By Richard Oswald The Farm Bill is a stew. The one ingredient it doesn’t contain now is some method that would keep farmers from overproduction. That would maintain independent farmers without costing taxpayers. The way to help farmers is to make sure that supplies of grain don’t depress prices. But that’s not in the ‘stew’ now being cooked up in the Farm Bill. Some people say the Farm Bill is pork for farmers. I say it’s really stew, Read More …
Category: General Advocacy
Speak Your Piece: Preserving the People’s Universities
By C. Robert Taylor I write this article not out of dissatisfaction with my life as a professor, but because I think the Land Grant universities are drifting away from their mission of providing help and education for common people like my family and me. These are the nation’s Land Grant universities — the Peoples’ Universities. The stalemate (in the Land-Grant System is) due to mindset, uncertain mission, ineffectual leadership and inappropriate organization. — Dr. James Meyer, Chancellor Read More …
We almost had it all
By Richard Oswald The old rule of thumb is that farmers live like paupers only to die as millionaires when heirs receive their estate. That’s because land grows in value over time, but the return it gives owners, modest, slow appreciation, is traditionally only about 5% per year. Its a long story why, but because they owed money on their farm my parents were a little poorer in the early sixties than typical farmers their age. Corn prices Read More …
Pink Slime: Dark Side of Industrial Food System Exposed
by Mike Callicrate “Changes will not simply happen…Changes will occur when consumers realize what they’ve been eating, get angry, and demand something different…It remains our responsibility, with every vote and every dollar spent on food, to start making it right.” (Eric Schlosser’s foreword from Slaughterhouse Blues.) Schlosser is also the author of Fast Food Nation and co-producer of the film that awakened America, Food, Inc. It was a beautiful spring day in 1996. American’s were convinced that eating Read More …
GRAVY
By Richard Oswald Simple things–like the first meal of the day–are always best. Bacon and eggs, pancakes and sausage, biscuits, or plain old grits, you just can’t beat a country breakfast. When it gets right down to it, the flavor of the whole day is topped off with one thing; Good or bad, for better or worse, it’s all about gravy. A few years ago, hotels started offering customers breakfast at free buffets. First it was cereal, yogurt, Read More …
USDA INC.: HOW AGRIBUSINESS HAS HIJACKED REGULATORY POLICY AT THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
BY PHILIP MATTERA CORPORATE RESEARCH PROJECT OF GOOD JOBS FIRST Released At the Food and Agriculture Conference of The Organization for Competitive Markets EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Complete Paper: PDF | Google Scholar (HTML) IN ITS EARLY DAYS, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was dubbed the “People’s Department” by President Lincoln, in recognition of its role in helping the large portion of the population that worked the land. Some 140 years later, USDA has been transformed into something Read More …