Free Republic

Supporters wonder why Sen. Obama is not polling higher in farm country By all conventional standards, Sen. John McCain is not courting what some might call the "traditional" farm vote in his race for the presidency--members of those interest groups and trade associations who are strong supporters of commodity price supports. In fact, some might argue that he's gone out of his way to alienate this voting block, with his opposition to subsidies in the farm bill and for ethanol. For example, consider his comments made recently to an invitation-only group at the Harry Truman Library in Independence, Mo. "My...

FOB DELTA — Team Borlaug conducted their last scheduled farm assessment is Wasit province, just outside al Kut, Sept. 25. The team from Texas A&M also accompanied Gov. Abd al-Latif Hamad Tarfah, governor of Wasit province, on a tour of a family cooperative farm, managed by two brothers. The 400-dunam (248 acre) farm was planted with 100 dunam of barley and wheat, 100 of alfalfa, 25 of cotton, 10 of corn, 25 of watermelon, 100 fallow and five devoted to greenhouses, said John Hargreaves, member of Team Borlaug. There were also 6,000 fish being raised in drainage canals, as well...

Western do-gooders are impoverishing Africa by promoting traditional farming at the expense of modern scientific agriculture, according to Britain's former chief scientist. Anti-science attitudes among aid agencies, poverty campaigners and green activists are denying the continent access to technology that could improve millions of lives, Professor Sir David King will say today. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from Europe and America are turning African countries against sophisticated farming methods, including GM crops, in favour of indigenous and organic approaches that cannot deliver the continent's much needed “green revolution”, he believes. Speaking before a keynote lecture tonight to the British Association for the...

Somehow, the AP found a way to spin an excellent yield in crops this summer, despite flooding earlier in the midwest, into a doom and gloom article. US grain exports snagged by infrastructure delays

The eight houses and nine mobile homes are clustered in a pair of dusty lots on a farm road east of Oxnard, bordered by farms, agricultural warehouses and Pacific Coast Highway. Most of the houses have been expanded in some slapdash way, with plywood lean-tos a common feature. The houses and trailers have broken windows, walls patched with more plywood, and extension cords stretching from the windows. Inside the homes, county inspectors have found mold infestations, leaking pipes, sinks that don't drain and walls that leave daylight streaming in. "It's up there with the worst places I've seen," said Ron...

Relying on "gigantic corporations" for food, he said, would result in "absolute disaster". "That would be the absolute destruction of everything... and the classic way of ensuring there is no food in the future," he said. Snip.."If they think this is the way to go....we [will] end up with millions of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness."

Companies throughout the food chain are changing the way they do business in response to soaring grain costs, and consumers are likely to bear the brunt in the form of rising food prices. Farmers are making the broadest cuts to their livestock herds in decades, meaning meat at the supermarket will likely cost more in coming years. Middlemen are trying to shorten the duration of supply contracts to 90 days from one year so they can pass on higher costs more quickly. And food brands are shrinking the contents of their packages, from ice-cream cartons to beverage containers. ...In another...

THE latest round of global agricultural trade negotiations that began seven years ago in Doha, Qatar, collapsed in acrimony this week in Geneva. While India and China are getting the blame for refusing to reduce import tariffs and farm subsidies, you can assume that trade officials in Europe and the United States are breathing a sigh of relief that they aren’t going to have to limit their own protectionism... --snip-- First, they are transparent election-cycle harvests for farm-state politicians, who have small constituencies but exercise outsized national political clout. Second, because such special-interest legislation wins little broad public support, its...

Obama veep team floats Republican name By AMIE PARNES & BEN SMITH | 7/25/08 6:41 PM EST Ann Veneman Obama's vice presidential search team has floated the name of a former member of President Bush's first-term cabinet, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, as Obama's running mate. Photo: AP Barack Obama's vice presidential search team has floated the name of a member of President Bush's first-term Cabinet, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, as Obama's running mate. The search committee, now led by Caroline Kennedy and Eric Holder, raised Veneman's name — among others — in discussions with members of Congress, two Democrats familiar...

For years, cheap imported garlic has been cutting into the bottom line of Gilroy's signature crop. Now one entrepreneur has come to the Garlic Capital of the World to grow the key ingredient in tequila, agave. Grower Frank Leal has made an award-winning winery business in the hills above Hollister. Planting 10 acres of blue agaves, he has set his sights on being the first to bottle California's take on tequila. Our video report has more (Link)

Summer is half over. Know why? Because Maine's blueberry harvest is underway. And blueberry growers are expecting a pretty good crop this year. University of Maine experts expect an average or slightly above average yield of 80 million to 100 million pounds of berries, thanks to adequate rain in May and June. Blueberry specialist David Yarborough says the hot, humid, but largely dry first few weeks of July stressed crops to some degree. But he says recent showers are refreshing them. Love to head out and pick the little blue bubbles of yummy, juicy goodness? If you are in southern...

Commodity Online ABUDHABI : It seems that oil rich Middle East nations finally began to face the realities of core issues such as food shortages that continued to affect common man around the world. Faced with a scarcity of fertile land, water shortages and surging world food prices, wealthy Arab states in the Gulf are seeking to secure their food supplies by investing in agriculture abroad. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the top food importers among Arab countries in the Gulf, are now looking to Asia and Africa as opportunities for agricultural investments. UAE, which imports around 85...

Daniel Skotnick agriculture advisor, and Abdullah Al Asoum, economic bi-lingual, bi-cultural advisor with embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team Baghdad-5, speak with a farmer in Abernisha Village, northwest of Baghdad, July 13. Two tons of hybrid maize seed were donated to help rebuild Iraq’s agriculture and infrastructure. Photo by Pfc. Lyndsey Dransfield. CAMP TAJI — The Fertile Crescent portion of Iraq is notorious for its strong agricultural heritage throughout history. It has long blessed residents and their livestock with a plethora food.Unfortunately, in recent history investments and resources were diverted away from farming and food production, leaving Iraq's agricultural resources in utter...

Tastiota, Mexico-A few miles inland from the Sea of Cortez, amid cracked earth and mesquite and sun-bleached cactus, neat rows of emerald plants are sprouting from the desert floor. The crop is salicornia. It is nourished by seawater flowing from_a_man-made_canal. And if you believe the American who is farming it, this incongruous swath of green has the potential to feed the world, fuel our vehicles and slow global warming. He is Carl Hodges, a Tucson-based atmospheric physicist who has spent most of his 71 years figuring out how humans can feed themselves in places where good soil and fresh water...

Leaders of the G-8 nations are gathered this week in Toyako, Japan, to root out the culprits in a food crisis that has moved hundreds of millions from subsistence to starvation. They need look no further than an old group photo. The G-8 countries' interventions have distorted global agricultural markets to the paralysis point. Politicians legislate price supports to enrich farm voters. Lobbies extort tariffs to block cheap food imports and subsidies to underwrite food exports at prices that destroy competitors in poor countries. Conservationists have agitated to set aside productive land and pay farmers not to grow. And now...

WALKERSVILLE, Md. (AP) - Officials of a rural Maryland town illegally discriminated against a Muslim group by barring them from building a mosque and holding annual conventions on land zoned for farming, the property's owner claims in a federal lawsuit. Developer David Moxley and his father had planned to sell 224 acres in Walkersville to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA for about $6 million. The Silver Spring-based religious group canceled the deal earlier this year after the town's three-member Board of Zoning Appeals voted unanimously to reject their request for a special exception to land-use restrictions. (snip) David and Robert...

The Guardian claims to have a confidential World Bank report which concludes that biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% — more than the IMF estimate of 20-30%, and far more than the US government’s claims that biofuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. The Guardian and the New York Times suggest the World Bank report is being held back to avoid conflict with the US, though bank chief Robert Zoellick has been vocal about the problem.The Guardian’s reporting on this is fairly shoddy, throwing around percentages without a time frame. Nevertheless, it is fairly clear...

It all boils down to one simple question: will cows be taxed for burping and farting?The complex debate about the introduction of an emissions trading scheme to tackle climate change is causing panic among farmers. The release of the Garnaut report yesterday only served to increase their fears. Ross Garnaut's report acknowledges the initial difficulties of measuring gas emissions on Australia's 155,000 farms, but says a broad-based scheme should include agriculture at some stage. The only question now is whether it will be included in the initial 2010 version of the scheme or introduced at a later date. Every major...

FOB KALSU — Farmers in Sayifiyah will soon have something they have lacked for the past five years: a local feed mill to support local agriculture. Thamer Hussain Kashool, owner of a feed mill out of operation since 2003, has completed the process of securing necessary funding to get his mill back in business. Mike Stevens, agricultural adviser for the Baghdad-7 embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team, visited the mill, June 6, to assess progress on the project, which he has shepherded for several months. The process began when Kashool received a U.S. Department of State Quick Reaction Fund (QRF) grant of...

WASHINGTON - Larry Matlack, President of the American Agriculture Movement (AAM), has raised concerns over the issue of U.S. grain reserves after it was announced that the sale of 18.37 million bushels of wheat from USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust. “According to the May 1, 2008 CCC inventory report there are o­nly 24.1 million bushels of wheat in inventory, so after this sale there will be o­nly 2.7 million bushels of wheat left the entire CCC inventory,” warned Matlack. “Our concern is not that we are using the remainder of our strategic grain reserves for humanitarian...

WASHINGTON, June 10, 2008 – Iraq’s Agriculture Ministry improved its ability to protect the nation’s commercial date palm crop from deadly dubas beetles through a nationwide spraying program completed this week. Pilots and maintenance crews increased their coverage by 33 percent this year, spraying nearly 170,000 acres in six provinces. Last year, crews sprayed just more than 120,000 acres in four provinces. “Left unchecked, the dubas beetle, which bores into the tree and kills it, can seriously disrupt the production of dates in the area,” said Mike Stevens, a Baghdad 7 Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team agriculture advisor. In the 1970s,...

Honduran president Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales and representatives from El Salvador and Guatemala met with California farmers Saturday to hash out a plan that will train laborers from those countries to work in the Western U.S. The plan is set to start with about 300 workers from Mexico and Central America. It will operate under existing U.S. guest worker laws and take at least a year to implement, said Manuel Cunha Jr., president of the Nisei Farmers League, a group that represents hundreds of agriculture businesses in California, Washington, Oregon and Arizona. Growers plan to work with Latin American countries...

The undercover agent takes two guises in our national consciousness. At one extreme is the highly trained professional who risks his or her life to go after the worst drug dealers and mobsters. At the other extreme is the apolitical and poorly trained apparatchik, designated by a bureaucratic superior to infiltrate a group deemed subversive or otherwise troublesome to authorities. The infiltrator may even become a provocateur as a way to give the authorities an excuse to crack down. Government agents did a lot of this during the 1960s, while monitoring civil rights and far-left organizations. At this end of...

Here is what the Center for Rural Affairs, a nonprofit rural advocacy group, said about the federal farm bill: "This farm bill primarily serves the vested interests of mega farms at the expense of family farmers and ordinary rural Americans. " That's an apt description of the outdated $290 billion bill, bloated by subsidies and pork, which three members of Wisconsin 's House delegation and both of the state's senators supported. President Bush tried to stop this legislative mistake with a veto, but Congress quickly overrode it.The infliction of the costly, misdirected farm bill on the American public highlights how...

Air pollution from power plants and automobiles is destroying the fragrance of flowers and thereby inhibiting the ability of pollinating insects to follow scent trails to their source, a new University of Virginia study indicates. This could partially explain why wild populations of some pollinators, particularly bees – which need nectar for food – are declining in several areas of the world, including California and the Netherlands. The study appears online in the journal Atmospheric Environment. "The scent molecules produced by flowers in a less polluted environment, such as in the 1800s, could travel for roughly 1,000 to 1,200 meters;...

CAPITOL HILL (AP) -- Brushing aside a veto by President Bush, Congress today enacted a massive election-year farm bill. The 82-13 vote in the Senate followed a 316-108 vote in the House last night. However, not all of the bill that Congress passed last week is becoming law right away. Because of a printing error, the version that Bush vetoed was missing 34 pages on international food aid and trade. That mistake may require Congress to send the White House yet another bill. House Republicans called the error a sign of the Democrats' incompetence, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House overwhelmingly rejected President Bush's veto Wednesday of a $290 billion farm bill, but what should have been a stinging defeat for the president became an embarrassment for Democrats. Only hours before the House's 316-108 vote, Bush had vetoed the five-year measure, saying it was too expensive and gave too much money to wealthy farmers when farm incomes are high. The Senate then was expected to follow suit quickly. Action stalled, however, after the discovery that Congress had omitted a 34-page section of the bill when lawmakers sent the massive measure to the White House. That...

The House overwhelmingly rejected George W. Bush's veto Wednesday of a $290 billion farm bill, but what should have been a stinging defeat for the president became an embarrassing episode for Democrats. Only hours before the House's 316-108 vote, Bush had vetoed the five-year measure, saying it was too expensive and gave too much money to wealthy farmers when farm incomes are high. The Senate then was expected to follow suit quickly. Action stalled, however, after the discovery that Congress had omitted a 34-page section of the bill when lawmakers sent the massive measure to the White House. That means...

WASHINGTON - President Bush vetoed the $300 billion farm bill on Wednesday, calling it a tax increase on regular Americans at a time of high food prices in the face of a near-certain override by Congress. It was the 10th veto of Bush's presidency. But since it passed both houses of Congress with veto-proof majorities, his action will likely be overridden. The president calls the legislation fiscally irresponsible and says it gives away too much money to wealthy farmers, yet his criticism didn't faze lawmakers from both parties who voted for increased crop subsidies, food stamps for the poor and...

WASHINGTON — The House quickly rejected George W. Bush's veto Wednesday of a $290 billion farm bill and the Senate was poised to follow suit, a stark rebuke of a president overridden only once in his two terms. Only hours before the House's 316-108 vote, Bush had vetoed the five-year measure, saying it was too expensive and gave too much money to wealthy farmers when farm incomes are high. The legislation includes election-year subsidies for farmers and food stamps for the poor — spending that lawmakers could promote when they are back in their districts over the Memorial Day weekend....

Rice Grown In United States Contains Less-dangerous Form Of ArsenicA new study analyzing several types of rice finds that grains grown in the United States may be safer than varieties grown in other countries. (Credit: Courtesy of Yamily J. Zavala) ScienceDaily (May 21, 2008) — Rice grown in the United States may be safer than varieties from Asia and Europe, according to a new global study of the grain that feeds over half of humanity. The study evaluated levels of arsenic, which can be toxic at high levels, in rice worldwide. Yamily J. Zavala and colleagues point out that rice...

ROME — In the past year, as the diversion of food crops like corn and palm to make biofuels has helped to drive up food prices, investors and politicians have begun promoting newer, so-called second-generation biofuels as the next wave of green energy. These, made from non-food crops like reeds and wild grasses, would offer fuel without the risk of taking food off the table, they said. But now, biologists and botanists are warning that they, too, may bring serious unintended consequences. Most of these newer crops are what scientists label invasive species — that is, weeds — that have...

The Republicans in Congress continue to baffle me. They are spending all of their time trying to use the marketing tool of “re-branding” the party, while at the same time they refuse to vote against terrible public policy. The most recent example is the disastrous farm bill that the Senate passed overwhelmingly. The House has already passed the bill, and although President Bush will veto it, Congress will likely override the veto. As long as the Republicans in Congress pay lip service to conservatism while voting like liberals, they deserve to lose in November. Those leading the Republicans down the...

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein has changed her tune about using Iraq war spending bills to provide temporary legal status for illegal farmworkers.She used to think it was a bad idea. Not anymore.Next week, the full Senate is expected to consider an emergency spending bill that includes Feinstein's agricultural guest worker plan. If it survives, the guest worker package would offer temporary legal status to 1.35 million illegal immigrant farmworkers."This is an emergency situation," Feinstein, D-Calif., told Senate Appropriations Committee colleagues Thursday, adding that "agriculture needs a consistent work force. Without it, they can't plant, they can't prune, they...

Obese people are contributing to the world food crisis and climate change, experts say. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine calculated the obese consume 18% more calories than average. They are also responsible for using more fuel, which has an environmental impact and drives up food prices as transport and agriculture both use oil. The result is that the poor struggle to afford food and greenhouse gas emissions rise, the Lancet reported. It comes as the World Health Organization predicts the obese population will double by 2015 to 700m. In the UK, nearly a quarter of adults are...

Agriculture: The subsidy-stuffed farm bill just passed by Congress is a monster that will leave us with less food at higher prices. The president should veto it right away and force this foolish Congress to override him.Congress may think it's doing the "people's work," as they like to say, but the pork-laden, market-distorting farm bill is anything but. In fact, it's an obscene waste of money that will leave us all poorer and hungrier for the effort. As of now, though, it looks like it will become law. The measure passed the House on Wednesday by a veto-proof margin of...

There is an old adage in economics suggesting that it is possible to determine whether a country is developed or not by observing its farm policies. Developed nations such as the United States and those in the EU subsidize their farmers, while developing nations subsidize their cities by setting price controls on farm products. This year’s $300 billion farm bill truly puts the United States in the developed camp. Despite record high prices for crops, the U.S. Congress is moving forward with a massive new farm bill that boosts subsidies while expanding government control over agriculture. It is not surprising...

In recent weeks, a flood of reports and statements has claimed that the world's biofuel programs—in particular the U.S. corn ethanol effort—is starving poor people around the globe. Even the UN's special rapporteur for the Right to Food decried biofuel production as "a crime against humanity." It seems so obvious: With so much corn being turned into fuel, food shortages must inevitably result, and biofuel programs must be the cause. However, that's completely untrue. Here are the facts. In the last five years, despite the nearly threefold growth of the corn ethanol industry (or actually because of it), the U.S....

Air pollution interferes with the ability of bees and other insects to follow the scent of flowers to their source, undermining the essential process of pollination, a study by three University of Virginia researchers suggests. Their findings may help unlock part of the mystery surrounding the current pollination crisis that is affecting a wide variety of crops. [...] This phenomenon triggers a cycle, the authors noted, in which the pollinators have trouble finding sufficient food, and as a result their populations decline. That, in turn, translates into decreased pollination and keeps flowering plants, including many fruits and vegetables, from proliferating....

McCain says he would veto farm bill Published: May 2, 2008 at 9:11 PM DES MOINES, Iowa, May 2 (UPI) -- Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told an audience of Iowans that if he were president, he would veto a farm subsidy bill now making its way through Congress. "I do not support it. I would veto it," McCain told the audience of about 250 people in Des Moines Thursday. "I would do that because I believe that these subsidies, the subsidies are unnecessary." The Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee later told The Des Moines Register in an interview, "At this...

From: Dalrymple, Neil [mailto:Neil.Dalrymple@xxxxxxxxxx Sent: Friday, May 02, 2008 9:00 AM Subject: We are in the wrong job perhaps.. Rt Hon David Miliband MP Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), Nobel House 17 Smith Square London SW1P 3JR 11th March 2008 Dear Secretary of State, My friend, who is in farming at the moment, recently received a cheque for £3,000 from the Rural Payments Agency for not rearing pigs. I would now like to join the "not rearing pigs" business. In your opinion, what is the best kind of farm not to rear pigs on,...

Food Shortages Growing? An email from a reader in the Midwest causes me some concern: "Last night at the daughter's horse riding lesson the price of horse feed came between my wife & the stable owner/riding instructor. One of her friends in Kansas said that his winter wheat looked great, but there was no wheat in the wheat plant heads (kernel/seed-I don't know the correct term). He reported that the grain miller that they normally use said that they are having trouble getting any wheat to prepare. Same thing from many Kansas wheat growers; plants look great, but no wheat...

The $300 billion farm bill is being cobbled together by Congress this week. As Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) noted, "It's not just a farm bill. This is a farm and a food and an energy bill." As Otto von Bismarck quipped, "Laws are like sausage. It's better not to see them being made." Let's take a look at these three aspects of this unappetizing piece of sausage. First, what do the farmers get? Answer: A lot. Last year, net farm income reached a record level of nearly $89 billion due to high crop prices. Farm household income...

Retail food prices have climbed more than 4 percent in the last year, and a similar hike is projected for next year. Riots have broken out in developing countries over food shortages. Schools are being forced to change their lunch menus. Some consumers, reacting to a rise in the price of rice, have made a run on stores – prompting Costco, Sam's Club and other retailers to limit how many bags they sell to individuals. Consumers are hurting, yes, but growers of corn, wheat, rice, cotton and other crops are loving life these days. Corn has hit a record $6...

Iowa With the rapid expansion of ethanol and biodiesel production in Iowa, there are questions about possible uses for what remains after these alternative fuels leave the plant. So far, the use of ethanol by-products in animal feed has received most of the attention. But researchers at Iowa State University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Services also are studying a biodiesel by-product in swine and poultry feed. Biodiesel often is made from soybean or vegetable oil, with crude glycerin the resulting by-product. This compound, which currently is used in such things as hand lotions, cosmetics and shampoo,...

The planet is getting skinned. While many worry about the potential consequences of atmospheric warming, a few experts are trying to call attention to another global crisis quietly taking place under our feet. "We're losing more and more of it every day," said David Montgomery, a geologist at the University of Washington. "The estimate is that we are now losing about 1 percent of our topsoil every year to erosion, most of this caused by agriculture." "It's just crazy," fumed John Aeschliman, a fifth-generation farmer who grows wheat and other grains on the Palouse near the tiny town of Almota,...

The price of the new farm bill, final details of which are being hammered out by congressional negotiators, has risen to $280 billion over five years, according to news reports. "The proposal includes provisions encouraging investment in biofuels and wind energy, help for retired and disabled farmers, and a faster tax write-off for owners of racehorses, among other things," writes Greg Hitt in the Wall Street Journal. In short, there is something for almost everyone involved in agriculture. But what about consumers? They often pay twice: first, in higher grocery prices, and second, through an array of tax-financed subsidies.

Soaring food prices and global grain shortages are bringing new pressures on governments, food companies and consumers to relax their longstanding resistance to genetically engineered crops.

Biofuels, once seen as a key factor in curbing greenhouse gas emissions, are behind the current global food crisis, major oil producers and consumers charged at an energy forum here on Monday. "A conflict (is) emerging between foodstuffs and fuel ... with disastrous social conflicts and dubious environmental results," outgoing Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi told the International Energy Forum here as rising food prices worldwide raise the spectre of famine in some countries. "We have to examine very closely subsidy policies so as to avoid distortions in the allocation of resources," Prodi insisted. Agricultural prices were not only being...

Many investors have become contrarians and are now apparently experts in being able to spot bubbles. Hence, they all are fully aware that a bubble exists in agricultural commodities at this juncture. Really, you can listen to just about any financial source and hear some commentator warning about the epic bubble that is evident in agricultural commodity prices. However, some of these same folks were completely blindsided by the collapse of the tech bubble in 2000. And they also were shocked that real estate prices could ever decline in value. Of course, this new class of maverick investor is also...