Europe's wonderful regulations

David Seaton's News Links
Europe's "superpower" secret weapon is its regulatory prowess. To create and enforce regulations that guarantee the quality, safety and healthfulness of an infinite number of products among 25 nations of disparate traditions is Europe's greatest gift to the contemporary world.

A friend of mine, a Spanish restaurateur, tells me that in his opinion the biggest effect of Spain's entry into the European Union has been the effect of EU regulations on the quality of common table wine and bulk olive oil. Before Spain's entry in the EU these products were produced in appalling sanitary conditions. And there was even a case of mass poisoning from tainted rape seed oil in 1981 which has caused the death of 3,000 people over the years and left 20,000 with permanently impaired health. The European Union's stringent regulatory apparatus that many find "interventionist" and anti-democratic with its "faceless bureaucrats in Brussels" has vastly improved the image of Spanish food and wines: especially the food and wine that average people consume daily.

In the USA thousands of pet owners are heart broken because their dogs and cats have died from eating tainted pet food "fillers" from China. In Panama dozens of people have died from brushing their teeth with poisoned, Chinese counterfeit, brand name toothpaste. A major mass poisoning of human beings in a developed country produced by fraudulent Chinese business practices could cast suspicion on all things Chinese and bring the Chinese economic "miracle" crashing to the ground.

In the maelstrom of globalization it is Europe's superior international regulatory capabilities that will ensure that millions will prefer products from the EU over all others. DS

When Fakery Turns Fatal - New York Times
Abstract: They might be called China’s renegade businessmen, small entrepreneurs who are experts at counterfeiting and willing to go to extraordinary lengths to make a profit. But just how far out of the Chinese mainstream are they? Here in Wudi in eastern China, a few companies tried to save money by slipping the industrial chemical melamine into pet food ingredients as a cheap protein enhancer, helping incite one of the largest pet food recalls ever. In Taixing, a city far to the south, a small business cheated the system by substituting a cheap toxic chemical for pharmaceutical-grade syrup, leading to a mass poisoning in Panama. And in the eastern province of Anhui, a group of entrepreneurs concocted a fake baby-milk formula that eventually killed dozens of rural children. The incidents are the latest indications that cutting corners or producing fake goods is not just a legacy of China’s initial rush toward the free market three decades ago but still woven into the fabric of the nation’s thriving industrial economy. It is driven by entrepreneurs who are taking advantage of a weak legal system, lax regulations and a business culture where bribery and corruption are rampant.(...) Counterfeiting, of course, is not new to China. Since this country’s economic reforms began to take root in the 1980s, businesses have engineered countless ways to produce everything from fake car parts, cosmetics and brand name bags to counterfeit electrical cables and phony Viagra. Counterfeiting rings are broken nearly every week; nonetheless, the government seems to be waging a losing battle against the operations.(...) But the discovery of dangerous ingredients in foods and drugs has raised more serious questions.(...) But agricultural workers and experts in this region tell a different story. They say the practice of doctoring animal and fish feed with melamine and other ingredients is widespread in China. And Wudi, they say, has long been known as a center for such activity. “Wudi became famous for fake fish powder almost 10 years ago,” said Chen Baojiang, a professor of animal nutrition at the Agricultural University of Hebei. (Fish powder is used as a protein additive to animal feed, including fish feed.) “All kinds of fillers have been used. At the beginning it was vegetable protein, then urea. Now it’s feather powder.”(...) For decades, small entrepreneurs have started out counterfeiting in emerging industries in China, seeking an early advantage and their first pot of gold. Often, they try to get around regulations, or simply believe small-time cheating that involves adding cheap substitutes or low-grade ingredients will not cause much harm. “Basically, for entrepreneurs, if something is not explicitly banned — it’s not banned,” said Dali Yang, who teaches at the University of Chicago and has studied China’s food safety regulations. “As long as people are not sick or dying, it’s O.K.”Experts say counterfeiters are now moving to outlying areas of the country, where it is easier to evade regulation. The counterfeiters are also moving into food and agriculture, which are difficult to monitor because they involve small farmers and entrepreneurs. Small-time entrepreneurs have played the same game over and over with other products, experts say, adding cheap substitute chemicals to toothpaste; using lower-grade materials to produce car parts, batteries and cellphones; and creating factories that specialize in counterfeit goods. Last year, for instance, pirates were caught faking an entire company, setting up a “branch” of the NEC Corporation of Japan, including 18 factories and warehouses in China and Taiwan. “We have to bear in mind they probably don’t think about the consequences at all,” said Steve Tsang, a China specialist who teaches at Oxford University. “They’re probably only thinking of making a fast buck.” READ IT ALL

Ethanol Horror story: hogs forced to eat junk food

David Seaton's News Links
Bismark said that is was better for people to not know how sausages were made. Still as true as the day he said it.

This is a story that illustrates the insanity of turning corn into fuel for automobiles and also gives interesting insights into the food industry too.

Does anybody remember the film called "Soylent Green", cause reading this article from the Wall Street Journal, I think we are headed in that direction for sure. DS

With Corn Prices Rising, Pigs Switch To Junk Food - Wall Street Journal
Abstract: "Pigs can be picky eaters," Mr. Smith says, scooping a handful of banana chips, yogurt-covered raisins, dried papaya and cashews from one of the 12 one-ton boxes in his shed. Generally, he says, "they like the sweet stuff." Mr. Smith is just happy his pigs aren't eating him out of house and home. Growing demand for corn-based ethanol, a biofuel that has surged in popularity over the past year, has pushed up the price of corn, Mr. Smith's main feed, to near-record levels. Because feed represents farms' biggest single cost in raising animals, farmers are serving them a lot of people food, since it can be cheaper. Besides trail mix, pigs and cattle are downing cookies, licorice, cheese curls, candy bars, french fries, frosted wheat cereal and peanut-butter cups. Some farmers mix chocolate powder with cereal and feed it to baby pigs. "It's kind of like getting Cocoa Puffs," says David Funderburke, a livestock nutritionist at Cape Fear Consulting in Warsaw, N.C., who helps Mr. Smith and other farmers formulate healthy diets for livestock.(...) In Pennsylvania, farmers are turning to candy bars and snack foods because of the many food manufacturers nearby. Hershey Co. sells farmers waste cocoa and the trimmings from wafers that go into its Kit Kat bars. At Nissin Foods, maker of Top Ramen and Cup Noodles, farmers drive to a Lancaster, Pa., factory and load up on scraps of the squiggly dried noodles, which pile up in bins beneath the assembly line. Hiroshi Kika, a senior manager at the company, says the farm business is "very minor" but helps the company's effort to "do anything to recycle." Other businesses called "jobbers" serve as middlemen, buying food that manufacturers would otherwise throw away, like burned or broken cookies, or cereal that contains too much sugar, and selling it to livestock operations.(...) Historically, the livestock industry has consumed 60% of the nation's corn crop. Thanks to the ethanol rush, the price of a bushel of corn for months has hovered around $4 -- nearly double the price of a few years ago. That has prompted livestock groups like the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the National Chicken Council to call for an end to federal ethanol subsidies, including a 51-cent-per-gallon tax credit offered to companies that blend gasoline with ethanol. For now, livestock must pay up or make do with alternatives.(...) Mr. Smith says he's paying about $63 to feed a single pig for five or six months before it goes to market -- up 13% from last year. His costs would be even higher if he didn't augment his feed with trail mix, which he says helps him save on average about $8 a ton on feed. This year, Mr. Smith has bought enough trail mix to feed about 5,000 hogs, and that will save him about $40,000. He began feeding his hogs trail mix about a year ago, after Mr. Funderburke told him a local manufacturer was looking to dump surplus mix that was either too salty, sprinkled with cardboard or otherwise unfit for human consumption. Mr. Smith recently got a truckload of chocolate chips and his pigs seem to like them. "I've heard no complaints," he says.(...) Dwight Hess, a cattle feedlot operator in Marietta, Pa., is located in the heart of snack country, near Hershey and Herr Foods Inc., a maker of potato chips, pretzels and snack mixes. His cattle ration consists of about 17% "candy meal," a blend of chocolate bars and large chunks of chocolate; 3% of what he calls "party mix," a blend of popcorn, pretzels, potato chips and cheese curls; 8% corn gluten; and the remainder corn and barley he grows. He says the byproducts save him about 10% on feed costs. Still, it costs him about 65 cents to put a pound on a steer, up from 42 cents last year. Near the Snake River in Idaho, Cevin Jones of Intermountain Beef is struggling to feed his 12,000 cattle in light of higher feed costs. Traditionally, he has used up to 30% corn or other grains in his feed mix. This year he's using 100% byproducts, including french fries, Tater Tots and potato peels. "It's kind of funny," Mr. Jones says, "every once in a while, you can spot a couple of cattle fighting over a whole potato." READ IT ALL

Pot is America's biggest cash crop

David Seaton's News Links

My grandfather was an Iowa farmer and the reality of farming is in my DNA. Long on food, short on cash. When I first heard the economics of modern American cannabis, I imagined him driving his Model-T into town one Saturday, doing his shopping and while drinking a cup of coffee having the following dialog with a neighbor.

Neighbor: 'Lo Frank
Granddad: 'Lo.
N: Hows things?
GD: Can't complain.
N: 'You heard about this maryjeewanna stuff them hippies smoke.
GD: Nope. Not very much. Nothing good.
N: City fellow came around here the other day and told me all about it. Seemed like a nice fellow. Interesting conversation.
GD: Yeah?
N: Yup. Fellow said it grows like a weed, don't even need to water 'em. Thousand dollars cash, per plant, in the field, no taxes. He'll take all you can grow, cash in your hand, give y' the seed free. Y' hide ten of 'em in the middle of 20 acres of corn, nobody but you'd know where they were. Thousand dollars a plant'd, pay the mortgage on my place. Damn.
GD: (Gulp).

I don't know what my grandfather would have finally done, but I'm sure he would have lost some sleep wrestling with his conscience... Family to feed, bank loans to pay back. Farming in Iowa, farming in Afghanistan or Colombia... Farming is farming. DS
Pot is called biggest cash crop - Los Angeles Times Abstract: For years, activists in the marijuana legalization movement have claimed that cannabis is America's biggest cash crop. Now they're citing government statistics to prove it. A report released today by a marijuana public policy analyst contends that the market value of pot produced in the U.S. exceeds $35 billion — far more than the crop value of such heartland staples as corn, soybeans and hay, which are the top three legal cash crops. California is responsible for more than a third of the cannabis harvest, with an estimated production of $13.8 billion that exceeds the value of the state's grapes, vegetables and hay combined — and marijuana is the top cash crop in a dozen states, the report states. The report estimates that marijuana production has increased tenfold in the past quarter century despite an exhaustive anti-drug effort by law enforcement. READ IT ALL