Free Republic

Doctors warned that getting on a tractor could kill Don Goodman. Neighbors knew grounding the 70-year-old sugar beet farmer during harvest was medicine Goodman wouldn’t take. So Thursday afternoon, friends and family from as far as 30 miles away gathered in Goodman’s fields south of Fromberg with a cure of their own. They rolled up in tandem-axel farm trucks and semitrailers, brought beet diggers and bushels of good will. As Goodman watched, uncomfortable being idle, they harvested the 80-acre crop doctors forbid him from doing himself. By 4 p.m. they had more than 400 tons of beets loaded up and...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkq3tnzkcWM As today's video explains, our Craigslist ad finally paid off: The TV was sold! A young fellow who looked like he may have been a college student outfitting his dorm room got quite a bargain. But the transaction reminded of something that occurred years ago, when I got convicted that my huge collection of secular rock 'n' roll cd's needed to go. I had always loved rock (the edgier, the better) and I had amassed a remarkable library of music; if I were to deny that the sometimes satanic, always worldly content of those songs influenced me, I'd be...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC-mgpnGAKo Jim's update: In the Day 15 video, Missy and I were discussing our hope that someone would hear about Family Media Detox and take up the challenge. In today's video, we introduce you to the answer to that prayer!

CLARKSTON, GA (CNN) - A Georgia man is headed to court over how many vegetables he can grow on his land. Code enforcement says until recently, the farmer had too many vegetable plants for his property in Clarkston, just outside Atlanta. Steve Miller's profession is landscaping, but his passion is growing organic vegetables. That passion landed the Clarkston man in court. Before he rezoned the land two months ago, DeKalb County Code Enforcement cited him for illegal growing crops and using unpermitted workers. "I never realized this could get me in trouble," Miller said. "In fact, it was a shock...

Neo-colonial rush for global farmland has gone exponential since the food scare of 2007-2008. Last week's long-delayed report by the World Bank suggests that purchases in developing countries rose to 45m hectares in 2009, a ten-fold jump from levels of the last decade. Two thirds have been in Africa, where institutions offer weak defence. As is by now well-known, sovereign wealth funds from the Mid-East, as well as state-entities from China, the Pacific Rim, and even India are trying to lock up chunks of the world's future food supply. Western agribusiness is trying to beat them to it. Western funds...

Salazar's 5-year-old son was attacked and severely mauled by a cougar that tried to drag the boy off a well-used hiking trail and into the woods in the Sandia Mountains outside of Albuquerque. The story was so frightening that it made national news. "People would say that it was just an accident. That it was extremely rare, just a rare accident." ...Convinced that three attacks in three months didn't qualify as rare... In 2006 and 2007, there were nine reported ... In 2008, there were 40 reported encounters before the attack on her son in May. This led her into...

Ron Hoskins has found a breed of the insect that protects itself against the parasite blamed for the alarming fall in numbers. The 79-year-old made the discovery after realising that one of his hives had far fewer deaths from the varroa mite than others. He found that the insects in that hive 'groomed' each other to get rid of the mites before they had the chance to do any harm. Now he is attempting to spread his mite-resistant breed of bees by cross-breeding them with queens from other hives. Decline: The UK's bee population had dropped by 60 per cent...

Last week, a federal district court judge in northern California issued an injunction against planting biotech sugar beets next year. Why? He accepted the activist argument that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) must issue a full environmental impact statement (EIS) under the National Environmental Policy Act before permitting the improved sugar beets to be grown. An EIS is required when a federal government agency engages in actions that might be "significantly affecting the quality of the human environment." So how are biotech sugar beets (already approved by the USDA, mind you) significantly affecting the human environment? Activists at the...

Frank W. James demonstrates the proper way to blog about guns-specifically the 10MM Auto- as in how well they function in the context of a tool to carry to accomplish certain tasks. (CLICK LINK HERE) His comments remind me just how different is life out on the farm. About 10-15 years ago I started to hang around an Old Farmer’s “back 40″ on a fairly regular basis and came to appreciate how common views about guns and shooting over the course of my lifetime have become skewed in favor of complete foolishness. Whether the foolishness is the foolishness of “responsible...

In a sign of these dismal times, the oldest family farm in America is up for sale because its owners just cannot survive this down economy. After 378 years of contiguous family ownership and operation, the Tuttle family of Dover, New Hampshire is selling its 134-acre farm. Founded in 1632 by John Tuttle fresh off the boat from the Old World, the Tuttle family farm has moved on with the times, improved and changed to continue operating. But, at long last, this economy is too much for them to bear. Curiously, the Associated Press worked very hard to downplay the...

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering a crackdown on farm dust, so senators have signed a letter addressing their concerns on the possible regulations. Many in the Oklahoma farming industry are opposed to the EPA's consideration. One farmer said the possible regulations are ridiculous. Roberts, a fourth generation farmer and rancher in Arcadia, said regulating dust in rural areas will hurt farmers' harvest, cultivation and livelihood. "Anytime you work ground, you're going to have dust. I don't know how they'll regulate it," Roberts said. "The regulations are going to put us down and keep us from...

HARRISBURG, Pa. — The search by the booming North American population of Amish for affordable, fertile farmland has produced settlements in 28 states and Ontario — and has even led parties to scout recently for suitable properties in Alaska and Mexico. A new study estimates the number of Amish has increased nearly 10 percent in the past two years alone, to a total population of 249,000, compared with about 227,000 in 2008. That figure was just 124,000 in 1992. Nearly all Amish descended from a group of about 5,000 in the early 20th century.

The Orlando-based owner of Red Lobster is trying to do something no one has ever done on a large commercial scale: Lobster farming. It won't be easy and will take years to figure out. Lobsters are tough to raise in captivity. They take a long time to grow, eat a lot and are susceptible to a contagious, fatal disease. But if Darden Restaurants can make its project work, it could revolutionize the way lobsters get to our dinner plates. Growing lobsters could make them a cheaper commodity, experts say, much like aquaculture did for shrimp and salmon. But it could...

ZIMBABWE'S coffee production has hit a record low since Independence following the chaotic land reform exercise that reduced coffee growing estates to four from 120. Statistics gathered after a high level coffee stakeholder conference held last week in Mutare show that organic coffee production mostly in Zimbabwe's Eastern Highlands pl-unged to 300 tonnes in 2010 from a peak production of 15 000 tonnes in 1990 when farmers raked in US$37,5 million from sales. Production has been in freefall for the past 10 years, signalling a threat to the livelihood of both commercial and communal farmers ... Today the coffee sector...

Agricultural output in the Bric nations will grow three times as fast as in the major developed countries, the joint United Nations-OECD study said. Livestock and crop prices will stay above long-term averages, it added. And rising incomes and urbanisation in developing states will drive growth. "Developing countries will provide the main source of growth for world agricultural production, consumption and trade," the report said. "As incomes rise, diets are expected to slowly diversify away from staple foods towards increased meats and processed foods that will favour livestock and dairy products.

1996: Congress changes course in farm policy with the passage of the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act—the “Freedom to Farm” law. The law is designed to allow farmers greater planting flexibility and better align producer decisions with market supply and demand. But Congress reneges on reform, and passes large supplemental farm subsidy bills four years in a row beginning in 1998. When the 1996 law was passed, subsidies were expected to cost $47 billion over 1996 to 2002, but they ended up costing $121 billion. (cato)

LANCASTER, Pa. — With simplicity as their credo, Amish farmers consume so little that some might consider them model environmental citizens. Manure that accumulates on Amish farms easily washes into nearby streams, then into the troubled Chesapeake Bay. The federal government’s work with Amish farmers is part of an initiative intended to restore the bay to good health. “We are supposed to be stewards of the land,” said Matthew Stoltzfus, a 34-year-old dairy farmer and father of seven whose family, like many other Amish, shuns cars in favor of horse and buggy and lives without electricity. “It is our Christian...

The American Farm Bureau Federation and 48 other farm groups have joined together in urging the Senate to adopt a resolution that would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act without prior congressional approval. AFBF President Bob Stallman said virtually all of American agriculture is united in the belief that regulation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases should be decided by Congress and not by fiat from a federal regulatory agency. "Farm Bureau has said all along that the Clean Air Act is not the place to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The...

(Memphis 6/1/2010) A mystery is unfolding across MidSouth farms. Something is killing crops, trees, even weeds and nobody can explain why. Farmers are scratching their heads and some are worried their crops may be lost to the mysterious plague. It's happening along a large swath of land near the Shelby and Tipton county border along Herring Hill Road and elsewhere near the Mississippi River bottoms. Tiny dots appear to have burned onto leaves of all types of plants, and they appear different depending on the plant. On corn stalks, the dots seem to turn white in the center. On other...

CONTINGENCY OPERATING SITE MAREZ – A team of U.S. Soldiers here is working with Iraqi farmers to enhance growing methods, crop yields and the distribution of quality seeds.Children play with sheep in Ninewa province, Iraq, May 10, 2010. The sheep will be distributed to 4,500 local farming families as part of a joint U.S.-Iraqi venture to implement a fully encompassed agricultural economy into the country, which currently imports 72 percent of its agricultural goods. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Dustin Gautney.Currently, Iraq imports 72 percent of its agricultural goods from foreign nations, including Syria and Iran, driving market prices ever...