Agriculture in Russia has a long and often tragic history. This interesting article in the New York Times (not my usual source for cutting-edge agriculture news!) talks about how the wheel has turned around – what once were individual peasant farms, then noble estates, then savagely collectivized national farms, are now on track for global agricultural development. The collective farm system, one of the last vestiges of communism, is finally on the verge of being swept away.

Foreign investors are beginning to buy millions of hectares of prime Russian farmland. What earnest Russian political reform efforts proved unable to accomplish, massive world market price increases on staple agricultural commodities has brought into being. Because of the inefficiencies of the collective farm system, a sixth of Russia’s arable land – nearly 35 million acres – has remained fallow for years, if not decades. The price of food has risen so much that these acres were coming back into cultivation even with the tiny Russian yields enjoyed by Russian farms (yields owed to poor access to chemicals and infrastructure, not weather or soil quality).

The collective farms are being reorganized – not into small freeholds as original reformers had envisioned – but into enormous clusters of consolidated farms, run by corporate organizations. Western-educated Russian industrial oligarchs, hedge fund managers, and investors are bringing Western capital and technology to this acreage. Yields have doubled on investors’ plots, and almost a seventh of Russia’s land has been brought into the consolidated system.

There is still looming peril that has limited outside investor’s enthusiasm – unlike a software company or even an industrial concern, a farm cannot pick up and move when the local government gets acquisitive or overly assertive. Many analysts warn that a renationalization of the Russian farm industry is not only possible but may even be likely.

About a month ago, I reported on the false connection of tomatoes to the salmonella outbreak, and how it turned out to be peppers imported from Mexico that were the source of the infection. Now it seems that not only were the Mexican peppers the source of the problem, but that Federal border inspectors have been turning back Mexican produce imports for months.

FDA officials told reporters during the salmonella crisis that they hadn’t looked at Mexican produce imports because they didn’t know there were problems there. Yet according to an Associated Press analysis, the FDA’s own records clearly show that shipments of Mexican peppers and chilies were regularly turned away at the border for being literally filthy and disease-ridden for months prior to the outbreak.

Between January and the AP’s record review in August, 88 shipments of fresh or dried chilies and peppers were turned away at the border. Ten percent of those shipments were turned away because they were contaminated by salmonella. In July alone, six shipments of fresh jalapenos were found to be contaminated with salmonella. The FDA has offered no explanation for the discrepancy between these statistics, and the statements of Dr. David Acheson, FDA’s food safety chief, that peppers and chilies had not been a source of concern for the FDA because they hadn’t seen problems with those products.

Almost 500,000 tons of Mexican peppers are imported annually, and only about 1% of those shipments are inspected. In August, the FDA finally put about a dozen Mexican food producers on its watch list, meaning that their products would have a higher chance of being screened.

Again, I believe that this points to the importance of produce labeling requirements – (Country of Origin Labeling; COOL) - consumers have a right to know where the food they are eating came from. When particular countries have health risks associated with their products, then consumers need to be able to make informed and rational decisions about what to buy.

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Many farmers find that vertically integrating their product lines is an excellent way to increase profitability. In the case of Pat and Sharlene Daninger, owners of the Autumnwood Farm in Forest Lake, Minnesota, it’s saved the farm that’s been in their family for 100 years.

The Daningers decided to open an organic creamery on-site, and after just six months in operation they are selling around 500 gallons of milk a week. A dozen stores in Minneapolis sell their products, and there is also a retail shop at the farm itself, stocked with half-gallon bottles of milk and chocolate milk.

Locally-produced and hormone-free, the Daninger’s creamery experiment has been a lot of work. “We knew how to get the milk out of the cows, but nothing about processing,” Pat Daninger said. “It’s labor-intensive. But to hear people say, ‘This is the best milk I’ve had,’ that makes you feel like you’re doing a service to the community.”

Pat Daninger’s family has worked Autumnwood Farm since 1982, when his grandparents immigrated from Austria. Pat and Sharlene took over in 1982 – and realized that they would need to enhance the farm’s revenue stream to keep afloat. Expanding their dairy farm was one option – but when your farm is surrounded by suburban development, additional acreage is impossible to acquire. However, the Daninger’s realized that their problem was also their opportunity – all those houses, all those people, were customers for the products they produced on their farm. While giving tours of the farm to local schools, the question kept coming up – “can we buy milk from your farm?”

That inspired the creamery venture. It took a lot of research and planning, and a $500,000 mortgage, but the Daninger’s are now in the finished milk business using their own dairy herd as the raw material. The Daninger’s teenage children help with deliveries, manning the store, and stocking. 14-year old son Nathan was even moved to start his own beef operation, selling the meat in the family store.

Next time you have a nice glass of milk, raise a glass to the Daninger’s and their venture. It’s exciting to see farmers getting control of the process and ensuring their own financial futures.