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this story about indignities suffered by Basque, Maori and other herders. Federal Appeals Court Invalidates Department of Labor Rules That Set Unfair Employment Standards for Sheep and Cattle Herders Government Must Undertake New Rulemaking to Set Herders’ Wages and Housing Conditions June 13, 2014 WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. and foreign herders will benefit from a […]

Listen here A group of 'socially responsible entrepreneurs' from the United States is trying to help Cubans obtain the best of both worlds: Retaining the achievements of the existing system in Cuba, while infusing entrepreneurship, with a collective tinge. We interview Eric Leenson with Sol Economics about a recent group visit to Cuba and his […]

The Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan's recent vote to ban all gmo products and gm crops is important. Why? It is estimated that 90% of all temperate fruit in the WORLD genetically comes from this region. With food forests dotting the mountainous countrysides of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, it is the Eden of the world, brandishing […]

How China's young idealists are turning to the soil by Carrie Gracie for the BBC In June 1989, on the orders of China's ruling Communist Party, the army crushed pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, killing hundreds of people. Twenty-five years on, a different type of protest against the values of modern China has emerged. My […]

Tigers on Market Street! The Western Tiger Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio rutulus) has found habitat on San Francisco's Market Street. Over the next two years, while Market Street's ultimate design is in the lurch, the City's "Make Your Market Street" campaign has invited us to tell this unique story of urban ecological adaptation. The Action Grant […]

The Field Liberation Movement and its sympathisers promote sustainable solutions for farmers and consumers and a transparent research funding of science in the interest of society. Public funds should benefit sustainable agriculture, and not the patenting of genes and crops by a handful of multinationals. The position of farmers in the food chain should be […]

High Mowing Organic Seed Company (HMOS) announced today that it is launching the first full line of organic, Non-GMO Project Verified vegetable seeds for farmers and gardeners. With over 90% of its varieties verified to date, HMOS’s entire line of over 650 varieties will be verified by late summer 2014. HMOS seeds are already Certified […]

Text by Kristin Moe, photos by Garth Lenz, for the International League of Conservation Photographers. On April 22, 2014, the dozen or so leather-booted ranchers mounted their horses and lined up in the midday sun. Facing them were an equal number of American Indians, in the regalia of tribes from across the U.S. The two […]

Urgent request to address and halt the spread of genetically organisms into the environment! Several examples of the uncontrolled spread of genetically engineered plants into wild populations and ecosystems have been documented: cotton in Mexico, oilseed rape in North America, Japan, Switzerland and Australia and grasses in the USA. There are also cases of repeated […]

According to the FFA website, Monsanto, Pfizer (Monsanto's pharmaceutical business), Cargill, Dupont and Syngenta donated millions of dollars to the FFA in 2013, and have been awarded "Platinum" and "Gold" sponsorship titles by the organization.  In 2012, a press release from the FFA stated that these companies (and some others) had donated 16.8 million dollars to help "create […]

Read National Geographic's piece, Feeding 9 Billion, HERE. (with some incredible photography) Eric Holt-Gimenez of Food First responds HERE. Feeding Nine Billion: Five Steps to the Wrong Solution Eric Holt-Giménez | 04.25.2014 National Geographic‘s recent online slideshow featuring an article by global ecologist Jonathan Foley lays out a Five Step Plan to Feed the World that proposes to […]

via Comunidad a Comunidad Our Farm Worker Community needs your help today. As many of you know, Familias Unidas por la Justicia has been in a labor dispute with Sakuma Bros. Farms in Skagit County.  Familias Unidas por la Justicia want a just wage, fair treatment, and decent housing and have been trying to negotiate […]

On Thursday, September 22, the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance (USFRA), a new trade association made up of some of the biggest players in the food industry—including the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Dupont, and Monsanto—hosted what they called “Food Dialogues” in Washington D.C., New York City, U.C. Davis, and Fair Oaks, Indiana. The USFRA describes the Food […]

A Food Initiative on the Gill Tract Farm >> Sign Here <<  We urge UC Berkeley administration, the UC Regents, and President Napolitano to halt the current development plan for the Gill Tract Farm and enter into a collaborative design process with students and community for the entire Gill Tract Farm. For over 15 years, faculty, students, […]

Preliminary results from the 2012 Census of Agriculture show the increasing role of women in U.S. agriculture—especially on organic and small-scale farms. When Lindsey Morris Carpenter was a college student studying art in Philadelphia, she never expected that, just a decade later, she would spend most of her days fixing up tractors, turning piles of […]

Yesterday (April 17th) 100 farmers and growers from the Landworkers’ Alliance travelled to London from around the country to protest outside the head offices of DEFRA and the National Farmers Union. Under the leadership of Owen Patterson over the past two years, DEFRA has strengthened its support of large-scale industrial agriculture and marginalized smaller producers, […]

This video demonstrates how a community is trying to save their water and wetlands and reduce the impact of an unnecessary freeway. Save Little Lake Valley http://www.savelittlelakevalley.org/ members are requesting that the California Water Quality Control Board order Caltrans, the Department of Transportation in CA., to cease and desist construction on the Willits Bypass. In […]

  Excerpts taken from the Pesticide Action Network Dow and USDA are hoping to quietly approve a new genetically engineered corn seed that basically swaps RoundUp (glyphosate) for a worse weedkiller (2,4-D). As with Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready lines, the herbicide with which these seeds are engineered to be used (2,4-D) will surge in use. Dow aims […]

Dear Community, Eliot Coleman suggests that we educate ourselves about this issue at the National Organic Program to allow for "soil-less" organics. He is one of  dozens of elders in the farm world who are concerned about this issue.  Read up on the issue and sign the petition here: Keep the Soil in Organic.org.  There […]

Journey to the heart of coca country where United States tax dollars have financed the aerial fumigation of 2.6 million acres of land in Colombia – the world's second most biodiverse country. See cropdusters target coca plants, the main ingredient of cocaine, with concentrated herbicide as part of the U.S. war on drugs. Listen to […]

Comment HERE. The public comment period ends Monday, March 31st!  From the Bangor Daily News: America’s booming brewing industry and farmers alike are bothered and befuddled by a proposed U.S. Food and Drug Administration rule change that could alter a partnership that dates back to Neolithic times. To the farmer, spent grains are a valuable […]

The USDA Agricultural Marketing Service’s National Organic Program (NOP) is the team that develops and enforces national standards for organically-produced agricultural products. They support consumer confidence that products with the USDA organic seal meet consistent, uniform standards. In 2014, the NOP will be recruiting for multiple positions, including: Policy Analysts, Accreditation Managers, and Materials Specialists; […]

Sea shipping accounts for 3 to 4% of global CO2 emissions and the largest 15 ships could be emitting as much carbon and greenhouse gases as 760 million cars! Enter Denmark's Maersk shipping company, owner of the massive Triple-E container ship. This ship  could help cut the carbon emissions per container by 50% ! For more […]

An interesting project to follow in the coming years: Pedal and Plow Pedal and Plow is a documentary web series following Lydia Caudill, Creator and host of Pn’P, as she rides her bike from Paraguay all the way home to Washington state. Along the way she’ll be documenting alternatives to industrial agricultural from those on the front lines […]

This is not useful journalism. This is inflammatory gossip talk about a topic at the intersection of food sovereignty and corporate-paranoia. It jeopardizes important and difficult work farmers are doing on the ground, within the legal system, and on behalf of all of us who need freedom. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdXMcUpxQww?list=UUeZKFIZGJGeo0ijo5MLObtQ&w=560&h=315] Mark Baker's youtube channel can be […]

via The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.  And visit Beyond the Farm Bill.org Register for the National Network meeting and help build food and ag policies that work. March 24–25, 2014 The Marquette Hotel, Minneapolis www.btfb.org Next month, innovative experts and organizations will come together for a two day, collaborative meeting to build the […]

In The Meat Racket, investigative reporter Christopher Leonard delivers the first-ever account of how a handful of companies have seized the nation’s meat supply. He shows how they built a system that puts farmers on the edge of bankruptcy, charges high prices to consumers, and returns the industry to the shape it had in the 1900s […]

Heavy use of the world's most popular herbicide, Roundup, could be linked to a range of health problems and diseases, including Parkinson's, infertility and cancers, according to a new study. The peer-reviewed report, published last week in the scientific journal Entropy, said evidence indicates that residues of "glyphosate," the chief ingredient in Roundup weed killer, […]

Greetings to all Endorsers of the NY GE Food Labeling Campaign! If you're here in NY with me, I hope you're all surviving the Arctic tundra we've seemingly turned into. More snow predicted for NYC Wed night! 🙁 [I apologize for not emailing each of you individually -- there simply aren't enough hours in the […]

If you have a tough time wrapping your head around Farm Bill legislation, check this out for a quick summary of what just got signed into law. http://www.youngfarmers.org/2014-farm-bill-passes-final-hurdle-signed-into-law/

A 15-second NASA time-lapse video shows the steady and rapid warming of the planet since the middle of the twentieth century, with regions in the Arctic and Siberia warming as much as two to four degrees Celsius (3.6 to 7. 2 degrees Fahrenheit) above a long-term average:   [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaJJtS_WDmI]

Check out this just-released video produced by the Family Farm Defenders, chronicling the recent Farm Labor Reality Tour, which saw the unique coming together of small farmers, food workers, and farmworkers in a 6,500-mile journey across the US. It is especially poignant as we remember the powerful and lasting legacy left by John Kinsman, who is featured in this film. For the final […]

You may be a loyal enough blog reader to have caught the thread on TTIP TTP and TPP.  These are free trade agreements being written and negotiated on practically intergalactic level.  The stakes are high, especially around agriculture, intellectual property rights, and trade rules-- but unlike during the WTO talks which triggered a massive mobilization […]

joining to protest the proposal on TTIP. One perspective here.

http://www.fooddemocracynow.org/ This is one of the most important emails that we will ever send. We’ve been hearing rumors about this for months, but Monsanto and the GMA have made their move. Two days ago, Food Democracy Now! received an unpublished copy of Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association's (GMA) secret plan to try to sneak in […]

sev's going to be representing Us young farmers movement there next week Any european or english readers? Go, check it out! http://www.oxfordrealfarmingconference.org/

Map it!  With Farmland Monitor Create a Digital Postcard Add a PDF You can also alert us to land grabbing activity through one of the following channels and we will post the information on your behalf: Email: [email protected] Call: (202) 543 - 5675 Fax: (202) 543 - 0978 Mail: National Family Farm Coalition, 110 Maryland […]

who will soon be celebrating their big anniversary. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjitiULIHPs&w=640&h=360] Brazil’s Landless Worker's Movement was born from the concrete, isolated struggles for land that rural workers were developing in southern Brazil at the end of the 1970's. Brazil was going through a politically opening process towards the end of the military regime. Brazilian capitalism was not […]

The Movimento dos Trabalhdores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) will be holding its Sixth Congress in February, 2014 amidst its celebration of 30 years of struggle for agrarian reform, social justice and democracy. The movement's 2 million members have spent the last year preparing, debating and discussing in preparation for this historic gathering. Mobilizing 15,000 movement leaders […]

In order to then join your voice to the choir of opposition. I suggest reading here. http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/news_wp/?p=12806#rule2