Good Morning.
It's Farm Safety Week—and it's never a bad time to make sure all your i's are dotted and t's are crossed when it comes to safety regulations.
This month brought one harsh example of what can happen if safety rules aren't followed. One company got hit with $41,303 in fines after the death of one of its workers inside a grain silo in Georgia.
This tragic story is a reminder to always follow regulations and keep an eye out for any potential dangers at your operation.
Stay safe out there.
Stories:
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What’s the Beef? Plant-Based Lawsuits Popping Up
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Plants without Pollen or Seeds?
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NAMI's Recipe for Success
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What’s the Beef? Plant-Based Lawsuits Popping Up |
I can’t believe it’s not… meat.
Meatless mayhem: Plant-based protein companies are filing lawsuits against states whose laws dictate the way their products are labeled.
Tofurky trot: The latest challenge was filed by Tofurky, a trademark of Turtle Island Foods out of Oregon. The company is challenging a law in Texas that went into effect Sept. 1 that requires plant-based product labels to include terms like "analogue," "meatless," "plant-based," "cell-cultured," or "lab-grown."
Protein proponents: Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association says that with a growing number of protein choices in the grocery stores, there’s a greater need to equip consumers with information to help them know what they’re buying.
Veggie "cylinder," anyone? The CEO of Tofurkey claims the Texas laws are insulting consumers’ intelligence. They also say they use terminology consumers are already familiar with, such as "burger" or "hot dog" to help them understand the intended use and texture of the plant-based protein products.
Can’t we meat in the middle: There have been 13 state legislatures with varying approaches to labeling laws for plant-based and alternative meat products.
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→ Trio of bans. In an effort to protect their domestic markets for domestic farmers, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia have all imposed bans on Ukrainian wheat imports.
→ Burro bandits. California conservationists are trying to control the local wild burro populations, especially after the donkeys have been caught eating from residential trash bins, destroying vegetation, and wandering onto roads.
→ Stop, in the name of urea. After a jump in prices, China ordered a halt on exports of urea from some fertilizer companies.
→ New ingredient in the mix. The EPA has registered a new pesticide active ingredient for ag use—fluazaindolizine, which helps to control nematodes on fruits and vegetables.
→ An end to a saga. The EPA has resolved litigation that dated all the way back to a 2011 complaint related to 1,000 pesticide products.
→ Teaming up against the deficit. A new Agricultural Caucus has been formed in the U.S. House to address ag trade, as a deficit is predicted for this year.
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Plants without Pollen or Seeds? |
No pollen. No seeds. And yet the tobacco plants are still growing strong.
Come again? Researchers at NC State have transferred a gene from one compartment of a plant cell to another. And the successful result? Normal-growing tobacco plants without pollen or viable seeds.
Why is this noteworthy? Their results are the key to producing hybrid seeds for better crop productivity. This could also eventually mean seedlessness in fruits. Imagine seedless raspberries or blackberries in the future. Wild!
Teamwork makes the dream work. NC State partnered with Precision BioSciences and Elo Life Systems to test if the cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) trait, aka the inability to produce pollen, could be generated in tobacco plants.
We’ll spare you the nitty gritty cellular details, but it worked. These altered tobacco plants seemed normal until they reached flowering. At this stage, they did not produce pollen because that gene had been deleted from its mitochondria.
Researchers were also pleased to find that when these plants were cross-fertilized with pollen from a normal plant, small, hollow seeds like those of seedless fruits were produced.
Soundbite: "Knowing the way the system works, there’s no reason to believe that we couldn’t effectively transfer the technology to other plant species." — Ralph Dewey, professor at NC State
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It’s National Farm Safety Week. While the data on farm accidents can feel a bit grim, it’s also important to remember that nonfatal farm injuries happen to around 33% of the farming population.
What is the number one cause of farm injury?
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Answer at the bottom of the email.
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NAMI's Recipe for Success |
The North American Meat Institute (NAMI) beefed up the meat industry’s ability to track greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Taking action: NAMI partnered with the United Nations Global Compact Network USA to develop a GHG Inventory Tool. The Meat Institute says the tool advances its "aim for 100% of its members to set science-based GHG reduction targets in line with the Paris Climate Agreement."
We’ll spare you the details of the whole guide, but it offers real-life data methodologies and structural details for the industry to track its direct, indirect, and value chain emissions.
Okay, just a sliver of details: The GHG emission survey guide provides tangible support to help companies develop GHG inventories by:
- Defining key terms
- Outlining data collection and science-based calculation methodologies
- Providing alternative calculation methods
- Sharing other resources for companies conducting GHG inventories
Soundbite: "Sustaining meat for generations to come requires not only clear vision but also a concrete commitment to developing practical resources, like the GHG inventory tool, that help companies of all sizes implement best practices sector-wide," said Meat Institute President and CEO Julie Anna Potts.
NAMI’s goal for the tool is to help the meat industry sizzle towards a greener, more sustainable future.
You can view the entire resource here for the full methodology.
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Written & Edited by Sheridan Wimmer, Amelia VanLandegen, Dawson Schmitt, Ashley Scoby and Jen Hill
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