Food Safety

5 Reasons Consumer Distrust In Our Food Supply Is Rising

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:49:59 GMT

Bread, check. Blueberries, check. As I wheel my grocery cart alongside the deli case, I’m taken aback at what I see. Rather, it is what I don’t see that has me wondering, “What in the world?” This section of my favorite grocery store is now almost completely empty, except for a couple of ham loaves and a renegade block of cheese.

In a slightly distraught tone I ask the worker behind the counter, “What’s going on?” He hesitates for a moment, then replies, “The store is in the process of changing suppliers for our deli products. We should have more of a selection next week.” Then it dawns on me: my favorite brand of deli meat and cheese, Boar’s Head, has officially been blacklisted by my go-to grocery store.

I should not have been surprised. Boar’s Head began its fall from public grace on July 26, 2024, when the company issued a recall for more than 207,528 lb. of product due to potential listeria contamination. The CDC linked the contamination to 61 illnesses and, tragically, 10 deaths. It was the worst listeria outbreak in the U.S. in over a decade.

The outbreak was ultimately traced to a production line at the company’s Jarratt, Va., plant. According to USDA inspection reports, which USA Today had to obtain through a Freedom of Information Act request, 69 reports of non-compliance were recorded at the Jarratt plant between 2023 and 2024. What was in those reports was unsettling. Documentation of insects live and dead, black and green mold, mildew, dripping and standing water, as well as other unsanitary conditions within the plant in the weeks leading up to the July recall. In a move that was too little too late, Boar’s Head announced on Sept. 13, 2024 that the Jarratt plant would be closed permanently.

In 1906, Upton Sinclair published his famous novel “The Jungle,” which exposed the horrific conditions in the meatpacking industry at the time. The writer’s work proved to be an instant bestseller to the masses. The irony is that nearly 120 years later, one might find it hard to discern whether they’re reading a current USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) report or a chapter straight out of “The Jungle.”

Just One Of Many
The Boar’s Head case was only one the high profile food recalls last year. Remember the E. coli contaminated onions on McDonald’s quarter pounders? Then, Costco issued a massive recall on their Kirkland Signature brand of organic eggs because of a threat of Salmonella. And to cap off the year with the scariest illness yet, on Dec. 18, 2024, the CDC confirmed a patient in Louisiana had been hospitalized with the nation’s first severe case of avian influenza A (H5N1) virus, aka the “bird flu.”

If it seems that the number of food recalls are coming at us at a more fast and furious pace than ever, then your gut instinct is spot on. The Food and Drug Administration, which reports food and cosmetics together, says 1,908 such products were recalled in the fiscal year that ended in September. That’s the highest number since 2019. Such a constant barrage of warnings is having a serious affect on consumers’ overall psyche — and not in a positive way. According to a September 2024 Gallup report, only 57% of Americans say they have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in the government to keep food safe. This number is a 27 point decrease since 2019, and is a record low for the Gallup Consumption Habits Poll since its inception in 1999.

This explosion of 20th century foodborne illnesses has me asking the same question I asked the worker behind the deli counter: “What’s going on?”

5 Reasons To Be Skeptical
There are multiple reasons consumers have good reason to be less confident in the safety of their food.

First, there’s the government. Second, more and more of our food is imported, which makes it harder to inspect. Third, you have a growing quest for more natural food, which sometimes circumvents traditional inspection channels. Fourth, industry consolidation means only a handful of players control both the production and processing. That’s not inherently a bad thing, but if something goes wrong, it’s probably going to be big. Finally, we now have the ability, through more technology and data, to find, detect and isolate the specific source of contamination and document it.

Time For An Overhaul
Food safety policy and implementation at the government level is in need of a serious overhaul. There is a chance it could actually happen. In 2018, the previous Trump administration proposed consolidating federal food oversight into a single agency with USDA.

There are so many common sense things that a fully functioning food agency could do. For one, start with better and more noticeable country of origin labeling (COOL) on imported foods. It should be prominent, displaying the country’s flag as the primary indicator of origin. If nothing else, we’ll all get better at geography. Next, companies that embrace new technologies that prevent contamination should be rewarded with tax credits. We do it for electric cars. Why not for safer food?

Finally, the most important change needs to come in the form of accountability and transparency both from the food industry itself and the government that regulates it. That didn’t happen in the case of Boar’s Head, and 10 people lost their lives because of it. In the age of AI and social media, those FSIS plant inspection reports should be posted on platforms such as X and Facebook for the public to see in real time. Without such transparency, we’re no better off than we were back in 1906.

FDA Proposes New Front-of-Package Food Labeling to Help Consumers Make Healthier Food Choices

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 17:17:52 GMT

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed a new front-of-package (FOP) labeling rule aimed at helping consumers make healthier food choices quickly and easily. This “Nutrition Info box,” a black-and-white design, will display levels of saturated fat, sodium, and added sugars, categorized as “Low,” “Med,” or “High,” along with the percent Daily Value for each nutrient.

Based on extensive research involving nearly 10,000 U.S. adults, this initiative seeks to complement the existing Nutrition Facts label and simplify decision-making for shoppers. If finalized, large manufacturers would have three years to comply, while smaller businesses (less than $10 million in annual food sales) would have four.

Example of Proposed Info Box

(FDA )

The FDA anticipates this measure will empower consumers, encourage healthier product formulations, and contribute to reducing chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.

“For example, when comparing yogurt, the Nutrition Info box could help them identify a yogurt that is lower in added sugars,” said FDA in a statement.

Public comments on the proposal are open until May 16, 2025.

This new label is designed to complement the existing Nutrition Facts label found on the back of food packages, providing a more accessible and quick-reference guide for consumers.

FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf, M.D., emphasized the importance of this proposal, stating, “It is time we make it easier for consumers to glance, grab and go. Adding front-of-package nutrition labeling to most packaged foods would do that.”

FDA also says that by displaying simplified, at-a-glance, nutrition information that details and interprets the saturated fat, sodium, and added sugar content of a food as “Low,” “Med,” or “High” on the front of food packages would provide consumers with an accessible description of the numerical information found in the Nutrition Facts label.

What are other examples of what the nutrition info boxes could look like? FDA provided the examples below.

Examples of nutrition box info.

(FDA)

Minnesota E. coli Outbreak from Raw Milk Sickens Four

Fri, 23 Sep 2022 20:08:52 GMT

A Minnesota toddler remains hospitalized after being infected with E. coli from raw milk. The child is one of four sickened in the outbreak.

Two of those sickened were school age children. The fourth was a man who was at least 70 years old.

Using DNA fingerprinting, the Minnesota Department of Health traced three of the four cases back to milk sold by Hartmann Dairy Farm, Gibbon, Minn.

The farm had its Grade A permit revoked in 2001 for “general unsanitary conditions,” according to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. The farm also did not obtain a Grade B license since that time, and was thus ineligible to sell milk into commerce. The farm was also cited in 2004 for violating Minnesota raw milk sales law.

Raw milk sales are prohibited in Minnesota, except for occasional purchases directly at the farm where the milk is produced.

Last week, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle vetoed legislation that would have allowed raw milk sales in Wisconsin.

University of Florida Finds way to Reduce E. Coli in Cows, Improving Food Safety

Fri, 23 Sep 2022 20:08:52 GMT

By: Brad Buck, University of Florida

A new biological treatment could help dairy cattle stave off uterine diseases and eventually may help improve food safety for humans, a University of Florida study shows.

Kwang Cheol Jeong, an assistant professor in animal sciences and UF’s Emerging Pathogens Institute, examined cattle uterine illnesses because they can make cows infertile, lower milk production and because those maladies are often linked to bacteria, he said. The UF researchers did their experiments in labs and at the Dairy Unit on the Gainesville campus.

Jeong and his research team infused chitosan microparticles - an antimicrobial material derived from dissolved shrimp shells - into diseased cow uteri. When bought in stores, chitosan can be used to treat many ailments from obesity to anemia. On its own, chitosan only works at acidic pH levels, Jeong said. For cattle, Jeong’s team developed chitosan microparticles, which work in acidic and neutral pH, because cattle uteri have a neutral pH.

The study’s findings suggest chitosan microparticles kill bacteria in the uteri, he said. Jeong said it may someday be possible for chitosan microparticles to be used to help humans who have become ill from consuming E. coli-contaminated food, but more research is needed.
Developing a new antimicrobial agent is critical to human and animal health, said Jeong, a member of UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

“Dangerous infections are diminishing the role of some antibiotics, making them less able to treat infections, as pathogens are developing resistance to the drugs,” he said, adding that about 23,000 people die in the U.S. annually because of exposure to pathogens that don’t respond to antibiotics.

Once bacteria become resistant, whether on farms, hospitals or in the environment, they can infect humans, through water, food or contact with contaminated feces, Jeong said.

Further, some antibiotics used to treat humans and animals kill good and bad bacteria. Scientists can use the UF study’s findings to begin to develop better drugs that target bad pathogens but leave beneficial bacteria, Jeong said.

E. coli are everywhere, including the human gut, but can contaminate beef, unpasteurized milk, soft cheeses made from raw milk and raw fruits and vegetables that haven’t been washed properly.

The most recent outbreak of meat-traced E. coli was in 2010, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That year, 21 people in 16 states fell ill from the pathogen, including one in Florida, the agency reported. A foodborne “outbreak” happens when two or more people get the same illness from the same contaminated food or drink, the CDC says.

Jeong’s latest study was published online March 21 by the journal PLoS ONE. Jeong co-wrote the paper with Soo Jin Jeon, a doctoral student in the UF animal sciences department and Klibs Galvao, an assistant professor in the large animal clinical sciences department at UF’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

Food Box Idea Draws Criticism

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 05:49:14 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is pushing what it calls a “bold new approach to nutrition assistance": replacing the traditional cash-on-a-card that food stamp recipients currently get with a pre-assembled box of canned foods and other shelf-stable goods dubbed “America’s Harvest Box.”

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney likened the box to a meal kit delivery service, and said the plan could save nearly $130 billion over 10 years. But the idea, tucked into President Donald Trump’s 2019 budget, has caused a firestorm, prompting scathing criticism from Democrats and nutrition experts who say its primary purpose is to punish the poor.

“The main goal is to alleviate food insecurity, and the reason SNAP is so successful is because it gives low-income families the autonomy and dignity to make their own food choices,” said Craig Gundersen, a professor in agricultural strategy at the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Gundersen said people will leave the program as a result of the shift.

SNAP — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — is the official name for the food stamp programs.

“All of a sudden you’re saying, ‘we don’t trust you to make the right decisions for your family.’ It’s demeaning and it’s patronizing. This is pro-hunger, because people will leave the program,” Gunderson said.

Under the proposed plan, households that receive more than $90 in SNAP benefits each month — roughly 81 percent of households in the program, or about 16.4 million — would be affected.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue called the box “a bold, innovative approach to providing nutritious food to people who need assistance feeding themselves and their families.”

But the proposal doesn’t include any concrete details about how much the program would cost or how it would be implemented, saying only that states will be given flexibility to distribute the boxes “through existing infrastructure, partnership, and/or directly to residences through commercial and/or retail delivery services.”

Lawmakers say they aren’t even sure where the idea came from.

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., the ranking member of the House nutrition subcommittee, called the proposal a “cruel joke” that came out of nowhere. He said despite having numerous hearings on SNAP, Monday’s budget was the first time he’d heard of the food box proposal.

“I don’t even know how to implement it. Who would distribute these boxes?” he said. “How would we do this? Do they anticipate recipients getting them at supermarkets? In addition to being a cruel and demeaning and awful idea, it’s just not practical.”

A spokeswoman for House agriculture committee Chairman Mike Conaway, R-Texas, said the committee has held 21 hearings and invited 80 experts to speak about SNAP in its preparations of the forthcoming farm bill, and the idea of a food box was not once discussed.

An Agriculture Department spokesman said the idea was developed internally, but didn’t provide further details on the brainstorming process. Mulvaney credited it to Perdue.

Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, top Democrat on the Senate agriculture committee, said the food box idea “isn’t a serious proposal and is clearly meant to be a distraction from this Administration’s proposed budget that fails our families and farmers.”

The proposal is part of a broader plan to gut the SNAP program, reducing it by roughly $213 billion — nearly 30 percent — over the next decade. The plan also proposes tightening work requirements for recipients.

Matt Knott, president of hunger relief network Feeding America, called it “an unworkable solution in search of a problem.”

“SNAP is an efficient program that already utilizes a grocery system,” Knott said. “It’s a program that expands and contracts as the economy expands and contracts as well. It’s flexible, timely and efficient, and converting a sufficient portion of it to an antiquated program where boxes are delivered is simply unworkable.”

Copyright 2018, The Associated Press

Test Finds Chernobyl Residue in Belarus Milk

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 02:59:02 GMT

On the edge of Belarus’ Chernobyl exclusion zone, down the road from the signs warning “Stop! Radiation,” a dairy farmer offers his visitors a glass of freshly drawn milk. Associated Press reporters politely decline the drink but pass on a bottled sample to a laboratory, which confirms it contains levels of a radioactive isotope at levels 10 times higher than the nation’s food safety limits.

That finding on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear accident indicates how fallout from the April 26, 1986, explosion at the plant in neighboring Ukraine continues to taint life in Belarus. The authoritarian government of this agriculture-dependent nation appears determined to restore long-idle land to farm use — and in a country where dissent is quashed, any objection to the policy is thin.

The farmer, Nikolai Chubenok, proudly says his herd of 50 dairy cows produces up to two tons of milk a day for the local factory of Milkavita, whose brand of Parmesan cheese is sold chiefly in Russia. Milkavita officials called the AP-commissioned lab finding “impossible,” insisting their own tests show their milk supply contains traces of radioactive isotopes well below safety limits.

Yet a tour along the edge of the Polesie Radioecological Reserve, a 2,200-square-kilometer (850-square-mile) ghost landscape of 470 evacuated villages and towns, reveals a nation showing little regard for the potentially cancer-causing isotopes still to be found in the soil. Farmers suggest the lack of mutations and other glaring health problems mean Chernobyl’s troubles can be consigned to history.

“There is no danger. How can you be afraid of radiation?” said Chubenok, who since 2014 has produced milk from his farm just 45 kilometers (28 miles) north of the shuttered Chernobyl site, and two kilometers (a mile) from the boundary of a zone that remains officially off-limits to full-time human habitation. Chubenok says he hopes to double his herd size and start producing farmhouse cheese on site.

His milk is part of the Milkavita supply chain for making Polesskiye brand cheese, about 90 percent of which is sold in Russia, the rest domestically. The World Bank identifies Russia as the major market for Belarusian food exports, which represent 15 percent of the country’s export economy.

Since rising to power in 1994, President Alexander Lukashenko — the former director of a state-owned farm — has stopped resettlement programs for people living near the mandatory exclusion zone and developed a long-term plan to raze empty villages and reclaim the land for crops and livestock. The Chernobyl explosion meant 138,000 Belarusians closest to the plant had to be resettled, while 200,000 others living nearby left voluntarily.

One of the most prominent medical critics of the government’s approach to safeguarding the public from Chernobyl fallout, Dr. Yuri Bandazhevsky, was removed as director of a Belarusian research institute and imprisoned in 2001 on corruption charges that international rights groups branded politically motivated. Since his 2005 parole he has resumed his research into Chernobyl-related cancers with European Union sponsorship.

Bandazhevsky, now based in Ukraine, says he has no doubt that Belarus is failing to protect citizens from carcinogens in the food supply.

“We have a disaster,” he told the AP in the Ukraine capital, Kiev. “In Belarus, there is no protection of the population from radiation exposure. On the contrary, the government is trying to persuade people not to pay attention to radiation, and food is grown in contaminated areas and sent to all points in the country.”

The milk sample subjected to an AP-commissioned analysis backs this picture.

The state-run Minsk Center of Hygiene and Epidemiology said it found strontium-90, a radioactive isotope linked to cancers and cardiovascular disease, in quantities 10 times higher than Belarusian food safety regulations allow. The test, like others in resource-strapped Belarus, was insufficiently sophisticated to test for heavier radioactive isotopes associated with nuclear fallout, including americium and variants of plutonium.

The Belarusian Agriculture Ministry says levels of strontium-90 should not exceed 3.7 becquerels per kilogram in food and drink. Becquerels are a globally recognized unit of measurement for radioactivity.

The Minsk lab informed the AP that the milk sample contained 37.5 becquerels. That radioactive isotope is, along with cesium-137, commonly produced during nuclear fission and generates most of the heat and penetrating radiation from nuclear waste. When consumed, scientists say strontium-90 mimics the behavior of calcium in the human body, settling in bones.

Milkavita chief engineer Maia Fedonchuk rejected the findings.

“It’s impossible. We do our own testing. There must have been a mix-up,” she said, adding they test samples from every batch of milk they receive from Chubenok and do an “in-depth” analysis every six months. She said the plant’s own lab analysis indicates its overall milk supply contains an average of 2.85 becquerels per kilogram.

A person who answered the telephone at the press office of the Belarusian Emergency Situations Ministry, which is tasked with dealing with the fallout of the nuclear disaster, said they would not comment on the AP’s findings.

Health officials say the danger level posed by low levels of radioactive isotopes depends greatly on length of exposure and individual physiology. Notably, the regional free-trade bloc that includes Belarus and Russia permits higher levels of strontium-90 in goods of up to 25 becquerels per kilogram, still lower than that detected in the AP-commissioned test.

The question is whether anyone in authority is positioned to identify the true level of risks in produce from farms on the frontier of Belarus’ prohibited zone.

The deputy director of Belarus’ Institute of Radiobiology, Natalya Timokhina, said Belarus permits food producers to conduct their own food safety monitoring and lacks the lab equipment necessary to identify the presence of americium, which is estimated to be present in about 2 percent of Belarus’ top soil and is expected to remain a health risk for another 270 years.

“One-time ingestion of contaminated food is not very dangerous,” Timokhina said. “What’s dangerous is the accumulation of radionuclides in the body.”

Ausrele Kesminiene, a doctor in the cancer research unit of the World Health Organization, said the consumption of radioactive food is linked chiefly to the development of cancer in the thyroid, a gland in the neck that produces body-regulating hormones. Thyroid cancer is typically not fatal if diagnosed early.

WHO officials say they are dependent on reports from sister agencies in Belarus to alert them to cancer clusters or other signs of unresolved Chernobyl-related dangers. Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman in Geneva, said the agency had no authority to regulate or oversee food safety — even products exported to other countries — because that is a domestic responsibility.

“Radiation effects and the development of cancers and the effects on the region are something which go on over a long, long period. So we haven’t seen the end of it,” Hartl said. “Undoubtedly there is going to be some increase in cancers.”

Hartl said WHO officials have not received “any red flags” from Belarus.

Environmentalists critical of Belarus’ Chernobyl cleanup record says that’s hardly surprising, since the government has funded no machinery to scrutinize corrupt practices in the food industry. As a result, they say, no Belarusian food maker has ever been prosecuted for using ingredients or producing goods containing excessive levels of radioactive materials.

Irina Sukhiy, founder of the Belarus ecological group Green Network, said workers in food-industry factories have confidentially told her that ingredients and products are blended to dilute the impact of potentially radioactive ingredients from Belarusian suppliers bordering Ukraine. Such alleged mixing, she said, reduces the level of potentially carcinogenic isotopes in dairy products and processed meat below “the allowable dose, but it is still hazardous to health.”

The division of the Belarusian Emergencies Ministry responsible for cleaning up the consequences of Chernobyl says that the rate of thyroid cancer in children runs 33 times higher than before the nuclear blast. It says thyroid cancer rates run several times higher in adults.

Farmers working both on the edge of, and inside, the prohibited zone say they see no obvious signs of nuclear dangers, have been given no guidelines on reducing the risk of permitting radioactive isotopes into the food chain, and aren’t worried about this.

Chubenok, the dairy farmer, said he had never heard of the sorbent substance Ferocin, known as Prussian Blue, which farmers in Ukraine feed their cattle to accelerate the removal of the cesium-137 isotope from their digestive tracts.

A tractor driver on one of his neighboring farms, where an abandoned village has been demolished to make way for fields of grain, says he’s never seen an official testing for radiation levels in the soil. But Leonid Kravchenko said there was no reason for alarm.

“Nobody’s in danger,” he said.

Driving toward Chernobyl and into the nearby Radioecological Reserve required AP journalists to negotiate painstaking government permission. Inside the zone, Belarus has authorized an experimental farm to operate for the past decade. Today it contains 265 horses, 56 cows and apiaries buzzing with honey bees.

The farm director, Mikhail Kirpichenko, said he’s permitted to pursue commercial ventures, including the sale last year of 100 horses to a Belarusian manufacturer of kumys, a popular beverage in swathes of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Kumys is produced from fermented mares’ milk.

“We’re not afraid of radiation. We’ve already gotten used to it,” said Kirpichenko, who suggested that his horses had to pass a basic eyesight test to confirm their good health.

“Horses aren’t being born with two heads or without legs. There are no such mutations,” he said. “This Chernobyl syndrome passed long ago.”

Want more video news? Watch it on AgDay.

'Raw Milk' Bill Sours in Louisiana House Agriculture Committee

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 02:59:02 GMT

Louisiana lawmakers have killed an attempt to lift the state’s ban on sales of unpasteurized — or “raw” — milk for the third year in a row.

The House agriculture committee narrowly voted to halt Ville Platte Sen. Eric LaFleur’s proposal to allow limited sales of raw milk from farmers to the public. Lawmakers on the panel voted 8-7 Thursday against the Senate-backed measure.

The Democratic senator argued his “don’t tread on me” bill curbed any risk with pages of regulations, from labeling requirements to inspection specifications. Rep. John Guinn, R-Jennings, applauded the latest version, calling it a “very safe bill.”

Louisiana, LaFleur said, is “one of a handful of states” that prohibits raw milk sales.

The proposal would have only permitted farmers to sell an average of 500 gallons of raw milk a month, or about four cows’ worth of milk production. It wouldn’t permit retail store sales, which LaFleur said spoke to his bill’s spirit -- to grant people the freedom to buy from their neighbors.

“It’s about freedom of choice and getting government out of your hair,” he said.

Adults and children wearing “I love raw milk” stickers gathered to hear the debate Thursday. Supporters testified to having consumed raw milk produced by their own cows or after having bought it in other states, like Mississippi. “Smuggling” the unpasteurized milk can run a hefty price tag, with some saying they’ve paid about $2,000 a year to purchase and transport it over state lines.

State-supported access to raw milk would support food freedom, allow people to seek its health benefits and strengthen Louisiana’s artisanal cheese industry, they said.

But Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strain and Louisiana’s chief health officer Jimmy Guidry countered that the bill would threaten public safety because the milk isn’t heated in a process to kill harmful bacteria.

Strain told lawmakers they have “a fundamental duty to protect public health,” while Guidry warned the committee the Louisiana legislature may have to reverse LaFleur’s bill in the future if it led to heightened hospitalizations and disease outbreaks.

Others echoed the concern, comparing feeding children raw milk to handing them cow manure patties.

The debate came down to economics for Daniel Hayes, Jefferson Parish representative of the Libertarian Party of Louisiana, who noted the state allows raw milk consumption but not its sale.

“Let (people) put in their bodies what they want,” Hayes said.

Those against the bill agreed economics was a factor in the debate, but said the health concerns could spill into the economic realm and damage Louisiana’s dairy industry, they said. Strain said milk is made 150 times safer through pasteurization, and could have a negative ripple effect across the milk industry if unpasteurized milk sickened a consumer.

Pasteurized dairy farmer Joy Womack pointed to the federal and state inspections conducted at commercial farms, which must also have liability insurance.

"(With raw milk,) we’re playing Russian roulette. I never play Russian roulette with my children,” she said.

Our Food Supply is Strong

Sun, 08 Nov 2020 17:26:02 GMT

By Joanna Lidback: Barton, Vermont

My cows don’t know about coronavirus.

They’re still giving milk on the schedule that they always follow. They love their routines and want to stick to them. They have no idea about our human worries, displaying what can only be described as “bovine indifference.”

The milk truck also continues to come to our farm every other day, collecting fresh supplies. The labs that check the quality of our milk remain up and running.

On our dairy farm in rural Vermont, it’s pretty much business as usual—at least in terms of our farming operation.

In just about every other way, of course, it feels like the world has turned upside down.

As a farmer, I think about food all the time—and lots of Americans along with citizens around the world - are worried about whether there’s enough food to go around.

We’ve all seen the photos on social media and television. They show empty shelves and long lines. Even if you haven’t glimpsed these things with your own eyes, you possibly visited an unnervingly crowded grocery store or food mart.

Maybe you went looking for hand sanitizer or toilet paper and couldn’t find any. Perhaps you noticed that the boxes of pasta and cans of soup were running low and bought more than you thought you really needed, just in case.

There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s even rational. We all want to be prepared for the unexpected.

The good news is that our food supply is strong. Coronavirus has caused a surge in demand. In a few places, this has created short-term challenges.

They won’t last. A headline in the New York Times may have said it best: “There Is Plenty of Food in the Country.”

I’ll put it more bluntly: We’re going to have the food we need. In fact, we’re going to eat well. In all of history, our ability to move food from farm to fork never has been better.

The entire food industry—starting with the farmers who are on the front lines of food production—will make sure we have nutritious and affordable food.

If you can’t find milk today, check again tomorrow. There’s no shortage.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m worried about coronavirus, too. The economy is in danger. The stock market is on a rollercoaster. The health systems around the world are facing an unprecedented test.

Schools are shutting down everywhere. We don’t know for sure when they’ll reopen and we have to figure out what to do with our kids. On the farm, we’ll have to come up with new chores to keep them busy.

We also want to keep them—and everybody—in good health. We’re washing our hands like crazy. We’re practicing “social distancing.” A few weeks ago, I hadn’t even heard that term. Now it’s becoming a way of life.

Some of our business is bound to change as well. Our co-op’s annual meeting, which was to take place next month, is cancelled. We won’t have as many face-to-face meetings as we like to have.

There are bound to be other effects as well. On Twitter , Marin Bozic of the University of Minnesota laid out a few scenarios for the dairy industry: If we enter a global recession, which seems likely, demand for milk will drop. We’ll export less. That will lower prices for U.S. consumers. On the other hand, if plant workers start to call in sick, processing will slow down. That would boost prices. Exactly how this shakes out is anyone’s guess.

One thing that almost certainly won’t change, however, is the supply. “Milk production interruptions: I do not expect much effect here,” concluded Bozic.

The fundamentals of our farming won’t change. We’ll keep on milking the cows and loading the trucks, doing our part to feed the food chain.

We’re going to get through this, one day at a time.

My cows won’t let us down.

Joanna Lidback and her husband operate the Farm at Wheeler Mountain, a diversified dairy farm in Vermont. Joanna volunteers as a board member for the Global Farmer Network. this column originates at www.globalfarmernetwork.org

A version of Joanna’s comments was published in The Hill on March 20, 2020.

Trusteed IRAs: why they are popular, who should consider them, what benefits they offer

Fri, 23 Sep 2022 20:01:45 GMT

Q: I’ve heard a lot about trusteed IRAs. How do they differ from traditional IRAs?

A: Simply put, trusteed IRAs offer potential tax benefits of traditional or Roth IRAs with the protection and control of a trust. They provide tax advantages that stretch into the future and offer the ability to control how, when and in what amounts assets are distributed. Trusteed IRAs have become more popular given some of the inherent limits of traditional IRAs and the growing prevalence of self-directed retirement accounts combined with the decline of pension plans. They also are more cost-effective than setting up a trust and are generally more compliant with tax laws.

Q: Who should consider a trusteed IRA?

A: There are several reasons why someone should consider a trusteed IRA, the most consequential of which is if an owner has an interest in controlling assets and realizing tax benefits beyond their lifetime. This can mean an owner is concerned with the financial discipline or sophistication of heirs.

Other reasons include if an owner remarries and wants to provide for a current spouse as well as children from a previous relationship and/or is concerned about IRA management in the event of incapacitation.

Q: I’m in the middle of estate planning. How can a trusteed IRA help with the process?

A: They can help process if only to preserve the potential tax-advantaged accumulation of IRA benefits to pass on to heirs. Under traditional or custodial IRAs, a beneficiary is required to withdraw at least the Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) each year. However, a beneficiary may withdraw additional amounts, for any reason, at any time—and incur possible fees or tax penalties.

Additionally, owners can restrict payouts to a beneficiary to the RMD, enabling it to operate as a spendthrift trust. At the owner’s death, the trusteed IRA would be automatically split into separate accounts for individual beneficiaries, with distribution terms defined for each account.

Another benefit is that estate plans don’t need to be rewritten or updated; trusteed IRAs can be added independent of an estate plan to protect IRA assets which legally pass outside of wills.

Q: Is a trusteed IRA better suited to farmers or owners of farm assets?

A: Not expressly, but a trusteed IRA can play an important role in legacy planning and preservation of farm assets over multiple generations. Given the growing generation gap among farming families, trusteed IRAs could be a way help preserve farm family values over generations from beyond the grave. Moreover, as farm economics continues to change, farmers may find value in the highly customizable nature of trusteed IRAs. In the event of a divorce in the family, for example, assets can be made to not leave the family’s bloodlines.

Q: Are there any downsides to trusteed IRAs?

A: Given that a trusteed IRA requires a corporate trustee, it’s harder to change ownership and family members cannot be named as trustees. Not all financial institutions offer trusteed IRAs so they may not be widely available to interested clients. Additionally, while they offer greater customization and more control, trusteed IRAs carry some limits. To have the highest level of customization and control, a trust would need to be created.

Please send questions, comments or requests to address a topic or issue to Rees Mason at rees.mason@ml.com.