NSAC Archives for the 'Food Safety' Category
House Sets Government Funding Allocations
Wednesday, April 25th, 2012
On April 19, we reported that the Senate Appropriations Committee had approved discretionary spending allocations for the coming 2013 fiscal year. The size of the total spending pie, as laid out by the Committee, was completely consistent with the levels set by law in the Budget Control Act of 2011. Today, the House Appropriations Committee Read the Rest…
Path to the 2012 Farm Bill: Senate Draft Farm Bill – Research Drilldown
Monday, April 23rd, 2012
In sum, the research title of the recently released draft Senate farm bill was not a strong one for sustainable agriculture. NSAC and its member organizations had several proposals for how to strengthen the focus on research that benefits and is relevant for organic and sustainable production systems, contained in our platform, Farming for the Read the Rest…
Shifting Ground for Water Quality Regulation Demonstrates Need for Conservation in California’s Salinas Valley
Wednesday, April 4th, 2012
By Gary Peterson (Editor’s note: We thank Gary Peterson, Development and Communications Director with the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (ALBA), an NSAC member organizations, for reporting on recent developments concerning agriculture and water quality in California’s Salinas Valley and Monterey Bay region. ALBA brings a unique perspective to this issue with its mission to Read the Rest…
House Holds Agriculture Appropriations Hearings
Wednesday, March 14th, 2012
Earlier this month, the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee held a series of four hearings on the Obama Administration’s fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget request for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The hearings precede and are meant to inform the markup of a FY 2013 agriculture appropriations bill. The four hearings covered the President’s budget Read the Rest…
USDA Solicits Stakeholder Input on Agricultural Research
Thursday, March 1st, 2012
Last week, over 150 people attended a stakeholder listening session to provide feedback on ways to improve the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) – USDA’s largest competitive grants program that funds agricultural research, education, and extension projects. The session was hosted in Washington, D.C. at the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) – Read the Rest…
Obama’s FY 2013 USDA Budget Request
Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
On Monday, February 13, President Obama submitted his budget request to Congress for Fiscal Year (FY) 2013. For sustainable agriculture interests, the budget proposal is a mixed bag, with big cuts to working lands conservation programs, and both cuts and increases to discretionary spending accounts for sustainable agriculture programs. As far as the upcoming 2012 Read the Rest…
Update: Agriculture & Animal Welfare
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down California Law on Downed Animals Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in the case National Meat Association v. Harris that strikes down a California law with requirements for how slaughterhouses handle pigs that cannot walk, referred to in the law as “nonambulatory.” The California law requires slaughterhouses Read the Rest…
FSIS Proposed Rule for Generic Labels
Thursday, December 15th, 2011
USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) announced a proposed rule to change its generic label approval process. This new rule would allow food processing establishments to use new labels or to modify labels on a broader set of products without first submitting the labels to FSIS for approval. FSIS will still verify that labels comply Read the Rest…
USDA Awards Grants to Universities to Improve Food Safety
Friday, December 9th, 2011
On Wednesday, December 7, Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan announced 17 grants to universities in 13 states to improve the safety of our food supply through research, education, and extension in a number of areas. A total of $10.4 million was awarded by USDA’s National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA) through the National Integrated Read the Rest…
FDA Rejects Petitions to Ban Certain Antibiotics in Animal Agriculture
Thursday, November 10th, 2011
On Monday, November 7, much to the dismay of the sustainable agriculture community, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) denied two citizen petitions that asked the Agency to ban certain uses of antibiotics in food animals. The petitions, filed in 1999 and 2005, urge the FDA to withdraw the approvals for antibiotics given to Read the Rest…
