Press Releases: Consumers

Media statement: “Yesterday, Nestle Purina Petcare Company announced it will recall their Waggin’ Train and Canyon Creek Ranch dog treat brands and Delmonte announced it will recall its Milo’s Chicken Jerky Treats and Chicken Grillers because of residues of an undisclosed antibiotic. This is a long overdue step to protect pets from unsafe imports. The New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets should be commended for conducting the testing that resulted in these national recalls. But the Food and Drug Administration still must take action to prevent further pet illnesses and to inform consumers of the safety issues related to these products. Since 2007, thousands of American dogs have fallen ill or died after eating jerky treats made in China and it is time for the FDA to step up and block these potentially deadly treats from harming more animals.”

Press Release: One in three American children and adolescents are overweight or obese, and restricting unhealthy food marketing to youth is one important step to addressing this crisis, according to a new report by national consumer organization Food & Water Watch. It Pays to Advertise: Junk Food Marketing to Children analyses recent trends in food marketing aimed at children and concludes that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) must step up and actively regulate marketing to youth, including food and beverage marketing, rather than rely on the food industry’s ineffective voluntary system.

Organic food has become big business and the largest food manufacturers have rapidly taken over the organic food sector, sweeping formerly independent businesses into large food conglomerates. An analysis released today by the national consumer group Food & Water Watch found that the farmers who grow organic crops and raise organic livestock now face the same forces of corporate consolidation that dominate the conventional food industry, with a declining number of buyers putting downward pressure on the prices farmers receive.

Iowa produces more pigs than any other state in the country. In years past, hog farming and pork processing boosted Iowa’s rural economies. But as the pork packing industry consolidated, the economic benefits of the hog sector shifted from rural Iowa to Wall Street. Today, growth in the consolidated hog industry has become a mechanism for draining value from, not adding to, Iowa’s rural economies.

Press Release: As Congress navigates its way through the 2012 Farm Bill process, Food & Water Watch today released a report that delineates the special interest lobbying efforts that shaped the 2008 Farm Bill. Food & Water Watch estimates that $173.5 million was spent by agribusinesses, commodity groups, food manufacturers and others to perpetuate policies that favor the largest food and agriculture industries. The public demand for broad-based reforms to the food system has been largely stymied by the special interest lobbying muscle that spent more than $500,000 a day during the 110th Congress.

The report, Cultivating Influence: 2008 The Farm Bill Lobbying Frenzy, finds that the 2008 Farm Bill was one of the most well-financed legislative fights of the past decade and breaks down the lobbying spending by more than 1,000 companies, trade associations and other groups.

Press Release: Today Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter declined an invitation to debate World Water Forum participants on the merits of public versus private involvement in the water sector, encouraging them to involve a Philippine water activist who could testify to the disaster that privatization brought to her community in the Philippines. Council of Canadians Chair Maude Barlow had also previously declined the invitation.