Free Republic

Former Australian cattle station manager Michael Sheehy has some singular advice for the Indonesian government if it wants to achieve self-sufficiency in beef: Follow the model of the booming palm oil industry and put cattle raising in corporate hands. As with most of Indonesia's agriculture, the livestock industry is largely confined to low- technology operations - backyard feedlots that mean a higher cost of production and higher prices for consumers as a result. The Indonesian government has used tariffs and quotas to protect local farmers from international competition. This is a short-term measure which, judging by the current beef price...

So I am thinking of simply leaving the job I work at now and heading to a Southern state, Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Northern Florida, Tennessee, etc since I figure that, since I am one of those who does not have a reliable source of family aid of any kind, that this could be my only option. I am considering finding a church that has a sort of communal living situation, a farm, ranch, factory or other such source that could use additional workers and join one of them. I am thinking of it in light of a situation...

Katelyn Fossett / Foreign PolicyYou may not have heard of Gennady Onishchenko, but if his own accounts are to be believed, he’s the Russian government official who single-handedly averts major public health crises posed by foreign countries’ dangerously lax and unsophisticated food safety standards (including those in a certain country where the federal government has ground to a halt). To others, Onishchenko, Russia’s chief sanitary inspector, is also Russia’s chief manufacturer of elaborate food safety scares to wage geopolitically motivated trade wars with other countries, particularly former Soviet republics. On Wednesday, Onishchenko, the director of Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s consumer-protection agency, announced...

The Yomiuri ShimbunThe government and ruling parties have started to consider scrapping tariffs on imported wine, an idea that would, in turn, call on other negotiators in the ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade talks to eliminate tariffs on sake, government sources said. The move suggests that the government and ruling parties believe the mutual removal of tariffs would greatly benefit domestic consumers while also increasing sake exports from Japan, according to the sources. The idea to eliminate tariffs on wine was a Japanese response to a request made by Australia and New Zealand, the sources said. The government and the...

Authorities in Moscow are on high alert in the city's downtown core, following mass demonstrations there on Sunday. Over 200 people have been arrested after rioting broke out south of the Kremlin complex. Earlier in the day on Sunday, angry demonstrators stormed a vegetable market in the area, searching for the person they believe is responsible for a murder. When police showed up to try to restore order, demonstrators eventually turned on police. Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev is vowing to restore order. "Literally tomorrow, activate the work in relation to all of the vegetable warehouses, which are a constant...

(Reuters) - First it was sex, then casinos. Now, a Singapore diplomat has been charged with inflating the number of pineapple tarts and bottles of wine carried on official visits in the latest corruption case to hit the squeaky clean city-state. Lim Cheng Hoe, former chief of protocol at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, allegedly overbilled authorities by around S$89,000 ($71,100) by overstating the amount of gifts bought for official purposes between 2008 and 2012. Lim faces 60 charges and could be jailed for up to three years on each charge if found guilty. Singapore, a wealthy Asian finance and...

The country's transport minister is expected to formally agree the barter deal with Chinese premier Li Keqiang on Friday, according to the Nation. The project to link Bangkok with Nong Khai, close to the Laos border, is part of a proposed 2m baht ($30bn, £19bn) infrastructure investment programme to part-financed with agricultural products. The railway is one day envisaged to link Thailand with the Southern Chinese province of Kunming, via the Laos capital Vientiane. However, fine details remain to be thrashed out between the countries. The Bangkok Post says even the transport minister isn't optimistic of the scheme's success. It...

SEOUL/CHICAGO Oct 9 (Reuters) - South Korea has suspended some U.S. beef imports after detecting the cattle feed additive zilpaterol in meat supplied by a unit of JBS USA Holdings Inc , raising concerns that the controversial animal growth enhancer may still be in the supply chain weeks after Merck & Co halted sales of Zilmax, the top-selling zilpaterol-based drug. The South Korean claim of zilpaterol-tainted beef is the first to come to light since Merck suspended sales of Zilmax on Aug. 16 amidst concerns about its impact on the health of cattle. It also comes at a time when...

ost people think that Springtime is the time to start growing that vegetable or herb garden. But there are many types of plants that should mainly be grown during the cooler months. Fall is a great time to try your hand at growing leafy greens, and that makes this a great way to save some money on produce. If you end up with a good harvest, you'll have a bountiful source of vegetables while other people are paying higher prices for greens at the grocery store. Here are 6 cooler weather plants you may want to try your hand at...

Ningxia has also become a wine hub in China and, increasingly, wine experts are coming around to the idea of Chinese wine. In December 2011, a panel of 10 wine experts found, in a blind tasting, that of a total of 10 wines made in Ningxia and Bordeaux in France, four out of the top five were Ningxia reds. Ningxia is home to some of the country’s top wineries and they are really make an impact, including Helan Qing Xue and Silver Heights, while the Shanxi-based Grace Vineyard has wineries in Ningxia. “Grape planting is now our main income,” said...

Experts and researchers on Saturday introduced new plant technology at a conference held on Saturday in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, to harness desertification of China. Juncao, a kind of herbaceous herb, can be cultivated as substrate for edible and medicinal fungi, which may make great strides in sand control and reduce desertification thanks to the efforts of Lin Zhanxi, professor at Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, and his team. Lin started working with Juncao in 1986 and developed his system over more than two decades of research and innovation. In April, sand control trials using Juncao were approved...

Around one in 10 families in South Korea are unable to afford traditional gifts for the country's forthcoming Chuseok (harvest festival) holiday, it has been reported. A poll of more than 1,200 people found that 11.6% would not buy presents for the annual celebration, says one of the country's largest supermarkets. Choi Choon-seok of South Korean hypermarket Lotte Mart expects "a noticeable trend toward inexpensive and practical presents" as households grapple with the continuing recession, says The Chosun Ilbo newspaper. People buying presents are likely to spend an average of 196,000 won ($180; £115) on gifts of fruit and healthy...

CHACHOENGSAO - In one village homes are raided, property is pinched and locals are attacked by dastardly gangs operating beyond the law - but the perpetrators are monkeys, not men. "They creep into my house when they see me sleeping, they go into the kitchen and take cooking oil, sugar and even the medicines that I hide in a cabinet,'' said Chaluay Khamkajit, after years battling with pesky primates who are thought to have been drawn into Khlong Charoen Wai village by habitat loss. "They took my snacks, I can buy more, but the medicines are important to me,'' the...

(Reuters) - China is preparing the ground to scrap a controversial scheme to stockpile cotton in favor of subsidizing farmers, a move that could slash imports by the world's top buyer of the fiber and herald a broad shakeup of Beijing's sensitive farm policies. Abandoning stockpiling would mark the end of a system that has distorted the market to such a degree that it has been cheaper for Chinese mills to import cotton grown abroad than to buy domestic produce. China's top economic planning body has completed a draft plan to change to subsidies and is seeking opinion from experts...

With each passing day, it seems the United States of America, “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave” is becoming more and more like the Communist Russia I learned about in elementary school where people weren’t allowed to grow their own food unless the State “allowed” it. In this latest crackdown on citizens simply trying to provide for themselves using the most basic of skills – gardening – the USDA’s Rural Development Agency is forbidding Rosie, an industrious 4-year old girl in South Dakota from using a small, unused area outside her subsidized housing unit to grow green...

Arkansas, Colorado, Texas—all states of the historic western frontier. Conjuring up images of sprawling ranches, longhorn cattle, and cowboys, the relationship between the American west and the farming industry has endured for almost 200 years. However, modern reality in the form of the race for shale gas, is quickly catching up. As perpetually dry western states close in on a third year of drought and record breaking heat waves, the hydraulic fracturing industry is quickly out-competing ranchers in the scramble for increasingly limited water resources. "We’re not going to be able to raise the food we need," said Ben Rainbolt,...

“Hamburger shops are a dime a dozen in Tokyo these days, but there are very few places doing barbecue,” said Lauren Shannon, owner of Bulldog Barbeque (www.bulldogbbq.jp). By barbecue, Shannon doesn’t mean any old thing thrown on a grill, but rather the tradition of the American South of slow-cooked, smoked meats. If you don’t know it, you’re missing out on some seriously good, authentically American food. If you do know it, you’ve probably lamented that it is so hard to come by in Tokyo. “It’s the exact opposite of fast food. It takes days of salt rubs, hours of smoking....

Marijuana is now legal in Washington, and the Seattle police have been remarkably mellow about the whole thing. In fact, the city's Police Department plans to be at Hempfest, what has become the largest pot rally in the world. And they're taking bags of Doritos in case anyone, you know, gets a little hungry.

According to the Red Book of the Russian Federation, the country has seen a sharp reduction in the number of rare animals. One of the reasons for this phenomenon is rampant poaching and smuggling to China. After all, the demand on bears, tigers, musk deer, marten is high in the People's Republic of China. Dead animals are transported to China in batches, while many tiger and bear cubs are left orphaned in the wild. Indeed, the number of crimes related to the poaching of rare and endangered species of plants and animals, as well as the transportation of derivatives across...

Global Times Dog posing as lion causes uproar at Henan zoo Visitors at a Henan Province zoo have expressed their outrage after discovering exhibits claiming to house exotic specimens were just more common animals. Visitors say they feel the zoo tricked them with putting a dog in a lion exhibit. An unnamed official accuses the zoo of illegally charging visitors and operating without required licenses from the local government.

HO CHI MINH CITY/SINGAPORE, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Desks are empty, the office silence broken only by a handful of staff chit-chatting or playing on cellphones. It's another slow day at the headquarters of Vinacafe, a state-owned firm once the vanguard of Vietnam's coffee export boom. "There's no one here for you to talk to," a receptionist said when asked who was in charge at the Vietnam National Coffee Corporation in Ho Chi Minh City, the hub of an industry that produces 17 percent of the world coffee output. The bosses and managers of Vinacafe have either quit or were...

Chinese consumers are responding to a powerful new marketing tactic that plays to a widespread fear of food contamination - the promise of safe groceries sold online. Pledging produce direct from the farm, vendors have found food is becoming one of the fastest-growing segments of Internet retailing as they cash in on scares from cadmium-tainted rice to recycled cooking oil. The trend is adding momentum to a Chinese online retail boom driven by a rapidly expanding middle class, with companies such as COFCO Ltd and Shunfeng Express betting that a decent slice of a 1.3 billion population will pay for...

For the second time in less than a year, Minnesota authorities are prosecuting Alvin Schlangen for unauthorized delivery of farm produce. Schlangen offers members of the private buying club, Freedom Farms Co-op, the benefit of his volunteer delivery service. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) demands that the Stearns County District Attorney stop the deliveries by bringing charges against Schlagen. Schlagen's customers, many of whom have no other convenient means of getting food to their homes, are irate at the MDA. “A lot of those on Schlagen's route are house-bound or handicapped,” said Elisabeth Berry. “More to the point, though,...

Wall-E-Like Farming Robots Could Replace Undocumented Workers and Save the US Billions Despite advancements in mechanization within US agriculture, some menial jobs are still best left to human workers. Problem is, federal crackdowns on undocumented laborers have decimated that workforce. The Harvester automaton could provide a cheap, readily available labor force without the threat of raids by the INS. The US agriculture industry is worth about $300 billion annually—half from livestock production, the other half from crops. However, some of the most basic jobs in this industry still have to be performed by people. Jobs like offloading potted plants from...

Still seen as the most independent of the independent, there will be more food stamps for independent farm families to enjoy soon.  As this article at The Heritage Organization's The Foundry points out (again), Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) said yesterday that he will support the bloated farm bill. But as Heritage has been highlighting, this bill does not do what most people think it does. Eighty percent of the funding it provides will be for food stamps. The House farm bill is projected to cost $940 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The last farm bill, in...

Sagebrush Rebel: Reagan’s Battle With Environmental Extremists and Why it Matters Today, (Regnery, 2013), by William Perry Pendley, describes how radical environmentalists sparked a revolution against federal land regulation led by head rebel, Ronald Reagan. Today, high fuel and energy prices, formerly caused by Carter administration policies, have returned with a new President to blame. Pendley’s book provides valuable lessons for the next Sagebrush Rebel who might try to end the environmentalist’s stranglehold on energy production and American economic potential.

This year is no different; the authorities have mobilized the entire population to work on farms, meaning that adults and children alike face days of hard agricultural labor. The hours for official markets are also shortened at these times, and in some cases they are not allowed to open at all. This double-whammy only adds to the difficulty. .... Since rice planting requires a great many hands, soldiers, university, senior middle and elementary school students are all mobilized. Because this important national project determines the entire year's agricultural output, when planting season comes the authorities will try everything to get...

A vote at the European Commission on Monday means a continent-wide ban on pesticides linked to bee deaths could be in place later this year. Neonicotinoid chemicals in sprays are believed to harm bees, whose numbers have been falling across Europe. The European Commission says they should be restricted to crops not attractive to bees and other pollinators, but many farmers and crop experts have argued that there is insufficient data. The Commission will impose a two-year restriction on neonicotinoids after 15 countries voted in favour of a ban on Monday - not enough to form a qualified majority, but...

Today the new print quarterly Modern Farmer published a lengthy piece on the crop of marijuana farmers’ markets popping up in states where marijuana is legal for medical or recreational purposes. Penned by your humble editor, the feature focuses on the Organicann Harvest Market in Sonoma County – an elite member of the new crop of legal marijuana markets that are similar to the trendy, open-air vegetable markets of our time. “Still federally illegal, of course, such markets are legal under California state law, provided vendors and customers join a collective with a valid doctor’s recommendation for pot and a...

First came the fire, then the blast. Assuming the EMS reports are correct, a terror attack on U.S. soil is responsible for only the second-largest mass-casualty event this week. Dwell on that. Unbelievable: West EMS Director Dr. George Smith says as many as 60 or 70 people died and hundreds were injured Wednesday night in a fertilizer plant explosion in West. A rescuer earlier said he knew of five deaths. Meanwhile, emergency crews were pulling back late Wednesday night because of concerns about the possibility of a second explosion… The fire started in an anhydrous ammonia tank and spread to...

Under criticism for handing over personal data on farmers and ranchers to environmental groups, the Environmental Protection Agency defended its actions as “cost-effective under current budget constraints.” “Normally, we’d harry these despoilers of the environment ourselves,” said Bob Perciasepe, Acting EPA Administrator. “But with the budget being hemmed in by the sequester we have to seek other ways of achieving our objectives. We saw arming these environmental groups with potentially useful information as a way of multiplying or leveraging our forces. We thought we’d get more bang for the buck, so to speak.” if you missed any of this week's...

New York Times food writer Mark Bittman seems to have a “thing” about biotechnology — the same sort of thing that Creationists have about Darwinism. Relentlessly negative and increasingly bizarre, he rationalizes his prejudices with misrepresentations and complete falsehoods. Although the statement has become something of a cliché, it is nevertheless true that Bittman is entitled to his own opinions but not to his own facts. His latest screed, “Why Do GMO’s Need Protection” (April 2), contains one factual error after another: – Bittman refers to Section 735, a provision in the Farm Bill passed by Congress and signed into...

IN 1999, as a writer for The American Prospect, I went into a slaughterhouse undercover, with the help of some rebellious employees. The floor was slick with the residue of blood and suet, and the air smelled like iron. A part of my brain spent the whole time trying to remember which of Dante’s circles this scene most resembled. Today, under legislation being pushed by business interests, that bit of journalistic adventure could earn me a criminal conviction and land me on a registry of “animal and ecological terrorists.” So-called ag-gag laws, proposed or enacted in about a dozen states,...

When the Obama EPA is not spying on cattle and pork ranches with drones, they’re illegally releasing information on livestock producers to far left extremist groups. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the National Pork Producers are furious after the Obama Environmental Protection Agency illegally gave information on livestock farmers to extremist animal rights groups. Farm Futures reported: NCBA and the National Pork Producers Council are both furious with EPA for handing extremist groups illegally gathered data on farmers who operate confined animal feeding operations. NCBA said early this week it was notified by the EPA that the agency had...

German scientists are seriously developing a laser based system of weed control in order to be more "environmentally friendly" than using chemical poisons. What could go wrong ? Laser armed Robots and drones for farming and weed control and they will have artificial intelligence algorithms and high resolution cameras for recognizing plants. They would have the goal of having this on a large scale for better "organic farming". The laser system is currently being tested in a greenhouse. Drones or small robotic planes would fly over the fields. These could also fight weeds near protected waters, where herbicides are not...

ObamaCare’s benevolent promise to help control and curtail healthcare-related costs is already going magnificently bust; why not just extend the consequences of heightened compliance costs and pricey taxes to an entirely other but equally indispensable economic sector while they’re at it, right? As the Federal Drug Administration so munificently explains, part of ObamaCare’s overall purpose is to help provide Americans with all of the tools they need to lead healthier lives (with a universal healthcare system that requires society to absorb the costs of individuals’ daily health-related decisions, what choice do they have but to butt into those decisions?) —...

SOUTH BAY, Fla. -- From a distance it looks as if tornadoes are churning in the fields. But as you get closer, you see that the dark plumes are clouds of black smoke. And if your smell is keen enough, you realize it's sugar cane that's burning. Trucks hauling trailers full of cane stalks crowd the northbound lanes of Route 27 for a stretch just south of Lake Okeechobee. In the southbound lanes the trailers are empty. They're running between the cane fields that dominate this northernmost part of the Everglades and the Okeelanta sugar mill, owned by the Fanjul...

What is the trigger for a revolution? Sometimes it a brutal act of repression. Sometimes it a lost war, or a natural catastrophe, that exposes the failings of a regime. But more often than not, it is soaring food prices. The easiest prediction to make for 2013 is that everything we eat will once again rise sharply in price. So where will the revolutions start this year? Keep an eye on Algeria and Greece — and if you want to feel very nervous, Russia and China. And if you are smart, keep your money out of those countries as well....

We've all heard the story of the "40 acres and a mule" promise to former slaves. It's a staple of black history lessons, and it's the name of Spike Lee's film company. The promise was the first systematic attempt to provide a form of reparations to newly freed slaves, and it was astonishingly radical for its time, proto-socialist in its implications. In fact, such a policy would be radical in any country today: the federal government's massive confiscation of private property -- some 400,000 acres -- formerly owned by Confederate land owners, and its methodical redistribution to former black slaves....

VICKSBURG, Miss. (AP) — About 80 employees at Anderson-Tully Company's sawmill operation at the Port of Vicksburg will be laid off by Jan. 4. The company tells the Vicksburg Post (http://bit.ly/TMsjgp ) that the move has been in the works for two months because of a depressed housing market. Company president Richard Wilkerson says a second shift is being dropped...

SEATTLE – In two weeks, adults in this state will no longer be arrested or incarcerated for something that nearly 30 million Americans did last year. For the first time since prohibition began 75 years ago, recreational marijuana use will be legal; the misery-inducing crusade to lock up thousands of ordinary people has at last been seen, by a majority of voters in this state and in Colorado, for what it is: a monumental failure. That is, unless the Obama administration steps in with an injunction, as it has threatened to in the past, against common sense. For what stands...

USAgNet - Smithfield Packing Company Inc., a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, plans to begin its planned closure of a Portsmouth, Va. hot dog and lunch meat production facility. MeatPoultry reports that the firm announced the closure this past November. Layoffs are expected to begin at the Portsmouth plant in January, and the facility will be closed by the end of March 2013. The company says its first round of layoffs will impact about 120 workers. Another 400 employees will be affected by the plant closure....

Living in a big city, as I do, it isn’t hard for me to spend a lot on dinner. One big meal, and you can find yourself over $200 poorer, just for two people. Of course, it isn’t hard for me to spend very little on dinner either. I got fried pork chops and pork fried rice sent to me from the local Chinese takeout last night, and the whole meal cost me something like nine dollars. What is hard to get is a meal for $50 or so, and that seemingly innocuous fact speaks to an insidious trend not...

The much demonized kulaks (a/k/a the top 5%, 2%, 0r 1% depending upon the speech) were the first to rise up against Obama. Now the kulaks have been joined by the common peasantry, via NPR: As Mitt Romney and President Obama get ready for their second debate, a new bipartisan survey shows a surge for Romney in a key voter group following their first debate Oct. 3. The random cellphone and land line poll of 600 likely rural voters in nine battleground states Oct. 9-11 has Romney at 59 percent among the survey’s respondents. Obama’s support is now down to...

"Gilbert plans to use her title as Miss Greater Springfield 2013 to promote a platform of educating women with disordered eating habits. According to Gilbert, nearly 75 percent of young women have a negative perception of food, a trend she hopes to change."

Modern wheat is a "perfect, chronic poison," according to Dr. William Davis, a cardiologist who has published a book all about the world's most popular grain. Davis said that the wheat we eat these days isn't the wheat your grandma had: "It's an 18-inch tall plant created by genetic research in the '60s and '70s," he said on "CBS This Morning." "This thing has many new features nobody told you about, such as there's a new protein in this thing called gliadin. It's not gluten. I'm not addressing people with gluten sensitivities and celiac disease. I'm talking about everybody else...

UN Food Aid Delivered to US Schools (Associated Posers) – Savannah, Georgia – The shocking images broadcast around the world of hungry children being fed a bare subsistence diet is mobilizing the world to render aid. United Nations food trucks have begun arriving to avert an international disaster. Donor countries include China, which has furnished 500 tons of rice aboard a vessel en route to San Diego. Supplemental food aid from Canada, including wheat, are being flown in. A line of UN-marked planes line the tarmac of Savannah-Hilton Head International Airport. “Shockingly some of these schools cannot serve more than...

The Shnott family says they would have lost everything had the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission not ruled their way. The FERC has ruled that Idaho power providers must buy wind power even when demand for power is low. This could raise the price of electricity for customers, but it can save the family wind farms like the one belonging to the Shnott family. “This ruling was a God-send. It means we won't have to sell the farm at a major loss. It means the children can go to school knowing its not the last time they can see their friends.”...

(Associated Posers) - Chick-fil-A came to terms with Chicago aldermen and has come away making changes to it's founders stand for traditional marriage. The College Park, Georgia-based company says that it will no longer bar gay chickens from being used to make it's chicken sandwiches. "All of our tests have determined that gay chickens taste just like chicken" the company said in a press release cheered by homosexual activist groups. "Therefore there is no longer a policy against the use of gay chickens for our delicious meals". A month ago supporters of the chicken chain clogged roads to break sales...

As part of her anti-obesity Let's Move campaign, First Lady Michelle Obama is now presenting a brief online course: “Supermarket Shopping 101.” The course, which now appears on the letsmove.gov website, provides novice shoppers with tips such as “steer clear of the cookie, snack and soda aisle.” “Supermarket Shopping 101: Read This Before You Hit the Grocery Store,” written by Lisa Cericola, was first published among the materials the first lady presented online last week when she was a "guest editor" at iVillage.com. Now, it has been republished on the Let’s Move blog. As CNSNews.com previously reported, iVillage.com, which featured...