Advice. Retrieved February 21, 2011, from http://www.businessweek.com/investing/green_business/archives/2008/05/alternatives_to_corn-based_ethanol_are_coming.html



Is food really safe to eat or we taking a risk by eating?

Food and water are the most important things people need to survive.  Survival is the key to maintaining life. So let’s take the food that we are eating is it really safe for us to eat. As American and being one of the most developed countries in the world you would think that we would not have to be worried about the food that we eat. Food security involves prevention, minimizing, or responding to the deliberate contamination of food products by a variety of potential threat agents.(CDC) Food security is not the same as food safety. Food Safety is the utilization of various resources and strategies to ensure that all types of foods are properly stored, prepared, and preserved so they are safe for consumption.(CDC)  

 Some interesting facts from Goldbergs:

•  Each year 76 million Americans get sick from eating spoiled, contaminated, or adulterated food, resulting in roughly 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths
•  Imported food has grown to 13 percent of the annual American diet.
• 98.7 percent of imported food is never inspected by the FDA or USDA, the two agencies tasked with protecting Americans from tainted products.
•  A series of incidents caused by toxic Chinese goods -- from toothpaste to pet food to toys -- have prompted efforts in Washington to overhaul the system. 
•  China exported $4.2 billion in food and agriculture to the U.S. last year, which represents a four-fold increase in a little more than a decade.

            From past events of food recalls such as 85 product recalls under FDA jurisdiction, "36 of those recalls were due to Salmonella contamination of lettuce, alfalfa sprouts, green onions, and ground pepper, in 2010 are just a few.  Website http://www.sweetadditions.net/food-drinks/food-product-recalls-of-year-2010, states the different product lines and what was recalled. With such an advanced country why are we having these problems?  Did you know that 25 % of the food Americans eats everyday are imported from foreign countries: China, Mexico, Brazil.  Also that less than 2% of the food coming in to the United States is actually inspected. (Goldberg) There countries do not have the same standards that our US farmers are now being held too, because of the New Food Safety Bill. Although I cannot state this as fact but herd from a good source there were supposed to be inspector s inspecting the farms in China, to make sure they met codes, but the inspectors were not inspecting just taking payment to ignore problems. This could have been a large cause for food borne illnesses that have plagued the US recently.

            So why do we not inspect more of the food that comes in to the U.S. is because home land security is too busy looking for stowaways, money, drugs, and weapons. This concerns me because if salmonella can spread from one end of the country to the other by a food product that is distributed then just think if, there was a biological weapon placed in the food that comes in to the U.S. and its not inspected think of the deaths that this could lead to. Just some thoughts on where your food comes from. Maybe before we take a bite or buy something at the groceries store we should think about the problems with our food system. Yes, the New Food Safety Bill is supposed to help with this but how effective is it going to be over seas?

CDC - Food Safety. (n.d.). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved February 15, 2011, from http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/

Goldberg, M. (2007, September 7). PPI: 98.7 Percent of Imported Food Never Inspected . Progressive Policy Institute: Defining the Third Way. Retrieved February 15, 2011, from http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=85&subsecID=108&contentID

 

New Food Safety Bill Pros and Cons

Pro’s and Con’s of the New food Safety bill.
There are many opinions on the new safety bill. I am going to go through the pros and cons of the bill to show the different sides of the food bill.
Pros

The Food safety bill was revamped, because there had not been a change in how the food inspections since 1938. The new bill was sign on January 4th, 2011. This bill was written because of the food scares that had happened in the recent past. In 2006, there was contaminated spinach, in 2008 there was salmonella in the peppers and possibly the tomatoes, in 2010 there was E. coli in the peanut butter, all these products made it to shelves and in to people’s homes cause people to become ill or in the peanut butter scare 9 people lost their lives, because of contamination of E. coli. The new bill will make those factories that are unsafe and producing contaminated products shut down. Before it was the choice of the company if they wanted to stop production and fix the problem. The new bill will insure that the food and medications being sold in America will be safe to consume. So that someone’s dinner does not end up with them in the hospital. This new bill is going to upgrade the food safety laws and enforce them. This will also help so that diseased cows do not make it in to the food supply insuring that people can eat food without having to worry if it is going to make them sick or not. The bill is placing $1.4 billon dollars in to the food safety system, a portion going to increasing the number of inspector insuring that, the factories or farms your food comes from are using safe practices, to make sure the food you are eating for dinneris safe.
Cons

Senate Bill 510, will cause the demise of all small farms , because it is going to be extremely costly for small farms to pay for the inspections and restorations that may need to be put in to place. Also this bill allows the FDA, to shut down and farm that fail inspection once, if they feel it should be shut down. The bill will criminalize small and organic farmers trying not to use conventional and screen fertilizers. The surprise inspections will not allow the farmers to fix any small problems that are on the farm before they are inspected, where they could be shut down. If small farms in communities shut down this will cause a drop in the local economies, because small farms bring a lot of revenue to the local economy. $ 1.4 billion dollars is a lot of money, that the U.S.A currently does not have to implement this bill. Also 25% of all food in America is imported from under developed countries and had lower food standards than what we are placing on American producers. How are we going to inspect the food that is produced in other countries, when we can barely do it here in the U.S.A Will this still have to be determined?
So is this bill worth the effort or not. Yes, because it is going to increase inspections, but also can cause problems for smaller farms. So this bill has its ups and downs just like anything else so, hopefully that it helps more that it hurts we can only wait and see what comes of this New Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011. Hopefully this will increase food security of imported foods as well all food produced here in the U.S.A


Adams, M. (2011, November 30). YouTube - HealthRanger: Senate Bill 510 Food Safety Modernization Act . YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. . Retrieved February 6, 2011, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ6_EZzfqZc&feature=related

Samad, J., & Images, A. (n.d.). Obama signs legislation to improve food safety - USATODAY.com. News, Travel, Weather, Entertainment, Sports, Technology, U.S. & World - USATODAY.com. Retrieved February 6, 2011, from http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-01-04-food-safety_N.htm