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
By all accounts, food and agriculture were barely on the agenda at this month’s UN Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland. They should have been. Food production, distribution, consumption, and waste contribute an estimated one-third of greenhouse gas emissions. In production, the majority comes from unsustainable livestock production with another large share coming from unsustainable production and use of synthetic fertilizers. But a significant share also comes from “land use change”, a neutral term for the destructive expansion of agriculture onto new land.
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Rick Clark, a no-till organic farmer from Indiana, recently encouraged a group of farmers at a field day to move away from synthetic pesticides.
“Eliminate all of these caustic inputs that are harming our bodies. We can farm without all these inputs,” he said. “Let’s figure out how to move forward and make it happen.”
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Opinion: It's time for Arizona farmers and ranchers to make bold changes, if they want to survive the 'new normal' of water scarcity.
A profound reduction in the Colorado River water earmarked for Arizona’s crops has at last triggered the rationing that irrigation farmers have dreaded. The Tier 1 shortage will prompt a
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Helping farmers adopt the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) enables them to grow far more food more cost-effectively and sustainably, producing higher yields with less water, fertilizer, seeds, and labor.
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On November 19, 2021, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “[W]e have decided to repeal all three agricultural laws.” The prime minister was referring to the three agriculture laws that were rushed through the parliament in 2020. During his speech to announce the rollback, Modi told the farmers that they “should return to [their] homes, fields and to [their] families. Let’s make a fresh start.”
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Maine voters approved an amendment Tuesday that enshrines the “right to food” — the first of its kind in the United States. The amendment to the state’s constitution declares that all people have a “natural, inherent and unalienable right” to grow, raise, produce and consume food of their own choosing as long as they do so within legal parameters.
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“Imagine that the land your family has worked for generations is suddenly stripped away from you, purchased by wealthy companies or governments to produce food or bio-fuels or simply as a profitable investment for other people, often far away. You watch on helplessly as vast tracts of land are cleared for mono-culture crops and rivers are polluted with run-off and chemicals.”
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Across the country, BIPOC farmers are doing their part to grow the organic movement. Here are five farmers paving the way forward by offering their insights, inspiration, and exemplary work to their communities.
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Several local women farmers recalled their struggle in persuading their family to convert hazardous, chemical-driven conventional farming into environment-friendly organic farming.
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Danone (owner of Horizon Organic Milk) is the global leader in fresh dairy products, owns over 20 brands, and is a 10.3 billion-dollar company, but they claim they cannot afford to continue to support family organic dairy farms that have helped build the Horizon Organic brand for decades.
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