New Contract Requirements Being Enforced
The 2008 Farm Bill established new requirements for swine contracts under the Packers and Stockyards Act. USDA’s GIPSA is working to ensure that all swine contractors are aware of and comply with the new requirements that went into effect on June 18, 2008, when the Farm Bill passed. GIPSA currently is focusing on contracts involving pork producers to ensure their compliance with Farm Bill requirements.
USDA Wants More Nutritious Food Aid Packages
Roger Beachy, director of USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture says a new grant program will help insure humanitarian assistance programs provide healthier food products for recipients. Beachy said, - it is our responsibility to make sure that in emergency situations, these people are receiving food that supplies them with the nutrients they need.
Obesity Collaborative Strengthened
USDA has joined the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research, a public-private research collaboration, to accelerate progress on preventing and reversing the childhood obesity epidemic. Efforts will be focused on strengthening the nation's research tools and infrastructure, discovering what works, and communicating and spreading effective interventions more rapidly.
Who Are HSUS?
The Humane Society of the United States has us hoodwinked. With that said, who are they, and what are they doing? Their name would imply that they’re helping domestic animals, but David Martosko, Director of Research at the Center for Consumer Freedom in Washington and blogging writer for HumaneWatch dot org explains that’s not the case, going on to say that if you poll Americans, especially those who give money to HSUS, they’ll say they’re an umbrella group that helps animal shelters and stray dogs and cats. When you show them a tax return from HSUS, their eyes bug out when they see that less than ½ of 1% goes to help dogs and cats.
Okay, so that begs the question, what are they doing and where is their money going? Martosko says this should be their TV commercial, if they were choose to be truthful...We are PETA with a nicer wristwatch, and a three piece suit, and we don’t have naked interns, but we do have a staff of 30 lawyers that’s trying to make it too expensive to feed bacon and eggs to your family, and we’d like very much for there to be milk in schools, and no lab rats, and we really don’t care if you cure cancer and aids. I don’t think they’d get very many donations, But, that’s what it is, it’s really a richer, more sophisticated form of PETA.
In short, their goal is to if not eliminate, to make a serious dent in animal agriculture, and other uses for animals other than roaming free, in this country. To date, they’ve seen some impressive success, namely with Proposition 2 in California, which passed in November 2008. Prop 2 is expected to drive the egg laying industry out of the state by the middle of this decade, and severely diminish the hog industry in California by the end of the decade.
Martosko says make no mistake, HSUS is no PETA. What PETA tried to do by hassling people and harassing old ladies in fur coats, HSUS is doing by putting pressure on legislators and threatening people with lawsuits to get people to do what they want. But, it’s a different time, and I think HSUS’s tactical tool box is more suited to this time, and so they’ve had more successes than PETA ever did, they’re better at what they do than PETA, they’re smarter, and moreover they’re more palatable to most Americans.
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