Free Republic

Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat, is calling on the Obama administration to block the use of stimulus funds for a utility-scale wind farm in West Texas that would make use of turbines manufactured largely in China.

NORTH ROSE – A Wolcott fruit grower is accusing the U.S. Border Patrol of racially profiling four of his workers who were stopped on Route 414 Aug. 17 as they were returning to his farm from a trip to purchase clothing. The men were all detained and taken for processing; Border Patrol Officer E. Rodriguez, who was in charge of the scene, told fruit grower Brian Doyle the men volunteered they were in the U.S. illegally. Doyle said Rodriguez then accused him of being a “federal criminal” because he employed the men. He said Rodriguez continually referred to the men...

Beginning in the late 17th century, an estimated one million Germans pulled up stakes and went looking for better places - - including more than 120,000 who migrated to the American colonies. The Frontier Culture Museum's German Farm, originally built in the Rhineland-Palatinate, exhibits their way of life and the timber-frame construction of houses and barns.

The buildings comprising the Staunton, Virginia, Frontier Culture Museum's Irish Farm originally stood in County Tyrone, Ulster (Northern Ireland). The Ulster Plantation was an English-dominated, Protestant colony in Ireland. The Frontier Culture Museum's Irish Farm highlights the production of linen. The farm stood on leased land, of course, the fee title being held by the English planters, and rent was due every three months. To make the rent, the Ulstermen produced linen which they sold at local markets.

The Virginia Frontier Culture Museum's English Farm installation features a yeoman farmer's house that was built in 1692 in Worchestershire, in west-central England, and more recently reconstructed in Virginia. Many yeoman farmers and other English commoners migrated from the western shires to America during colonial times, although their numbers most certainly did not include the builder of this house, who had to have been successful enough to own a small parcel of land on which to built a nice home.

LUMBERTON - As darkness fell on the final evening of the Burlington County Farm Fair on Saturday, one distinct parade made its way through the crowds of festival-goers. As part of his recent introduction of his running mate for the November election, Gov. Jon S. Corzine and his caravan made a stop at the Farm Fair to shake hands and talk to residents. The visit came as a late surprise to Farm Fair Manager Bill Spicer. "First he was coming and then he wasn't and then he was," said Spicer with a laugh. "But now he's here and I think...

Candia – Pigs are getting a bad rap. So bad, that Charmingfare Farm has opted to delay the arrival of a sow and her piglets normally on display in late spring. “It is not that the pigs are sick or anything, it is just public perception,” John Pyteraf, owner of Charmingfare Farm said. “I think the public sometimes just needs time to get educated.” Although the new strain of flu, type H1N1 has been called “swine flu,” no pigs have yet come down with the virus, according to state veterinarian Steve Crawford. And according to the John Pyteraf, owner of...

Nothing says summer in Iowa like a cloud of dust behind a combine. But what may be a fact of life for farmers is a cause for concern to federal regulators, who are refusing to exempt growers from new environmental regulations. It's left some farmers feeling bemused and more than a little frustrated. "It's such a non-commonsense idea that you can keep dust within a property line when the wind blows," said Sen. Charles Grassley, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee who still farms in northeast Iowa.

Animal owners, consumers and taxpayers: NAIS ALERT! Protect your right to farm and to eat local food. Speak out against the National Animal Identification System! The USDA [http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usdahome] has proposed a rule to require all farms and ranches where animals are raised to be registered in a federal database under the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) for existing disease control programs. The draft rule covers programs for cattle, sheep, goats and swine. It also sets the stage for the entire NAIS program to be mandated for everyone, including anyone who owns even one livestock animal (for example, a single chicken...

MENDOTA, Calif. -- Consumers may pay more for spring lettuce and summer melons in grocery stores across the country now that California farmers have started abandoning their fields in response to a crippling drought. California's sweeping Central Valley grows most of the country's fruits and vegetables in normal years, but this winter thousands of acres are turning to dust as the state hurtles into the worst drought in nearly two decades. Federal officials' recent announcement that the water supply they pump through the nation's largest farm state would drop further was enough to move John "Dusty" Giacone to forego growing...

Japanese researchers on Friday unveiled a robot suit designed to help reduce the heavy burden of harvesting as the nation's farm industry faces an ageing, shrinking workforce. Researchers at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology demonstrated a prototype wearable assistance machine equipped with eight motors and 16 sensors. The 25-kilogramme (55-pound) device is designed to assist elderly farmers who need support for their leg muscles and joints when they keep a crouching position or lift their arms high. In a demonstration, a person wearing the suit pulled radishes from the ground and picked oranges from high branches like a robot....

Farm worker advocates and opponents of illegal immigration are blasting one of President George W. Bush's "midnight regulations" that will make it easier for agricultural employers to hire foreign workers. They say the changes undermine worker protections, exploit immigrants and set wage levels so low that domestic workers cannot compete with foreign workers for jobs. The regulation,which makes changes in the U.S. Labor Department's H-2A Temporary Agriculture Worker Program, allows agricultural employers to hire temporary foreign workers if not enough domestic workers are able or willing to fill farm jobs. The changes also promise to reduce paperwork and make processing...

BINDURA, Zimbabwe (Reuters) – Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said on Saturday he would not allow a unity government to reverse his controversial policy of seizing white-owned farmland and giving it to blacks. Speaking at his ZANU-PF party's annual conference, Mugabe said that while he hoped the opposition would agree to form a coalition government, he would not compromise on policies such as land seizures, which critics say wrecked Zimbabwe's economy. "We don't want a unity which is retrogressive," Mugabe told about 6,000 ruling party supporters at this town about 80 km (50 miles) north of the capital Harare. "The biggest...

Farmers would have an easier and cheaper time securing foreign guest workers under pending Bush administration rules. The controversial changes to the so-called H-2A guest-worker program could cut wages and speed worker recruitment. They also would relax requirements for providing foreign workers with housing and transportation. "The Department of Labor is going to weaken oversight and enforcement," Bruce Goldstein, the executive director of the Farmworker Justice Fund, charged Wednesday. A Labor Department spokesman said Wednesday night that the final rules would be made public Thursday and published in the Federal Register on Dec. 18, which means they'd take effect two...

Last week I received a very concerned call from South Dakota farmer and agronomist Bryan Lutter. "Neal, we're out of propane!" I figured this was personal distress – he and his family farm over three square miles of land and I know this has been a tough year for many people. He promptly corrected my misconception when I tried to console him. "No, everybody is out, all three grain elevators, we can't get fuel for the bins, and we're coming in real wet this year." There are equally dramatic issues due to the bankruptcy of Verasun and the apparent insolvency...

In a speech this afternoon in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Senator Barack Obama made a groundbreaking announcement: I have long been an advocate of the less fortunate among us, of those who life has handed a crooked deck, the short end of the stick, an unfair deal. There are no Americans for who this is more true than the populations of our feedlots and industrial farms. It is time to end the exploitation of farmed animals on American soil. It is time to give up hamburgers as we have given up slave-holding. It is time for us to end our dependence on...

(You can’t get much happier than a pig in muck, or so we are told. But when this little piggy arrived in the farmyard she showed a marked reluctance to get her trotters dirty. While her six brothers and sisters messed around in the mire, she stayed on the edge shaking. It is thought she might have mysophobia - a fear of dirt.) A pig, fearing dirt. That’s like a dog fearing social interaction, a cat fearing afternoon naps or Rosie O'Donnell fearing an all you can eat buffet. It’s unheard of. (Owners Debbie and Andrew Keeble were at a...

Zimbabwe crisis: White farming couple beaten and kicked off land By David Blair Last Updated: 2:06AM BST 04/06/2008 A white farming couple was assaulted, whipped and shot at after they were given two minutes to leave their property in Zimbabwe. William Rogers and his wife, Annette, were threatened by three Robert Mugabe supporters, who told them: "We are like hungry lions." Dozens of Zimbabwe's last white farmers have suffered similar ordeals since Mr Mugabe lost the presidential election's first round in March. Scores of black opposition supporters have been murdered and thousands beaten, abducted or tortured. After defying the two-minute...

MRSA from farm animals found in humans in UK for first time By Harry Wallop, Consumer Affairs Correspondent Last Updated: 12:51AM BST 03/06/2008 Three people have been infected with a form of MRSA usually found in pigs, the first time any humans in Britain have been infected by an animal strain of the superbug. The variation has been found in farm animals and humans on the Continent, causing serious heart, bone, blood and skin diseases, as well as pneumonia. Dr Giles Edwards, the director of the Scottish MRSA Reference Laboratory, said three people in Scotland had contracted the strain, known...

A Pennsylvania farmer has been fined $4,000 for dealing in raw milk in violation of the state's bureaucracy that demands he hold a permit in order to sell his natural products to friends and neighbors. A rally protesting the governmental action against Mt. Holly Springs, Pa., farmer Mark Nolt drew more than 100 people today outside the courthouse where a magistrate threw out one count filed against him, but pronounced a guilty decision and $1,000 fine on each of four other counts. WND reported earlier on the SWAT team-like raid on Nolt's farm, the government's confiscation of tens of thousands...

HURON, Calif. - Weary of waiting for Congress to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws, the United Farm Workers hopes to recruit Mexican laborers to pick crops on U.S. farms. The union’s efforts to import temporary workers under an existing government program follows similar moves by lawmakers in Arizona and Colorado, who are also trying to create new pathways to bring in foreign field hands without approval from Washington. This month, UFW President Arturo Rodriguez signed an agreement with the governor of the Mexican state of Michoacan to help recruit local residents to apply for temporary jobs on U.S. farms, all...

Zimbabwe farm invasions and attacks spread By Sebastien Berger Southern Africa Correspondent Last Updated: 2:01PM BST 01/05/2008 Zimbabwe's farm invasions are spreading to the western half of the country, with a white landowner attacked and shot at north of Bulawayo. The assault on Wayne Munro happened only a few miles from where Martin Olds, the first farmer murdered when Robert Mugabe first unleashed the mobs in 2000, was killed. Mr Munro and his family, including his bed-ridden grandfather, are under siege from around 200 so-called “war veterans” at his property in Nyamandhlovu. He was confronted in his office by a...

BAGHDAD, April 23, 2008 – Fish farms have begun to thrive in Iraq’s Babil province, as Task Force Marne soldiers take on a critical role in rebuilding this vital industry. Army Sgt. Joshua Seymour, with Company A, 411th Civil Affairs Battalion, points to fish surfacing for food as he conducts an assessment of a fish farm in Qarghuli village in Iraq’s Babil province, April 9, 2008. Photo by Army Staff Sgt. Tony M. Lindback, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Thanks to the vision of Army Col. Thomas James, commander of the...

New Delhi (PTI): India on Wednesday ruled out the need to import wheat this year, as it appears poised to surpass the 15 million tons procurement target. "I am confident of procuring 16-17 million tons of wheat this year... As of now I don't see a need for import of wheat," Agriculture and Food Minister Sharad Pawar said, inaugurating the State Agriculture Ministers' conference here. In the last 10 days, the average procurement in Punjab and Haryana was 99.6 per cent of the market arrival of wheat in these states, Pawar said, adding that Food Corporation of India has so...

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - President Cristina Fernandez blasted striking farmers at a rally of 20,000 supporters Tuesday, comparing their nearly three-week-old protest to a 1976 strike that sowed chaos one month before a military coup. Seeking to build popular opposition to the strike against a disputed export tax increase, Fernandez urged farmers to immediately end hundreds of highway blockades. "Is it good that highways are cut so that food cannot be transported to market?" she said angrily, adding that such pressure tactics will not work in times of democracy. On the strike's 20th day Tuesday, farmers manned 300 road blockades,...

With grain prices soaring, farm income at record highs and the federal budget deficit widening, the subsidies and handouts given to American farmers would seem vulnerable to a serious pruning. But it appears that farmers, at least so far, have succeeded in stopping the strongest effort in years to shrink the government safety net that doles out billions of dollars to them each year. Influential interest groups -- which had toyed with supporting changes -- cut deals to get their own piece of the action. Lawmakers who supported an overhaul peeled off as the debate moved into the election year....

AS CONGRESS and the administration wrangle over a new farm bill before the current version expires next Saturday, here are two numbers that may help clarify the issues: $5.74 and $92.3 billion. The former is the price of a bushel of corn on Wednesday, a historic high. The latter is the Agriculture Department's estimate for farm income; it is 4.1 percent above the $88.7 billion farmers made in 2007 and 51 percent above the average for the past 10 years.Yet in this flush time for farmers, House and Senate conferees are contemplating a farm bill that might cost $10 billion...

Spc. Stephen Stricklin, from Wesson, Miss., Headquarters Company, 3rd Brigade Special Troops Battalion, feeds a cow, Feb. 26, at the al Nasser Dairy Farm, in a village near Wehida, Iraq. Photo by Sgt. Natalie Rostek, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division Public Affairs. FOB HAMMER — Members of the 3rd Brigade Special Troops Battalion (BSTB) and the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team’s Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) conducted an inspection of the al Nasser Dairy Farm, in a village near Wehida, Feb. 26. Floyd Wood, from Manassas, Va., agricultural adviser to the brigade from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and...

RAMADI, Iraq, Jan. 22, 2008 – Reviving agricultural enterprises that have deteriorated from years of sanctions, conflict and neglect is crucial to the economy in this region in western Iraq, U.S. and Iraqi officials here said. John Jeans, of the Inma Agribusiness Program, and Navy Cmdr. Kevin Anderson inspect a lettuce field in Ramadi, Iraq, as part of the effort to revive agribusiness in Anbar province. Photo courtesy of Inma Agribusiness Program  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “I’ve seen several (poultry) growers who have returned to production during my seven months here, and more will return as things...

Barbara and Steve Smith had bad news and good news on the legal front in their suit against officials of New York’s Department of Agriculture and Markets yesterday. The bad news was that their lawyers were rejected in their effort to obtain a temporary restraining order, which would have had the effect of immediately ending the ongoing harassment at the Meadowsweet Farm in Lodi. The good news...

NAIS, which the US Department of Agriculture has been rolling out in concert with many states since 2003, is stunning in its projected scope. Over the next few years each of the nation's 1.4 million farms (plus thousands of veterinary facilities, export/import stations, livestock barns and genetic facilities) will be affected, with all their approximately 95 million cattle, 1.8 billion chickens, 60 million pigs, 93 million turkeys, 6.3 million sheep, 2.5 million goats and every other livestock species, including bison, camelids, cervids, horses and llamas. In all, more than twenty-nine species and more than two billion animals are slated to...

Smithfield — A judge has told a Johnston County farmer that he cannot open his farm to Muslim families planning to slaughter lambs as part of an annual religious celebration. The judge issued a 10-day injunction Friday, meaning that about 250 Muslim families in Wake County will have to make other arrangements for slaughtering lambs they bought in advance of the three-day Festival of the Sacrifice, which begins on Wednesday. Kenneth and Eddie Rowe have tangled before with the state over the mass slaughter of lambs on their 300-acre farm. They said they have been conducting the slaughtering in their...

Zimbabwe's farm seizure blocked The land reform programme has been accompanied by violence A southern African regional court has ordered Zimbabwe not to proceed with the seizure of a white farmer's land. The Namibia-based Southern African Development Community (Sadc) tribunal ruled in favour of Mike Campbell, who argued that the seizure was racist. The outcome is seen as a blow to President Robert Mugabe's programme to transfer land to the black majority. The ruling should allow Mr Campbell to remain on his farm until Zimbabwe's Supreme Court hears a group challenge. Mr Campbell had asked the Sadc tribunal to overturn...

Here's today's quiz: What do Scottie Pippen, David Letterman and Ted Turner have in common? Answer: None of them are farmers, but all three have received thousands of dollars in federal farm subsidies this decade. We could add to that list of non-farmer farm-aid recipients David Rockefeller, Leonard Lauder of the cosmetics firm, Edgar Bronfman Sr. of the Seagram fortune, and Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen. Our point is that you don't have to drive a tractor, plant seeds, or even live anywhere near rural America to qualify for Uncle Sam's farm largess. And you sure don't have to be poor....

AFTER MUCH arcane political wrangling and procedural disputation, the Senate began debating a new five-year farm bill on Friday. Much of the price tag, projected at $288 billion, is accounted for by food stamps and other nutrition programs, but tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to farmers are included, too. Notwithstanding the fact that crop prices are surging and farmers are doing well, supporters of the bill, both in the Senate and the House, are hoping to enact this gigantic Christmas present with as little fuss as possible. ...Under the pending farm bill, the U.S. sugar industry would get...

Senate Democrats failed yesterday to break an impasse that has stalled action on a five-year, $286 billion farm bill, increasing the possibility that the legislation could be delayed until next year... ...On Thursday, a group of House Republicans proposed extending the current farm bill for a year, postponing further consideration of the new legislation until after the 2008 election. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin C. Peterson (D-Minn.) called such a move "premature." The House passed its version of the bill in July. Peterson said he is still optimistic that a deal on a farm bill can be reached by early...

Perhaps it's beneath the dignity of Members of Congress to shop at a grocery store, but if they did they'd know that food prices are rising faster than at anytime in 17 years. Milk now costs $3 a gallon in many states. Eggs, oranges, peas, tomatoes and rice are selling at or near all-time highs. The biggest winners have been corn producers, as corn prices have doubled in two years -- thanks in part to new mandates for ethanol. All of this is translating into the best gains in farm wealth in decades. Total farm income is expected to leap...

Yesterday (Monday) Andrea received a call from an inspector with the New York Department of Food and Markets in Albany that he planned to come by the farm for a special inspection, based on “a complaint” made to the department’s Division of Milk Control and Dairy Services. Andrea couldn’t imagine who might have complained, and what the complaint might have been about.

But what about farmers and ranchers who plant grain where unfavorable weather is the norm rather than an exception? Not much rain falls on Oklahoma, the Dakotas or the Texas panhandle. That's just the way it is. Between 1985 and 2005, more than 12,000 purportedly drought-stricken agricultural producers in those states claimed federal disaster payments at least every other year. This group collected $1.4 billion in all, about 60 percent of total federal farm disaster relief aid during those two decades, according to a database compiled by the Environmental Working Group. You'd think that Congress would have concluded that there...

Proposal helps the poor who receive food stamps WASHINGTON -- Farmers and the poor are uneasy partners in the $286 billion farm bill approved Thursday by a Senate committee. The farmers get subsidies and new payments. The poor, including some 2 million California residents receiving food stamps, get somewhat easier access to benefits. "It makes a difference between a family going hungry, or not," said Ana Pagan, director of the Merced County Human Services Agency. But the Senate's farm bill, spanning some 1,300 pages, also reflects competition between its agricultural and its social welfare priorities. The bill's nutrition and rural...

THESE ARE good times for American farmers. Net farm income in 2007 will be more than $87 billion, a record, according to the Agriculture Department's latest projections. And in 2006, the average farm household already earned $80,000, about 20 percent more than the average non-farm family. It would seem time to finally to phase out the costly and irrational system of federal subsidies that props up the farm sector -- all in the name of a "safety net" for beleaguered yeomen. A disproportionate share of the dollars goes to a relative handful of agribusinesses: In 2005, 9 percent of farms...

It is believed, with some cause, that partisanship is the reason "nothing gets done" in Washington. So what if there was an issue, involving the poorest of the poor, on which there was bipartisan agreement, and still nothing got done? Our most battle-scarred readers will guess immediately what is at issue -- farm subsidies! At the moment, the sun and moon have aligned to form a left-right coalition to raise the lot of some of Africa's farmers. Arguably the greatest misfortune to befall these farmers is their crop: cotton. In the U.S., the lords of King Cotton still have the...

As Congress haggles over the farm bill, it is time again to consider updating the legislation. The Agriculture Adjustment Act, passed “to relieve the … national economic emergency” of the Great Depression has been the basis for most major agricultural legislation since the 1930s. The basic emphasis of each farm bill has been to raise the prices of crops and livestock in order to help farmers. Recently, President Bush has proposed changes in farm policy that are projected to reduce spending by $10 billion over the next five years. This is a step in the right direction, but it still...

Stone Age rice farms found in ChinaScientists find evidence of mass rice cultivation 7,700 years ago. Thursday, September 27, 2007 Stone Age Chinese began cultivating rice more than 7,700 years ago by burning trees in coastal marshes and building dams to hold back seawater, converting the marshes to rice paddies that would support growth of the high-yield cereal grain, researchers plan to report today. New analysis of sediments from the site of Kuahuqiao at the mouth of the Yangtze River near Hangzhou provides the earliest evidence in China of such large-scale environmental manipulation, experts said. "It shows people were changing...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 11, 2007 – Although Jessica Strasser’s husband is now deployed to Afghanistan with his Iowa Army National Guard unit, she says life on the farm is immeasurably easier thanks to his employer. Jessica’s husband, 1st Sgt. Matthew T. Strasser, is employed by Augustine and Sons, Inc., a 150-year-old family farm in Rose Hill, Iowa. The Strassers and their two sons, Reece, 9, and Tyler, 7, live rent-free and farm on Augustine and Sons-owned acreage.Matthew is a professional farmer who has grown corn, soybeans and hay and tended cattle and hogs for Augustine and Sons for five years...

For the last six months, since he formally opted out of Michigan’s cattle testing program for bovine tuberculosis and its mandatory enforcement of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), Greg Niewendorp has been waiting.

Calif. Farm Town Is Nation's Smoggiest Published: 8/9/07, 3:26 PM EDT By SUDHIN THANAWALA (AP) - ARVIN, Calif. - Lying in a rich agricultural region dotted with vineyards and orange groves, this central California community seems an unlikely place for a dubious distinction: the most polluted air in America. Hemmed in by mountains, Arvin is the final destination for pollutants from cities as far away as San Francisco Bay, and its wheezing residents are paying the price. Many of them complain that the air smells toxic. "It's common for people here to say, 'I'm going to the beach so I...

We in the Land of Lincoln have many matters about which to fret. Will the budget impasse between the Democratic governor and the Democratic General Assembly get resolved? Will Illinois ever join the 48 states that permit concealed carrying of weapons, thereby giving law-abiding citizens a fighting chance against the bad guys? What week of September (or possibly August) will the Cubs choke this year? Will Gov. Milorad Blagojevich try sticking taxpayers with another $600 makeup bill? There’s so very much for us to ponder. Happily, we don’t have to worry if our fair state is getting its “fair share”...

Corning, N.Y. -- You can definitely smell it, but you can't see it. The United States Department of Agriculture has released reports stating that when you smell cow manure, you're also smelling greenhouse gas emissions. That will be the focus of new research that might happen right here in the Southern Tier. Agriculture Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, Mark Rey, was in Corning Wednesday morning at the Big Flats Plant Materials Center to annouce the award of nearly $20 million in Conservation Innovation Grants to fund 51 research projects across the country designed to refine new technologies helping...

Finding farm workers not that easy Updated: May 17, 2007 06:20 PM By ANNE SCHIEBER HART - Even though Michigan has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, finding workers to fill farm jobs is not that easy. At a Michigan Works office, 24 Hour News 8 found no shortage of workers who wanted the farm jobs. But many workers are in the same boat as Sam Williams. They don't have a car to get to the jobs up north. "I guess, how you would say, someone to come pick me up at a designated spot, I'd be...