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
Stacked behind Ben Holland are large bags of antibiotics rising to his shoulders. Every day, cattle here at the Cactus Feedlot, whether sick or healthy, are given antibiotics in their feed.
But it’s an increasingly debated practice on industrial farms.
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ShaRhonda Knott-Dawson, a west suburban mother of two young girls, takes her family to McDonald’s semiregularly because it’s an indulgence they all enjoy.
But she’s put those trips on hold for now. Knott-Dawson plans to launch an online petition this week in coordination with the nonprofit Compassion in World Farming to urge McDonald’s to switch to different breeds of chickens that would have an improved quality of life. The campaign also encourages McDonald’s to give the birds more space.
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A new study has found that organic farming is much more efficient at recycling nitrogen than conventional farming, helping reduce global nitrogen pollution, New Hope reports.
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What’s one of the biggest problems with the discussion on the climate crisis? “It focuses excessively on emissions,” Kristin Ohlson, author of "The Soil Will Save Us" says in the trailer for the film “Dirt Rich.”
Ohlson explains:
“Unless we undertake very serious work making our soil healthier
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Fred Morgan was already deep in debt from rebuilding his milking barn after a fire when milk prices plunged in 2015, setting off an economic drought that is now entering its fourth year — the worst in recent memory for dairy farmers in New York State. Mr. Morgan, 50, saw no way to save the dairy farm in central New York State that he took over as a teenager from his ailing father and ran with his wife, Judy, and their son, Cody.
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The residents of Devils Lake, North Dakota have seen huge changes in recent years. The lake the town is named for has quadrupled in size over the last two-and-a-half decades, flooding thousands of acres of farmland. As a result, many of the farmers in the area have had to trade in their tractors to run campsites and other tourism businesses along the expanding waterfront.
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The diversity and intricacy of shapes and sizes of seeds is extraordinary. Even more amazing is that within even the tiniest of seeds lies the complete genetic information required to birth and structure such organisms as the complex passion flower, or a 360 foot tall sequoia. Seeds are also amazing travelers, either with the help of the wind or by hitching rides with neighboring wildlife. If stored in ideal conditions, seeds can also spring to life, after hundreds of years of lying dormant.
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You’ve heard it said before: No Farms, No Food.
But let’s not forget: No Soil, No Farms.
A few years ago, the United Nations warned that on average, the world has fewer than 60 growing seasons left. That grim statistic is based on how rapidly the world’s soils are be degraded, in large part due to poor management.
The situation looks bleak for our soils—and just as bad for our farmers. So bad, that experts compare the current situation to the 1980s when bankruptcies and foreclosures contributed to the loss of 296,360 farms.
These are disturbing trends. But it’s not
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Cramming more cheese into products is a hoary and enduring fast-food tactic.
What gives?
The context for fast food’s fromage mania is a chronic dairy glut. In short, US dairy operations churn out way more product than either US consumers or the global market can bear.
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It's an all-too-familiar story, with no easy villain.
It’s never easy losing a business. But the painful thing about AtlantaFresh Artisan Creamery’s story is how far it fell, and how fast. When I call Ron Marks, who founded the line of grass-based dairy products almost a decade ago, his voice is hoarse with grief. “If I told you things were going well, I’d be lying to you,” he says. Two years ago, he was running a multi-million dollar company with over 30 product lines, which were sold at Whole Foods Market locations all over the country. But last week,
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