Free Republic

Ok this was just funny enough to pass along. The Source of STFU. Southern Tenant Farmers Union. No seriously! In 1934 the biracial organization started up in response to the New Deal and the farm subsidies that had the effect of encouraging medium and large land owners to take a good bit of their land out of farming to get the subsidy. That had the effect of throwing about 200,000 black families off the land who were tenants and sharecroppers. It forced thousands of Black share Croppers and white small holders to drift to the cities. The STFU, was not...

Earth First! made headlines with its tree-spiking in the 1980s, but the guy who helped make the anti-logging tactic famous didn't invent it. Mike Roselle even titled one chapter of his new book "Why I Quit Spiking Trees." In it, the co-founder of Earth First!, the Rainforest Action Network and the Ruckus Society described how the practice brought old-growth timber cutting to national awareness, but became a public relations disaster for the protesters. "I think the Wobblies can take credit for it if they want, but it's been around as long as logging," Roselle said, referring to the Industrial Workers...

The Dillon ranchers who lost more than 120 buck sheep in an August wolf attack last week lost 23 lambs from the same area when wolves struck again. Kathy Konen said this week that despite the presence of a herder and guard dogs, wolves struck the herd sometime in the early morning hours Oct. 17. She and husband Jon Konen lost 23 weaned lambs. "They're in the area, and they've killed once," she said of wolves. "We knew they would come back and kill again." The Konens in August lost 122 sheep to wolves in the same pasture in the...

CONTINGENCY OPERATING SITE MAREZ, Oct. 14, 2009 – Farmers trying to recover from years of drought, war and neglect in Iraq’s Ninevah province are looking to turn things around with a government program called Greenhouse Demonstration, some structures called hoop houses, and an American called “Farmer Fred.” Fred Woehl, agriculture specialist for the provincial reconstruction team in Iraq’s Ninevah province, talks to a Kurdish farmer before an agricultural meeting, Sept. 29, 2009. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Melanie Trollinger  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Fred Woehl, an agriculture specialist for the provincial reconstruction team in Ninevah, has brought...

Weekend Roundup --snip-- Picture Highlight: the new Herschel Space Telescope, is seeing first light and creating dramatic images of gas clouds in the Milky Way...

Plant geneticist Dr John Sanford began working as a research scientist at Cornell University in 1980. He co-invented the ‘gene gun’ approach to genetic engineering of plants. This technology has had a major impact on agriculture around the world...

Six Colorado dairies have filed for bankruptcy protection this year amid banking problems and low milk prices. Four of the banks had loans from Greeley-based New Frontier Bank, which collapsed in April... Bob Winter, a member of the Colorado Farm Bureau, says he believes more Colorado dairies are preparing to file for bankruptcy protection

State Highway 9 is a two lane strip of asphalt that cuts across the northernmost tier of counties in Iowa, from Larchwood to Lansing. If you drive its 320 miles, as I have done many times, you will not be dissuaded from the stereotype of Iowa as a flat boring expanse of cornfields. The few points of interest include Lake Okoboji and the headquarters of Winnebago in Forest City. It takes you near Mason City, the model for "River City" in Meredith Willson's The Music Man, and the site of the plane crash that claimed Buddy Holly after a February...

Norman Borlaug arguably the greatest American of the 20th century died late Saturday after 95 richly accomplished years. The very personification of human goodness, Borlaug saved more lives than anyone who has ever lived. He was America's Albert Schweitzer: a brilliant man who forsook privilege and riches in order to help the dispossessed of distant lands. That this great man and benefactor to humanity died little-known in his own country speaks volumes about the superficiality of modern American culture. Born in 1914 in rural Cresco, Iowa, where he was educated in a one-room schoolhouse, Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize...

Frank Gwozdz says coyotes have made a meal out of his livestock so often in the past several months that the farmer is thinking of leaving agriculture. “They are wiping me out,’’ Gwozdz said ...from his 110-acre farm in Dartmouth in Southeastern Massachusetts. In the past several months, Gwozdz said, coyotes have killed two cows, four calves, 14 goats, two lambs, two sheep, and numerous geese, ducks, and chickens. “They are getting bolder and bolder,’’ Gwozdz said of the coyotes... Gwozdz said he and his family have tried to deter the animals, sometimes by standing guard into the early morning...

Fifteen wolf packs have denned and produced pups in Wyoming outside Yellowstone National Park this year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has reported. The federal agency, which announced it is continuing to monitor reproduction, did not say in its assessment how many pups might have been born to each pack. Yellowstone packs are raising litters without any apparent deleterious effects... Trappers are also working the Union Pass area near Dubois, where a calf was killed ... Last week, a yearling steer was killed by wolves

Kathy Konen has lost guard dogs to wolves in the past, but nothing prepared the Dillon rancher for the killing of 120 buck sheep last week. "They were in the sagebrush, on the creek bottom - just all over the pasture," Konen said Thursday. "It's a terrible loss to our livestock program." Konen said they discovered the attack Aug. 16 while checking their sheep in the Rock Creek drainage of the Blacktail Mountains south of Dillon, where they pasture buck sheep in summer. She said they check their sheep every two or three days, so the attack was recent. She...

Large groups of bears are creating a nuisance for residents in Bethlehem, and the problem has gotten so bad the town is considering an ordinance. Officials said bears are rummaging through trash bins, eating and attacking farm animals and in some cases coming dangerously close to family pets. "I've been here for 15 years and never saw them until this year," said resident Bob Kimmerle. Kimmerle said he had to fire a gun in the air to scare a bear away after it ate two roosters near his fence. "He put his arm through and pulled them through,"

Even if rutabagas aren't widely grown in the U.S. for people to eat, rutabagas for biofuel could edge out other food crops. "If you were to dedicate hundreds of thousands of acres to produce rutabaga for the biofuel sector, in all likelihood farmers would be changing what crops are currently being cultivated on those lands," Faber said. That could make it a "game changer" in the biofuel industry, he said.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A Purdue agricultural economist and state agricultural officials at the Indiana State Fair on Wednesday (Aug. 12) were surprised at the abundant 2009 crop projected by a U.S. Department of Agriculture report, especially given the difficult time farmers throughout the Eastern Corn Belt had getting their crops planted this spring. The USDA's Crop Production Report has U.S. corn production at 12.8 billion bushels, up 5 percent from 2008. Soybean production is estimated at 3.2 billion bushels, up 8 percent from this past year, while wheat production is estimated at 2.18 billion bushels, 3 percent higher. Indiana...

Get ready for the sugar shock. Raw sugar futures have almost doubled this year amid fears of a shortage, which could lead to slightly higher prices for candy but also a spike in the price of ethanol. Much of the rise in sugar prices has come in just the past few weeks as drier-than-normal weather in India, the world's largest consumer, threatens to leave production there far short of demand... The bigger impact may be felt at the gas pump, where the sugar shortfall is likely to drive up the cost of ethanol, increasingly used as a substitute for gasoline....

Faced with the prospect of an economic disaster caused by a man-made drought, hundreds of concerned citizens from California's Central Valley today engaged in a massive protest at the Concord, California district office of Democrat George Miller. Miller and Congressional Democrats had an opportunity just a few weeks ago to turn on valley water pumps again, in time to avert a disaster via HR 3105, but Miller voted instead to protect a non-threatened species of fish [the Delta smelt] and his extremist supporters rather than California farms, farm workers and the millions of people who depend on them for food.

I’m dozing, as I often do on airplanes, but the guy behind me has been broadcasting nonstop for nearly three hours. I finally admit defeat and start some serious eavesdropping. He’s talking about food, damning farming, particularly livestock farming, compensating for his lack of knowledge with volume.I’m so tired of people who wouldn’t visit a doctor who used a stethoscope instead of an MRI demanding that farmers like me use 1930s technology to raise food. Farming has always been messy and painful, and bloody and dirty. It still is.But now we have to listen to self-appointed experts on airplanes frightening...

Farming has always been messy and painful, and bloody and dirty. It still is. This is something the critics of industrial farming never seem to understand. I’m dozing, as I often do on airplanes, but the guy behind me has been broadcasting nonstop for nearly three hours. I finally admit defeat and start some serious eavesdropping. He’s talking about food, damning farming, particularly livestock farming, compensating for his lack of knowledge with volume. I’m so tired of people who wouldn’t visit a doctor who used a stethoscope instead of an MRI demanding that farmers like me use 1930s technology to...

I am tyring to find a video of a news article of Al Gore in the 1996 Presidential Campaign telling Students from a FFA Group {Future Farmers of America} that they need to find a new career due to upcoming U.S. polocies shifting farming to overseas locations / countries. Can anyone help? pacrattsview@yahoo.com

Despite some really eloquent speeches to the contrary, our “for sale” House of Representatives passed the Food Fascism Act….euphemistically called a food safety act, by a margin of about 140 over the naysayer’s. True to form, Rosa DeLauro spoke about things she knows nothing about and couldn’t care less; Rosa just loves her some Monsanto! And that exclusion for farms??? Gone! And that includes you organic idiots who thought you had kissed enough behinds to have your industry excluded. The newly revised bill that appeared overnight after the original was defeated 29th of July, now includes all those farms we...

HR 2749 is being rushed through Congress, and the house may look to suspend the rules and fast track the bill at Obama’s request. Just what can we expect from this legislation? A lot more of the following: Dick Peixoto planted hedges of fennel and flowering cilantro around his organic vegetable fields in the Pajaro Valley near Watsonville to harbor beneficial insects, an alternative to pesticides. He has since ripped out such plants in the name of food safety, because his big customers demand sterile buffers around his crops. No vegetation. No water. No wildlife of any kind. “I was...

Farmers, activists at odds over animal treatment By DAVID EGGERT | Associated Press Writer 11:20 AM CDT, July 11, 2009 LANSING, Mich. - Michigan farmers and animal rights advocates are fighting over the treatment of farm animals, a conflict that ultimately may be taken to voters. The farm lobby is backing bipartisan legislation that would put into law the agriculture industry's guidelines for farm animals' health and welfare, and require audits of livestock farms. A 10-member council would review and possibly update animal care standards at least every five years and local governments would be pre-empted from setting their own...

For those of you who have not heard, HR 2749 the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, is a bill in congress that would basically eliminate Organic farming, and pretty well wipe out your back yard organic garden. For heaven’s sake, don’t even consider selling your homemade jam at a Farmers Market or the Saturday Market! Not unless you are willing to pay the 1000$ licensing fee anyway. With the stated purpose of making the Food system in the United States safer, the liberal Washington DC Government has decided in its wisdom to make the entire industry formulaic and regulated....

And another piece of legislation involving, surprise surprise, Waxman. Read the full text of H.R. 2749: Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009.

New Mexico officials captured and released a bear after it was spotted with a sheep it had just killed in the yard of a Dona Ana County farming community. Lita Tafoya found the 160-pound bear in her back yard after it had made the kill Thursday evening. State Department of Game and Fish officials tracked the bear near an elementary school ...

Another sweeping draconian measure from your representatives in Washington is quickly taking shape under H.R. 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act (FSEA) of 2009. Though not officially introduced until June 8, this bill seems to be the bill of choice for passage, as opposed to the eight other bills on the same subject that still sit in committees. Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee — Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), John Dingell (D-Mich.), Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), and Bart Stupack (D-Mich.) — met to discuss the bill on May 26, which 13 days bofore it was introduced. These congressmen are all...

Losing immigrant workers would mean losing farms, cows and milk, according to a survey on the effects of foreign-born labor on dairy farms that was released June 4 by the National Milk Producers Federation. The estimated effect of a 50 percent loss of the immigrant workforce on America's dairy farms would mean about 2,266 farms would go out of business, cow numbers would drop by more than 670,000 nationwide and milk production would drop by 14.7 billion pounds, the survey said. "We estimated that with a 50 percent loss in immigrant labor, we would expect to see an increase in...

The goal seems to be nothing short of eradicating American farms and self-sustainability. Even DEMOCRATS are opposing the Obama Energy Bill. Climate change legislation will be utterly devastating for American farmers. Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-IA) of the House Agriculture Committee says that not only will he not vote for it, but no one else on his committee will support it either. The bill would increase the cost of everything that farmers depend on, such as diesel fuel, gasoline, fertilizers, pesticides, and a host of other things. It would raise taxes on energy by $846 billion over the next ten years....

Only in in Obama's America! Our government can find a way to tax anything. The Environmental Protection Agency has come up with a "unique" way to fight global warming. They are going to tax Animal Farts I mean Flatulence. It has been reported that Cows are a leading supplier of "methane" into the atmosphere, and our government is going to do something about it. A Tax on livestock. As you might expect the US Cattlemen's Association is not happy:

EDITORIAL Crop Farmers Could Also Be Impacted by EPA Tax By Estil Fretwell Missouri Farm BureauCut to the Chase An editorial column from the Missouri Farm Bureau Federation701 South Country Club Drive, Jefferson City, MO 65102 · Voice (573) 893-1468 · Fax (573) 893-1560 · www.mofb.org This column may also be used as an op/ed piece or letter to the editor. Crop Farmers Could Also Be Impacted by EPA Tax By Estil Fretwell Considerable media attention has been given to the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking published last fall by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which could tax livestock flatulence....

BAGHDAD — The Directorate General of Water Resources for Baghdad, Thair Dahri, visited Pump Station One in Saab al-Bour, May 16, to encourage students learning new skills and see firsthand the recent increase in irrigation. "This increase means [more than 6,000 acres] of land will be irrigated," said Thair. "We are committed to increasing the ability to maintain this pump station as well." Thair talked with 18 students training as operators at the station and said the ministry is working on getting them employed. "We have helped increase the output of Pump Station One from two cubic meters per second...

A new method for irrigating fields has been developed in Israel and will be presented at the upcoming International Agritech Exhibition 2009 in Tel Aviv. The water crisis in Israel and throughout the world is expediting the development of technological solutions for reducing the amount of water used in agriculture. In the new method, dew that falls during the night is channeled and used to irrigate produce. Normally, drops of dew that fall on a field would not reach a plant's roots since the small amount of water doesn't penetrate deep into the soil. But with the new technology...

WASHINGTON, April 13, 2009 – As the planting season gets under way in Iraq, U.S. forces there are adding agriculture supplies to regular humanitarian outreach efforts they conduct with Iraqi forces. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Thomas Jones Jr. hands a meal to a girl in Samarra, Iraq, March 31, 2009. U.S. Army photo by Ian M. Terry  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The Task Force Bucca civil affairs team presented agricultural equipment April 11 to members of the Umm Qasr and Safwan farmers associations and town councils at Camp Bucca. The forces presented six water trucks and eight...

A young Iraqi boy receives Halal meals and water from U.S. and Iraqi Soldiers in Bara'ia, Samarra, Iraq, March 31. Photo by Sgt. Ian Terry, 25th Infantry Division Public Affairs. COB SPEICHER — Iraqi and U.S. Soldiers delivered dozens of humanitarian aid packages containing several cases of Halal meals to families in the Bara’ia neighborhood near Samarra, March 31.“Bara’ia is an extremely impoverished area of Samarra, and local residents are not used to receiving humanitarian aid from government or Coalition forces,� said 1st. Lt. Daniel Flynn, platoon leader. “The last time most of these folks saw people in uniform, they...

On the March 28 World News Saturday, ABC gave rare attention to the plight of drought-stricken farmers in California who have been denied access to a major water supply by a judge citing the Endangered Species Act to protect a type of fish. During a story recounting the unusual level of problems facing these farmers – a recession coinciding with drought – correspondent Lisa Fletcher informed viewers: "And for the first time ever, farmers may be completely cut off from one of their sources of water. Farmers don't have access to this water that runs right through the center...

'Holy Mary, Help Us in Our Hour of Need!' A mysterious illness is causing calves to bleed to death on German farms. Veterinarians are stumped over what is causing the deaths: vaccines, genetically modified feed or perhaps even the first mother's milk? What can a cattle farmer do when he sees blood running from his calves like water, when they become lethargic and febrile and, by the next morning, are lying dead on the floor, their coats covered in blood? "Our calves from last summer looked like they had been beaten," says farmer Robert Meyboom, who is still shocked and...

HR 875 The food police, criminalizing organic farming and the backyard gardener, and violation of the 10th amendment This bill is sitting in committee and I am not sure when it is going to hit the floor.  One thing I do know is that very few of the Representatives have read it.  As usual they will vote on this based on what someone else is saying.  Urge your members to read the legislation and ask for opposition to this devastating legislation.  Devastating for everyday folks but great for factory farming ops like Monsanto, ADM, Sodexo and Tyson to name a...

Trinidad and Walsenburg ranchers find dead cow, calf. Two more Southern Colorado ranchers say they have discovered cows mutilated under strange circumstances. A cow on a ranch near Walsenburg was found with its udders cut off and a calf on a ranch near Trinidad was found missing the entire center of its body as well as its ears. A similar mutilation was discovered March 8 on a pasture near the Purgatoire River, just west of the small town of Weston. That cow was found dead by rancher Mike Duran with its udders and reproductive organs surgically removed from its body....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A bill that would ban the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in animals would hurt the health of livestock and poultry while compromising efforts to protect the safety of the country's food supply, the leader of the largest U.S. farm group said on Tuesday. Bob Stallman, president of the 6 million-member American Farm Bureau Federation, said in a letter to Congress that its members "carefully, judiciously and according to label instructions" use antibiotics to treat, prevent and control disease in animals. "Antibiotic use in animals does not pose a serious public health threat," said Stallman, who urged lawmakers...

Evidence for health claims is thin, but a Pittsboro woman is pushing for testing. There is nothing smooth about a cool glass of camel's milk. The animals aren't cooperative, milk production is less than stellar and it's illegal to sell across state lines. Still, proponents, led by Millie Hinkle of Pittsboro, say camel's milk may be an elixir, curing maladies from allergies to autism to diabetes – although the science behind such claims is thin. The prospect of a cure-all is what inspires Hinkle, a naturopathic physician who read about the health benefits in a magazine three years ago and...

The Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance (FARFA) is leading the fight to save family farms and individuals from expensive and unnecessary government regulation. Help us protect our food supply and our liberties! The National Animal Identification System ("NAIS") poses a serious threat to all farmers, ranchers, livestock owners, and companion-animal owners, whether they are organic or conventional, small or large, involved with animals for business or for pleasure. If it is made mandatory, every person with even one horse, cow, chicken, pig, goat, sheep, or virtually any other livestock animal on their premises will be required to register their homes...

Have we all suddenly gone mad? Have our wits suddenly deserted us? Has common sense been completely routed from our lives? The indications are not good. In a little-noticed verdict last week, a U.S. District Court of Appeals has decided that the Clean Air Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency to act against farmers who endanger public health by kicking up dust in the course of their business. Expect anti-dust regulations and fines to follow. For those unfamiliar with pastoral activities, allow me to enlighten: I grew up on a farm, and can personally attest that most types of agriculture...

Picture a guy named "Skip" out on the golf course. He's a tired looking corporate executive. The guy next to him is a congressman. He looks tired too. He carries around the weight of an old family surname -- Sandborne. That's not his only problem. He's facing an election against someone who has a reputation of telling it like it is. He's going to need a very hefty campaign war chest to make his own brand of falsehood seem something like the truth. At the end of the last hole, Skip says: "I need a favor."Sandborne: "Shoot.""We sell more grain...

Wed Mar 11, 2009 at 12:23:20 PM PDT Please Write to Your Congressional Representatives Ask Them to Sponsor the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2009 Vote Hemp is pleased to announce that the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2009 will be introduced soon. Yesterday, the offices of Rep. Ron Paul and Rep. Barney Frank sent out a Dear Colleague letter (PDF file 116K) to members of Congress inviting them to be original co-sponsors of the Act, which does not yet have a bill number. Please click here to write your Congressional representatives and ask them to consider becoming an original...

Truth for Tuesday---Sharon Zechinelli This week Truth Farmer will feature guest, activist and author extraordinaire, Sharon Zechinelli. Sharon has been fighting against the National Animal Identification System for years. Sharon has written a book entitled "First They Came for the Cows" which is available through her directly at henwhisperer@gmail.com, or through Amamzon.com chronicling the events and discoveries made by "Maddie" as she unwound the web of deceit used to foist this program upon the public. Sharon and Doreen have appeared together on a few radio shows and Cattlenetwork.com "Five Minutes with Jolley". Sharon has a wealth of information to share...

I need some advice on chicken breeds. Where I live in Central Texas, in the summer it’s not uncommon for us to have a 6 week run of high temperatures going over 100’. So here’s what I’m looking for in my dual-purpose hens:- I want girls that are temperature hardy that can handle the heat. (I know that I’m going to have to help any chicken survive a severe, prolonged heat-wave, [fresh water, misters, shade, etc.] but I don’t want to suffer 50% losses just because I was stupid enough to get birds which were never bred to handle it...

Wisconsin author Michael Perry has a book called "Truck: A Love Story." I decided to write a story and title it "Chickens: Not a Love Story." Let's start at the beginning of this non-love story. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? On our farm, it was a little of each. Sometimes they arrived as little chicks in a box and other times they popped out of eggs. I was searching my overcrowded memory bank, trying to remember where we got our baby chicks. I was pretty sure we bought them from Storbakken's in Westby. They had a grocery...

Britain's sheep farmers are on the brink of revolt over European commission proposals ordering them to electronically tag and identify every single animal in the 30 million-strong national flock. They claim the move will devastate the industry and could force farmers on to the streets in protest if Brussels insists on imposing regulations they claim are "crazy" and "unnecessary". The regulations, to be introduced in January next year, mean each sheep must be fitted with an electronic ear tag. The move is designed to track all individual sheep in the wake of the foot and mouth epidemic of 2001. But...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29, 2009 - Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced more than $6 million in grants to institutions and organizations who conduct training, outreach and technical assistance for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers."These programs are designed to help producers develop new profitable farming practices and increase their farm or ranch income," Vilsack said. "President Obama has pledged to ensure that government is inclusive and USDA is committed to that pledge and to opportunities that support a diverse population of producers who might not otherwise seek our support."These grants enable organizations to help farmers and ranchers successfully acquire, own, operate...