They sent in Delta Force and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt

[kyburg]

Federal agents searched facilities of a dog and cat food manufacturer and one of its suppliers as part of an investigation into the widening recall of pet products, the companies disclosed Friday.

Yay whee clap paws squeal with glee -

What I can't get my head around is WHY we're importing agricultural goods - that's one of the few industries we could, yanno, actually still dominate in globally.

I guess we're just getting really good at getting old and dying providing health care, which is the only growth industry left in the USA.

"Government won't protect you" - BAH.

Big Business will kill you, if you and I and the guy over there (ie, WE THE PEOPLE*) don't take steps to protect ourselves.

REMEMBER THE PINTO.


*Uh, that's the government, folks.

I'm going to go read a book. Several of them.

Comments

[n6vfp.livejournal.com]

The import of agricultural goods isn't whats going on here. The Chinese import the wheat, then process the wheat glutten, that is where they excell, cheap labor. On NPR they said food processing was a big thing in China, as they had an edge on labor costs. They stated it was actually cheaper the ship the wheat to China foor processing and then bring back the finished product than do the processing here. American agribusiness at its best.

Importing Agriculture and water

[forestcats.livejournal.com]

This year I know that CA will be importing both grain and hays in bulk because there was no rain. Right now you may see beef prices dropping here because ranchers are culling herds that they know they won't be able to feed this year. Same and worse for the horse market.

Water rights are going to be the greatest issue in the next decade. Cities and human populations living in 'reclaimed' deserts are draining the Colorado to the extent that we have significantly hurt the agriclutural areas here and in Mexico where the river USED to flow.
Only Santa Barbara has bothered to get ahead of this by deslaination and claiming drinking water from the Ocean. Catalina as an island too does this.

To a lesser extent the brain drain from traditional bread belt states have shut down even more farms. People don't want to return to the country and run the family farm.

[ersatzinsomnia.livejournal.com]

Actually, it has more to do with crops purposing than anything else. In the US, most of our wheat crop goes into bread, for which the entire grain is used. No leftover wheat gluten. In China, a sizeable portion of their wheat production goes into starch production, for all the food purposes you need starch for. What's left over is wheat gluten, which they sell off for pet food and other products.

In the US, most of our starch production comes from corn, which, unsurprisingly, doesn't have wheat gluten. Mass quantities of corn grow well in the US, mass quantities of wheat grow well in China. It's in everyone's interests for China to sell their surplus wheat gluten, and it's in our interests not to overproduce our wheat just to get more of the "trash product" gluten.