Free Republic

Iowa has culled approximately 1.3 million chickens after being unable to find a market for the birds following the sudden closure of Midwest poultry processor Pure Prairie Poultry, which left many farmers stranded with the prospect of lost income. Last year, Pure Prairie had been awarded a $38.7 million loan guarantee and a nearly $7 million grant from the USDA to reopen and expand the Iowa processing plant.

A food processing plant in the Canadian province of New Brunswick went up in flames Friday. Jim LeBlanc, owner of W.E. Acres Crabmeal Ltd., said the structure was a "total loss," according to the Canadian Television Network. The fire erupted at about 2 p.m. LeBlanc told CTV News the fire was started by an explosion in an oil drum. However, Ronald Cormier, fire chief of the village of Cap-Pelé, said the cause of the fire is still unknown, but that it did not appear to have been arson, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Although Cormier was quoted as saying...

Nathan Greenberg believes he runs a school district, but government bureaucrats look at his Londonderry, N.H., operation and see …. a food processing plant? That’s the strange dilemma the 5,000-student district finds itself in after deciding at the end of the last school year to pull the high school out of the unpopular National School Lunch Program. While the district’s elementary and middle schools remain in the program, which sets portion and nutrition guidelines for students, provides low cost staples and subsidizes meals of low-income pupils, it proved immensely unpopular at the high school. “We saw the [federally-mandated] food going...