7/8/04

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1.  Retailers Can't Get Enough Organic Beef 
2.  Global Warming Plan Would Pay Citizens Not To Pollute 
3.  North Carolina Looks For Hog Waste Options 
4.  USDA Predicts Less Rain In Plain States

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1.  RETAILERS CAN'T GET ENOUGH ORGANIC BEEF

With new diets decrying the perils of bad animal fats and the discovery of mad cow disease organic meat prices are soaring.  The same producers that last year wondered if they were wasting their time are now unable to raise the cattle fast enough.  According to an article in this month's Planet Ark, organic retailers like Whole Foods Market are unable to keep their shelves stocked.  Scott Lively, chief executive of Chicago-based Dakota Beef LLC, the country's largest producer of organic beef said, "Now, demand is overwhelming beyond belief.  It will be another 18 months before I'm able to even think about keeping up with demand."  

According to the Organic Trade Association sales of organic beef totaled nearly $10 million last year, less than 1 percent of total sales.  The group expects the market to soar 30 percent every year through 2008. Read more.

2.  GLOBAL WARMING PLAN WOULD PAY CITIZENS NOT TO POLLUTE 

In the UK an innovative plan is being tested in the Senate that will fight global warming by giving all citizens a tradable greenhouse gas allowance.   Under the emissions trading scheme, all adults would be issued an equal share of national carbon emissions, with units being deducted by energy companies as they were used.  Each year the nation's total number of units would decrease.   

Consumers would also have transaction "smart cards" which they would present at petrol stations as they bought fuel.  With this plan, in the early years most people would have more units than they needed, while some would be short.  According to developers of the plan, between the two a market would be established in surplus carbon units.  According to planners, the market would determine the price, and those who used less energy would profit.  Read the full article on the web. 

3.  NORTH CAROLINA LOOKS FOR HOG WASTE OPTIONS 

Researchers in North Carolina are about to release a technical report outlining 16 alternatives to the state's current system of dealing with the waste from its 10 million hogs. Following the massive problems associated with Hurricane Floyd in 1999, the state brokered an agreement by which Smithfield Farm and Premium Standard Farms contributed "$18 million `to develop and implement environmentally superior technologies' to eliminate the discharge of animal waste to surface water or groundwater and `substantially eliminate' atmospheric emissions of ammonia, odor and airborne pathogens and contamination of the soil by nutrients and heavy metals." 

The New York Times reports that according to the project leader, "The early technical front-runner involves culling solids from the water flushed out of the barn with advanced chemical techniques and bacterially treating the remaining effluent, removing the majority of pollutants. The technique, which eliminates the lagoons, costs four to five times as much as the lagoon-and-spray practice and twice as much as its nearest competitor."  The Times also reports that the North Carolina Pork Council "is not ready to concede that anything could improve the current system of treating wastes." Read the full story. 

4.  USDA PREDICTS LESS RAIN IN GREAT PLAINS 

USDA's Agricultural Research Service reports this month that  most of the nation east of the Rockies, particularly the Great Plains, experienced a wetter than usual period from 1971 to 2000. Looking at 100 years of precipitation records, stream flow data and other information, they are predicting that the pattern will not last, and that the Plains are likely to enter a drought pattern like the one that already grips the western states – causing a "significant challenge" for agricultural producers. 

Jean Steiner of the ARS reports of the past decades, "All that precipitation has, for the most part, been a great thing. But people may start thinking that this is normal. When drier conditions return, water supply systems will become increasingly stressed, causing conflicts about how water will be used." She and her team members hope that their research will help managers prepare for drier days ahead. 

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 to ensure abundant family farms, healthy critters, clean water and a wild Earth.  

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Scotty Johnson and Aimee Delach
National Rural Community Outreach Campaign
sjohnson@defenders.org