Blog

...and yeah, it probably won't create any new ones either. "And above all, the government needs to stop regulating genetic modifications for which there is no scientifically credible evidence of harm." Never mind infiltrating the gene pools of seed crops all over the world, or creating super weeds, or destroying butterfly habitat....but those are not […]

The Real Food Challenge (RFC) is partnering with the Center for Science in the Public Interest to plan the first ever Food Day happening across the nation on October 24th. RFC is specifically focusing on mobilizing college campuses to host events and actions for Food Day as part of their long-term efforts to ensure that local, fair, sustainable […]

According to USDA Ag census 1999 40 percent of farmland owners are 70 years or older. 1 percent of farmland owners are 35 and younger. today it is worse. I'm working on getting the statistic updated now for our policy platform -severine

Localize This! August 14-21, 2011 - Register TODAY! Join Activists & Organizers from Across the US for a Training That Will Transform Your Activism Attend all or part, but register TODAY at LocalizeThis.org This Summer on Vashon Island, WA, the Backbone Campaign is hosting the third annual Localize This! Artful Activism Camp, an intensive training […]

Vermont is a leader in the successful movement that links families with the farmers who grow their food. Using Vermont successes as a model, Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced legislation to establish a competitive grant program to promote community supported agriculture (CSA) throughout the country. “At a time when many families are struggling to pay for […]

  Afghanistan’s Last Locavores By PATRICIA McARDLE MANY urban Americans idealize “green living” and “slow food.” But few realize that one of the most promising models for sustainable living is not to be found on organic farms in the United States, but in Afghanistan. A majority of its 30 million citizens still grow and process […]

rabble is rising in my veins. can everyone please call again call again let them know its crazy/ sev From the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition: The agriculture appropriations bill the House of Representatives just passed slashes $1 billion from mandatory farm bill conservation funding and tells USDA to drop the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food […]

We love these guys, and what a great idea! Let's help make it happen. Farmstead Meatsmith, an animal processing business on Vashon Island, WA is campaigning to fund a series of instructional web videos focusing on home pork butchery and cookery. Each will focus on a particular process or dish, like 'curing bacon' or 'shoulder butchery', and […]

A Facebook page wants to help. Understanding the Farm Bill The support for local farmers, fresh and healthy food, gardening, and farmers markets has reached new levels of enthusiasm. That enthusiasm for a new food system, however, has yet to be translated into new food policy. All of us have seen the impacts of bad […]

pay heed. http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/05/03/us/FLOOD.html?ref=mississippiriver these are profound images of agriculture being forced to absorb the overrun of the missisippi. Paving, channelling, developing wetlands. over tiling, distrurbing hydrology, climate change. The waters are rising. The gasoline prices are rising. Farmers feel this first.  

Farm Service Agency County Committee Nomination Period Begins June 15 WASHINGTON, June 8, 2011 — Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced today that the nomination period for local Farm Service Agency (FSA) county committees begins on Wednesday, June 15.      "I urge all farmers and ranchers to participate in this year's county committee elections by nominating […]

Did you see The Colbert Report the other night? If you missed it, Stephen Colbert had on Tom Ridge, the former Homeland Security chief who is now getting paid as a lobbyist for the oil and gas industry to push their fracking plan in Pennsylvania. Stephen called out Tom Ridge and the oil industry for […]

From National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition: Yesterday afternoon, the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee adopted a government funding bill that if passed would turn back decades of progress to achieve a more sustainable and just food and farming system This 2012 bill makes a second round of steep cuts to conservation, extension, research, renewable energy, and rural […]

The South Central Farm/ers: The Dream Reborn The Los Angeles Times editorial board recently announced its support for restoring the South Central Farm (see below), once a fourteen-acre miracle of family agriculture in the heart of industrial Los Angeles. What the Times isn't saying here is that the land that was the Farm is in […]

I may be a cloudy eyed springtime mud hopper, but these sharky speculators pushing buttons on wall street with our nation's food supply get me all riled up and FURIOUS. Hedge Farm! The Doomsday Food Price Scenario Turning Hedgies into Survivalists By Foster Kamer, May 17, 2011 for the New York Observer On the rare […]

On January 17, internationally recognized plant pathologist Dr. Don Huber, wrote a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack warning of the discovery of a new pathogen and a possible link between Roundup Ready® (GMO) corn and soybeans and severe reproductive problems in livestock as well as widespread crop failure. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed9b-JIAa1Q&feature=player_embedded#at=11] Less than 3 weeks later, […]

Glynwood is calling for nominations for its annual Harvest Awards. In its ninth year, the Harvest Awards recognize farmers, entrepreneurs, organizations, and businesses across the United States that demonstrate innovation and leadership in support of regional agriculture and sustainable food systems. Please help us recognize outstanding work from around the country by nominating someone whose […]

Here's a great article passed on to us by greenhorn Emma Young. The Savory Institute: Healing the World’s Grasslands, Rangelands and Savannas This is the first of a two-part interview with Allan Savory, President and Co-Founder of The Savory Institute, an organization based in Zimbabwe that works with farmers, pastoralists, and ranchers to restore degraded lands […]

HOW YOU CAN STAND BETWEEN EXXON MOBIL AND THE BEGINNING OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE DELAWARE RIVER WHAT'S HAPPENING The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), the federal/state agency that regulates the 13,539 square miles that stretch from New York’s Delaware County south to Delaware Bay and includes much of Sullivan County, is scheduled to vote […]

"Our Food, Our Right" is a publication of the Food Justice Project of the Community Alliance for Global Justice (CAGJ) based in Seattle, WA. The publication combines hands-on tools for change with community recipes and political awareness to engage YOU in joining in the struggle for food justice! "Our Food, Our Right" promotes community knowledge […]

lets watch and see how this goes. so far I'm deeply skeptical http://www.foodandagpolicy.org/

maybe. but let's be wary. "This week, Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin and the chairman of the House Budget Committee, told reporters, “We shouldn’t be giving corporate farms, these large agribusiness companies, subsidies. I strongly believe that.” His budget proposal would take $30 billion out of the farm program over the next decade. Representative Eric Cantor, […]

Moms Across America Uniting to Preserve Effectiveness of Antibiotics Poll of 800+ Moms Shows More than Three Out of Four Concerned about Use of Antibiotics in Food Animal Production, Support Government Action to Limit Such Use - May 3, 2011 WASHINGTON -- The Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming today launched "Moms for Antibiotic Awareness," a […]

Many of you know Essex Market as the home of Saxelby Cheesemongers, the little stand run by our friend Anne Saxelby and featured in The Greenhorns film.  Here's a note from Anne regarding the future of the market. For over 70 years, the Essex Street Market has been feeding the Lower East Side. This dynamic […]

In Michigan you have a unique opportunity to influence the Farm Bill's potential to support organic agriculture because the Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee is your own Senator Debbie Stabenow. That is why the first official hearing about the 2012 Farm Bill is being held by Senator Stabenow in East Lansing, MI on Tuesday, May 31st, […]

here, a few states are passing laws to prevent media from penetrating factory farms http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/opinion/27wed3.html?_r=1&ref=editorials

Don’t Bank On It – the product of a collaborative effort between Farm Aid, Food & Water Watch, the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC) and the Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA (RAFI-USA). As you know, the past few years presented the country with an economic downturn that strained the financial health of American households and dramatically tightened credit […]

While agri-players, including some organic ones, look to play at the carbon table... via campesina has made a different decision. Useful to know about. La Via Campesina opposes the inclusion of agriculture in carbon markets JAKARTA, 11 APRIL 2011, As the first session of climate negotiations for the year come to a close in Bangkok, […]

Vilsack seeks biotech/organic co-existence, not a USDA-dictated solution By Jon H. Harsch © Copyright Agri-Pulse Communications, Inc. WASHINGTON, April 6 - Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told organic producers Wednesday that changes are needed to protect farmers' ability to farm they way they like, whether using biotech, conventional, or organic practices. Speaking at an Organic Trade […]

Young farmers want pre-nups The Irish Farmers' Association has written to the Minister for Justice Alan Shatter asking that pre-nuptial agreements be given legal status and be taken into account in divorce cases involving farms. The farmer lobby group has outlined a draft agreement that could protect the family farm and prevent it being broken […]

Cut Spending – But Not My Farm Subsidies! by Chris Campbell, Amber Hanna and Don Carr That some members of Congress are farmers is hardly new. Many of the Founding Fathers worked the land. But as the industrial age transformed America’s agrarian society and technology made it possible for fewer farmers to grow more crops […]

Through mid-April, the EPA is taking comments on methyl iodide, an extremely toxic pesticide used by the conventional strawberry industry, as they reconsider its approval. Make your voice heard and let the EPA know this chemical is too toxic to use. Pesticide Action Network has more information on methyl iodide and a simple form to […]

As the daughter of WAND ( women's action for nuclear disarmament) c0- founder, I walked up the stairs of the basement every day to see this image: My mother and her collegues started a national non profit in livingrooms. They conducted calls with swirly telephone stretch cords across the kitchen with babies on their knees. […]

The text reads "There once was a farm..." and "...that became an airport" You don't really get an impression they have any regrets about that decision, do you? Photo sent to us by Amy Franceschini

...as economic driver for region in peril Just an interesting "small" story with big impact. From our friend Clare: If Sullivan and Delaware Counties do not jump on this, the business will go to TriState producers who are not over Marcellus shale. Will the counties nearest New York City, which should benefit from their proximity and […]

Farmer Labor Tractorcade – Sat. March 12th 12:00 Noon Madison, WI Next week, farmers from across the dairyland will bring tractors and solidarity to the WI capitol to fight for labor rights and a just state budget. Rural communities will be disproportionately hurt by the cuts to education and BadgerCare, as well as Gov. Walker’s […]

Clinton warns of biofuel impact on poor by Philip Brasher Former President Bill Clinton sounded a warning today on the impact that biofuels can have on global food prices and political stability. “We have to become energy independent but we don’t want to do it at the expense of food riots,” Clinton said at the […]

Can we conduct a thought experiment together? http://newdeal.feri.org/wallace/haw06.htm Back in the times-- the government worked to protect growers from cheapening prices. IN this case in Cotton. Very bold maneuvers taken. Similarly bold maneuvers of incentivized land use could convert thousands of metro-accessible acres to be put into active use for vegetable production.

pretty dinky effort to ' reframe the conversation' using happy mommies. come on corn association, soy bean association. put a bird on it