Sidney Chang of Whatley, Mass.-based Chang Farm said his company followed all U.S. Food & Drug Administration guidelines leading up to the voluntary recall of about 15,000 pounds of bean and soy sprouts May 28. The recall came about after a sample of product from Chang Farm tested positive for listeria monocytogenes at a New York retail store.

KUALA LUMPUR -- The Health Ministry is expected to submit a memorandum to the Cabinet on a proposal to set up a national Food Safety Agency by year end, said its minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai. He added that the setting up of such an agency quickly was important to increase food safety and quality of imported food in the country.

Manufacturers of cans for beverages and foods and some of their biggest customers, including Coca-Cola, are trying to devise a public relations and lobbying strategy to block government bans of a controversial chemical used in the linings of metal cans and lids.

Manure has a PR problem. Mention it and everyone gets squeamish because they associate it with contamination and disease. But it's not manure that's the problem, it's our attitude toward it, says George Lazarovits, a senior research scientist for Agriculture Canada.

Bayer CropScience unveiled two new InVigor® canola hybrids that it will launch during this fall’s booking period for the 2010 growing season. Trials indicate one of them is on track to set yet another yield record for canola, while the other brings the signature InVigor yield performance to another specialty oil hybrid.

WICHITA -- Officials at the Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita are getting rid of blue sno-cones after a mix-up involving commercial degreaser. Four people became ill Thursday when a zoo employee poured a degreasing agent into the sno-cone machine instead of flavored syrup.

Considering that 18 months is a quick turnaround in the cookbook world, it’s startling to imagine that editors in the Kobe-and-caviar-foam days of 2007 foresaw that selling Americans on canning and pickling, curing their own bacon, charring meat and baking something called a grunt was a good way to boost sales.

When you think of cattle feed very few of us probably imagine chicken manure. Certainly it would be the last thing that would enter the mind of most of us from farmers to eaters. Some time ago the NFU was approached about the possible practice of feeding chicken litter to cattle in the United States, and potentially in other nations that export their beef to Canada.

U.S. President Obama went to another burger shop in Washington for lunch today, ordering up a cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, jalapeno peppers, and mustard – not the fancy Dijon mustard. He also ordered a cheeseburger for Brian Williams, anchor for NBC. The network was filming a day-in-the-life program at the White House.