Category Archives: Farming

Killing The Economy Part 1 – The Farm Bill

Posted on April 28, 2018 by

Got this email from Iowa CCI Thursday looking for stories from farmers concerning the new Farm Bill that is weaving its way through the Republican controlled US House and US Senate. If you haven’t heard, this bill has many repugnant … Continue reading →

Posted in #trumpresistance, Blog for Iowa, economic inequality, Economic Justice, Economy, Farming

There Is A Family Dairy Farm Crisis

Posted on April 25, 2018 by

Things are bad when the coop sends the suicide hotline number with the milk payment. Milk prices are currently about $15 per hundred weight while cost of production at family farms is more than $22 per hundred weight. Like so … Continue reading →

Posted in Farming | Tagged , , ,

Earth Day ALERT: Bayer, Monsanto Merger Nears

Posted on April 21, 2018 by

A little reminder dropped into my mailbox the other day from a group known as “Friends of the Earth.” The reminder was that the mega merger of Bayer and Monsanto was still in the works and had recently passed some … Continue reading →

Posted in #trumpresistance, Blog for Iowa, Economy, Farming, food | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Breaking The Grip of Corporate Ag on Rural Iowa

Posted on October 17, 2017 by

Jefferson County Farmers and Neighbors, Inc. P.O. Box 811, Fairfield, IA 52556 jfan@lisco.com • http://www.jfaniowa.org • 641-209-6600 Award-winning agricultural journalist Alan Guebert on Breaking Free of Corporate Ag – JFAN Annual Meeting Factory farming has a stranglehold on rural Iowa, … Continue reading →

Posted in #trumpresistance, Farming | Tagged , , , , ,

Grit Alone Won’t Protect Local Food Systems

Posted on October 5, 2017 by

The marketplace of home vegetable gardens, community supported agriculture, farmers markets, road side vegetable stands, restaurants, retail interests and direct farm sales hasn’t coalesced into a sustainable local food system, and may not. One should never doubt the resilience of … Continue reading →

Posted in Farming, Local Food | Tagged , ,

Herbicide Linked To Damage Of More Than 150,000 Acres Of Iowa’s Soybean Crop

Posted on September 7, 2017 by

Austin Frerick calls on EPA to ban the use of Monsanto’s Dicamba until further testing. WINTERSET – Today, Third Congressional District candidate Austin Frerick called on the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture to halt the … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog for Iowa, Corporate Greed, Farming | Tagged , , ,

Is The American Farm Bureau Just Another Corporate Entity?

Posted on August 22, 2017 by

This 60 Minutes expose of the American Farm Bureau from April, 2000 raises the idea that the Farm Bureau may care more about its Wall Street investments than it does about farmers.  We wonder what if anything has changed since … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog for Iowa, Farming | Tagged , ,

Who Really Owns American Farmland

Posted on August 12, 2017 by

“We’re used to thinking of escalating rents as an urban problem, something suffered mostly by the citizens of booming cities. So when city people look out over a farm—whether they see corn stalks, or long rows of fruit bushes, or … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog for Iowa, Farming | Tagged , ,

Organic Food’s Sticky Wicket

Posted on July 17, 2017 by

When people think of local food, most have seasonal sweet corn and tomatoes in mind. That hasn’t changed much in years. The quest for good-tasting food that does no harm has also been around for a long time. Organic food … Continue reading →

Posted in Farming, Local Food, Organic Foods & Farming, politics | Tagged , , , ,

Iowa Water Quality And Confirmation Bias

Posted on April 5, 2017 by

Progressives, farmers and environmentalists heard there is movement in the Iowa legislature to fund water quality and ears perked up — a natural impulse to interpret new events as supporting something we already believe or are working on, also known … Continue reading →

Posted in Environment, Farming, water | Tagged , , , ,