Efforts Underway to Get Food from US Farms to Americans in Need

Efforts Underway to Get Food from US Farms to Americans in Need
Britain Scientists Say Virus in Wastewater Could Help Track Infections in Communities
Colleges Plan Fall Opening, But Campuses Will Not Be the Same

Posted: 26 May 2020 10:15 PM PDT

WASHINGTON,LELEMUKU.COM - Food banks in the United States have struggled to meet increasing demand from people who cannot pay for food because they have lost their jobs. At the same time, farmers cannot sell much of their crop food, so many vegetables and meat from farm animals go to waste.

Now, some states are providing money to help pay for such food. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA, is spending $3 billion to help get farm crops to food banks.

"Nobody likes to see waste of good food," said Mark Quandt. He is the executive director of the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York.

But when the coronavirus spread forced restaurants and schools to close, demand for farm products dropped, leaving farmers with too great a food supply.

Farmers from Florida to California left their crops to die.Dairyfarmers in Vermont and New York had to throw away millions of liters ofmilk. And animal farmers killed their animals that could not be processed for meat.

Now, as 39 million Americans have lost their jobs, many depend on food banks to feed them and their families at no cost.

In Florida, 12 food banks had to increase the food they provide from 6 million pounds of food per week to 10 million pounds.

A U.S. Census Bureau report found that more than 10 percent of families were not able to get enough food. Another report for the non-profit policy group Data Foundation says that 37 percent of those who lost their jobs did not have enough food in the past 30 days.

The USDA and private companies are trying to make sure that food that would have been wasted is now getting to food banks.

New York state created a $25 million program to help food banks buy local crops. Mark Quandt said he is planning to use the $4.3 million his food bank will receive to buy milk, cheeseand other food.

Chris Noble has a dairy farm in northwestern New York State. He said the Nourish New York program bought some of the milk he would have thrown away. He worked with other dairy farmers in western New York to send their milk and cheese to a food bank in New York City.

Noble said he wants "to be able to meet the needs of our community with the food we produce and not see it go to waste."

In Iowa, state officials and the Iowa Pork Producers Association have raised more than $130,000 to help pay to make pig meat for food banks. So far, 364 pigs have been donated.

"The last thing we want to do is waste anything," said Kevin Rasmussen. He donated seven pigs from his northern Iowa farm to the program this month.

Other states, such as Florida and California, had existing programs to help get donated crops to food banks by paying part of the cost of harvesting them. Those programs are getting a lot of donations now. California is adding $2 million to the program.

The biggest effort is the $3 billion USDA program to buy crops for food banks. That program has been slowed by ethics issues. Critics are questioning the qualifications of several companies that received the first $1.2 billion worth of contracts.

Celia Cole of the Feeding Texas alliance of food banks said, "Some of the companies that got bids, people are kind of scratching their heads like 'wait this isn't a fooddistributor, why are they winning the award?'"

One of the companies that won a contract, for example, is a marriage ceremony planning business in San Antonio, Texas.

Brent Erenwert is chief of Brothers Produce, a Houston-based vegetable distributor. It sought a contract with the USDA but was denied. Erenwert said he is concerned thatthe USDAprogram will fall short of its goals because of the companies it chose.

"There's just no way or shape this will help the farmer or the end user that's going to need this product," he said.

USDAofficials said they fully believe the chosen companies can complete the job. (VOA)

Britain Scientists Say Virus in Wastewater Could Help Track Infections in Communities

Posted: 26 May 2020 10:13 PM PDT

WASHINGTON, LELEMUKU.COM - Scientists say that measuring coronavirus levels in wastewater could help them estimate the number of infections in communities.

The method could be used around the world to identify where the virus is spreading and reduce the need for mass testing.

Small studies carried out in Europe and Australia suggest that signs of the coronavirus can be found in sewage – waste material carried away from homes and other buildings in a system of pipes. Those findings have led some scientists to consider wide wastewater testing to estimate the number of infected people in a given area.

Davey Jones is a professor of environmental science at Britain's Bangor University. He told the Reuters news agency that the virus enters the sewage system in particles released in the solid waste of infected individuals. "We're using that (knowledge) and tracking people's toilet movements," Jones said.

The sewage method has been used before to measure health threats and follow the spread of disease. For example, it has been used in the worldwide fight against polio. And, scientists in Britain and other places have used it to measure antibiotic resistance of farm animals.

Alex Corbishley is a scientist with the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is running a three-month test project to track the coronavirus in wastewater in Scotland.

He said the method has been used before to estimate infection rates of other diseases. But, he noted, "it's never really been applied to an outbreak in this way."

Corbishley said the idea is to create a system that can estimate mass virus infection rates for a lot less money than the cost of traditional testing.

The scientists involved in the first studies in Europe and Australia explained that what they are collecting is not live, infectious virus. They instead collect dead particles or parts of the virus's genetic material that are not infectious.

In a test project in Queensland, Australia, scientists were able to identify part of a coronavirus gene in sewage from two wastewater treatment plants.

In the Netherlands, researchers acted ahead of the coronavirus outbreak there and took samples from seven cities and a major airport in February and March. They found no levels of the virus three weeks before the country's first case was identified. But by March 5 –- just a week after the first case was confirmed there -- they did find signs of the virus.

The researchers wrote in a paper published online that "sewage surveillance" can be a valuable tool to follow the spread of viruses, even in areas with less severe outbreaks.

French scientists reported findings in April showing that wastewater sampling in Paris over a one-month period followed the same period of rising and falling of coronavirus cases there.

Few countries have the resources to carry out virus tests on each individual person. Most nations are only in a position to test healthcare workers or people who have severe symptoms and require hospitalization. So, local officials have limited information about how widespread the coronavirus is and whether it is affecting some communities more than others.

"You can use this type of surveillance as a public health tool," said Andrew Singer, a researcher at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. He is working with Davey Jones and others to create sewage testing plants in Britain.

Singer told Reuters that such efforts require little investment. But, he said, they could be a huge help in tracking the spread of the current virus as well as future outbreaks. (VOA)

Colleges Plan Fall Opening, But Campuses Will Not Be the Same

Posted: 26 May 2020 10:10 PM PDT

WASHINGTON, LELEMUKU.COM - Growing numbers of U.S. colleges and universities are saying they will reopen before autumn. There will be, however, big changes to college life to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Largelecturerooms will no longer be used. Student housing will not be full. Schools will require students to be tested for the virus. And some smaller colleges may even bar students from leaving their grounds.

Some universities have given up hope of offering in-person classes in the fall term. So, they will be offering students online classes. Yet others are announcing plans to welcome students back in August.

The schools that plan to open admit anoutbreakof COVID, the disease caused by the virus, may force them to close again. But, their leaders say, financial and social demands are simply too strong to ignore.

At West Virginia University, President E. Gordon Gee said students do not want to wait for a vaccine. He added that the university's finances were part of the decision.

If science were the only concern, "we would keep everythingshut downuntil we have a vaccine and until it's working," he said. "We will open, but it will be different."

Colleges planning to reopen include Purdue University, Texas A&M University, the University of Notre Dame and several statewide systems.

The California State University system has said its 23campuseswill stay mostly online this fall. School officials said they feared another outbreak of the virus later this year.

Others including the University of South Carolina and Rice University in Texas plan to reopen, but they will have a shorter fall term. They are hoping that another outbreak, if there is one, will hit in November or December.

U.S. President Donald Trump has urged schools to reopen, but his top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, has expressed concerns. Last week, Fauci spoke at a U.S. Senate hearing about the coronavirus. He said he did not believe there will be a vaccine by the end of the summer. Trump said that was "not an acceptable answer."

Colleges and universities that plan to reopen have told students to expect social distancing measures to be enforced. This will include a requirement to wear facemasks. College officials say there will be widespread testing, and students found to be infected will be put inquarantine.

But some Americans wonder whether the schools will be able to provide large numbers of tests.

In a call with 14 university leaders this month, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence promised to help colleges improve testing operations. But some on the call said details, especially about how to pay for the testing, was not clear.

"The testing is going to cost money," said Mike Lovell, president of Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He noted that many schools already have financial problems.

Once students are back on campus, the main goal will be to keep them apart, colleges say. Chairs will be placed at least two meters from each other. Big lectures will be made into smaller groups or move online. Some colleges are discussing teaching some classes outside buildings or in temporary shelters.

The biggest problem for colleges is the question of student housing. At some schools, housing meant for several students will be limited to just one or two. Restrooms will be restricted to just a few students.

At Trinity College, a school of 2,000 in Hartford, Connecticut, officials hope to place every student in their own room. College officials have been trying to find a way to make sure students will have space to sleep and study several meters apart.

At least one college may not let students leave the school's grounds. In a recent letter to students, Amherst College in Massachusetts said officials "may need to require that you limit your movement to on-campuslocations only." (VOA)