Ag News: Food Packaging Not Spreading COVID
**More than a year after the pandemic outbreak was declared a global health emergency, the USDA, FDA and Centers for Disease Control continue to underscore there’s no credible evidence of food or food packaging as a likely source of viral transmission of COVID-19.
The USDA tells www.agrimarketing.com, we continue to believe, based on our understanding of currently available reliable scientific information, that the foods they eat and food packaging they touch are highly unlikely to spread COVID-19.
www.agrimarketing.com/s/134996
**China is already the largest meat-importing nation and looks poised to play a major role in future meat markets.
Senior USDA economist Fred Gale tells www.agriculture.com China’s imports of beef, pork, and poultry are projected
to grow 29% in the coming decade.
Meat imports by China totaled 8.5 million tons in 2020, including 4.8 million tons of pork.
www.agriculture.com/news/business/china-gobbles-a-larger-share-of-world-meat-trade
**The extreme cold making headlines across the U.S. the past week put a bullseye on the state of Texas.
The Texas Farm Bureau tells www.growingproduce.com the wide-ranging deep freeze is impacting all facets of ag in the Lone Star State but is likely to have disastrous effects on the Rio Grande Valley citrus crop.
Texas Citrus Mutual President, Dale Murden estimates the citrus harvest was about 55% complete when the cold weather hit, rendering the remaining fruit on the trees frozen and useless.
www.growingproduce.com/citrus/texas-citrus-growers-feeling-the-squeeze-from-deep-freeze/