show the country that farmer’s count!

Greenhorns! It’s no secret that the National Young Farmers Coalition goes to Herculean efforts for young farmers across the country, from fighting lobbyists from big ag to make sure the farm bill addresses the needs of small farmers to advocating their chaps off for farmer student loan forgiveness programs. Now, it’s time to help them help you!

This year, like they do every five years, NYFC conducts their National Young Farmers survey in order to understand and elevate the issues that matter most to young farmers and aspiring farmers. The result of this survey help to define the organization’s policy goals and agenda. Since they launched the survey website a couple of weeks ago, a couple of thousand farmers have taken the survey, but they still need 3,000 more respondents to reach their goal of 5,000. Let’s go!

Young farmers and ranchers – what are the issues that matter most to you? What policy changes could help your business succeed? Take the National Young Farmers Survey today and let the nation know that FarmersCount! www.youngfarmers.org/survey

changing lands, changing hands

Who? This conference will bring together service providers, policymakers and advocates working on land access, farm succession, conservation, beginning farmers, tenure arrangements, and farm landowners.

What? This national conference will explore the issues surrounding land access, tenure and transfer. Topics include tenure innovations, farmers without successors, affordability, special populations, public policy, equity challenges, and more.

This event is hosted by Land For Good, in cooperation with the US Department of Agriculture.

Early Bird Registration opens February 1, 2017

 

Learn more

 

A NEW ASSOCIATION FOR ORGANIC FARMERS

Last week the Rodale Institute announced that it was launching the Organic Farmers’ Association, headed up by Elizabeth Kucinich, Board Policy Chair for Rodale Institute.

From the regional organic farmer associations to the Organic Trade Association to NYFC to your humble Greenhorns here, there sure are a lot of associations composed of or supposedly representing farmers. So maybe you’re asking, do we really need another one?

Well, first thing to consider here is that there is actually no national organization that represents only organic farmers. The second thing to consider might be the recent failures to pass adequate GMO labeling legislation in congress. We’re wondering if the entry of another national player might change the field of agricultural policy. Does this mark a shift in the organic/sustainable ag movement in which organic farmers more seriously set their sights on federal policy?

Use the comments section to weight in! And maybe consider joining.

“We have a tremendous opportunity to bring organic farmers’ voices and their experience with agriculture to policymakers in Washington, D.C.,” said Kucinich. “Policymakers have not yet grasped the significance of organic agriculture for resilient, reliable, non-toxic food production, and its ability to mitigate climate change while restoring our nation’s soil health. We have an opportunity to benefit organic farmers, while positively impacting our nation’s health and mitigating our climate crisis.”

DARK Act Comeback

This just in from the Organic Consumers Association newsletter:

DARK Act Comeback? Everybody loves a Comeback Kid—unless that “kid” is the DARK Act. In March, the Senate voted down the DARK Act, the bill that would Deny Americans our Right to Know about GMOs. Since then, Monsanto and its front groups, the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) have been using their power, influence and, most of all, money to ram some version of the DARK Act through Congress before Vermont’s first-in-the-nation GMO labeling law takes effect on July 1. Reliable sources say that the DARK Act will soon be up for another vote. Last time, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) didn’t have the votes to pass his bill to take away states’ rights to label GMOs. Many of those who voted against the bill were pro-GMO Senators who take campaign contributions (and their talking points) from companies like Monsanto. But realizing they would take a lot of heat from their constituents, they voted no in the hope that a more palatable “compromise” bill might come along. The Senators who voted against the DARK Act last time could easily flip their votes to support a “compromise” (capitulation) to block Vermont’s law and replace it with a weak federal standard, because of—what else?—pressure from the big corporations who profit from toxic pesticides and GMO foods. TAKE ACTION: Stop the DARK Act Comeback! Tell your Senators: Protect Vermont’s GMO labeling law.  Dial 888-897-0174 to tell your Senators to vote against any compromise that would block or delay Vermont’s bill from taking effect. Help us protect Vermont’s GMO labeling law

the global poverty project: who benefits from welfare?

In 13:22 gloriously-illustrated minutes, Berkeley professor Ananya Roy takes our assumptions about welfare and poverty to task.

did you watch hillary and bernie debate?

Time to pay attention. You can stream the debate here: https://youtu.be/RVHmox70vbI

One thing we noticed: ZERO mention food, farmers, or agriculture –  not in the context of public health or climate change.

We are also not sure why CNN isn’t hosting a easy-to-find full length debate video and lively comment section! The media prefers to offer you the soundbytes – instead of the discussion (“the debate in 2 minutes”), but don’t fall for this.

Watch the whole thing, FORM YOUR OWN OPINION.

(Oh, our opinion you ask? Well, you can really learn just as much from the CNN moderated questions (or lack thereof) as you can from the answers from the candidates. We might, for instance, scold CNN for the lack of framework to really discuss the urgency of climate change (Anderson Cooper: “we will get to climate change and environmental issues later . . .”). If it weren’t for Bernie Sanders, I’m not sure when the debate would have turned to ecology at all. )

this month in food justice: peanut butter CEO sentenced to 29 years in prison

Before it was over, the Salmonella outbreak of 2008-2009 infected hundreds of people, killed nine, and was traced to peanut butter from the Peanut Butter Corporation of America. Seven years later, the CEO of the company, Stewart Parnell, has been sentenced to 29 years in prison for his role in the outbreak. Parnell, his brother, and another executive of PCA knew about Salmonela contamination in their peanut butter and still continued to ship it to consumers. In an email to a plant manager awaiting Salmonella tests, Parnell wrote, “Just ship it anyway.”

The CEO was found guilty of a whopping total of 72 counts of conspiracy, fraud, and other federal charges and his sentence is the most severe punishment ever given to anyone in a food illness outbreak in this country. Personally, we have to ask, nine people died and he only got 29 years?! That’s only nine more years than this guy got.

money out; lessig in(to the debates)

This. Conversation. We think it’s the one the whole country should be having. (Get money out of politics. It’s a no brainer.)

This

EPA (finally) updates (antediluvian) standards to protect farm workers from pesticides

Seeing as the the USDA’s worker-training about pesticide safety still (very necessarily) includes the above image and instructions, we couldn’t welcome these development more.

The new revisions to EPA standards “give farmworkers health protections under the law similar to those already afforded to workers in other industries.” You can read the full list of revisions on the EPA fact sheet, some highlights include:

• children under 18 are no longer allowed to handle pesticides
• mandatory yearly training for farm workers about pesticides (as opposed to every five years)
• equirement to provide more than one way for farmworkers and their representatives to gain access to pesticide application information and safety data sheets – centrally-posted, or by requesting records
• mandatory record-keeping of pesticide application

Great! But if news of the revisions leaves you feeling… I don’t know… a little angry about what they imply about conditions for workers on industrial farms, The United Farmworkers have a number of ongoing actions and campaigns to improve health, life, immigration, and economic conditions for workers on American farms.

Their reaction to the updated standards? “Is it ever too late to do the right thing? It’s been a long time coming, but it has come today.”

the west coast grange wars

On one hand you have an established order that, while quick to conjure its Populist origins, appears threatened by the kind of grassroots change it once championed. On the other, a contingent of rogue Grangers—progressives decidedly less interested in nostalgia than their national counterpart—attempting to breathe new life into an aging system that doesn’t seem to want the CPR.

The Grange, once a longstanding institution in American rural and agrarian communities, stands poised for a revival after decades of increasing obsolescence– expect that it’s at war with itself.

In a captivating article feature on In These Times, John Collins takes on the history of The Grange, the recent polemical schism between the California Grange and the national organization, and Grange Future— an initiative co-founded by the Greenhorns.

march against monsanto!

Hundreds of Protests Happening Around the World
Saturday, May 23, 2015

Find a protest near you!

soul foods, not whole foods (staying abreast of the riots in Baltimore)

Just because Spring is the busiest time of year for farmers doesn’t mean that we’re not taking the time to keep a close eye on the riots in Baltimore. We know that the entrenched system of labor exploitation and land abuse that makes it to be a small farmer in this country is exactly the same system of greed, racism, and oppression that devalues black bodies and black life.  We understand that the success of our (and, in fact, all progressive) movements are not separate but intrinsically linked.

Whole Foods came out last week in support of The National Guard Last week. No surprise here, but we’d like to suggest that, in response, you choose not to support them. Check out this handy (though not complete) list Black Farmers to Buy from Instead of Whole Foods.

on decay: dental, moral, and otherwise

In delightfully unsurprising news for conspiracy theorists, a recent paper published in PLOS Medicine Journal reveals a rather crooked historical alliance between the National Institute of Dental Research and the cane and beet sugar industry.

The distillation of the story is alarmingly familiar: federal health organization caves to pressure from big ag and industry groups, turning a blind eye to risk to Americans’ health.

Thousands of internal industry documents analyzed by the paper’s authors reveal that the Sugar Industry knew as early as 1950 that sugar was a key player in dental decay. In order to prevent dentists from doing what dentists arguably do best (handing out apples on Halloween?), trade organizations attempted to deflect attention from the sugar question towards research on enzymes that reduce dental plaque and a dubious vaccine against cavities.

The study notes that a whopping “78% of a report submitted to the NIDR by the sugar industry was directly incorporated into the NIDR’s first request for research proposals” for its National Caries Program (NCP), whose purported goal was to eliminate tooth decay in America. Meanwhile, the NIDR neglected to call for research that would potentially damage sugar industry interests, and, when the agency launched the NCP, it omitted this kind of research from its priorities.

The Sugar Industry responded to the paper by calling its tactics “‘a textbook’ play from the activist agenda.”

To which we say, “Carie on!”

the meatrix: relaunched

Sustainable Table celebrates the 10-year anniversary of The Meatrix!  Find the full Meatrix series here and how to take action.

Help celebrate the Meatrix Relaunch using the hashtags:
#Meatrix #bettermeat #RealHappyFarms

twenty best college farms

From small student-run organic farms, to large agribusiness training centers and entrepreneurial programs, farming plays a central role in many American higher ed institutions. To highlight this unique offering, Best College Reviews surveyed over 50 schools to come up with a list of the best university farms in America.

Using this Ranking Criteria:

• Farm Size
• Integration with the Main Campus
• Sustainability
• Are courses taught at the farm?
• Do students use the farm?
• Integration with the community

A list of twenty colleges was compiled with beautiful photos. See the full story here.