Free Republic

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 spe