Free Republic

SEOUL/CHICAGO Oct 9 (Reuters) - South Korea has suspended some U.S. beef imports after detecting the cattle feed additive zilpaterol in meat supplied by a unit of JBS USA Holdings Inc , raising concerns that the controversial animal growth enhancer may still be in the supply chain weeks after Merck & Co halted sales of Zilmax, the top-selling zilpaterol-based drug. The South Korean claim of zilpaterol-tainted beef is the first to come to light since Merck suspended sales of Zilmax on Aug. 16 amidst concerns about its impact on the health of cattle. It also comes at a time when...

ost people think that Springtime is the time to start growing that vegetable or herb garden. But there are many types of plants that should mainly be grown during the cooler months. Fall is a great time to try your hand at growing leafy greens, and that makes this a great way to save some money on produce. If you end up with a good harvest, you'll have a bountiful source of vegetables while other people are paying higher prices for greens at the grocery store. Here are 6 cooler weather plants you may want to try your hand at...

Ningxia has also become a wine hub in China and, increasingly, wine experts are coming around to the idea of Chinese wine. In December 2011, a panel of 10 wine experts found, in a blind tasting, that of a total of 10 wines made in Ningxia and Bordeaux in France, four out of the top five were Ningxia reds. Ningxia is home to some of the country’s top wineries and they are really make an impact, including Helan Qing Xue and Silver Heights, while the Shanxi-based Grace Vineyard has wineries in Ningxia. “Grape planting is now our main income,” said...

Experts and researchers on Saturday introduced new plant technology at a conference held on Saturday in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, to harness desertification of China. Juncao, a kind of herbaceous herb, can be cultivated as substrate for edible and medicinal fungi, which may make great strides in sand control and reduce desertification thanks to the efforts of Lin Zhanxi, professor at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, and his team. Lin started working with Juncao in 1986 and developed his system over more than two decades of research and innovation. In April, sand control trials using Juncao were approved...

Around one in 10 families in South Korea are unable to afford traditional gifts for the country's forthcoming Chuseok (harvest festival) holiday, it has been reported. A poll of more than 1,200 people found that 11.6% would not buy presents for the annual celebration, says one of the country's largest supermarkets. Choi Choon-seok of South Korean hypermarket Lotte Mart expects "a noticeable trend toward inexpensive and practical presents" as households grapple with the continuing recession, says The Chosun Ilbo newspaper. People buying presents are likely to spend an average of 196,000 won ($180; £115) on gifts of fruit and healthy...

CHACHOENGSAO - In one village homes are raided, property is pinched and locals are attacked by dastardly gangs operating beyond the law - but the perpetrators are monkeys, not men. "They creep into my house when they see me sleeping, they go into the kitchen and take cooking oil, sugar and even the medicines that I hide in a cabinet,'' said Chaluay Khamkajit, after years battling with pesky primates who are thought to have been drawn into Khlong Charoen Wai village by habitat loss. "They took my snacks, I can buy more, but the medicines are important to me,'' the...

(Reuters) - China is preparing the ground to scrap a controversial scheme to stockpile cotton in favor of subsidizing farmers, a move that could slash imports by the world's top buyer of the fiber and herald a broad shakeup of Beijing's sensitive farm policies. Abandoning stockpiling would mark the end of a system that has distorted the market to such a degree that it has been cheaper for Chinese mills to import cotton grown abroad than to buy domestic produce. China's top economic planning body has completed a draft plan to change to subsidies and is seeking opinion from experts...

With each passing day, it seems the United States of America, “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave” is becoming more and more like the Communist Russia I learned about in elementary school where people weren’t allowed to grow their own food unless the State “allowed” it. In this latest crackdown on citizens simply trying to provide for themselves using the most basic of skills – gardening – the USDA’s Rural Development Agency is forbidding Rosie, an industrious 4-year old girl in South Dakota from using a small, unused area outside her subsidized housing unit to grow green...

Arkansas, Colorado, Texas—all states of the historic western frontier. Conjuring up images of sprawling ranches, longhorn cattle, and cowboys, the relationship between the American west and the farming industry has endured for almost 200 years. However, modern reality in the form of the race for shale gas, is quickly catching up. As perpetually dry western states close in on a third year of drought and record breaking heat waves, the hydraulic fracturing industry is quickly out-competing ranchers in the scramble for increasingly limited water resources. "We’re not going to be able to raise the food we need," said Ben Rainbolt,...

“Hamburger shops are a dime a dozen in Tokyo these days, but there are very few places doing barbecue,” said Lauren Shannon, owner of Bulldog Barbeque (www.bulldogbbq.jp). By barbecue, Shannon doesn’t mean any old thing thrown on a grill, but rather the tradition of the American South of slow-cooked, smoked meats. If you don’t know it, you’re missing out on some seriously good, authentically American food. If you do know it, you’ve probably lamented that it is so hard to come by in Tokyo. “It’s the exact opposite of fast food. It takes days of salt rubs, hours of smoking....

Marijuana is now legal in Washington, and the Seattle police have been remarkably mellow about the whole thing. In fact, the city's Police Department plans to be at Hempfest, what has become the largest pot rally in the world. And they're taking bags of Doritos in case anyone, you know, gets a little hungry.

According to the Red Book of the Russian Federation, the country has seen a sharp reduction in the number of rare animals. One of the reasons for this phenomenon is rampant poaching and smuggling to China. After all, the demand on bears, tigers, musk deer, marten is high in the People's Republic of China. Dead animals are transported to China in batches, while many tiger and bear cubs are left orphaned in the wild. Indeed, the number of crimes related to the poaching of rare and endangered species of plants and animals, as well as the transportation of derivatives across...

Global Times Dog posing as lion causes uproar at Henan zoo Visitors at a Henan Province zoo have expressed their outrage after discovering exhibits claiming to house exotic specimens were just more common animals. Visitors say they feel the zoo tricked them with putting a dog in a lion exhibit. An unnamed official accuses the zoo of illegally charging visitors and operating without required licenses from the local government.

HO CHI MINH CITY/SINGAPORE, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Desks are empty, the office silence broken only by a handful of staff chit-chatting or playing on cellphones. It's another slow day at the headquarters of Vinacafe, a state-owned firm once the vanguard of Vietnam's coffee export boom. "There's no one here for you to talk to," a receptionist said when asked who was in charge at the Vietnam National Coffee Corporation in Ho Chi Minh City, the hub of an industry that produces 17 percent of the world coffee output. The bosses and managers of Vinacafe have either quit or were...

Chinese consumers are responding to a powerful new marketing tactic that plays to a widespread fear of food contamination - the promise of safe groceries sold online. Pledging produce direct from the farm, vendors have found food is becoming one of the fastest-growing segments of Internet retailing as they cash in on scares from cadmium-tainted rice to recycled cooking oil. The trend is adding momentum to a Chinese online retail boom driven by a rapidly expanding middle class, with companies such as COFCO Ltd and Shunfeng Express betting that a decent slice of a 1.3 billion population will pay for...

For the second time in less than a year, Minnesota authorities are prosecuting Alvin Schlangen for unauthorized delivery of farm produce. Schlangen offers members of the private buying club, Freedom Farms Co-op, the benefit of his volunteer delivery service. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) demands that the Stearns County District Attorney stop the deliveries by bringing charges against Schlagen. Schlagen's customers, many of whom have no other convenient means of getting food to their homes, are irate at the MDA. “A lot of those on Schlagen's route are house-bound or handicapped,” said Elisabeth Berry. “More to the point, though,...

Wall-E-Like Farming Robots Could Replace Undocumented Workers and Save the US Billions Despite advancements in mechanization within US agriculture, some menial jobs are still best left to human workers. Problem is, federal crackdowns on undocumented laborers have decimated that workforce. The Harvester automaton could provide a cheap, readily available labor force without the threat of raids by the INS. The US agriculture industry is worth about $300 billion annually—half from livestock production, the other half from crops. However, some of the most basic jobs in this industry still have to be performed by people. Jobs like offloading potted plants from...

Still seen as the most independent of the independent, there will be more food stamps for independent farm families to enjoy soon.  As this article at The Heritage Organization's The Foundry points out (again), Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) said yesterday that he will support the bloated farm bill. But as Heritage has been highlighting, this bill does not do what most people think it does. Eighty percent of the funding it provides will be for food stamps. The House farm bill is projected to cost $940 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The last farm bill, in...

Sagebrush Rebel: Reagan’s Battle With Environmental Extremists and Why it Matters Today, (Regnery, 2013), by William Perry Pendley, describes how radical environmentalists sparked a revolution against federal land regulation led by head rebel, Ronald Reagan. Today, high fuel and energy prices, formerly caused by Carter administration policies, have returned with a new President to blame. Pendley’s book provides valuable lessons for the next Sagebrush Rebel who might try to end the environmentalist’s stranglehold on energy production and American economic potential.

This year is no different; the authorities have mobilized the entire population to work on farms, meaning that adults and children alike face days of hard agricultural labor. The hours for official markets are also shortened at these times, and in some cases they are not allowed to open at all. This double-whammy only adds to the difficulty. .... Since rice planting requires a great many hands, soldiers, university, senior middle and elementary school students are all mobilized. Because this important national project determines the entire year's agricultural output, when planting season comes the authorities will try everything to get...