Section » Farm Bill
No comment, no say: lend your voice to shaping four big food & ag policies
Photo from Iowa, courtesy of factoryfarm.org. It's easy to get cynical about our ability to influence policy or policymakers - especially when we don't have lots of money or a well-dressed K St. lobby firm to throw around. But I'd venture to say that with all the change-making, democracy-taking action that's been going on recently, many of us are
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Ready, set, go change the food system, part 2: More USDA action items
On Friday we published the first half of a list of specific actions the new USDA could undertake in its first six months that could significantly change the food system. After polling a cross-section of groups and individuals, we cherry-picked
Playing ketchup: Tomato industry concentration
Tomato season is over for most of the United States, so it's time to start shifting our tomato thoughts to canned, dried, and jarred tomatoes. Although tomatoes can be grown in all 50 states of the union, odds are 10-to-1
Carrots, sticks, and crumbs: Making the most of the new Farm Bill, and gearing up for 2012
By Aimee Witteman (cross-posted on Gristmill) Last week, in a stuffy room on Capitol Hill, I joined a couple dozen activists and farmers to discuss the Farm Bill. Why? you ask. Why bother to meet in hot-as-an-oven Washington D.C. to
Mini-Digest: Monsanto wants to “save” the world, Kill Bill Vol. 247, SOLE research in the pipeline
You say crisis, we say …Croesus: Monsanto has launched a massive PR campaign (New York Times) promising to double the yields of corn, soy, and cotton using genetically modified seeds. Never mind that its most successful
The 2008 Farm Bill: Pollan, Eschmeyer on a bittersweet victory
Yesterday Michael Pollan — who, whether he likes it or not is the most widely read spokesperson for the sustainable food movement — sent an email to his list-serv (subscribe
Barack Obama on U.S. food & ag policy
Ari LeVaux sent us a link to his May 29 column for the Missoula Independent, Flash in the Pan, in which he interviewed Barack Obama over email about food and agriculture policy. Encouraging
Local meat gets star treatment at Kansas farmers market
Kansas may be the beef capital (PDF) of the United States, but people here aren't necessarily eating beef from the neighborhood. To introduce
The enemy of my enemy: Why a Bush veto of the Farm Bill is bad for the food movement (and the world)
My former boss in DC once said that if she ever found herself on the same side of an issue as the Bush Administration, it was time to go back and look more closely: there must be a hidden agenda. That was the thought that struck me as I contemplated the administration's Farm Bill veto threat on Friday.
Farm Bill end game
Apologies to all who have sent Digest items — I am camped out here at Ethicurean headquarters in a bit of a mental bunker, completely out of bandwidth given multiple projects with looming deadlines and furiously squeaking clients. I'm sorry that we're so behind on the news. However I just have to
Farm Bill organizers regroup in Phoenix
Greetings from smoldering-hot Phoenix. (But it's a dry heat! Right... somehow when it's a million degrees, that caveat becomes less convincing.) It's been a full, exhausting day. One highlight for me was playing fly on the wall during a coming-together of folks who participated in the Farm
Bucking the CAFO tax: A plea for conscientious objection
Here's a number to knock you out of that mid-day stupor: every year, taxpayers shell out between $7.1 billion and $8.2 billion to subsidize or clean up after our nation's 9,900 confined animal feeding operations. That's
ReDigest: Moyers on hunger, lab liability, a portrait of evil
Moldy links, but in case you missed.... No farms, no food: Bill Moyers did an excellent three-part series on the broken U.S. food system, from bare shelves in charity pantries to the Farm Bill subsidy boondoggles as revealed by the Washington Post "Harvesting Cash" reporters. The site has both videos
When discrimination is more than OK: Time to call our reps about pesticide policy
Update 4/10: We're hearing from our confidential intel sources on the Hill (OK, an action alert I just received) that the deadline for asking your reps to sign the letter mentioned below has been extended until mid-day tomorrow, 4/11. I just called my rep. The feeling of fulfillment is immense... try
Food-health-agriculture connections noted at SARE conference
There was plenty of positive energy and discussion of the food and agriculture connection yesterday at the opening of the three-day Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program’s 20th anniversary conference, held this year in Kansas City,
