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The following article was printed in the Ontario Corn Producer, December 2008. By Lilian Schaer These days, it seems hard to predict what may happen with any degree of accuracy three months from now, let alone three years into the future. But although we live in volatile times, there are some fairly safe bets on what may lie ahead for farmers on the environmental front. Continue reading The green crystal ball   Guelph Mercury, August 01, 2008 The global food crisis is starting to hit home. Even here in Ontario where a strong farming sector produces an abundance of top quality food and exports much of it to other countries, higher food prices are becoming a fact of life. The growth of renewable fuels — especially ethanol whose main ingredient is corn — and the concept of growing plants for fuel instead of food are being pegged as the number 1 reason behind the rising food costs. This corn, the argument goes, is corn that should be going to feed people and not cars. An editorial in the Toronto Star today made me stop and think once again about the disconnect between those of us in agriculture and those who aren’t. According to the Star editorial, one of the solutions to the global food crisis is for rich nations like Canada to produce more food. On the surface, that seems simple enough. But let’s consider some simple truths: Continue reading Solving the food crisis?
Now you can know for sure. There’s a new, fool-proof way of determining whether the steak you’re eating came from a cloned animal using DNA barcoding technology. This statement was made by an Irish scientist at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Boston this week. According to Professor Patrick Cunningham, DNA tracking which is already used in some countries to certify meat as organic or hormone free, could easily be used to identify meat that came from cloned animals. Products from cloned animals were recently approved as safe for human consumption by the United States and the European Union. There were howls of protest from consumers groups about whether or not enough testing had been done to rule out long term, negative side effects of eating cloned animal meat. The US government last week approved the sale of meat and milk from cloned animals for human consumption – and at the same time, asked farmers to keep them off store shelves. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declared the products as safe for humans to eat as those from conventionally produced livestock. The US Department [...] |   | |||||
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With fewer and fewer farmers, most consumers have little opportunity to experience life on the farm nor do many know how food is produced. Two websites are aiming to help with that, letting consumers see into barns for themselves much like real estate agents offer potential buyers online house tours.