NewsTrust - Farming - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Independent)

The End of Pasta

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0800

The Daily Beast - By Mark Hertsgaard - Dec. 10 (Comment) - Temperatures are rising. Rainfalls are shifting. Droughts are intensifying. What will we eat when wheat won’t grow.

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The Big Picture on RT

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Big Picture on RT - By Thom Hartman, Frederick Kaufman - Oct. 28 (Opinion) - (Video)

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WikiLeaks expose corruption as France Bans Monsanto’s GMO Maize

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0700

DigitalJournal.com - By Anne Sewell - Jun. 07 (Opinion) - Coming soon after France bans GMO maize, WikiLeaks cables expose details of 'military-style trade wars' against countries who reject Monsanto GMOs.

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Shameful Kowtowing to the Meat Industry: 147 Congressmen Diss Family Farmers

Tue, 24 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Wenonah Hauter - May. 24 (Opinion) - these 147 Congressmen and women are protecting the interests of big factory farms, preventing rules that would make farming fair and help reverse the stranglehold Big Ag has on the food system.

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Pollinator decline & pesticides

Tue, 24 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

panna.org - May. 24 (Advocacy) - While wild pollinators like bats and bumble bees are also facing catastrophic declines, managed honey bees are the most economically important pollinators in the world. According to a recent U.N. report, of the 100 crops that provide 90% of the world's food, over 70 are pollinated by bees. In the U.S. alone, honey bees’ economic contribution is valued at over $15 billion

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"Every 30 Minutes": Crushed by Debt and Neo-Liberal Reforms, Indian Farmers Commit Suicide At Staggering Rate

Wed, 11 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Smita Narula, Amy Goodman - May. 11 (Interview) - A quarter of a million Indian farmers have committed suicide in the last 16 years—an average of one suicide every 30 minutes. The crisis has ballooned with economic liberalization that has removed agricultural subsidies and opened Indian agriculture to the global market. Small farmers are often trapped in a cycle of insurmountable debt, leading many to take their lives out of sheer desperation. We speak with Smita Narula of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University Law School, co-author of a new report on farmer suicides in India.

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Welcome to the Year of Living Dangerously

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

populist.com - Feb. 15 (Opinion) -

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Potential Immigrant Whistleblowers Face Hostile Environment

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

New America Media - By Sarah Damian - Oct. 08 (Opinion) - The role of a whistleblower already brings with it many intense challenges: possible job loss, drop in income, broken relationships, etc. But what if these brave souls were also seen as criminals in the eyes of many? To have a voice at all is a potential risk – let alone speaking out against the system that employs you. This is the conundrum confronting many immigrant workers in the country -- particularly in the agriculture and food industries.

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Exploring the Vast Potential of a Strange New Industry

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

0u812.wordpress.com - Oct. 01 (Opinion) - Our pressing need to develop a more sustainable society also provides the opportunity for entrepreneurs to develop niche markets which may someday leave the corporate giants of today in the dust, where they belong.

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WATCH: Stephen Colbert and Farmworkers Take Fight To Congress

Sat, 25 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Crooks and Liars - By Jackie Mahendra, Stephen Colbert - Sep. 25 (Opinion) - Remember those fed-up farm workers who teamed up with Colbert to highlight the hypocrisy of nativist arguments? Well, not only did they get Colbert to go out to the fields to harvest beans and corn, but they got him to testify before Congress! In the latest development from the United Farm Workers ? creative "Take Our Jobs" Campaign -- Stephen Colbert testifed before the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security: Click here to view this media [H/t Heather Via Huffington Post: Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert is testifying before Congress today about immigration during a hearing called " Protecting America?s Harvest ." Colbert is appearing with United Farm Workers (UFW) President Arturo S. Rodriguez before the House Judiciary Committee?s Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law. In August, the comedian spent a day working at a corn and vegetable farm in New York state after Rodriguez appeared on his show to ...

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Corn subsidies make unhealthy food choices the rational ones

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Grist - By Donald Carr. - Sep. 21 (Opinion) - A big reason that food products derived from corn are so pervasive in America’s diet today is that for decades taxpayers have given corn growers incentives to grow as much as possible through the skewed federal farm subsidy system. The $73.8 billion lavished on corn since 1995 has helped to churn out a host of cheap and unhealthy foods—from chips to sugary sodas to high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Hold on: Make that “corn sugar.” With consumers souring on HFCS, the Corn Refiners Association has embarked on a re-branding effort, as Tom Laskawy mocked, to prop up the lagging sales of the calorie-laden sweetener that’s found in nearly all cheap processed foods. Many of the factors that contribute to the nation’s broken food and farm system, like perverse subsidies for commodity grain growers, were exposed in a September 5 Denver Post article. In “Spoiled system: Eating healthier comes with a price for families,” reporter Karen Auge explored the factors that make fresh fruits and vegetables costlier than highly subsidized and less healthy foods based on corn and soy: The reasons fresh fruits and vegetables are so pricey compared with processed food in a carton are a complicated stew of government subsidies, politics and the whims of Mother Nature. But their combined might, say critics pushing for a change in the way money is doled out, moves us away from fruits and vegetables and toward meat, dairy products and the sugar- and sodium-loaded processed foods for which crops like corn and wheat serve as the raw ingredients. “We’ve made the unhealthy choice the rational choice,” said Merrick Weaver, who, as executive director of Partnership for Healthy Communities, works to improve nutrition among lower-income families in Commerce City [Colo.]. Weaver was echoing Michael Pollan, whose book The Omnivore’s Dilemma has become a manifesto for those trying to shift discussion about the country’s obesity epidemic to include the food-production infrastructure. In short, “You can buy more calories for your dollar if you buy bad foods,” Weaver said. There is no denying that America faces a health crisis with its simultaneous obesity and hunger epidemics. And right now is an especially good time to confront the issue. The law that guides federal food and agriculture policy—the Farm Bill—comes up for debate again in 2012, and deliberations have already begun. The corn refiners’ push to re-brand corn syrup is a clear response to the growing awareness among consumers not only of the environmental perils of modern industrial agriculture, but the heavy toll of our current food and farm system on the health of families and kids. If the death grip that agribusiness and its powerful lobby have had on the food and farm status quo is to be loosened, subsidy-friendly members of Congress must hear from people who want a system that serves them and their families. One important thing for consumers to note is that in 2009, $15.4 billion in subsidies were lavished on the growers of corn, cotton, rice, wheat, and soybeans.?In that same year, fruits, vegetables and organics received only $825 million in support from the federal government. And that money doesn’t go directly into fruit and vegetable growers’ pockets, but mostly goes toward procurement for schools, research and market promotion programs. We can agree with the subsidy lobby that eliminating the billions in grain subsidies tomorrow wouldn’t make much of a dent in the widespread availability of cheap chips and soda. What our maze of farm and risk management subsidies do is facilitate a highly risky agricultural business model that makes our industrial food system overly dependent on one or two grain crops. In the end, these? subsidies are not about producing food at all. They are about taking the financial risk out of a system that encourages fencerow-to-fencerow production of raw material for highly processed food—with deleterious effects on the environment and human health. A slick re-branding campaign for high-fructose corn syrup can’t obscure the reality that the commodity growers trot out contradictory messages as they fight to keep the subsidy spigot open: When crop subsidies are criticized for lavishing the bulk of their largesse on the largest and wealthiest farm operations, taxpayers are told by the agri-lobby? that those payments are critical to preserving the cheapest and most abundant food supply in the world. But when they’re challenged with the reality that subsidized corn, soybeans and wheat dump a glut of cheap, unhealthy calories on the market, agribusiness objects that “it’s desperately a myth in need of correction.” So which is it? Do subsidies make unhealthy food cheaper, or don’t they? Related Links: Carrot vending machines a surprise success Why is the FDA about to rubber-stamp GE salmon? Will the real conservatives please stand up?

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Arturo Rodriguez Interview

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

colbertnation.com - By Stephen Colbert - Jul. 08 (Interview) - Arturo Rodriguez invites Americans who think immigrant farm workers are taking away jobs to work in the fields.

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US food aid policies create 561 jobs in Kansas, risk millions of lives around the world

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

aidwatchers.com - By Laura Freschi - Jun. 28 (Opinion) - ... current US food aid policies are NOT an effective or efficient way for the US to achieve what should rightly be the primary objective for food aid. According to the government’s own accountability office, buying food locally in sub-Saharan Africa (which is where the majority of US food aid goes) costs 34 percent less than shipping it from the US, AND gets there on average more than 100 days more quickly, AND is more likely to be the kind of food people are used to eating. I am not arguing that cash aid is ALWAYS better than food aid, only that any reasonable food aid policy would allow aid agencies the flexibility to determine what kind of assistance works best in each situation.

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Obama Puts Pesticide Pusher in Charge of Agricultural Trade Relations

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0700

biologicaldiversity.org - Mar. 29 (Press Release) - Sidestepping a stalled Senate confirmation vote, yesterday President Obama recess-appointed Islam Siddiqui to be chief agricultural negotiator in the office of the U.S. trade representative. Dr. Siddiqui's nomination was held up in the Senate and was opposed by the Center for Biological Diversity and more than 80 other environmental, small-farm, and consumer groups. More than 90,000 concerned citizens contacted the White House and Senate to oppose the nomination.read more

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Michael Pollan on "Food Rules: An Eater's Manual"

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Feb. 08 (Interview) - Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, discusses the link between healthcare and diet, the dangers of processed foods, the power of the meat industry lobby, the “nutritional-industrial complex,” the impact industrial agriculture has on global warming, and his sixty-four rules for eating. "The markets are full of what I call edible food-like substances that you have to avoid," says Michael Pollan. "So a lot of the rules are to help you, you know, navigate that now very treacherous landscape of the American supermarket." Today we air an excerpt of the Oscar-nominated documentary Food, Inc. and then spend the rest of the show with Michael Pollan.

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Sick of Corporate Control Over Your Food?

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Firedoglake - By Jill Richardson - Dec. 28 (Opinion) - When a market is competitive, everyone wins. Businesses that can innovate or grow more efficient rise to the top while consumers get the best products for the best price. However, when one (or a few) corporations gain too much power over the market, those benefits go away. Think about it – if there was only one company out there selling something essential for life (for example, seeds for all of our major food crops) – they could charge whatever they wanted and we’d have to pay it. Especially if they figured out a clever way to keep new companies from emerging and gaining any share of the market.

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Obama Nominates Pesticide Executive to Be Chief Agricultural Negotiator in the Office of the US Trade Representative

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, Amy Goodman - Nov. 17 (Interview) - President Obama’s nominee for the Chief Agricultural Negotiator in the office of the US Trade Representative, Islam Siddiqui is currently a vice president at CropLife America, a coalition of the major industrial players in the pesticide industry, including Syngenta, Monsanto, and Dow Chemical.

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Jonathan Safran Foer's Controversial New Book, Eating Animals

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Aaron Gross - Oct. 26 (Review) - Over the next weeks Huffington Post will feature a diverse range of responses to Jonathan Safran Foer's controversial new work of non-fiction, Eating Animals.

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Big Ag’s odd obsession with You-Know-Who

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Grist - By Tom Laskawy - Oct. 09 (Opinion) - Big Ag has clearly decided that Pollan is a latter-day Lenin (or perhaps Trotsky?) leading a cadre of food revolutionaries who threaten to overthrow its hard-fought hegemony—rebut his arguments and perhaps the whole movement will collapse like a bad soufflé. All in reaction to a relatively unassuming guy who’s written some articles and a few books. Isn’t this all, like, a bit much?

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Dow Agrosciences: farm like there’s no tomorrow!

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Grist - By Tom Philpott - Jul. 28 (Review) - “If you’re going to farm a piece of land, you ought to farm it for all its worth.” —Tim Hassinger, commercial vice president at Dow AgroSciences, quoted in an AP story called “Chemical makers go on the offensive in agriculture.”

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The Patriot's Guide to Legalization

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Kevin Drum - Jul. 06 (Opinion) - Maybe the war against pot is about to get a lot uglier. After all, in the 1920s, Prohibition gave us Al Capone and the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, and that was over plain old whiskey and rum. Are we about to start paying the same price for marijuana?

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Update to the update on “Hey, Limbaugh” 5/8/2009

Fri, 08 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

agweb.com - By Steve Cornett - May. 08 (Opinion) - In an earlier update, we wondered why Rush Limbaugh is stonewalling on his support for the Humane Society of the United States. One response accuses this reporter of not listening to Mr. Limbaugh, offering the challenge, “Listen, and then we can talk about where he stands on the issues.” Of course I listen to Limbaugh, as does just about everybody I know. I listen and mostly I agree. His support of the animal rights agenda has lowered him in my opinion, and by a lot. No, wait. It’s not his support for the movement. It’s his failure to own up and explain why he thinks that way.

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Harvesting Emissions

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Living On Earth - By Sara Scherr - Jan. 23 (Interview) - Through crop and livestock production and land clearing, the world's agricultural sector is a bigger contributor to global warming than the transportation sector. Economist Sara Scherr, CEO of Ecoagriculture Parters, says it’s time to start looking at farmers as environmental stewards, not just food producers. She speaks with Steve Curwood about techniques that help farmers mitigate and adapt to climate change.

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Soil Not Oil: Why We Need to Kick Petroleum Out of Our Farms

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Vandana Shiva - Dec. 04 (Opinion) - The following is an excerpt from Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis by Vandana Shiva (South End Press, 2008). The industrialized, globalized food system is based on oil. It is under threat because of the inevitability of "peak oil." It is also under threat because it is more vulnerable than traditional agriculture to climate change, to which it has contributed. Industrial agriculture is based on monocultures. Monocultures are highly vulnerable to changes in climate, and to diseases and pests.

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We are heading for a global environmental credit crunch

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Straight.com - By Charlotte Argue - Sep. 29 (Opinion) - Although this credit crunch may pose a legitimate threat to many livelihoods and pensions, there is another crunch we have much greater reason to fear. We are in the midst of a credit crunch that threatens not only the economy of every country, but also the fate of thousands, if not millions of species, including our own. Our actions, largely driven by the capitalist market, are depleting Earth's resource bank at unprecedented rates, causing a shrinking supply of Earth's resource capital: a global environmental credit crunch.

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