He said that the FSA is going to get more explicit in the interpretation of the law regarding landowner-tenant rights in the new farm bill, before many of the lease agreements for the 1997 crop year are put in place. Newman, who spoke at this week's NAWG summer leadership conference in Idaho, said that there's no question there will be changes to the new farm bill, but feels that any tinkering will be improvements to any confusions or problems created by the new seven-year law. Also at the NAWG meeting, Gary Margheim, special assistant with the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service, said that wheat growers had more influence than any other group in how the conservation provisions came out of the new farm bill. It was also nice to hear from a consultant that the NAWG is a more powerful organization in DC than it has a right to be, given a membership base and budget that's much smaller compared to other commodity groups. Close to 800 school food service personnel from across the state are expected to attend the conference.
School meals are now subject to a new federal law, which requires leaner standards.
The new law requires trimming excess fat from the 32 million meals dished up daily in 92,000 schools. Minnesota has an average daily lunch participation of 481,455 meals and 60,082 breakfasts. Participants of the educational sessions will sample and receive new standardized recipes. According to the consumer Network, three out of four consumers surveyed support genetic food engineering. It seems that the astounding advances in medicine make many consumers more accepting of biotech than afraid of it.