1. ACTION ALERT: ASK USDA TO REDO MEAT MARKETING LABELS

Please email the Livestock and Seed Program at USDA's Agriculture Marketing Service this week to express your concerns about proposed meat marketing labeling claims and standards. The agency's proposed definitions for "grass-fed" "free-range" and "antibiotic-free" could undermine the integrity of the labels they seek to define, mislead consumers, and have a devastating affect on small and mid-sized farmers who are pioneers of these marketing claims. 

Please ask the USDA to 1) Withdraw proposed meat marketing claims and standards and start over again, working with family farm, consumer, humane, and environmental organizations instead of relying mainly on input from the largest meat packing companies; 2) Issue labels that ensure consumers are getting products that meet their expectations for grass-fed, free-range, and antibiotic free meat; and 3) If you are a farmer or rancher, tell them you would like to see standards for these labels that ensure consumer confidence and provide you with an important value-added market. 

Please email your comments to marketingclaim@usda.gov and refer to Docket Number LS-02-02 concerning Meat Marketing Claims and urge the Agricultural Marketing Service of USDA.

2. WAR RAISES FOOD SUPPLY SAFETY CONCERNS

The war in Iraq and the raising of the terrorism alert to code orange has prompted renewed concern that America's food supply could be vulnerable to attack. Concentration of food production and processing capabilities means that an attack on a single facility could have broad impacts on the nation's food safety. 

The General Accounting Office last week issued a report on March 19 which found that "Both FDA and USDA issued voluntary security guidelines to help food processors identify measures to prevent or mitigate the risk of deliberate contamination. Because these guidelines are voluntary, neither agency enforces, monitors, or documents their implementation." 

The report recommended that more food safety and inspection measures should be made mandatory, and recommended that the agencies work with Congress to enact mandatory measures.

The report is available at www.gao.gov, by searching on report number GAO-03-342, dated March 19, 2003

3. HOT AND DUSTY WITH SOME MINOR FLOODING

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warned in its spring weather outlook that Western states such as Montana, Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska face "bleak" water supplies lingering into the summer. The west is now entering its fifth year of drought with water supplies reaching record lows.

Lake Powell, a major man-made lake on the Colorado River, is now at about 50% capacity and expected to drop more this year. Lake Roosevelt, north of Phoenix is now at 10% capacity and Arizona's governor is planning major water conservation during the summer months. Last week's huge snowstorm in the Denver area will help bring reservoirs in eastern Colorado to about 70-75% of normal, but areas west of the Continental Divide largely missed out on the precipitation. NOAA reports that nationwide 53 percent of the United States is in a drought. At the same time moisture levels on the Eastern Seaboard are expected to continue above normal with possible floods this spring.

4. IN THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

With all that is going on in the world today, we thought to include this wonderful poem by one of America's greatest writers and family farm advocates Wendell Berry.

"When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not take their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free."

Wendell Berry

If you would like to subscribe or unsubscribe to this list, visit our
Rural Updates Subscriber Center

Read previous issues by visiting our Rural Updates Archive.