Elk Don’t Belong in Farms (The Source Weekly) Do we really need to domesticate another wild species? Is keeping a herd of pet elk as cute and harmless as it seems? Consider this: Chronic wasting disease (mad cow disease for deer and elk) has been spread from elk farm to elk farm and sometimes from elk farm to wild elk in over a dozen states in the last 15 years. CWD is always fatal, and you can’t even tell if an animal has it until it dies. ... [News Source]

Lessons learned from largest U.S. meat recall (AG Weekly) Not since Upton Sinclair’s 1906 book “The Jungle” has the American meat market been this shaken. [News Source]

If climate sceptics are right, it is time to worry. Serious scientists worry that feedback effects could - beyond some unknown “tipping point” - cause runaway warming with unforeseeable outcomes that would look like bad science fiction from today’s perspective. The continuing scientific uncertainty should make us more concerned, not less. [News Source]

Agflation will change the course of history. The Middle East’s next macroeconomic demon will be a spectacular rise in food prices. [News Source]

CA lawmakers advance slaughterhouse penalties bill. California lawmakers on Tuesday advanced legislation that would slap slaughterhouses with criminal penalties if they process meat from cattle and other livestock that are too sick to stand. [News Source]

State bill on meat advances. San Bernardino County's district attorney and the president of the national Humane Society were pleased Tuesday by the advancement of a bill to make it a crime for slaughterhouses to process meat from cows too sick to stand. [News Source]

In aftermath of beef recall, slaughterhouse bill proceeds in Assembly committee. Authorities would be able to prosecute the operators of meatpacking plants that slaughter weak or diseased cows for food under a bill that passed its first legislative test Tuesday. [News Source]

124 more jobs lost as Gencor closes (Kitchener/Waterloo Record) KITCHENER (Apr 2, 2008) -- A slaughterhouse that came to the rescue of Ontario cattle farmers during the mad cow disease crisis needs a saviour itself. [News Source]