Articles Tagged with ''food safety''

Farmers in California, the nation’s top agricultural state, are applying near-record levels of pesticides despite the rising popularity of organic produce and concerns about the health of farmworkers and rural schoolchildren. The latest figures, released in April by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation and covering 2016, show that 209 million pounds of pesticide active ingredients were used in agriculture.

Dicamba, an herbicide sold by agribusiness giants Monsanto, BASF and DowDupont, doesn’t just kill weeds. Last year, according to a University of Missouri survey, dicamba damaged an estimated 3.6 million acres of soybeans across 25 states when it drifted from farms planted with seeds genetically engineered to resist the chemical onto regular soybean fields.

If you made a New Year’s resolution to improve your health by eating more produce, the folks at Stop Foodborne Illness have a few warnings for you. While a more plant-based diet can be very healthy, you still must be mindful about the risk of foodborne pathogens.

While health concerns are usually considered private matters, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) wants restaurant managers to talk to employees who are ill, to make sure they don’t spread foodborne illness to co-workers and customers. It’s a significant problem. Nearly half of restaurant-related outbreaks are caused by sick food workers. Managers may be hesitant to ask their employees about symptoms and diagnoses, especially since that conversation might lead to workers missing work and forgoing pay.

At a private meeting in September, congressional aides asked Rebeckah Adcock, a top official at the Department of Agriculture, to reveal the identities of the people serving on the deregulation team she leads at the agency. Teams like Adcock’s, created under an executive order by President Trump, had been taking heat from Democratic lawmakers over their secrecy. What little was publicly known suggested that some of the groups’ members had deep ties to the industries being regulated.

According to the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the majority of companies who go through a Class I recall can expect to see $10 million or more in losses as a result. A big part of the problem is traceability in food manufacturing. Not only do traceability issues allow problems to spread, they also lead to increased recall scope and cost.