NSAC Blog, Apirl 21, 2017 The annual process for funding federal programs — known in Washington D.C. as the appropriations cycle — should be a fairly cut and dry process of allocating money (or not) to previously authorized programs; however, in recent years the appropriations process has often been used as a backdoor method to Continue Reading
Geoff Colvin April 21, 2017 The worst famine in human history occurred in China from 1959 to 1961. An estimated 34 million people starved to death. The horrors were beyond imagining—the elderly and disabled left to perish because they couldn’t work; murder and cannibalism within families. Hundreds of millions of Chinese people today, including most Continue Reading
By Steve Karnowski, April 23, 2017 The first of tens of thousands of U.S. lawsuits is about to go to trial against Swiss agribusiness giant Syngenta over its decision to introduce a genetically engineered corn seed variety to the U.S. market before China had approved it for imports. The lawsuits allege that Syngenta’s move Continue Reading
Jason Huffman | 04/14/2017 10:00 AM EDT With help from Jenny Hopkinson, Helena Bottemiller Evich, Esther Whieldon and Adam Behsudi PERDUE’S GENETICALLY MODIFIED RULEMAKING: Should Sonny Perdue be confirmed as the next secretary of Agriculture, it will fall to him to end the biggest food fight of the past several years: GMO labeling. Congress passed Continue Reading
April 13, 2017 . Donnelle Eller The land Steven Smith lives on has been farmed for more than 125 years. It’s less than 10 acres, but Smith grows alfalfa and usually raises some cattle when prices are higher. But earlier this month, the Wright County assessor notified Smith and about 70 other property owners that their small Continue Reading
April 11, 2017 . Eric Holt-Gimenez On April 17th peasant organizations around the world will celebrate the Day of Peasant Struggle. Five days later, on the 22nd of April—Earth Day—scientists from around the world will March for Science. What? Aren’t peasants simply a backwards class destined to disappear in the face of technological progress? And Continue Reading
by: Terry J Allen• Apr 9th, 2017 Silhouetted by summer sun, Carlos stood at the front door of my house. “Hey, come on in,” I told him. “No,” he said pointing to his work boots, heavy with mud and manure. “But can you help me?” Carlos was one of the estimated 1,000 to 2,000 undocumented, Continue Reading
By Steve Zind • Mar 30, 2017 A Vermont maker of goat cheese, cream and butter will be sold for an undisclosed sum. Allison Hooper and Bob Reese started Vermont Creamery 32 years ago at a farm in Brookfield, using $2,000 of their own money and a $4,000 loan from a church. Today the company Continue Reading
By Kathleen Masterson• Apr 4, 2017 Migrant Justice advocates staged a protest alongside the Ben & Jerry’s “Free Cone Day” line in downtown Burlington Tuesday, demanding better working conditions for dairy farmworkers. “Today your ice cream is free, but farmworkers are not,” read one set of signs that dairy farmworkers and volunteers alike held aloft. Continue Reading
March 23, 2007 By: Carey Gillam The U.S. Department of Agriculture has quietly dropped a plan to start testing food for residues of glyphosate, the world’s most widely used weed killer and the key ingredient in Monsanto Co.’s branded Roundup herbicides. The agency spent the last year coordinating with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Continue Reading
