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Tyson Foods Is Being Investigated by the USDA
The Packers and Stockyard Division, or PSD, is actively investigating Tyson Foods, one of the largest meat companies in the nation, according to interviews with contract growers and a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) employee.
The PSD, an arm of the USDA, is tasked with investigating violations of the Packers and Stockyard Act and handing out enforcement actions. The Act was created in 1921 to protect livestock and poultry producers from “unfair, unjustly discriminatory or deceptive practices.”
The agency routinely investigates potential violations such as the suppression of meatpacking worker wages, failure to pay for livestock and discrimination against contract growers.
An investigation doesn’t always lead to an enforcement action or penalty. The agency would not officially confirm or deny the existence of an ongoing investigation.
Sugar Industry Faces Pressure Over Coerced Hysterectomies and Labor Abuses
The sugar industry is facing pressure to clean up its supply chains and improve oversight after revelations that women in India, the world’s second-largest sugar producer, work in debt bondage and are coerced into getting hysterectomies.
In the wake of the report, a group of labor leaders in India went on a three-day hunger strike recently to demand better working conditions. One of the companies that buys sugar in Maharashtra, Coca-Cola, quietly met with Indian government leaders and sugar suppliers last month to discuss responsible harvesting. And Bonsucro, a sugar industry body that sets standards, said that it would create a human rights task force.
The investigation into the sugar industry, by The New York Times and The Fuller Project, revealed a range of labor abuses, including that female sugar cane cutters in the western India state of Maharashtra were pushed into illegal child marriages so that they could work alongside their husbands.
Locked into debt to their employers, the women are forced to return to the fields season after season, the report found.
Toxic Pesticides Increase Rates of Chronic Kidney Disease in Agricultural Communities
A screening and analysis of 36 pesticides finds traces of these chemicals in patients with “unexplained chronic kidney disease” from agricultural communities in the Indian province of Uttar Pradesh.
Researchers conducting this study, published in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health Sciences, identify organophosphates, organochlorines, and pyrethroids as the main culprits, building on years of existing research pointing to adverse health impacts originating from bioaccumulation of pesticides after acute and chronic exposure.
Out of 150 commonly used pesticides, researchers identified 36 pesticides—15 organophosphates, eight organochlorines, and 13 pyrethroids—in the bloodstream of both groups of study participants. “The findings of the study indicate widespread exposure to pesticides among individuals in agricultural areas, with residues detected in both CKDu patients and controls,”
This study builds on numerous reports that demonstrate the adverse health effects of pesticides on kidney health among various at-risk subpopulations, including women, pregnant women, and agricultural workers, as well as broader populations in various geographical contexts.
These Farmers Didn’t Know Their Land Was Contaminated With PFAS. Now They’re Suing.
Jason Grostic, an organic beef farmer in Michigan, was blindsided when he was ordered to cease all sales and operations in January 2021 after state testing found elevated levels of “forever chemicals” in his meat.
Two and a half years later and no soil remediation options, he’s still barred from selling his farm’s products.
“All the money I had saved, the equipment I owned, the land that I had for retirement, I’ve got none of that now,” Grostic said.
He and his family are not alone in finding their land and crops contaminated with “forever chemicals,” or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the U.S.
Studies suggest PFAS exposure can lead to higher cholesterol levels, thyroid disease, increased risk of high blood pressure or pre-eclampsia in pregnant women, and increased risk of kidney or testicular cancer.
Some farmers are recently learning about contamination to their land as states like Maine and Michigan begin to expand testing for the chemicals.
But with limited support from state and federal governments to clean up the soils, affected farms may have no choice but to close up shop entirely.
Lifeless Soils Will Be the Death of Us
Colin Campbell Center For Nutritional Studies reported:
The world’s topsoil is endangered. About a decade ago, a senior United Nations official made the widely-publicized claim that this most important natural resource, on which our survival depends, will be gone within 60 years if current rates of soil loss continue.
“The causes of soil destruction include chemical-heavy farming techniques, deforestation which increases erosion, and global warming”; as the experts warn, “the earth under our feet is too often ignored by policymakers.”
But let’s be honest: It’s not only policymakers ignoring the earth under our feet. It’s nearly all of us. We live in a time when detachment from the natural world and the resources we depend on is the rule, not the exception.
Nothing illustrates this detachment better than our modern food system, a food system of commodities rather than health-promoting foods, of extraction rather than regeneration, and of monocropped fields as far as the eye can see reliant on countless chemical inputs rather than natural processes.
Even when we make the healthy choice of bypassing aisles of ultraprocessed foods and heading straight for the produce, do we know where our food comes from or how it was grown or how it arrived at the store or the many repercussions of this supply chain?
Small Farms Boost Rural Economies. Can Organic Milk Save Dairies From Extinction?
The Minnesota Star Tribune reported:
Lisa Hass — in work boots, jeans and a shirt embossed with “FARMER” — hitched a pole beneath a fence wire and lifted it high for dozens of half-ton heifers to amble forward toward greener pastures in the Wisconsin summer sun.
Dairying has deep roots in the surrounding dells of the Mississippi River. But storm clouds are gathering above these colorful farms, under threat of going big or going out of business.
For years, many small dairies facing extinction found saving grace in organic milk. But now that industry is also facing headwinds, and many worried observers fear a downturn in family farms will threaten surrounding rural towns, where merchants rely on agricultural operations to buoy local economies.
For some farmers, the answer to staying open has been organic, where a higher price on milk stabilizes a small farm. An operation certified as organic follows federal rules, specifying, among other requirements, that cows eat organic feed, including in pastures free of fertilizer. The payback is lucrative, with farmers easily making double the revenue on 100 pounds of organic milk.
Perdue Recalls Frozen Ready-to-Eat Chicken Nuggets and Tenders for Possible Metal Contamination
Perdue recalled hundreds of thousands of frozen ready-to-eat chicken breast nuggets and tenders for possible metal contamination, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) said.
The affected items are the 22-ounce Simply Smart organics breaded chicken breast nuggets, the 29-ounce chicken breast tenders, and the 22-ounce Butcher Box organic chicken breast nuggets.
All of the bags have a “best if used by” date of March 23, 2025, FSIS, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said in a news release on Aug. 16.
The recall includes about 167,171 pounds of the frozen ready-to-eat products.
Perdue Foods LLC said in a news release that “a foreign material was identified in a limited number of consumer packages.” FSIS said metal was found in the products and was discovered after consumer complaints about metal wire embedded in the food.
There have been no confirmed reports of illness or injury, FSIS and Perdue said.
