From Oil to Orange Juice

U.S. detains Brazil, Canada orange juice for fungicide
By Anna Yukhananov | Reuters – 1-27-2012
Article: NY juice jumps as fungicide found in Brazil juice
Article: Brazil OJ industry wants US to ease fungicide limit
(Reuters) - U.S. health regulators detained three shipments of Brazilian orange juice and six from Canada that tested positive for the fungicide carbendazim, which is illegal in the United States.
Two other Brazilian juice shipments tested positive for the fungicide, but the companies decided not to import the juice into the country, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday.
Orange juice futures climbed almost 3 percent in reaction to the FDA testing results, which had been widely expected.
But the futures remained below a record high hit on Monday, after traders fretted that regulators may ban all orange juice from top grower Brazil, which supplies half of U.S. imports.
The FDA said 29 of the 80 orange juice samples it had taken since testing began on January 4 were safe, including two from Brazil and seven from Canada.
Canada does not grow its own oranges, but may process juice from other countries. The nation makes up less than 1 percent of U.S. imports.
The fungicide scare flared two weeks ago after the FDA announced that a company - later identified as Coca-Cola Co - had reported finding carbendazim in juice samples from Brazil.
Growers in Brazil widely use carbendazim to combat blossom blights and black spot, a mold that grows on orange trees.
The fungicide is illegal on citrus in the United States, although it does not pose a safety risk, the FDA said.
The FDA said it would begin testing imports for the fungicide and reject shipments that were above the legal limit.
Shipments that have more than 10 parts per billion (ppb) of the fungicide will be detained, and the importers will have 90 days to export or destroy the product, the agency said.
The FDA said it would test all shipments twice, and detain any that tested positive for carbendazim at least once.
Of the six shipments detained from Canada, none had levels of fungicide higher than 31 ppb, and most were below 20 ppb. The Brazilian shipments that tested positive had carbendazim levels between 20 ppb and 52 ppb.
All the levels of carbendazim found so far have been below the legal limit in the European Union, which allows juice imports with up to 200 ppb.
In the United States, trace amounts of the fungicide are still allowed in 31 food types including grains, nuts and some non-citrus fruits. It has been banned from U.S. citrus juice since 2009.
(Reporting by Anna Yukhananov in Washington; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Marguerita Choy and Dale Hudson)

Michael T. Wayne-
I wanted to show anyone who did not know, that while my home State of Florida, as well as California, both of whom are citrus producers, with CA using many illegal workers to harvest the fruit, are not the leading suppliers of this Nation’s orange juice. 50% of our OJ is imported from Brazil. 1% is imported from Canada, although they do not produce the citrus, they simply make juice (very helpful Canada). Why? There seems to be a government standing behind a juice company (Tropicana) allowing them to use foreign citrus, while they say they want to create American jobs. Is global warming not helping us grow oranges year-round yet? Incidentally, why is this fungicide legal here on other crops, and not citrus? So, the hypocrisy rolls along. You go Mr. Obama. Keep on lying to us. Is this the reason he had half of Walt Disney World closed for him to give his speech on tourism? Good way to keep the money coming in, close half of the busiest park. And it is also very curious that in said speech he wants to give tourist visas to Brazilians (he gave them millions to drill for oil, but they do not pay us back, and sell the oil to China). A good portion of the illegal immigrants in America came here on student, or tourist visas simply to just stay when the visa expires. We must know their names, correct? If we issued them a visa, there is a paper trail, and we need to find them and deport them. As a law abiding citizen, one thing I cannot abide is the Obama administration’s do nothing policy towards these people. It is either a re-election tactic, or he is just angry that the US forced his Muslim father to leave the country, for reasons ranging from his unknown past to the inability to tell who he was indeed married to. It was more than one woman, BO’s mother not being first, and in such a case, Obama’s father might have been an American citizen if Obama’s mother had been his only spouse, as she was an American citizen. Is he an American? That is the problem. We just do not know, and if we had any idea he was a Muslim, he would never have been elected. Of course, as he said, “This is no longer a Christian country”. I find myself wishing that I had never heard the name Barrack Hussein Obama. Sounds like a Muslim to me. I know many of you have not read my poetry, but I do have some nice ones about Islam. I cannot say the title here, what with the obscenities - it’s alright, I’m just a little crazy.

Brazil orange growers: 'We can adapt'
By Shasta Darlington @CNNMoneyMarkets January 17, 2012: 4:23 PM ET
TAQUARITINGA, Brazil (CNN) -- Brazil's orange harvest is nearing its end as workers in the state of Sao Paulo pluck late-blooming fruit from the trees.
The yellow-green oranges will be shipped off to nearby juice factories and then shipped around the globe. Those exports rake in $2 billion for Brazil, the biggest orange juice exporter in the world, accounting for 85% of global exports.
But now, it is not clear if Brazilian orange juice will be allowed into one of its key markets: the United States.
Last week, the Food and Drug Administration temporarily halted all orange juice imports after low levels of the unapproved fungicide carbendazim were found in some juice shipments from Brazil.
More recently, the FDA said the juice is safe for consumption.
Why your orange juice is still safe-
Growers in Sao Paulo say they have been using carbendazim for some 20 years and point out that it is allowed -- in low levels -- across Europe and Latin America. It is also allowed in trace amounts in other food products, like nuts, in the United States. "We didn't even know that it had been banned in orange juice in the United States in 2009," Marco Antonio dos Santos, a third generation orange grower, told CNN.
Dos Santos, also the president of the Citrus Department at the Agriculture Ministry, says there are alternatives, however.
In fact, he and other growers already rotate the use of carbendazim with other fungicides and techniques for preventing diseases like black spot, which make the oranges fall from the trees before they are ripe.
He says Brazilian growers don't want to lose the American market, which is their second biggest after Europe. The United States currently buys 15 percent of Brazil's orange juice exports.
"If we have to, we'll eliminate this product completely," he said as he walked, showing off his 60-acre grove. "We want to supply the American market, we don't in any way want to lose it. We can adapt to the American system with other products."
Growers here would take a hit if this latest crop were barred from America. Global orange juice prices would rise, too.
But Dos Santos says producers can adapt quickly and could produce the next crop carbendazim-free if it were necessary.
While Brazilian farmers and industry leaders don't see a threat to consumers' health, they say the most important thing is that people aren't afraid to drink orange juice.
First Published: January 17, 2012: 10:59 AM ET
OK, so they want that money, too.-Michael T. Wayne

Tropicana goes back to using only Florida oranges
Chicago Tribune-January 16, 2012
PepsiCo Inc. is returning to using only oranges from Florida in its Tropicana Pure Premium orange juices, a decision made several months ago, before low levels of fungicide were found in oranges from Brazil, the company confirmed on Monday.
Tropicana Pure Premium had used 100 percent Florida oranges until 2007, when problems with the Florida crop caused the company to look at alternative sources, Beverage Digest, the industry publication which first reported the switch, said.

Oh, the day before the Brazilians say they will leave it out of the next crop, Tropicana said the former. Why, then, do they not just use Florida oranges then, if they say they can? Why were they even bothering with Brazil? Do they not advertise their juice as to being made from 100% Florida oranges? I guess it is all about the money, right? Give the money to American growers! -Michael T. Wayne

God Bless the United States of America and our Armed Forces!

Entire post, and comments by Michael T. Wayne- A Little Crazy

We need a Mitt Romney to fix our economy.