Ag Committee Kills Farm Bill

6-3 VOTE: Measure Would Have Given Overtime Pay, Collective Bargaining and Other Benefits to Laborers

A hotly debated bill to expand farmworker rights was defeated Tuesday by the state Senate Agriculture Committee... The bill is now dead.

"The merits of the bill frankly hurt farm workers, consumers and farmers collectively," said Mr. Aubertine, the Cape Vincent Democrat who chairs the committee. "There were a lot of weak points." Mr. Aubertine said the overtime regulation alone would have compelled farmers to cut each worker's hours to avoid the increased pay, which would create fewer opportunities for laborers to earn what they wanted and would make the jobs less desirable. The chairman also said he was troubled that the bill made no differentiation between piecework, such as apple picking, and shift work, like on a dairy farm...

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Ag Committee Kills Farm Bill

Ontario Tax May Impact NY Grapegrowers

Any New York wine grape growers who have been selling their produce to neighboring Ontario winemakers might find that revenue source endangered.

“The Ontario provincial government has set up a huge greenbelt around Toronto, and now, through a selective tax increase on low-cost blended wines made partly from foreign wines, is trying to encourage people to sip pricier products made entirely from local grapes,” reports the Toronto Globe & Mail newspaper.

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Ontario Tax

Is Organic Food Stuffed Full Of Marketing Hype?

L-R, Charles Benbrook, Urvashi Rangan and Jeffrey

Is paying extra money for organic food really worth it?

Some argue that the label "organic" confers real value -- marking healthier food produced without the use of synthetic pesticides and antibiotics. But others claim it's just marketing hype -- that organic food hasn't been proven healthier and that it comes with its own environmental trade-offs, like requiring more land.

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Marketing Hype?

FSIS Measures Worry Meat Processors

Late last year, Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, in the first ever live Facebook chat between the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the public, assured small meat processors and meat lockers that her agency would be sensitive to their concerns in crafting the details of food safety regulation. But, she said, "no one is exempt from food safety."  

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FSIS Measures