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
For family farmers like Hans Breitenmoser, the odds of catching COVID-19 on the job are slim. Social distancing is not exactly a challenge when you’re farming more than 1,300 acres in rural Wisconsin. But Breitenmoser is one of many Wisconsin farmers who are showing solidarity with others in the food supply chain who are at the pandemic’s epicenter — meatpackers and food processing plant employees.
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While plant disease is difficult to control in organic fruits, researchers at the University of Hawaii are studying essential oils to see if they might provide a solution. Finding ways to improve feasibility and long-term profitability of organic fruit production is the basis of a nearly $2 million Initiative awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to a team of 15.
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Despite much uncertainty and upheaval of our economy during the 2020 outbreak, many organic farms have been bright spots of the COVID-19 economy. With consumers now having 100% control over their food dollars, we have seen nationwide increase in organic sales. An increase of home cooking has mirrored an increase in purchase of organic whole foods.
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While most of us have recently witnessed empty shelves and higher price tags from the aisles of our local supermarkets, 2019 Fixer Graham Christensen has been fighting for solutions to our fractured food system from the fields. A fifth-generation farmer, Christensen founded the consulting company GC Resolve to help his home state of Nebraska establish more ethical and sustainable agricultural practices.
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For decades of presidential cabinet appointments, the Secretary of Agriculture has often been one of the last, almost as an afterthought. I would say that August 2020 is not too soon to start thinking about who our next USDA Secretary will or should be—and not too soon to get some names out to the public, the media, and to the Biden-Harris team.
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At the start of the 20th century, one in seven farmers in the United States was Black. In the decades that followed, however, Black Americans were dispossessed of an estimated 13 million acres of land. Many descendants of Black farmers moved north to seek jobs in other industries, removed from familial agricultural backgrounds.
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For most Americans, the fallout from the pandemic offered a crash course in how supply chains work (or rather, don’t work), especially in the meat supply. Suddenly grocery stores were rationing how much pork and beef each person could purchase, and consumers could no longer depend on getting the meat they needed at their local store.
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Just four days before Senator Kamala Harris became the first woman of color chosen as the running mate of a major U.S. political party’s (presumptive) presidential nominee, she co-authored an op-ed in CNN calling on grocery store chains to reinstate “hazard pay.”
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Last week Pauline Henderson was shocked when she picked up a shipment of what was supposed to be 800 live chicks from her post office in New Sharon. Henderson, who owns and operates Pine Tree Poultry, a family farm and chicken meat processing facility that specializes in chicken pot pies, said all 800 chicks sent from a hatchery in Pennsylvania were dead.
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Political conventions traditionally feature an orgy of corporate lobbyists and big money courting public officials. You’d think such displays wouldn’t factor into a convention-at-home setup in 2020. After all, where would the lobbyists and hangers-on congregate? The answer is, apparently, on Zoom.
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