About 60 percent of the food eaten around the world today originated in the Americas. Meanwhile, Native Americans are twice as likely to be food insecure compared to whites.
This meme says it best: “Give a man some corn, feed him for a day. Teach a man to grow corn, he kills you and steals your land.”
The Native Farm Bill Coalition, which represents 65 tribes throughout the U.S., is advocating for equity in the Farm Bill, legislation that determines how more than $900 billion in U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) resources is distributed each year.
The coalition is backing the Tribal Food and Housing Security Act, a bill introduced by U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), to improve affordable nutrition, housing and rural development assistance for Native American communities.
Tell Congress: Support the Tribal Food and Housing Security Act!
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A highly controversial natural food substance, carrageenan, a seaweed derivative used in conventional, “natural,” and some organic foods, was just reapproved by USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue. This move overrides the recommendation of the National Organic Standards Board, an expert industry panel set up by Congress.
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Donald Trump’s agriculture secretary, Sonny Perdue, has been criticized for rolling back school nutrition standards, attempting to upend the food stamps program, rejecting World Health Organization guidelines on antibiotics in agriculture and ending a pesticide ban, in a new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) advocacy group.
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If you think genetically modified salmon is a bad idea, wait ‘til you hear what kind of GMO animals Recombinetics, Inc., the “Monsanto of the genetically modified animal industry,” wants to unleash on the market.
Among other things, Recombinetics wants to genetically engineer pigs specifically to withstand a miserable life in factory farms. Not only that, but the St. Paul, Minn.-based biotech company wants to keep the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) from having anything to do with regulating GMO pigs, or any other GMO animals that could end up in the U.S. food supply.
If Recombinetics’ plan succeeds in ending FDA review of GMO animals, this would be the most drastic deregulation of biotechnology to date.
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Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) has introduced a regenerative and organic version of the Farm Bill.
The Food & Farm Act represents our best hope for saving our farmers, farms and soil. But this bill won’t stand a chance unless Congress gets behind it.
TAKE ACTION! Ask your Member of Congress to cosponsor the Food & Farm Act!
President Trump's penchant for junk food--McDonald's filet 'o fish sandwiches, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Oreos, pizza, Diet Coke--have been widely reported.
Trump has the right to eat what he chooses (though it's unfortunate that his food choices support an industrial agriculture system that pollutes the environment and contributes to a growing public health crisis).
But should Trump's U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) be allowed to force boxes of factory farm, GMO junk food on low-income families? We don't think so.
TAKE ACTION: Tell Congress: Low-Income Families Need Better Nutrition, Not Trump's Boxes of Processed GMO Junk Food
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recommends we all eat 2 to 3 cups of vegetables per day.
What would happen if we all tried to follow that recommendation? We’d soon find out that there aren’t enough vegetables available for Americans to follow USDA guidelines.
That’s because the Farm Bill, that massive piece of legislation that determines how $90 billion a year in tax dollars is spent to shape our food system, favors subsidies that support processed, GMO junk foods, over healthy, nutrient-dense vegetables.
TAKE ACTION: Tell Congress: Put more veggies in the Farm Bill!
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“We were called humus farmers before we were called organic farmers, and for me, it’s always been the soil. It always must be the soil,” Beddard said during a panel discussion at the Farming for the Future Conference Feb. 9 at The Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center.
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On February 6, 2018, the Organic Farmers Association wrote and sent a letter to the Honorable Sonny Perdue, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, regarding the National Organic Program’s (NOP) statement that “Certification of hydroponic, aquaponic and aeroponic operations is allowed under the USDA organic regulations, and has been since the National Organic Program began.”
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Do you buy organic eggs?
If so, we hope you buy them from a local farmer or from a grocery store that stocks “pasture-raised” organic.
If not, the hens that laid your organic eggs were probably confined at the rate of three chickens-per-square-ft. of floor space, in a huge poultry barn housing hundreds of thousands of birds. Those birds likely never set foot outdoors, much less saw the light of day.
TAKE ACTION BY MIDNIGHT JANUARY 17: Stop Trump’s Attack on Organic’s Animal Welfare Rules!
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