Word: usda
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Parts of the farm economy are doing well. Pig producers are thriving: demand is strong because herd size was cut last year and feed is cheap because of the grain glut. Dairy farmers stay fat at Government expense. The USDA will buy dairy products for 13.10 per Ib. no matter how low the market price drops. Such purchases this year will amount to $2 billion, or about $10,000 for every U.S. dairy farmer. The result is heaps of cheese and butter, paid for by taxpayers, 270 million lbs. of which the Government will give away this year...
Researchers must, however, report to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on what animals were used in the course of a year, and whether any animals were subjected to pain or distress. In 1980, the USDA reports, out of 1.6 million animals used in experimentation, more than 120,000 experienced pain or distress...
...foul-up had its beginnings in mid-August. In the Budget Reconciliation Act, Congress charged the USDA with proposing changes in the school lunch regulations that would have reduced the cost of producing meals and partially offset the cuts in federal subsidies. A USDA task force had already been set up to address the question of "meal patterns," bureaucratese for guidelines that determine the permissible size and nutritional quality of lunches. In three weeks, the new USDA meal proposals were rushed through the agency, hastily given the green light by Stockman's Office of Management and Budget, and made...
...retrospect, chastened USDA officials feel that they should have sold their proposals more carefully within the Administration before going public. Says Mary Jarratt, USDA Assistant Secretary for Food and Consumer Services: "There was no way for the regulations not to be controversial. We are talking about a sensitive group, little children." With nearly one-third of the school lunch budget already slashed by Congress, those officials will have ample opportunity to devise a more appropriate, nutritional and workable plan...
...tissues taken from the rats could not confirm the study's conclusions. The reviewers found that some cell abnormalities had been mistaken for cancer and that some cancerous lesions were of a type that occurs spontaneously in rats and has no human equivalent. Thus, said the FDA and USDA, "there is no basis to initiate any action to remove nitrite from foods at this time...