Free Republic

The organic farm shop is a paradise for wealthy Germans. Behind the scenes, we pick and chop vegetables until we’re on the point of collapse ... they guaranteed work for at least 10 hours a day and that I would be paid €6.20 (£5.27) an hour. I would have to pay the agency a fee of €200 and a one-off sum of €105 for my bed. I would buy and cook my own food. They also told me to bring boots and rubber gloves. ... The contract I sign on about day three probably corresponds to the German labour code....

The White House Office of Management and Budget has said that the Biden administration is opposed to the bill introduced by Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., to clamp down on the sale of U.S. farmland to China and other “adversaries.” The bill passed the House this week. A companion bill has been introduced in the Senate. The Biden administration is opposed to the bill introduced by Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., to clamp down on the sale of U.S. farmland to China and other “adversaries.”

An endangered predator has returned to California after vanishing more than 100 years ago. At least 44 gray wolves have been spotted in the West Coast state, including a record-breaking 30 new pups this year alone, according to Axel Hunnicutt, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife's gray wolf coordinator. This is the biggest increase in a century, with the animals from seven different packs now in nine of the state's 58 counties, Marin Independent Journal reported. But not everyone is happy about the return of the the gray wolf and are concerned about the risk to farmers' livestock. Janna...

Food prices are climbing, but soon will soar — inflation is ensured due to recent massive spending. As Americans are pushed to consume artificial meat as a solution to the alleged environmental impact of cow farts, the government seeks to expand its techno-monitoring, in the name of “health and safety,” by requiring the RFID chipping of all livestock. The argument is that animal tracking will protect the public from an animal disease outbreak.This pretense to control all food production for health and safety is reminiscent of the argument that gain-of-function research used to create the COVID-19 virus was motivated not...

Australians will need to cut back on red meat and ditch petrol cars for electric vehicles in order to reach net zero emissions by 2050, according to the government agency advising Anthony Albanese on the target. The Climate Change Authority has suggested a series of lifestyle changes to get Australia to net zero in a new report released on Wednesday. The Authority has suggested Aussies swap red meat like beef and lamb for more emission-friendly options like kangaroo, chicken and pork. The advice comes after the Climate Council found that agriculture was responsible for over half of Australia's methane emissions...

Jusper Machogu, a farmer in Kenya, Africa, wants people who think Africa shouldn’t develop with fossil fuels to see what a low-carbon lifestyle is really like. He and his family live it every day, and he told Cowboy State Daily that people, especially those of the West, don’t really grasp what it means not to have access to energy. In an effort to combat global emissions, wealthy nations are trying to discourage African countries from using fossil fuels, which Machogu said that will keep Africa in poverty. That’s why he’s offering an educational tour of his low-carbon lifestyle, which he...

Newsweek reports that an early farming settlement dated to about 7,000 years ago has been discovered on a plain between two streams in the central Czech Republic. Daniel Pilař of the Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic said that the well-preserved settlement, including traces of longhouses and pits full of pottery and tools, was identified during the construction of a barn. The site is thought to have been home to perhaps a dozen people who cultivated plants and raised cattle, yet still hunted and gathered food as well. "Regarding the use of houses, it...

Elite billionaire organizations and foundations, government agencies, and activist pressure groups are funding and coordinating a global war on modern agriculture, nutrition, and Earth’s poorest, hungriest people. Instead of helping more families get nutritious food, better healthcare, and higher living standards, they’re doing the opposite and harming biodiversity in the process. The World Economic Forum wants to reimagine, reinvent and transform the global food system, to eliminate greenhouse gases from food production. Central to its plan is alternatives to animal protein: meal worm potato chips, bug burgers instead of beef patties, and meat loaves and sausages made from lake flies,...

Hidden deep within the new omnibus bill is a secret provision to allow the federal government to electronically track all cattle in the United States. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) warned about the hidden provision on X, stating that lobbyists will receive $15 million in taxpayer funds to unleash the electronic tracking grid on the nation’s meat-producing cows and bison. As stated directly from the omnibus, the agreement “directs the Department to continue to provide the tags and related infrastructure needed to comply with the Federal Animal Disease Traceability rule (9 CFR 86), including no less than $15,000,000 for electronic identification...

From the vantage of the American supermarket aisle, the modern food system looks like a kind of miracle. Everything has been carefully cultivated for taste and convenience — even those foods billed as organic or heirloom — and produce regarded as exotic luxuries just a few generations ago now seems more like staples, available on demand: avocados, mangoes, out-of-season blueberries imported from Uruguay.But the supermarket is also increasingly a diorama of the fragility of a system — disrupted in recent years by the pandemic, conflict and, increasingly, climate change. What comes next? Almost certainly, more disruptions and more hazards, enough...

Google will shutter Mineral, its agricultural technology operation...Mineral was launched as a separate business in January, 2023, after five years of development by X, Alphabet’s innovation lab. With a mission to help scale sustainable agriculture., the Mineral team’s work included robots designed to inspect every plant in a field and the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI to help companies tackle the challenges of food waste, forecasting and the collection of high-quality data. Mineral CEO Elliott Grant wrote, “Our mission has always been to make a meaningful, positive difference to the global food system - which we knew...

In November 2023 we we visited Çatalhöyük as part of the Göbekli Tepe to Stonehenge project (https://buymeacoffee.com/prehistoryguys). We were not there for long, but as you can imagine, we were left with a lasting impression.Here we present an introduction to and an overview of the site - coupled with our own personal observations and reflections. We hope you find it valuable and enlightening. For too long, it has lived in the shadow of the other Turkish mega-site some 500 miles to the east! Çatalhöyük: "it's about the people" - 7,000 BC mega-site revealed. | 35:20The Prehistory Guys | 84K subscribers...

Republican chairs of House committees will send letters to agency heads including Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to ask for their reactions to the Supreme Court’s decision last week in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo overturning the Chevron doctrine, which gave deference to federal agencies in writing regulations. In a news release, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said, “This week, House Republican Committees are sending letters to their corresponding federal agencies to demand the review of various overreaching regulations in our fight to free the American people from the power-hungry administrative state. Agencies can’t be allowed to run free without...

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A coalition of energy, biofuel and agriculture groups, – including the Illinois Corn Growers Association – are taking their challenge of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s emissions mandate to the nation’s highest court. The group filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the EPA’s decision to grant a waiver to California for its 2021-2025 electric vehicle mandate. Illinois lawmakers have considered adopting California’s strict EV policies. The petition asks the high court to throw out an appeals court decision that rejected legal arguments by 17 states over California’s EV mandate. The states had...

Challengers to federal rules covering a range of industries including mining and farming got a fresh shot on Tuesday at rolling back regulations as the U.S. Supreme Court applied a new standard for reviewing the power of federal agencies. Nine lower-court rulings were vacated by the Supreme Court and sent back to be reconsidered in light of Friday's decision reversing the decades-old Chevron doctrine that said judges should defer to agencies to interpret laws they administer. The cases were the first of what is expected to be a wave of rulings reassessing the power of federal regulators, who make rules...

Vandals uprooted the fungus-resistant Arborio rice, which was being tested in the country’s first ever field trial of a CRISPR-edited crop ================================================================== Researchers arrived at a site near Pavia, Italy, on 21 June to find their crops uprooted and mown down. VITTORIA FRANCESCA BRAMBILLA ================================================================ Italy’s first field trial of a gene-edited crop is in tatters, after vandals completely destroyed a test plot of experimental rice near the northern city of Pavia. No one has claimed responsibility for the destruction. The small field trial of Arborio rice altered to make it more resistant to a common fungus was the country’s...

If you're a small town or rural consumer, you might find this of interest. It's a 13-minute youtube video show how this corporation is taking you dollars to support people and causes you might find personally or morally repugnant, or to stockholders in larger dividends.

Idaho farmers are indeed facing significant challenges related to water access. The Idaho Department of Water Resources (IDWR) issued a curtailment order for eastern Idaho irrigators who were found to be noncompliant with a state-approved mitigation plan. This order was scheduled to go into effect recently. The curtailment order impacts about 6,400 junior groundwater rights holders who pump water from the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer. This aquifer supplies water to the Twin Falls Canal Co, which has senior water rights. The projected shortfall of water to the Twin Falls Canal Co is approximately 74,100-acre-feet. To put this in perspective, an...

Eastern Idaho farmers may soon be out of water after the state issued a major curtailment. Brian Murdock, a farmer who resides in East Idaho, warned of the potential devastating impact of the order on his business during his appearance on "The Bottom Line" Wednesday. "Well, as you said, the state of Idaho and the Idaho Department of Water Resources has issued this curtailment of 500,000 acres. And to help put that in perspective, that's basically 781 square miles of farm ground that is being taken out of production," Murdock stressed. "And, of course, the worst problem is this is...