Agriculture Department

PISCATAWAY, N.J. - "You're back," sighed an Agriculture Department official, acknowledging the arrival of an odd costumed character, a 5-foot-tall strawberry with the head and fins of a flounder.The "Fishberry" protester is a symbol of how genetic engineering might run amok. He has turned up at each of the four regional public hearings that the U.S. Department of Agriculture scheduled after it became painfully obvious that rules the department proposed in December to define organic food shook the ground beyond the Capital Beltway.

State agriculture officials found nearly a dozen pigs yesterday on a western Carroll County farm that has been under quarantine, but they said they don't know whether these swine are among the more than 100 that have been missing since last month. Officials went to the 112-acre farm in Marston to investigate reports that pigs had been seen on the property and found 10 feral pigs in addition to a piglet, according to a state Agriculture Department statement released late yesterday. They also found a dead pig that appeared to have been struck by a car. Roland Walker, attorney for the farm's owner, Carroll L. Schisler Sr., 60, said last night that he was unaware of the Agriculture Department's visit to the property yesterday and that he couldn't be sure whether these were some of the missing swine.

TILLERY, N.C. - Matthew Grant came to this farming village on the banks of the Roanoke River in 1947 from nearby North Hampton County. He had a strong wife with him. He also had five babies, the old family Bible, and a bony mule. He was nickel-and-dime poor, but the federal government had helped him buy some land in an ambitious loan program to aid black farmers.He couldn't believe it when he looked across the vast landscape: Black farmers were everywhere. There was Leroy Harvey. There was Booker T. Marrow.

Canadian swordfish. Thai shrimp. American salmon. By next week, grocery shoppers who want to know where their seafood comes from will no longer have to guess or ask, because new federal regulations will require labels. The "country of origin" labels are required as part of the Farm Bill of 2002 and will appear at larger grocery stores across the nation Monday on packages or on tags stuck in ice to identify all fresh or frozen seafood that is not processed, as opposed to fish sticks or crab cakes.

New Orleans. -- I went to the McDonald's Museum in Des Plaines, Illinois, and admired the life-size plaster statues of early McDonald's employees dispensing the first dollops of what soon became a mighty river of burgers. I admired the early plastic fries, the primitive milk-shake machines and the not-yet merged neon arches. McDonald's was a triumph of private enterprise that seduced America and now parts of the world without any seeming help from the government.And why should the government help a successful business that does better than the government?

WASHINGTON -- Wheat farmers who were promised $1 billion in export subsidies by President Bush on Wednesday will find that sum more than offset by reductions in domestic programs that help them, Bush administration officials now acknowledge.The administration is counting on the increase in exports to result in slightly higher domestic wheat prices. The higher prices would in turn reduce government payments to farmers under domestic programs.The farmers will still come out slightly ahead because of the higher prices.

More than 20 years after food stamps became the cornerstone of America's social welfare system, they are being used in a rising number of large-scale crimes to purchase everything from sex and drugs to stolen cars and combat weapons.Fraud investigators have documented cases in which food stamps were used to pay for a funeral in Florida, a house in Nevada and two surface-to-air missiles in New Mexico.The use of food stamps as street currency in major crime goes far beyond the relatively small-time fraud that has beset the welfare system in the past.

WASHINGTON -- The head of the U.S. Agriculture Department's farm exports unit resigned yesterday to become California's secretary of trade and commerce under Gov.-Elect Gray Davis.Lon Hatamiya, 39, a California prune and peach farmer who holds law and business degrees, was appointed by President Clinton in 1993 to head the department's marketing division. In 1997, he became head of the department's Foreign Agricultural Service, the agency that promotes farm exports.Davis, a Democrat who succeeds Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, said in a statement that Hatamiya will work to expand trade for California's agriculture, computer, biomedical and entertainment industries.

WASHINGTON -- A Nebraska meat-processing plant is closing temporarily and expanding its recall of ground beef to 25 million pounds after federal investigators found evidence that far more meat might be contaminated by a hazardous bacteria than originally suspected.It is the largest such recall in U.S. history, said Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman. Last week, the Hudson plant in the eastern Nebraska town of Columbus recalled 1.2 million pounds of meat.The beef has been distributed across the country in 4-ounce frozen patties to a variety of chains, including Burger King, Boston Market, Wal-Mart, Sam's Club and Safeway supermarkets, Glickman said.

Agriculture Department officials say they are discussing the possibility of easing their new standards for preventing salmonella contamination in ground beef used for the nation's school lunch program. The reconsideration, provoked by criticism from the food industry, has angered consumer advocates. Since June, the department, which provides 70 percent of the ground beef used in schools, has required that every batch it buys be free of salmonella, bacteria responsible for about 600 deaths and 1.4 million illnesses last year.

WASHINGTON - Initial tests last week indicating a possible new case of mad cow disease in the United States have proved negative after subsequent testing, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced yesterday. The potential case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, was found through a rapid screening program initiated by the USDA after the first - and, so far, only - U.S. case was discovered in Washington state in December last year. More than 121,000 cattle have been tested since the program started June 1. Tests on three, including the current case, came back positive in preliminary screening, but the cattle were cleared of infection after more definitive tests.

CHESAPEAKE CITY - Like the newborn foals she treats, Olga Smolenskaia-Souvorova is seeing Maryland for the first time. Smolenskaia-Souvorova is one of several members of Russia's horse industry who will spend months at horse farms and racetracks across the state this year, learning how the American industry operates and contributing their own ideas. "We'll try to see and learn everything that is going on," said Smolenskaia-Souvorova, an intern from Moscow. "I don't think that six months will be a long time."

Agriculture Department officials say they are discussing the possibility of easing their new standards for preventing salmonella contamination in ground beef used for the nation's school lunch program. The reconsideration, provoked by criticism from the food industry, has angered consumer advocates. Since June, the department, which provides 70 percent of the ground beef used in schools, has required that every batch it buys be free of salmonella, bacteria responsible for about 600 deaths and 1.4 million illnesses last year.

WASHINGTON -- The head of the U.S. Agriculture Department's farm exports unit resigned yesterday to become California's secretary of trade and commerce under Gov.-Elect Gray Davis.Lon Hatamiya, 39, a California prune and peach farmer who holds law and business degrees, was appointed by President Clinton in 1993 to head the department's marketing division. In 1997, he became head of the department's Foreign Agricultural Service, the agency that promotes farm exports.Davis, a Democrat who succeeds Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, said in a statement that Hatamiya will work to expand trade for California's agriculture, computer, biomedical and entertainment industries.

PISCATAWAY, N.J. - "You're back," sighed an Agriculture Department official, acknowledging the arrival of an odd costumed character, a 5-foot-tall strawberry with the head and fins of a flounder.The "Fishberry" protester is a symbol of how genetic engineering might run amok. He has turned up at each of the four regional public hearings that the U.S. Department of Agriculture scheduled after it became painfully obvious that rules the department proposed in December to define organic food shook the ground beyond the Capital Beltway.

Harold Lenhart's heifers graze on some of the most expensive pastureland in the country.The price of an average acre of Maryland farmland, including the buildings, rose 3 percent last year, to $4,120, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture survey.This compares with a gain of 6 percent for the 48 continental states as a whole, where the average acre of farmland was valued at $1,000. Only four states -- Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island -- have more expensive per-acre costs.

WASHINGTON -- Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy apologized yesterday for being "inattentive to the appearance of impropriety" and made public five volumes of documents about the 135 trips he had made since taking office.The records provide information about some trips that have been under scrutiny by federal authorities, but they shed little new light on the question being examined by federal authorities: whether Mr. Espy illegally accepted transportation, lodging and sports tickets from agricultural interests such as Tyson Foods, the nation's largest poultry processor.

WASHINGTON -- The FBI and the Justice Department are at odds over whether to curtail a politically sensitive investigation into allegations that Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy accepted personal favors from the Arkansas-based poultry processing giant Tyson Foods Inc., sources said yesterday.While the FBI believes it has not yet exhausted all avenues of inquiry, high-level Justice Department officials are pressing to close the case because they say investigators have found insufficient evidence that Mr. Espy violated the law, sources reported.

TILLERY, N.C. - Matthew Grant came to this farming village on the banks of the Roanoke River in 1947 from nearby North Hampton County. He had a strong wife with him. He also had five babies, the old family Bible, and a bony mule. He was nickel-and-dime poor, but the federal government had helped him buy some land in an ambitious loan program to aid black farmers.He couldn't believe it when he looked across the vast landscape: Black farmers were everywhere. There was Leroy Harvey. There was Booker T. Marrow.

WASHINGTON -- A Nebraska meat-processing plant is closing temporarily and expanding its recall of ground beef to 25 million pounds after federal investigators found evidence that far more meat might be contaminated by a hazardous bacteria than originally suspected.It is the largest such recall in U.S. history, said Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman. Last week, the Hudson plant in the eastern Nebraska town of Columbus recalled 1.2 million pounds of meat.The beef has been distributed across the country in 4-ounce frozen patties to a variety of chains, including Burger King, Boston Market, Wal-Mart, Sam's Club and Safeway supermarkets, Glickman said.