ca agribiz2
temp node? main page westlands has edit problem?
AN 3 26
DUNNO WHO AFFECT
Trump is crushing California farmers as $1.7 million shipment is diverted by war - Alternet.org
https://www.alternet.org/**2022/05**/trump-administration-meat-industry-covid/
former President Donald Trump's administration colluded with top-level meatpacking industry executives to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic in order to drive up prices and downplay the severity of the emergency, according to an exhaustive investigation released on Thursday by the United States House Select Oversight Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.
Representative Jim Clyburn (D-South Carolina), the House Majority Whip and chairman of the Subcommittee, said in a statement that "the shameful conduct of corporate executives pursuing profit at any cost during a crisis and government officials eager to do their bidding regardless of resulting harm to the public must never be repeated."
The probe began last year and uncovered a spider web of corruption and flagrant disregard for human life involving American corporate titans and individuals in the highest ranks of the federal government.
Officials at the Department of Agriculture – including Secretary Sonny Purdue and Under Secretary for Food Safety Mindy Brashears – "collaborated" with corporate bigwigs to prioritize profits and production over the safety of employees and the public despite being fully aware of the hazards.
"Infections and deaths among workers for five of the largest meatpacking companies—Tyson Foods, Inc. (Tyson), JBS USA Holdings, Inc. (JBS), Smithfield Foods (Smithfield), Cargill, Inc. (Cargill), and National Beef Packing Company LLC (National Beef)—were significantly higher than previously estimated, with over 59,000 workers for these companies being infected with the coronavirus andat least 269 dying," the report states.
The powerful cadre also "engaged in a concerted effort with Trump Administration political officials to insulate themselves from coronavirus-related oversight," it explains.
In one instance, the chief executive officers of the conglomerates told Purdue on a phone call that their workers “should not be entitled to unemployment benefitsif they are otherwise able to work through the pandemic” and cautioned against “creat[ing] an incentive, much less a path, for food industry workers to choose unemployment overproducing food.”
In that same conversation, they "implicitly acknowledged how dangerous plants were, asking for liability protection against lawsuits if workers were infected on the job."
There was also an aggressive campaign to skirt "pesky" local, state, and federal regulations that would have kept workers and their products safe and healthy.
"Companies lobbied the White House to make clear that—despite concerns by state and local health departments—meatpacking companies should not have to address coronavirus risks if it would impact productivity," the investigation revealed.
Alarmingly, the CEOs managed to successfully lobby Trump to draft and sign an executive order in April of 2020 that "would insulate meatpacking companies from oversight by state and local health departments and provide legal protection against lawsuits for worker illnesses and deaths."
The edict led to Trump "invoking the Defense Production Act to ensure meatpacking plants 'continue operations.'"
Shortly thereafter, records handed over to the Subcommittee show that "meatpacking industry representatives and companies—Smithfield and Tyson in particular—engaged in constant communications with Trump appointees at USDA, the National Economic Council, and the White House, including calls between Smithfield CEO Ken Sullivan and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows; a joint call with Sullivan, Meadows, and Tyson CEO Noel White;a call between White and Vice President Pence’s Chief of Staff Marc Short; and a call from Meadows to White asking if White would be willing to meet with President Trump."
Trump subsequently "held a call with officers of the meatpacking companies who had lobbied for it on the morning the order was issued."
After Trump granted their wish, an effort was undertaken between the administration and the industry to "coordinate closely on messaging concerning the order and its effects, apparently hoping to generate positive press coverage" for the ex-commander in chief.
Worker fatalities, meanwhile, were swept under the rug.
In a particularly egregious example, an outbreak at Foster Farms in Livingston,California that infected "at least" 392 workers and killed eight in August of 2020 prompted the company to "intimidate" the Merced County Department of Public Health from shutting down the plant.
"Foster Farms attempts to obfuscate the death count by labeling fatalities as 'resolutions,'" investigators learned. "MCPH officials told the Select Subcommittee that an unidentified person on the call from either Foster Farms or USDA said these cases could be considered 'toe tag resolutions,' referring to the toe tag that is often put on a corpse at the morgue. MCPH said that Brashears asked this individual to 'stop' and said they would 'talk about this separately.'"
Operations at Foster Farms in Livingston were eventually temporarily suspended on August 31st.
raga pacific legal? takings? david bacon kpfa
https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/06/supreme-court-california-farmworker-unions-property-rights/
no lnx
Supreme Court limits California union recruiting in favor of property rights
BY KATE CIMINI JUNE 23, 2021UPDATED JUNE 24, 2021
Crew workers carry picking ladders over unsold citrus in a field near Rocky Hill Drive and Spruce Road in Exeter on Monday, June 14, 2021. Ron Holman / Visalia Times-Delta
IN SUMMARY
Commercial growers celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision in Cedar Point Nursery v Hassid, but farmworker unions say this will make it harder for them to access workers and advocate for their rights.
In a blow to labor, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a decades-old California rule inspired by César Chávez that allowed union organizers to meet with farmworkers at their place of work. Commercial growers applauded the conservative court’s ruling to uphold property rights while union representatives vowed not to be deterred.
Two agricultural producers filed suit after organizers with the United Farm Workers sought to access their property to speak with farmworkers. The plaintiffs in Cedar Point Nursery v Hassid, Cedar Point Nursery and Fowler Packing Company, argued the California regulation requiring them to provide access up to three hours a day, 120 days a year was unconstitutional and unnecessary.
Dorris-based Cedar Point Nursery grows strawberry plants for commercial growers near the Oregon border; Fowler Packing Company in Fresno ships grapes and citrus.
Today’s 6-3 ruling fell along ideological lines, with the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority agreeing with the growers. They held that the access regulations allowed “physical invasion” of the land without compensation.
While growers celebrated the decision, labor activists say it will now be harder to access workers and advocate for their rights. As the decision was announced they vowed it won’t stop them from growing their ranks.
Win for property rights, loss for farmworker unions
Monterey County Farm Bureau Executive Director Norm Groot, who runs the private nonprofit association of farmers and ranchers on California’s Central Coast, characterized the court’s decision as a big win for ag, landowners and farm operations.
Groot said the decision championed property rights while prioritizing private farm operation security and food safety.
“It’s good for food safety that you don’t have visitors making incursions into fields to talk to employees while they’re on break, at lunch or working,” he said.
The Western Growers’ Association, a private organizationthat advocates for produce farmers in California, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, also applauded the decision, calling it a “simple property rights case” and union organizers “trespassers.”
Not all California farmers are impacted by the decision.
John D’Arrigo, CEO of D’Arrigo Brothers in Salinas, said the Supreme Court decision wouldn’t change the way he works with the United Farm Workers (UFW). The company sells produce under the brand name Andy Boy.
His workers have been unionized through the organization for about 40 years. The contracts explicitly allow union reps access to the property and the farmworkers.
“We haven’t really had a problem at all because we’re used to it,” D’Arrigo said. “We’ve got a system, everybody understands the rules, and, quite frankly, we’ve been getting along famously with the UFW for many years, now.
“If you don’t have a contract and aren’t used to (organizers accessing your property), I could see it upsetting people. But for us, it’s a way of life,” he said.
Labor organizers absorbed the blow and said that the decision wouldn’t stop them from working with farmworkers.
UFW Vice President Lauro Barajas was disappointed to hear the Supreme Court had ruled against labor, but not frustrated.
“There’s always something that inspires or pushes us to continue our work,” he said. “The frustration is like giving up, and we can’t give up.”
Barajas said the Supreme Court decision favored growers, who he said historically have had all the power in the employer-worker relationship. The recent ruling, he said, gives growers even more power.
“It’s not good news, but normally we don’t live with good news,” Barajas said.
Union rule stems back to farm labor movement
Agricultural employees working on farms have been excluded from federal labor law since 1935.
Following efforts by Chávez and other farm labor leaders, California created the 1975 California Agricultural Labor Relations Act. Among other things, the regulation allowed organizers to access farmer property a maximum of three hours a day, 120 days a year, in order to speak with their employees and drum up support for unionization.
Businesses are supposed to be notified before organizers arrive, and organizers are then allowed to come during nonwork times such as lunch and before and after work. It is rare that organizers use the regulation –– California said organizers took advantage of it just five times in the 2019-2020 budget year and 24 times the prior year.
Cedar Point Nursery and Fowler Packing Company challenged the regulation as unconstitutional and outdated, given that unions can now reach workers in many ways, including smartphones and radio.
The UFW told the justices that the regulation is more necessary now than ever. The union said farmworkers are increasingly indigenous workers from Mexico and the only effective way to communicate with them is in-person, at their job sites, as many don’t have cell phones and speak only indigenous languages.
“A lot of these workers are living in labor camps owned by the employer, are transported to and from their worksites and these folks are isolated,” UFW Director of Strategic Campaigns Elizabeth Strater said. “They never leave their employers’ property. In some instances, they are isolated by design.”
Implications of Supreme Court ruling for property rights
The access regulation is unique to California. But unions and others had argued that ruling for the businesses could threaten regulations that allow the government to access private property to conduct workplace health and safety inspections, among other things.
Calling the farm labor system racist and unequal, Strater said she found it ironic “that Supreme Court justices who pride themselves on supporting local and state rules over federal rules have decided that farmworkers should lose under both.
“The Supreme Court has failed to balance a farmer’s property rights with a farmworker’s human rights,” she said.
During March court arguments heard by telephone, the Associated Press reported Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the court had decades ago considered how to balance the rights of unions and property owners. The court concluded that there could be “no access unless you can show that there are no alternative means of communication that exists,” he said.
The ruling is the latest hit to unions by the court under Roberts.
In 2018, the court’s conservative majority overturned a 41-year-old pro-union decision that allowed states to require that public employees pay some fees to unions that represent them, even if the workers choose not to join.
Still, it’s unclear how much will change as a result of the court’s ruling.
Michael Droke, a senior partner at law firm Dorsey & Whitney in its Food and Agriculture group, advises California agriculture corporations and co-ops. He suggested agricultural employers review policies and practices regarding on-farm access, and clearly mark their property, in order to ensure they can establish property lines for purposes of union access.
“Unions are still allowed to contact employers off the grower’s premises,” he said. “It is often easy to see where the grower’s employees are located, because employee cars are parked at the side of the field. However, bussing workers to the job site may create wage and hour risk under generally-applicable California law.”
For the record, this story has been updated to correct Norm Groot’s title with the Monterey County Farm Bureau.
This article is part of the California Divide, a collaboration among newsrooms examining income inequality and economic survival in California.
intercept 120
factory Farm Industry Quietly Lobbies California Officials to Criminalize Animal Rescue Activism
Lee Fang
Records show that the California Farm Bureau has been working behind closed doors to limit legal exemptions for Direct Action Everywhere’s open rescues.
dereg nat 919
bad
- TheTrump administration hid a scientific report showing that its “plan to send more water to San Joaquin Valley farmers would force critically endangered California salmon even closer to extinction, and starve a struggling population of West Coast killer whales,” reports the Sacramento Bee.
- Career scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency told their superiors “to ask for a new environmental review of the proposed Pebble mine,” which would locate a massive copper and gold mine in Alaska, upstream of one of the world’s biggest wild salmon runs. But they “were overridden by political staffers” seeking to get the project approved before the 2020 election, according to Greenwire, who then edited the recommendation out of documents sent to another federal agency.
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https://boingboing.net/2018/09/20/sold-out-by-cfb.html
as I wrote last week, the California Farm Bureau (which lobbies for the state's farmers) struck a deal to gut the state's Right to Repair legislation, a move that will cost farmers their right to fix their own tractors and other heavy equipment.
Kyle Wiens from iFixit and the Repair Coalition and Elizabeth Chamberlain have the detailed story in Wired, explaining how the Farm Bureau spun the story to make it look like they'd gotten John Deere to make a bunch of concessions, when in reality Deere had already made those concessions, nationwide.
Where California farmers go, the rest of America follows—and in this case, that’s dangerous. The state produces more food by far than any other in the nation, accounting for two-thirds of all US-grown fruit and nuts. By agreeing to the spurious distinction between “repair” and “modification,” the California Farm Bureau just made the EFF’s job a lot harder. Instead of presenting a unified right-to-repair front, this milquetoast agreement muddies the conversation. More worryingly, it could cement a cultural precedent for electronics manufacturers who want to block third-party repair technicians from accessing a device’s software.
As a nation of repair advocates, we need to reject toothless deals like this. We must define right to repair in a way that supports the needs of individuals and small growers, not the bottom line of enormous corporations.
This deal is no right-to-repair victory. Don’t let John Deere—or the California Farm Bureau—call it one. Real progress isn’t going to come until a state passes real Right to Repair legislation. And momentum is building. Twenty states, including Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska, considered bills this year. Although none have passed yet, John Deere is clearly feeling the heat.
John Deere Just Cost Farmers Their Right to Repair [Kyle Wiens and Elizabeth Chamberlain/Wired]
kpfa 8/28
1 mil acres almond san joachain vly ? (inpaired drainage, not much GNP?) Resnick?
denham amnedmnt, valadao
gut ESA [drollinger fish > man] David B esq
salt, flush chem, heat
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fire tweet ca water to ocean, courts ca farm bureau
Monday, as California continued to struggle with the largest wildfires in the state's recorded history, which have killed seven people and burned over 750 structures, Trump took to Twitter to scold the state government and Gov. Jerry Brown, insinuating that their own mismanagement of the environment was responsible for the disaster:
California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amounts of readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire from spreading!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2018
Governor Jerry Brown must allow the Free Flow of the vast amounts of water coming from the North and foolishly being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Can be used for fires, farming and everything else. Think of California with plenty of Water - Nice! Fast Federal govt. approvals. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2018
Apparently, even Trump administration officials are unwilling to stand by this claim. As CNN reports, "administration officials declined to offer any clarity on Trump's series of tweets claiming environmental laws and water regulations in California are hampering the state's ability to fight the wildfires."
One simple reason Trump's White House might not be defending his Twitter outburst? It's absolute gibberish.
In a lengthy column taking down Trump's fabrications, Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times explained that water is not an issue for California firefighters:
The likeliest explanation for [Trump's] take on water is that he’s confused by the demands for more irrigation water he’s hearing from Republican officeholders in the Central Valley.They’re the people who grouse about water being “wasted” by being diverted to the ocean, rather than into their fields.
Their demands have nothing to do with the availability of water for firefighting. Fire agencies haven’t been complaining about a lack of water, especially water “diverted” to the Pacific. Major reservoirs are near the worst fire zones; the Carr fire is near Lake Shasta and Whiskeytown Lake and the Mendocino Complex fire is near Clear Lake. All are at or near their historical levels.
“There have been no issues getting water from them,” Scott McLean, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, told me.
In fact, some of Trump's officials are actively contradicting him, including one FEMA official who told CNN that there is no issue in California with access to water for the purpose of firefighting.
Moreover, if Trump was really concerned about water shortages in California, he might pay more attention to climate change. A new climate model estimatesthat melting Arctic sea ice could reduce precipitation over the Golden State by up to 20 percent within three decades. Furthermore, rising temperatures threaten to reduce the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which provides a third of California's water.
Trump has called climate change a hoax invented by the Chinese, is pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement, and has placed a former coal lobbyist in charge of the EPA. So it seems unlikely he will consider this side of the story.
Between all of this, it is no wonder that even the administration itself can no longer go out on a limb to defend Trump's bizarre lies.
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https://www.ecowatch.com/california-salmon-extinct-2412724180.html
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ca mplight 4/17
http://maplight.org/california/interest
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Growing 80 percent of the globe's almonds in California doesn't just require massive amounts of water. It also takes a whole bunch of honeybees for pollination—roughly two hives' worth for every acre of almonds trees, around 1.7 million hives altogether. That's at least 80 percent of all available commercial hives in the United States,Gene Brandi, a California beekeeper who serves as vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation, recently told NPR.
Now, that vast army of bees—made up, all told, of more than 80 billion flying, buzzing soldiers—doesn't stay put in California's almond-happy Central Valley all year. The almond bloom typically lasts for just a few weeks (or less) in February. The modern honeybee operation is an itinerant business—beekeepers move hives throughout the year, in pursuit of paid pollination gigs—from tangerines in Florida to cherries in Washington state—as well as good forage for honey.
One question that arises is: Why do the nation's beekeepers uproot themselves and their winged charges to travel to California each year? The state houses about 500,000 beehives, meaning that more then 1 million come in, from as far away as Maine. What's the incentive?But California's almond bloom is the biggest gig of all—the "largest managed pollination event anywhere in the world," Scientific American reports. And as US honeybee populations' health has flagged in recent years—most famously epitomized by the mysterious winter die-offs that began around a decade ago, known as colony collapse disorder—the almond industry has been drawing in a larger and and larger portion of the nation's available bee hives.
These days, US beekeepers typically make more money from renting out their bees for pollination than they do from producing honey. "Without pollination income, we'd be out of business," Brandi told me. Income from the two sources varies year to year, but pollination income has grown over the years even as honey revenues have fallen, depressed by competition from imported honey. In 2012, for example, US beekeepers brought in $283 million from honey, versus an estimated $656 million from pollination.
And California's almond growers have to shell out big money to draw in their pollinators—between $165 and $200 per hive, vs $45 to $75 a hive a decade ago, according to the Fresno Bee. That's around $309 million, if we assume as average price of $182 per hive, the midpoint of the Bee's range.
What's the impact on overall honeybee health, which has been under heavy pressure over the past decade? There are two potential downsides.
The first is from pesticides—insect growth regulators and fungicides—bees encounter in their travels around almond groves. During the 2014 California almond bloom, between 15 percent and 25 percent of beehives suffered "severe" damage, ranging from complete hive collapse to dead and deformed brood (the next generation of bees incubating in the hive), the Pollinator Stewardship Council estimated. The die-off caused an uproar, and many beekeepers pointed a finger at pesticides—and they probably had a point, as I showed here.
his year, Brandi told me, some beekeepers reported losses, but they weren't nearly as severe or widespread as the ones in 2014. In the wake of the 2014 troubles, the Almond Board of California released a set of "best management practices" for protecting honeybees during the bloom that, Brandi said, may have influenced growers to avoid particularly harmful pesticide applications. Given that almond growers utterly rely on—and indeed, pay heavily for—honeybees for pollinating their crop, it seems logical that they'll avoid poisoning them when possible. There will also be tension, though, as long as almond trees are planted in geographically concentrated and vast groves. Large monocrops provide an ideal habitat for pests like fungi and insects, and thus a strong incentive to respond with chemicals. There's also the possibility that concentrating such a huge portion of the nation's bees in such a tight geographical area facilitates the spread of viruses and other pathogens.
The second threat to bee health from pollinating California's massive almond bloom comes from long-distance travel. This one lies at the heart of the beekeeping industry's itinerant business model. Does it compromise bee health to pack hundreds of hives onto a flatbed truck for cross-country trips? The stresses go well beyond the occasional truck wreck. Scientific American explains the rigors of apiary highway travel like this:
The migration…continually boomerangs honeybees between times of plenty and borderline starvation. Once a particular bloom is over, the bees have nothing to eat, because there is only that one pollen-depleted crop as far as the eye can see. When on the road, bees cannot forage or defecate. And the sugar syrup and pollen patties beekeepers offer as compensation are not nearly as nutritious as pollen and nectar from wild plants. Scientists have a good understanding of the macronutrients in pollen such as protein, fat and carbohydrate, but know very little about its many micronutrients such as vitamins, metals and minerals—so replicating pollen is difficult.
A 2012 paper, coauthored by USDA bee researcher Jeff Pettis, found that long-distance travel may indeed have ill health effects—the researchers found that "bees experiencing transportation have trouble fully developing their food glands and this might affect their ability to nurse the next generation of workers."
Brandi, for his part, dismisses travel as a factor in the overall decline in bee health. "Bees have been traveling back and forth across he country for years," he said—since long before the colony collapse disorder and other health troubles began to emerge a decade ago, he said. He said bee travel has actually gotten less stressful over the years as beekeepers have upgraded to smoother-riding flatbed trucks. He said other factors, including pesticides, declining biodiversity, and mites (a bee pest) are likely more important drivers of declining bee health.
Meanwhile, California almond country's massive appetite for pollination isn't likely to dissipate anytime soon. According to the latest USDA numbers, acreage devoted to almonds expanded by 5 percent in 2014, and growers continue laying in yet more groves this year, Western Farm Press reports. Land devoted to almonds has grown 50 percent since 2005—and every time farmers add another acre of trees, they need access to two additional bee hives for pollination.
So why don't more beekeepers simply move to California and stay put, to take advantage of the world's biggest—and growing—pollination gig? I put that question to longtime bee expert Eric Mussen of the University of California-Davis. He said the state is already home to 500,000 of the nation's 2.7 million hives. The almond bloom is great for a few weeks, but in terms of year-round foraging, "California is already at or near its carrying capacity for honeybees," he said—the areas with the best-quality forage are already well stocked with bees.So satisfying the world's ever-growing appetite for almonds will continue to require an annual armada of beehive-laden trucks.
http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2015/05/almonds-now-require-85-percent-us-beehives
almond stunt of uprooting trees b/c of drought?
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Walnut growers wanted to claim heart healthy in ads, though had no evidence. FDA sent letter telling them to stop.
paid fine for false adverts back to 2006?
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Warning Letters > Diamond Food Inc. 2/22/10
www.fda.gov/iceci/.../ucm202825.htm
WASHINGTON and SACRAMENTO, Calif., July 15 /PRNewswire/ -- In an important
decision issued today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) affirmed
the health claim, "Supportive but not conclusive research shows that eating
1.5 ounces per day of walnuts as part of a diet low in saturated fat and
cholesterol may reduce the risk of heart disease. See nutrition information
for fat content." This FDA decision comes in response to a petition filed by
the California Walnut Commission which highlights a body of international
scientific research substantiating the specific benefit of consuming walnuts
as part of a heart healthy diet in reducing the risk of heart disease. The
body of evidence suggests that the nutritional composition of walnuts
contribute to these heart health benefits.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20030714/SFM135 )
According to Dr. Sheila G. West, Vascular Intervention Health Lab, Penn
State University, "There is a good amount of epidemiologic evidence,
population based evidence that people who consume nuts, and walnuts in
particular, have less cardiovascular risk. There is also a very strong body
of literature to say that the special kind of fatty acids, the omega-3 fatty
acids that are present in walnuts, help protect people against heart disease."The 1.5 ounces of walnuts cited by the FDA also more than fulfill the
daily requirement of essential omega-3 fatty acids, a critical nutrient
deficient in the American diet. Among tree nuts, walnuts are distinctive
because of their concentration of omega-3 fatty acids. The importance of
omega-3 fatty acids has been stressed in the recent reports of leading health
organizations and governmental agencies recommending new dietary intake
guidelines aimed at promoting public health by encouraging increased omega-3
fatty acid intake by Americans.
While walnuts' ability to reduce cholesterol seems to be at the heart of
their health benefits, walnuts contain a host of other important vitamins,
minerals, protein and antioxidants. Walnuts are cited as the largest single
source of antioxidants, next to rose hips, according to a study from the
University of Minnesota and University of Oslo.
"It appears that the omega-3 ability to reduce inflammation and clumping
of platelets may have broad health implications, including the reduction of C\-
Reactive Protein (CRP) in the body -- an emerging cardiovascular disease
marker which can be identified through a simple blood test and help predict
heart disease risk," according to Penny Kris-Etherton, Ph.D, distinguished
professor of nutrition at Pennsylvania State University.
"Walnuts contain a significant amount of the gamma-tocopherol form of
Vitamin E," says Terry Hartman, PhD, Assistant Professor of Nutrition at
Pennsylvania State University. "This is very interesting given that research
from East Tennessee State University on the interactive effects of the two
major forms, gamma\- and alpha-tocopherol, shows that gamma-tocopherol promotes
the cellular uptake of alpha-tocopherol." (Gao et al, Nutrition Journal, 1:2,
October 2002)"Not too long ago, our culture had become totally fat phobic and feared
eating foods like walnuts. Now more than 5,000 walnut growers in California
are cheering because science has shown walnuts to be an important and healthy
part of a daily diet -- truly the 'Mega Nut,'" says Dennis A. Balint, chief
executive officer of the California Walnut Commission.
One of the oldest foods, walnuts today are recognized for their flavor,
versatility and health benefits. California's walnut industry sets the world
quality standard and accounts for more than 99 percent of the commercial U.S.
supply and the majority of the world trade. For more information and recipes,
visit www.walnuts.org.
SOURCE California Walnut Commission