A new study finds methicillan-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in retail pork products at nearly double the levels suggested by previous research.

Agriculture officials in Ohio are concerned about the backlog of manure that farmers have because an especially rainy fall kept them from spreading manure on their fields, according to The Columbus Dispatch. There were 39 manure spills into streams across Ohio last year, four of which occurred in winter months. Spills also happen when liquid manure is spread on already rain-soaked farm fields or after rainstorms. Ohio has as many as 40 million chickens, hogs and cows that produce more than 17 million tons of manure each year.

Controversial new science is raising suspicion that chemicals in the environment may be programming us to be fat. And it starts before we’re even born. That’s the subject of a new documentary called Programmed to be Fat?, a production of the Vancouver-based Dreamfilm. It’s true that we eat too much and don’t exercise enough, but a small group of scientists have begun looking beyond the obvious because of a group that can’t chew, let alone jog: infant obesity rose more than 70 per cent in just 20 years.

The Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture holds its 21st annual conference Feb. 1-4 in State College, Pa. The keynote speakers will be the Worldwatch Institute’s Brian Halweil, who writes on the social and ecological impacts of how we grow food; and Shannon Hayes, author of Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture. Hayes, whose family farm raises grass-fed meats among other things, sees her style of homemaking as an agent of social, economic and ecological change.</

Purdue University researcher Arun Bhunia predicts that probiotics (beneficial bacteria) could help reduce Listeria infections. He and his colleagues found that probiotics can be modified to stop Listeria cells from passing through intestinal walls and into the bloodstream. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Listeria sickens about 1,500 and kills about 250 people each year in the United States and primarily affects pregnant women, newborns, older adults and those with weakened immune systems.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will close 259 offices nationwide, saving the agency $60 million from its $145 billion budget, but raising concerns about how the moves might impact food safety. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the goal was to save $150 million a year, and reducing travel and supplies had already saved about $90 million. Vilsack said he didn't anticipate widespread layoffs, in part because 7,000 USDA employees took early retirements over the past year.

Hostess Brands Inc., the maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, is seeking bankruptcy protection, blaming its pension and medical benefits obligations, increased competition and tough economic conditions. The company owes $944 million to its pension fund. This filing comes just two years after a predecessor company emerged from bankruptcy, but the company says its previous efforts to create gradual change was not enough to get the company back on firm footing.

The Kansas City Star reports that organic meat producers are hamstrung by the dearth of veterinarians who are trained in how to treat animals without antibiotics or other modern drugs. According to the Star: “While no one tracks the number of veterinarians who treat organic livestock, experts agree it's a relatively small number nationwide. That's partly because organic agriculture, despite its growth, still accounts for relatively few farms.”

According to The Daily Climate, media coverage of climate change continued its decline in 2011. Coverage was 20 percent less than in 2010, and 42 percent less than in 2009, when coverage peaked. The Daily Climate reported that “the declining coverage came amid bouts of extreme weather across the globe – historic wildfires in Arizona, drought in Texas, famine in the Horn of Africa.” It said there were 19,000 stories published on climate change in 2011, compared to more than 32,000 in 2009.

The Food and Drug and Administration announced recently that it has “decided to back off a 34-year attempt to regulate the use of" penicillin and tetracycline in livestock feed for animals intended for human consumption,” according to the International Business Times. In “an obscure posting in the Federal Register on Dec. 22,” the FDA said it would shift its focus to encouraging "voluntary reform" within the industry.

Much of the organic produce entering the U.S. in the winter is coming from places like the arid Baja Peninsula, described in The New York Times as “the epicenter of Mexico’s thriving new organic export sector.” This agricultural boom is taxing that region’s limited water supplies. “People are now buying from a global commodity market, and they have to be skeptical even when the label says ‘organic’ — that doesn’t tell people all they need to know,” said Frederick Kirschenmann of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture.