Category Archives: Agriculture

The food shortage solution in your own backyard

While the global food systems we depend on come under increasing strain, there’s a solution to the growing crisis that most Americans can find in their own backyards–or front lawns.

A confluence of crises—lockdowns and business closures, mandates and worker shortages, supply chain disruptions and inflation, sanctions and war—have compounded to trigger food shortages; and we have been warned that they may last longer than the food stored in our pantries. What to do? Continue reading

EPA sued over refusal to close deadly pesticide loophole decimating honey bees

"While EPA fiddles, grave harm to bees and other pollinators continues," said one advocacy group.

After waiting nearly five years for the Environmental Protection Agency to respond to a petition calling for the closing of a regulatory loophole which has proven deadly for honey bee colonies—spelling disaster for farmers’ crops, food security, and biodiversity—two advocacy groups are suing the agency and demanding officials take immediate action to end the use of harmful pesticides known as neonics. Continue reading

The simple fix our tax code so urgently needs: sunshine!

Income tax disclosure ought to be the law of the land, not a criminal offense.

America’s super rich are seeing red over ProPublica’s bombshell release of data from their tax returns—and so are America’s tax collectors. Treasury Department officials have already referred this “illegal” and “unauthorized disclosure of confidential government information” to the FBI. Merrick Garland, the U.S. attorney general, has pledged to lawmakers that finding the source of the leak to ProPublica “will be at the top of my list.” Continue reading

Migrant women farmworkers: An invisible essential labor force

The Biden administration must address the industry’s long-standing gender discrimination and systemic inequalities, which have become even more severe during the pandemic.

Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been an outpouring of public support for essential workers. But this national discourse has largely excluded migrant women farmworkers, despite their vital role in keeping food on American families’ tables. Continue reading

More brave new food: FDA approves an “innovative animal biotechnology product”

This month the FDA approved the first “intentional genomic alteration” (IGA) in pigs. The “animal biotechnology product” is called a “GalSafe” pig. It is designed to eliminate a substance called “alpha-gal sugar” found on the surface of pigs’ cells that could cause people with Alpha-gal (AGS), syndrome to have allergic reactions to red meat. The recently identified condition of AGS usually begins with a tick bite that sensitizes someone to later allergic reactions to beef, pork, and lamb. Continue reading

This holiday season, choose a new food future

What better symbol of agri-industry’s vision of “food” than the ubiquitous Butterball turkey so many ate for Thanksgiving?

America certainly has an abundance of food, even though many Americans do not. We face a momentous choice of whether to pursue a food future rooted in the ethic of sustainable agri-culture — or one based on the exploitative ethic of agri-industry. Continue reading

Trump’s failed coronavirus response

The Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has been a deliberate disaster from the beginning. But don’t take my word for it—just look at the facts. Continue reading

Yes, these drugs are in US meat

Thanks to animal welfare groups, most people are now aware of “factory farms.” Concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs abuse workers, animals, the environment, human consumers and even our tax dollars. (How? Price supports and government bailouts when diseases occur.) Thanks to greedy CAFOs crowding, diseases killed one-tenth of all US pigs and millions of chickens and turkeys a few years ago. Continue reading

New report details how EPA is promoting ‘worst of the worst pesticides’

From 2017-2018, the agency approved 69 new pesticide products containing an ingredient the EPA recognizes as a “known” or “likely” carcinogen. Continue reading

The latest livestock pandemic that Big Meat doesn’t want you to know about

There’s a lot the industrial factory farm industry prefers to keep consumers in the dark about, including what happens when millions of confined, stressed out animals with weakened immune systems are exposed to disease. Continue reading

A new disease Big Meat doesn’t want you to know about

Have you ever heard of African swine fever (ASF) caused by the African swine fever virus (ASFV)? A fourth of the world’s pigs have died from it just this year—half of all of China’s pigs—but like previous food animal pandemics, Big Meat has managed to keep it out of the news. Continue reading

Trump to small farmers: Get lost

As hundreds of Wisconsin dairy farms go under, the White House is telling them to clear out for the big guys.

Donald Trump’s idea of a good farm program seems to be “Hee Haw.” Continue reading

‘Unacceptable’: Family farms, ag advocates hit back after Sec Perdue Says small dairy farms destined to die

‘Five years of plunging farm prices, increasing bankruptcies, and climbing suicide rates were not discussed by Perdue. His message to them was basically, stop whining, your demise is inevitable.’

Furious family farmers flamed Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue Wednesday after comments he made on the future of the dairy business that cast doubt on the future of small farms during a stop in Wisconsin Tuesday. Continue reading

Just who got Trump’s farm bailouts?

Rich families cashed in on over half the bailout money set aside for farmers hurt by Trump’s trade policies.

Donald Trump loves farmers. We know this because he says so. “Farmers, I LOVE YOU!” he declared in December. Continue reading

Consumers losing the war against antibiotics in meat

Farmers continue to use antibiotics on animals, which is not good for people who eat that meat. A war is in progress, and consumers are losing the war against meat antibiotics. Continue reading

Fake food, fake meat: Big Food’s desperate attempt to further the industrialisation of food

Food is not a commodity, it is not “stuff” put together mechanically and artificially in labs and factories. Food is life. Food holds the contributions of all beings that make the food web, and it holds the potential of maintaining and regenerating the web of life. Food also holds the potential for health and disease, depending on how it was grown and processed. Food is therefore the living currency of the web of life. Continue reading

Taking farmers for a ride

Trump’s trade disruptions are inflicting real pain, but they’re also exposing the frailty of an agriculture economy built for big business.

Over the last year, President Trump has taken farmers on a roller coaster ride that’s finally gone off the rails. Continue reading

Trump hates farmers

He tweets odes to America's small farmers, but his actions are tearing them apart.

Have you noticed how often Donald Trump prefaces his comments and tweets with phrases like “frankly,” “to tell the truth,” and “believe me”? Continue reading

Silicon Valley’s next target: America’s farmers

They're building robots to siphon farm profits out of local communities and into the pockets of rich investors.

How’re you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm after they’ve seen… Angus? Not the cattle breed, but the 1,000-pound “farmer of the future.” Continue reading

What turkey producers don’t want you to know

As Turkey Day approaches, animal lovers cringe, food safety advocates become vigilant and industrial turkey producers hope you aren’t reading the news. Continue reading

Hazardous to health GMO foods and pesticides

The danger is indisputable. Independent scientific studies exposed the hazards long ago—suppressed by Washington and US media, supporting corporate profits over human health. Continue reading

What would it take to ‘win’ the drug war?

After decades of warfare, the federal drug war has become a predictable cycle. Continue reading

The Bayer-Monsanto merger is bad news for the planet

Two new studies from Europe have found that the number of farm birds in France has crashed by a third in just 15 years, with some species being almost eradicated. The collapse in the bird population mirrors the discovery last October that over three quarters of all flying insects in Germany have vanished in just three decades. Insects are the staple food source of birds, the pollinators of fruits, and the aerators of the soil. Continue reading

America’s farmworkers face poverty, neglect, and now deportation

Up to 70 percent of the people who put food on America's tables may be undocumented.

Every decade or so, America’s mass media are surprised to discover that migrant farmworkers are being miserably paid and despicably treated by the industry that profits from their labor. Continue reading

Brave new food so safe it’s not even labeled

Almost every issue that food activists care about—unlabeled, dangerous ingredients and drug traces; crowded, polluted farms that harm workers and the environment; Agribiz cornering the food supply and destroying family farms; and animal suffering—is magnified when genetically modified (GM) or genetically engineered (GE) animals are added into the equation. Continue reading

Farmers face fields of rotted crops as Trump rounds up illegal immigrants

Valrico, Florida, is in the heart of the “Strawberry Capital of America” and the spring harvest of these popular berries is fully underway. However, the chilling effect of President Trump’s order to round up illegal immigrants, many of them farm workers, stands to do more damage to the strawberry industry than any winter deep freeze. Many undocumented farm workers, fearful of being arrested by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, are hunkered down in their trailers and manufactured homes. The region’s strawberries would rot in the fields if it were not for the largely Mexican workforce that ensures that the crop reaches consumers in short order. The fear that Trump has thrown into the farm work force has local businesses and politicians irate over the president’s detention and expulsion order. Many local residents, most of whom voted for Trump, now have voters’ remorse as the strawberry industry faces irreparable harm. Continue reading

Are cloned animals on the U.S dinner table?

It has been six years since the BBC, while reporting on a cloned cattle herd in Britain, said cloned products have been in the U.S. food supply for two years. Margaret Wittenberg, global vice-president of Whole Foods Market at the time agreed. Continue reading

Bayer-Monsanto merger is ‘five-alarm threat’ to food and farms: legal experts

White paper from two former Justice Department officials warns merger would violate antitrust laws and lessen competition

A new legal opinion penned by two former Justice Department officials bolsters warnings that the proposed merger between agroindustrial giants Bayer and Monsanto “is a five-alarm threat to our food supply and to farmers around the world.” Continue reading

Frankenfoods headed for the dinner table

Consumers, safety activists, Big Food, biotech companies and many of the US’s importing and exporting partners have been closely watching to see if the FDA would approve the genetically engineered AquAdvantage Salmon, which it did late in 2015. Of course unlabeled GE crops are eaten by millions and GE animals have been created to make human drugs largely under the public radar. Still the AquAdvantage Salmon is the first approved GE animal destined for the US dinner table. Continue reading

Thanks, McDonald’s, for your egg consciousness, but don’t stop there

Before the animal rights movement, the egg was a kind of droll and comic object—used in phrases like “laid an egg” and “egg on my face,” and thrown at buildings or public figures. The chicken itself was comic–everyone’s favorite synonym for cowardice and for gender stereotypes (“mother hen” and “hen party”). A silly, overprotective bird that lays eggs and can barely fly? What’s not to ridicule? Continue reading

Scotland bans growing GM crops

Independent evidence shows GM foods and ingredients harm human health. All nations should ban them. Continue reading

Monsanto’s land grab in Ukraine

There goes Europe’s bread basket

Long considered Europe’s “bread basket,” Ukraine’s agricultural potential is huge. It’s rich dark soil is highly valued. Ideal for growing grain. Continue reading