The Food and Environment Reporting Network (FERN) and National Geographic have jointly published an investigative report on the battle to eradicate feral hogs.  

Today, there are between six and nine million hogs running wild across at least 42 states and three territories. The exact number is difficult to pin down, and the estimated cost of the damage they cause—probably about $2.5 billion annually, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture—is likely an underestimate.

I don’t know about you, but this came as news to me.  I had no idea there were so many running around wild or that they were causing so much damage.

Rooting is also their most destructive behavior: Pigs drive their snouts and tusks into the ground and, like stubby-legged bulldozers, plow through crops, soil, forest floor, and golf green. They do it in search of grubs or acorns to eat, to cool off on summer days, to communicate, and, as far as scientists can tell, for the sheer joy of it. In the wake of a sounder, a newly planted field can resemble no man’s land on the Eastern Front, gutted in a network of trenches and craters several feet deep.

But I can see what the problem is:

“We haven’t been able to find a crop that feral swine won’t eat,” says Stephanie Shwiff, a research economist with National Wildlife Research Center.

While trying to figure out what to do about them, consider this.  According to the USDA, there are now fewer hogs on farms.   Its survey of 4,900 producers found 74.8 million hogs on U.S. farms on March 1, down 2 percent from a year earlier.

I knew you would want to know about this.

Dietary Patterns and Nutritional Status in Relation to Consumption of Chickpeas and Hummus in the U.S. Population.  by  Cara L. Frankenfeld and Taylor C. Wallace.   Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(20), 7341; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10207341

Conclusion: ” Adults who consumed chickpeas and hummus were 48% and 62% less likely to have metabolic syndrome, respectively. Consuming chickpeas or hummus may be a practical means of improving diet quality and nutritional status. ”

Funding:  This research was funded by an investigator-initiated, unrestricted educational grant from Sabra Dipping Co., LLC.

Comment: That’s what they all say about the sponsor’s role, despite substantial evidence to the contrary (in many other cases).  Sabra is owned by PepsiCo.

Hat tip: To Daniel Bowmn Simon for sending me this one.

The press release says it all:  “New Report Highlights How Stagnant U.S. Public Funding for Agricultural Research Threatens Food Systems.”

Stagnant public funding for agricultural research is threatening the future vitality of U.S. food systems – posing risks to farmer productivity and profitability, the steady supply of affordable food for consumers, and ultimately global food security, according to a new report.

The report, jointly commissioned by Farm Journal Foundation and the American Farm Bureau Federation and authored by the IHS Markit Agribusiness Consulting Group, highlights the vital importance of public funding for agricultural research and development (R&D).

New innovations are crucial so that farmers can increase their productivity and meet rising global demand for food, even as climate change intensifies. The world population is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050, and food production will need to increase by 60%-70% to meet rising demand. While private-sector funding for agricultural R&D has been increasing, U.S. public spending has been flat for the past decade.

Here’s the big picture.

Here’s what’s happening with USDA research funding—flat.

And here’s what’s happening with overall agricultural research.  Public funding is flat.  Industry funding is rising rapidly. 

Why is this a problem?  Because industry funds research aimed at developing and marketing profit-making products

This leaves research aimed at public health to be supported by the public.  Research is needed to

• Increase productivity
• Improve crop protection
• Promote animal health and welfare
• Prevent animal diseases
• Protect against pandemics
• Reduce effects of climate change

Industry won’t fund these research areas if there’s no profit in them.

That’s why more public funds need to go to agricultural research.

Here’s a one page summary.

Here’s the full report.

If you, like me, are not in the mood for jokes that won’t seem funny today, here’s an idea for an alternative.

The Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) has produced a report on soda taxes in the region.

What’s happening with soda taxes in Latin America is impressive.

Soda taxes, no matter where they are, seem to be doing what they are supposed to:

Latin America is a model for Dietary Guidelines (Brazil) and front-of-package warning labels (Chile).

Wish we could do these things.

A dietitian colleague forwarded this message from Today’s Dietitian.

Honey may be made by bees, but it is mainly glucose and fructose just like any other sugars.

A few “food-for-thought” questions:

• Should dietetic publications be promoting sugars of any kind?
• Should dietitians be recommending honey to their clients?
• Should dietitians allow their publications to accept ads like this?

Carey Gillam.  The Monsanto Papers: Deadly Secrets, Corporate Corruption, and One Man’s Search for Justice.  Island Press, 2021.

Gillam, the author of Whitewash, a book for which I did a blurb (and who works for U.S. Right to Know) has surpassed herself and written what I can only descxribe as a blockbuster, right up there with page-turning thrillers by John Grisham.

I could not put this book down, and cannot recommend it highly enough.

It is the story of a school groundskeeper, Lee Johnson, who one working day set out to spray Roundup to kill weeds, but had an accident and got soaked with it.  He later developed a form of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma  (NHL) that has been associated with exposure to this weed killer.

Once Roundup’s main ingredient, glyphosate, was judged “probably carcinogenic” by the International Agency for Cancer Research, lawyers got involved and Johnson was chosen for the first case to try.

Gillam documents what the maker of Roundup, Monsanto, did to hide evidence of this chemical’s carcinogenicity, how it funded its own studies, ghost-wrote others, and established cozy relationships with EPA officials (hence “corporate corruption”).

She also tells the legal story.  Even though I knew the outcome before I picked up the book—I track such things—I found the details about the preparation of the case and actual trial riveting.

This is because this book is fabulously written—as I said, I couldn’t stop reading it—but also because she makes the characters in this drama come alive.  It reads like a novel.

It’s also an important book.  Monsanto is infamous for bad corporate behavior (“Monsatan”) but what’s documented here is truly shocking.  I shouldn’t have been shocked because I had written about Monsanto in my 2003 book about food biotechnology, Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety.  I had written my own account of its bad behavior.

Gillam brings the story up to the point where the German pharmaceutical firm, Bayer, bought Monsanto for $63 billion, something I hope this company has regretted ever since.

Spoiler alert: The most recent development in this case happened just last week.