FDA investigators have found rodents, seeping manure and even maggots at the Iowa egg farms believed to be responsible for as many as 1,500 cases of salmonella poisoning.
FDA officials released their initial observations of the ongoing investigations at Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms on Monday. The two farms recalled more than half a billion eggs after salmonella illnesses were linked to their products earlier this month. Meanwhile, egg producers are getting the word out that the eggs in your fridge are safe...
That’s from PSA that egg producers have released nationwide to reassure consumers.
Jan Kelly, executive director of the North Carolina Egg Producers, says a cooked egg is a safe egg. The PSA campaign is scheduled to run through this weekend.
Fourth of Five USDA-DOJ Workshops Held
An estimated crowd of about 13-hundred people attended the fourth of five USDA-DOJ workshops to explore the appropriate role for antitrust and regulatory enforcement in American agriculture. This event was held Friday at Ft. Collins, Colorado, on the campus of Colorado State University. This workshop, led by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, examined competition in the livestock industry and featured panel discussions on trends in the livestock industry, market consolidation and market transparency.
Minnesota pork producer Darwin Bach was a participant. He says he heard some good things from Ag Secretary Vilsack…
"He laid the situation out very well... the question is, what are they going to do to follow through on it..."
Another good first step - Bach says - would be enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act. But he stresses these are only the first steps to rectifying some of these challenges.
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