Free Republic

armers are generally some of the nicest people you will meet. Being from Alabama, I have many friends who own and operate their own farms, and I can tell you that one way to get even the nicest farmer fired up is to interfere with him getting his work done. Farms run on tight seasonal schedules where a single day of lost work can cost the farmer thousands of dollars in production. Needless to say, a bunch of protesters setting up on this farmers land certainly drew his ire, but as farmers are known to do, he comes up with...

FRESNO — Days after Donald Trump won the White House vowing to deport millions of people in the country illegally and fortify the Mexican border, California farmer Kevin Herman ordered nearly $600,000 in new equipment, cutting the number of workers he’ll need starting with the next harvest. Herman, who grows figs, persimmons and almonds in the nation’s most productive farming state, said Trump’s comments pushed him to make the purchase, larger than he would have otherwise. “No doubt about it,” Herman said. “I probably wouldn’t have spent as much or bought as much machinery as I did.”(continued)

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) — Got milk? Chances are it’s from California. There are more dairy cows in the Golden State than anywhere else in the country. But all that milk and cheese comes at a cost to the planet. Tom Frantz keeps a running count. He says dairy farms have taken over his farming community in the San Joaquin Valley. “There are ten of them within what I call smelling distance of my home,” he said, noting they’ve moved in in just the last 10 years.

With all this buzz about technology leading the way in helping make lives better in our society like the one in Africa. Bill Gates donated money to create a technology that can turn poop into water. But, what about for the farmers in the U.S., some farmers rely on selling fertilizers, its their livelihood. Its a good thing DIY is still the tech that most farmers know. Fertilizing your food plot has never been easier or more economical. It’s still a do-it-yourself world! Taking care of your business has never had more meaning than in this fun and, well, disgusting...

When farmers plow their land, it produces grooves called "furrows," bordered by small ridges of dirt. But in pursuit of new regulatory powers, federal agencies refer to the little dirt mounds by another term: “mini mountain ranges.” That seemingly absurd distinction is being used to impose more federal control over private land use decisions made by U.S. farmers. That was the claim described in a U.S. Senate committee report released Sept. 20. The committee reviewed the powers held by the nation’s two largest environmental regulation agencies, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency, and a proposed...

In 2006, Chris Hausman, a fourth-generation Midwestern farmer long accustomed to depending on government support for survival, traveled across the world to witness a revolution in agriculture. It had been more than 20 years since a left-leaning government in New Zealand chose to eliminate government subsidies for farmers, and Hausman was surprised at what had transpired since. “I will tell you it was a shock to their agricultural system,” says Hausman, 58, who farms corn and soybeans on a 1,500-acre plot 150 miles south of Chicago. “You had a system dictated by government programs that was thrown out the window...

There were two sightings of Western yellow-billed cuckoos this year, both in Delta County, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. The secretive birds are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering designating parts of western Colorado as critical habitat for the migratory bird, including lands along the Colorado River through Mesa County. Sightings — which frequently involve people hearing the cuckoo’s distinctive “klak-klak” sound — have been recorded in Mesa and Delta counties in previous years. ... “We have changed the initial map due to comments from the proposed...

DES MOINES, Iowa — Donald Trump received a rockstar welcome from roughly two-thousand people when he took the stage as “I’m Proud to Be an American” played from the speakers at Sen. Joni Ernst’s second annual Roast and Ride in Des Moines, Iowa on Saturday. “The GOP is offering voters a chance to break up the corrupt establishment and create a new American future,” the Republican nominee stated. “This chance will never come again.” “Our campaign is about protecting those who have no power,” he added. “These are the people that work hard, but don’t have a voice.” The outsider...

Donald Trump warned Saturday of a “war on the American farmer,” telling a crowd in Iowa that rival Hillary Clinton “wants to shut down family farms” and implement anti-agriculture policies. Trump’s speech at the annual “Roast and Ride” fundraiser for Republican Sen. Joni Ernst came just hours after Clinton received her first national security briefing as the Democratic presidential nominee. […] “Hillary Clinton wants to shut down family farms just like she wants to shut down the mines and the steelworkers,” he said in front of a wall of straw bales at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. “She will do this...

The internet has been abuzz with headlines declaring, “Almost Everything the Media Tell You About Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Is Wrong,” and “Johns Hopkins Shrinks Warn Against Kids Going Transgender.”As reported by Ryan T. Anderson on Monday, “A major new report, published today in the journal The New Atlantis, challenges the leading narratives that the media has pushed regarding sexual orientation and gender identity.”How significant was this report?“Co-authored by two of the nation’s leading scholars on mental health and sexuality, the 143-page report discusses over 200 peer-reviewed studies in the biological, psychological, and social sciences, painstakingly documenting what scientific...

By 2015, she had risen through the ranks at Paramus Catholic High School, her alma mater, to dean of guidance in just four years, and she had been serving as head coach of the elite Lady Paladins basketball team since the retirement of the longtime coach, Al Roth, the year before.But in January, she lost it all.  Drumgoole, of Bogota, says the school fired her from both of her jobs after administrators learned that she was married to a woman.  Now, she has filed a lawsuit in Superior Court in Hackensack alleging that Paramus Catholic; its president, James P. Vail;...

On Tuesday, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) formally announced the removal of the lesser prairie chicken from the endangered species protection list. They did not take this step voluntarily; FWS lost a court case last year which ordered the agency to remove the bird from the list. However, even as they complied with the court’s order, the FWS issued a threat that the agency’s land grab under the guise of conservation was not over. In the words of Director Dan Ashe, “Responding to this court ruling by removing the bird from the Federal List does not mean we are...

Earlier this month a federal court in California ruled that a farmer plowing his land without a permit from the federal government is breaking the law. In 2013, the Army Corps of Engineers, without any notice or due process, ordered the owners of Duarte Nursery to cease use of their land for allegedly violating the Clean Water Act (CWA). The violation: plowing. The California court agreed with the federal government’s action, despite the fact the CWA specifically exempts normal agricultural activities like plowing from regulation. This overreaching assertion of federal power is not an isolated incident. For decades, the EPA...

$16 million in fines dropped, threats canceled. A Wyoming rancher threatened by the Environmental Agency with $16 million fines for getting a state permit and building a stock pond on his ranch has reached a settlement that will have the fines go away and he’ll keep his stock pond. WND reported in 2015 on a lawsuit filed on behalf of Fort Bridger, Wyoming, rancher Andy Johnson by officialsl with the Pacific Legal Foundation seeking to vindicate his property rights. The lawsuit explained federal law clearly exempts stock ponds from the rules of the EPA, which had filed a compliance order...

This is a cartoon by Rick Friday  of Farm News, a weekly magazine published byThe Fort Dodge Messenger, And as a result, Rick is no longer “of Farm News”. He posted on Facebook, I am no longer the Editorial Cartoonist for Farm News due to the attached cartoon which was published yesterday. Apparently a large company affiliated with one of the corporations mentioned in the cartoon was insulted and cancelled their advertisement with the paper, thus, resulting in the reprimand of my editor and cancellation of It’s Friday cartoons after 21 years of service and over 1090 published cartoons to over 24,000...

Who is blocking 29 million in Los Angeles from getting water, and why Despite some nice rainfall this year, the more than two dozen State Water Contractors throughout the state have been told to expect 45 percent water allocations. A recent Daily Democrat article said 100 percent water supply is probably not even possible for many areas, and estimated that 60-70 percent of water supplies through the two state aqueducts could be as good as it gets. Special: Christie Brinkley's New Wrinkle Remover! 15 Years Younger For $5 While recent rain has helped greatly, state water officials say it’s not...

most Californians now believe that the “High-Speed Rail Authority” has become a boondoggle. The rail authority has not issued about $9.95 billion in municipal bonds approved by voters as Proposition_1A in 2008. All of the bullet train start-up cost so far has been funded from $3.2 billion in federal transportation and stimulus funds, plus $750 million in cap-and-trade money from the state’s greenhouse gas-reduction program Sensing an opportunity to pass an initiative to repurpose the bonds, Republican State Sen. Bob Huff of San Dimas and the Republican State Board of Equalization member George Runner formed the “California Water Alliance” and...

California, Oregon and the federal government are working on a way around congressional barriers to the removal of hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. The states, the U.S. Interior Department and the owner of the dams, PacifiCorp, announced Tuesday that they have agreed in principle to pursue removal through the federal dam relicensing process. The move comes after a complex deal to decommission four hydroelectric dams and restore portions of the historic salmon river fell apart when Congress failed to act on a crucial piece of the pact by a Dec. 31 deadline. Republican members of Congress and local elected...

Sasser Trump rally will feature Bo Henry performance SASSER -- In an effort to champion the presidential candidate they feel has their best interests at heart, several farmers from across the Southeast are organizing a rally Thursday in downtown Sasser to show their support for Donald Trump. The rally is set on Sasser's Main Street and will also feature a special performance of their recently penned single, "Vote for Trump," by Albany musicians Bo Henry and Jodi Mann. Chad Etheridge, Trump campaign's farm team chair and one of the rally organizers, said nearly 200 farmers of have lent their support...

(CNSNews.com) – A couple who hosts occasional wedding ceremonies on their New York farm have lost an appeal to overturn the $13,000 in fines levied against them by the state’s human rights agency, which ruled that their refusal to host a wedding for two women was discriminatory. On Jan. 14, the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department, upheld the agency’s order and the fines, a decision the Alliance Defending Freedom - which represented Robert and Cynthia Gifford - said amounted to confirming, “that the government can punish the Giffords for declining to coordinate a ceremony that conflicts with...