http://vermontbeancrafters.com/

• Walz #3 (WITHDRAWN) to provide $800 million in mandatory funding for agriculture energy programs. These valuable and popular programs are needed to improve energy efficiency and deployment of alternative energy on farms as well as to advance bioenergy technologies and biomass supply for the next generation of biomass based heat, power, fuels and biobased products.

• Kuster #28 (WITHDRAWN) to eliminate an unfair $20,000 payment limitation per year on farmers under the organic initiative.  All other farmers have a $300,000 payment limit in EQIP, so this amendment would help to level the playing field and ensure that all farmers are subject to the same payment limitations in EQIP.

• Kuster #35 and #36 (WITHDRAWN) to increase the unfair cap on wildlife practices in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). The underlying bill allows only 5% of EQIP funds to go towards wildlife practices. This is particularly concerning since well over 5% of EQIP are currently going towards wildlife practices and the standalone Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program is being eliminated. These amendments would require that at least 5% or more of EQIP funds go towards wildlife practices.

• Courtney #51 (WITHDRAWN) to restore mandatory funding for organic data and certification programs.  This amendment restores mandatory funding that was included in last year’s Committee-passed bill for the Organic Production and Market Data Initiatives) and the National Organic Program.
• Costa #69 (WITHDRAWN) to restore the National Organic Certification Cost Share Program. This amendment strikes the repeal of the National Organic Certification Cost Share Program and provides $22 million (the same level provided in the 2008 Farm Bill) for organic producers to offset a portion of the annual costs of organic certification.
• Lujan Grisham #82 (WITHDRAWN) to restore funding for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers and veteran farmers and ranchers. This amendment would increase funding to help ensure that that socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers have opportunities to successfully acquire, own, operate, and retain farms and ranches and equitably participate in all USDA programs.
• Noem #67 (WITHDRAWN) to allow for funds from the Rural Energy for America Program to be used for installation of ethanol blender pumps at private gas stations.  The Committee on Agriculture has provided no mandatory funding for the REAP program.  The limited funding this program is likely to get is better used in helping with development of on-farm renewable energy systems and improving energy efficiency, rather than supporting the already profitable  and mature ethanol industry.
• McGovern #32 (NOT OFFERED) to cap the rate of return guaranteed for companies providing crop insurance and to cap reimbursement of administrative and operating expenses.  In the spirit of the compromise worked out between conservation and agriculture groups on key conservation provisions in the 2013 Farm Bill, NWF is opposing amendments that limit crop insurance.

• King #71 (APPROVED) to prevent any state from adopting standards or conditions on any agricultural product from another state.  This sweeping amendment would likely even prevent states from banning imports of invasive, disease-carrying organisms, or pesticides.  It is an extreme measure that would seriously impinge upon state’s rights with regard to protecting their air, water, food systems or the health of their citizens.

http://www.dairygrazingapprenticeship.org/welcome

Earn while you learn! The Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship is the first legally recognized, fully accredited apprenticeship for farming in the United States.

Mission

The Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship of GrassWorks, Inc., is dedicated to providing a guided pathway to independent dairy farm ownership, developing grazing careers, and strengthening the economic and environmental well-being of rural communities and the dairy industry.

We accomplish this mission by:

• Linking current and aspiring graziers in the transfer of farms and graziers skills and knowledge.
• Developing alliances with agricultural, environmental, and consumer groups.
• Providing opportunities for farmers and their customers to invest in the next generation of grazing farmers.

Learn more

We spend the hour with Michael Pollan, one of the country’s leading writers and thinkers on food and food policy. Pollan has written several best-selling books about food, including “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” and “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.” In his latest book, “Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation,” Pollan argues that taking back control of cooking may be the single most important step anyone can take to help make our food system healthier and more sustainable. “There is a deliberate effort to undermine food culture to sell us processed food,” Pollan says. “The family meal is a challenge if you’re General Mills or Kellogg or one of these companies, or McDonald’s, because the family meal is usually one thing shared.” Pollan also talks about the “slow food” movement. “Slow food is about food that is good, clean and fair. They’re concerned with social justice. They’re concerned with how the food is grown and how humane and chemical-free it is.” He adds, “Slow food is about recovering that space around the family and keeping the influence of the food manufacturers outside of the house. … The family meal is very important. It’s the nursery of democracy.”

French recession: Farms feeling the pinch

A year after French President Francois Hollande was elected, promising growth and jobs, the economy has slipped back into recession. As the BBC’s Christian Fraser reports, economic problems are affecting rural workers as much as those in the city.

The Lot-et-Garonne region is home to the largest organic farming area in France, and at this time of year the fields are blooming.

But as in other regions, the local economy is withering in the face of the punishing eurozone crisis.

Patrick Jouy, an industrial strawberry farmer, has seen few of the benefits Mr Hollande promised a year ago.

Many of his pickers are Poles; others are Spaniards and the Portuguese, exiles from Europe’s struggling economies.

Youth unemployment is 17% in the Lot, higher than the national average.

But French people are reluctant to take seasonal work, and Mr Jouy says he cannot risk giving out more expensive permanent contracts, particularly when France is in recession.

“It’s been far more difficult under Mr Hollande,” he says.

Read the rest of the article here.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac — Agrarian Chic In A High-Tech Age
By Jack Smith

IT WAS A CLEAR AND MOONLIT NIGHT, claimed the witness, and shortly before midnight he saw the defendant load a rock into his slingshot, take aim, and strike his victim right above the eye, killing him.

An excited buzz went up from the courtroom at this testimony; now it was up to the accused man’s lawyer, a tall, gangly man dressed all in black, as lawyers often did in the mid-1800s, to refute this testimony. A look of puzzlement settled over the gaunt attorney’s face as he approached the jury box, holding up a book with which they were all familiar.

The witness for the prosecution, he reminded the jury, had just sworn under oath that he could see everything in detail that night, since the moon was overhead, illuminating the fields below. Yet according to the book he held in his hand, explained the lawyer, that couldn’t have happened; the woods would have been pitch black all night, as the moon was in its first quarter, and had set shortly before midnight, more precisely, at 11:57 p.m.

You can just picture the ensuing scene: the courtroom in uproar, the witness suddenly pale, hoist on his own lie.

There was no point disputing the evidence; the publication the lawyer was holding up was “The Old Farmer’s Almanac.”

EVERYONE IN THAT RURAL courtroom of 1858 knew the almanac; even then, it was the oldest publication in the country, having survived countless other almanacs, newspapers, magazines and fliers that had come and gone over the preceding century. In agrarian America, it was a sectarian Bible; there seemed no end to the needs it served.

Farmers consulted it for tips on harvesting and planting. Sailors read it to determine the rise and fall of tides. Housewives pored over beauty tips and recipes.

Physicians carried it with them, to know the most efficacious times of month for leeching afflicted patients.

In a time predating sitcoms, talk shows, or docudramas, the Old Farmer’s Almanac provided insight, wisdom and entertainment for the entire family. But if one had stood on the sidewalks of any town in America and asked passers-by why they read the almanac, the most frequent answer given would have been, “Why, to know the weather, of course.”

Thus, based on the data provided in the periodical’s 1857 edition, the defendant Duff Armstrong was acquitted and went on to live out his life among his peers along the banks of the Sangamon River, in Illinois. The lawyer, an unprepossessing man named Abraham Lincoln, vaulted to new renown on the strength of his victory in court, and went on to become president of the United States. And the Old Farmer’s Almanac? It just went on and on and on.

This year, it marks its 200th anniversary; it’s still the oldest, and one of the most successful, publications in this country’s history, with 1992 sales of 7 million copies, or almost five times the circulation of Life (1.5 million), and twice that of Playboy (3.4 million).

Today, as it has for two centuries, it dispenses humor, aphorisms, rhyme, while pulling no punches. Readers turn to it for guidance, for reassurance, for entertainment, and to know whether to wear their galoshes to the office.

As to why the almanac has survived 41 U.S. presidents, eight wars, and 10 score orbits of the earth around the sun, editor Jud Hale answers, “It may be continuity; we’ve had only 12 editors in 200 years. It may be the accuracy of our weather prognostications. Or it may be the association with famous events like Lincoln’s defense of Armstrong. But the truth is, I really don’t know why.

“I believe we’re a link to something,” he continues. “The almanac has always done well in times of recession. I think people hearken back to the traditional values in times of a crunch.” A normally waggish sort, Hale turns grumpy at the slightest suggestion that the periodical’s appeal is rooted in nostalgia or trivia. “The Old Farmer’s Almanac isn’t `quaint,’ ” he insists. “It’s all about what’s happening in our world, now. It’s as up-to-date today as it was 200 years ago.”

Still, there is something almost mythic about the very name, “Old Farmer’s Almanac.” It resonates the kind of integrity of which one might say money can’t buy. Only today, it can. There’s nothing quaint about the clout the Old Farmer’s Almanac possesses.

As the Old Farmer’s Almanac enters its third century, growing numbers of products, from rakes to pancake flour, are appearing on the market bearing the periodical’s imprimatur. And in an electronic age, when the overwhelming majority of Americans are more familiar with boardrooms than barnyards, when the weather reports are broadcast two or three times an hour, when old-fashioned virtues are conceded to be going the way of buckboards, the Old Farmer’s Almanac’s grip on the imagination of Americans seems to grow stronger with each passing year.

Read the rest of the article here.