Farm Issues
Farm Bill: Healthy Food, not Corporate Welfare!
Unless you are a diehard policy wonk, it's tough to get excited about the Farm Bill. But consumers have a bigger stake in this mammoth piece of federal legislation than we may realize. Big Ag's lobbyists fight hard to protect corporate interests, almost always at the expense of consumers. The OCA is here to help you fight for for healthy food and against corporate welfare!
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Apples· steve urow© 2014 -
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steve urow's garden not· steve urow© 2014
Not since the Rev Jesse Jackson’s candidacy for the Democratic nomination in 1988 have we seen presidential hopefuls so fiercely and consistently bring the issues facing family farmers into the national conversation. This year, five candidates for the Democratic nomination say they support a ban on factory farms.
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For the third straight year, a volatile pesticide is damaging crops across the Midwest and South, despite federal and state efforts to lessen the drift. Since 2017, farmers have sprayed an increasing amount of the weedkiller, called dicamba, on soybean and cotton crops genetically engineered by agribusiness company Monsanto to withstand being sprayed by the herbicide.
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“Regenerative Agriculture” is a new buzz phrase—but those treating it as just another passing trend are seriously miscalculating. It’s not a marketing term—it’s a movement, and experts stress that it’s one we all need to get behind.
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Cacao, or the cocoa bean, is the main ingredient in chocolate. A rather picky plant, it grows only in the warm, humid regions near the equator, largely in areas designated as rainforests. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, cacao trees require steady temperatures, high humidity, lots of rain, nitrogen-rich soil, and protection from wind to thrive.
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Since the 1970s, American farmers have been urged to produce as much as possible at all times. Earl Butz, the Secretary of Agriculture under Presidents Nixon and Ford, famously ordered farmers to plant their crops “fencerow to fencerow,” and most have taken the order to heart ever since.
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Neonicotinoid insecticides are water soluble and used to coat the seeds of most corn, soybeans and canola. However, the toxins affect the insects pollinating plants, kill the birds eating the seeds and get into the groundwater; in addition, the use of genetically engineered seed has increased the need for pesticides in the past 25 years.
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As food writer Mark Bittman recently remarked, since food is defined as “a substance that provides nutrition and promotes growth” and poison is “a substance that promotes illness,” then “much of what is produced by industrial agriculture is, quite literally, not food but poison.” Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way.
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Should Vermont keep throwing money at cleaning up the state’s polluted waterways—without providing funding for preventing future pollution?
Vermont’s Clean Water Board is taking public comments through September 6, on the board’s priorities for funding the cleanup of Vermont’s waterways.
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In the town of Monroe, as in all of northeastern New Hampshire, February is a month when agriculture seems an improbable prospect. On one typical late-winter morning, trees and houses lay encased in thick shells of ice after a pre-dawn storm.
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Former Housing Secretary Julián Castro, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and author Marianne Williamson ― are backing a ban on the creation of new “factory farms” and the expansion of existing ones as part of their efforts to court rural voters frustrated by the effects of industrial-scale livestock operations on their water supply and economy.
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