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The U.S. Department of Agriculture again has excluded national forests in Wyoming from receiving federal economic stimulus program money. The federal agency on Tuesday announced nearly $275 million in new federal funds for improvements to U.S. Forest Service trails and facilities in 32 states. It included none for Wyoming.

Sometimes, federal pork is just that - pork. Internet newsman Matt Drudge drew squeals of anger from President Obama's agriculture chief on Monday after his Drudge Report Web site revealed the feds spent millions of stimulus dollars on piglet-sized pork products. One contract, listed on the government's recovery.gov Web site, indicated that federal bean counters had spent $1.19 million for "2 pound frozen ham sliced." An additional $16.7 million contract was earmarked simply for "canned pork." But Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack insisted Monday that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act contracts were all, er, kosher, and dismissed Drudge's take as...

Agriculture's role in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions could take a backseat to debate about the higher costs farmers could face under the climate legislation as the Senate Agriculture Committee hears from farm groups and key officials in the Obama administration on Wednesday. Republican senators throughout the ranks of the Agriculture Committee have made it clear since last week that Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson had better come armed with detailed data on what kind of costs farmers may face. Some senators want detailed information broken down by commodity and state. The climate bill passed...

Gov paying over a half million dollars a pound for sliced ham? Thomas Lifson According to Recovery.gov, the new Obama website showing us how much the country is being stimulated by government spending, the taxpayers are buying sliced frozen ham at $550,000 per pound. I wonder what they would pay for fresh ham? And here I thought prosciutto was expensive. Is this going to be served to guests at one of the many parties the Obamas like to throw? Half million dollar a pound ham won't really uimpress the Saudis, if Obama offers it to them, no matter how low...

So Three Cows Walk into Court : Animal-rights extremism in the Obama entourage is no joke. by Wesley J. Smith 07/20/2009, Volume 014, Issue 41 Imagine you are a cattle rancher looking for liability insurance. You meet with your broker, who, as expected, asks a series of questions to gauge your suitability for coverage: Have you ever been sued by your cattle? If the answer is yes, what was the outcome of that suit? Have you received any correspondence or other communication from your herd's legal representatives threatening suit or seeking to redress any legal grievance? If you think that's...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Late blight, which caused the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s and 1850s, is killing potato and tomato plants in home gardens from Maine to Ohio and threatening commercial and organic farms, U.S. plant scientists said on Friday. "Late blight has never occurred this early and this widespread in the United States," said Meg McGrath, a plant pathologist at Cornell University's extension center in Riverhead, New York..... This year's cool, wet weather created perfect conditions for the disease. "Hopefully, it will turn sunny," McGrath said. "If we get into our real summer hot dry weather, this disease...

Farmers, activists at odds over animal treatment By DAVID EGGERT | Associated Press Writer 11:20 AM CDT, July 11, 2009 LANSING, Mich. - Michigan farmers and animal rights advocates are fighting over the treatment of farm animals, a conflict that ultimately may be taken to voters. The farm lobby is backing bipartisan legislation that would put into law the agriculture industry's guidelines for farm animals' health and welfare, and require audits of livestock farms. A 10-member council would review and possibly update animal care standards at least every five years and local governments would be pre-empted from setting their own...

Late blight, which caused the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s and 1850s, is killing potato and tomato plants in home gardens from Maine to Ohio and threatening commercial and organic farms... "Late blight has never occurred this early and this widespread in the United States," said Meg McGrath, a plant pathologist at Cornell University's extension center in Riverhead, New York. She said the fungal disease, spread by spores carried in the air, has made its way into the garden centers of large retail chains in the Northeastern United States. "Wal-mart, Home Depot, Sears, Kmart and Lowe's are some of...

Call your legislators and House/Senate Leadership Now Insist they pass HJR 2 or SJR 6 before adjourning for summer recess URGENT Action Request -Livestock Care Board Legislation in Jeopardy of Dying in General Assembly Action Requested: The Governor and legislative leaders have struck a deal regarding the state budget that DOES NOT include a deal for final passage of the either HJR2 or SJR6, the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board Proposed Constitutional Amendment. The General Assembly will likely complete work on the state budget this coming Monday, July 13, and will then likely recess, which will eliminate any opportunity for...

Dairy farmers in Northeast Wisconsin are feeling the pain at the pump...the milk pump that is. Mark Petersen, a third generation farmer ... tells that prices for his milk have plummeted on the market, and he's really feeling the pinch. Petersen says he's only getting around ten dollars per hundred pounds of milk produced right now. He was getting 20 dollars per hundred pounds not too long ago. And his operational costs exceed his revenue. Not good, of course. consumers have seen milk prices at the store come down, but it's not proportionate to what farmers are losing.

Animal welfare activists threaten nation’s agriculture Producers need to tell their story By Elizabeth Barrett July 10, 2009 Clouds loom over agriculture today. According to Roger Berry, the average American is three generations removed from the farm while animal rights groups don’t understand the importance of animal agricultural. “We’re in danger of losing animal agriculture,” said Berry, the field director for the Alliance for the Future of Agriculture. Berry spoke to Gothenburg Rotarians at their noon meeting Monday at the Parlor Restaurant. A-FAN is a non-political organization formed to help Nebraska farmers and ranchers protect and preserve the quality of...

DETROIT (AP) - A former aide to U.S. Rep. John Conyers has been arrested in Africa after skipping his sentencing on a federal fraud conviction, federal authorities said. DeWayne Boyd, 49, formerly of Detroit, was arrested Friday in Accra, Ghana, said Daniel D. Roberts, special agent in charge of the FBI's Detroit Field Office. Boyd is a former aide to Willie Brown when he was the speaker of the California Assembly. Boyd was arrested on a warrant for failing to appear at the April sentencing hearing on convictions of mail fraud, making false declarations under oath, making false statements to...

The plant fungus that caused the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s has shown up in Plattsburgh, and experts say residents need to act quickly. It's called "late blight" and it affects eggplants, potatoes and tomatoes. The fungus hasn't made it this far north in about a decade, but it moves quickly and can kill an infected plant in as short as a week and a half. The signs that your plants have late blight are brownish lesions on the leaves which make them look wet. Late blight was discovered in the region at unnamed major box stores on Friday....

I heard about King Corn when Nora Gedgaudas interviewed Curt Ellis, one of the film’s creators. Ellis and his co-creator Ian Cheney decided to learn about the dominance of corn in our food supply by growing an acre of corn in Iowa, then following where corn goes after it’s harvested. The short answer is: it goes into pretty much everything. People like to blame the big, bad food industry for turning us into a nation of corn-eaters, but it was clear to me (and yes, this fits nicely with my own bias) that the problem is rooted in stupid government...

Fiscal Policy: The House of Representatives is preparing to vote on an anti-stimulus package that in the name of saving the earth will destroy the American economy. Smoot-Hawley will seem like a speed bump...As we've said before, capping emissions is capping economic growth. An analysis of Waxman-Markey by the Heritage Foundation projects that by 2035 it would reduce aggregate gross domestic product by $7.4 trillion. In an average year, 844,000 jobs would be destroyed, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by almost 2 million. Consumers would pay through the nose as electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket, as President Obama once...

Losing immigrant workers would mean losing farms, cows and milk, according to a survey on the effects of foreign-born labor on dairy farms that was released June 4 by the National Milk Producers Federation. The estimated effect of a 50 percent loss of the immigrant workforce on America's dairy farms would mean about 2,266 farms would go out of business, cow numbers would drop by more than 670,000 nationwide and milk production would drop by 14.7 billion pounds, the survey said. "We estimated that with a 50 percent loss in immigrant labor, we would expect to see an increase in...

WAYMART - Joe Davitt's tone curdled as he discussed the trough in milk prices. "We're the only self-employed business that has no say in what we get paid," Mr. Davitt, 39, said Wednesday as he gazed at a cluster of Holstein cows feeding in the barn at his 145-acre farm. "I can't afford to quit because what the cows would bring wouldn't be enough to cover my debt." A slump in milk prices is taking dairy farmers to the woodshed. Expenses exceed milk payments at many dairy operations. "There were times before when the prices were low, but the costs...

The goal seems to be nothing short of eradicating American farms and self-sustainability. Even DEMOCRATS are opposing the Obama Energy Bill. Climate change legislation will be utterly devastating for American farmers. Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-IA) of the House Agriculture Committee says that not only will he not vote for it, but no one else on his committee will support it either. The bill would increase the cost of everything that farmers depend on, such as diesel fuel, gasoline, fertilizers, pesticides, and a host of other things. It would raise taxes on energy by $846 billion over the next ten years....

For the second time in little over a year, it looks as though the world may be heading for a serious food crisis, thanks to our old friend "climate change". In many parts of the world recently the weather has not been too brilliant for farmers. After a fearsomely cold winter, June brought heavy snowfall across large parts of western Canada and the northern states of the American Midwest. In Manitoba last week, it was -4ºC. North Dakota had its first June snow for 60 years. There was midsummer snow not just in Norway and the Cairngorms, but even in...

The bill is House Resolution 2454, imposing a domestic carbon emissions cap-and-trade program on the American economy.The goal seems to be nothing short of eradicating American farms and self-sustainability. Even DEMOCRATS are opposing the Obama Energy Bill. Climate change legislation will be utterly devastating for American farmers. Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-IA) of the House Agriculture Committee says that not only will he not vote for it, but no one else on his committee will support it either. The bill would increase the cost of everything that farmers depend on, such as diesel fuel, gasoline, fertilizers, pesticides, and a host of...

More and more Democrats are ready to vote against Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s climate change bill, according to a congressional committee chairman who opposes his leader. The House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) said Wednesday that he’s at an impasse with the lead sponsor of a climate change bill strongly backed by Pelosi (D-Calif.), and that his list of Democratic members who would join him in voting against the measure is growing rather than shrinking. “We’re stuck,” Peterson said regarding a clash he’s had with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) over a number of issues in...

http://www.iceagenow.com/ Headed for a “year without a summer?” 10 Jun 09 – AccuWeather's Joe Bastardi expects areas from the northern Plains into the Northeast to have a "year without a summer." “The last time this happened was the Tamboro eruption in 1815 followed by a year without a summer in 1816,” says reader Charles Patrick. See Headed for a “year without a summer?”

Loss of forests in India, China during the 1700s led to a decline in monsoon precipitation The dramatic expansion of agriculture in India and southeastern China during the 18th century — a sprawl that took place at the expense of forests — triggered a substantial drop in precipitation in those regions, a new study suggests. Winds that blow northeast from the Indian Ocean into southern Asia each summer bring abundant rain to an area that’s home to more than half the world’s population. But those seasonal winds, known as monsoons, brought about 20 percent less rainfall each year to India...

Changes in the sun is shortening growing season while credit crunch leaves farmers unable to purchase fertilizer at a time when world food supplies are at all time lows. Crop failures around the world are snowballing into a dangerous climax that may lead to social unrest and famine. Suggest reading entire article and links within it. Very scary... and this is happening... it is not conjecture. A mini ice age may be on the way because of sunspot cycles and already existing empty grain, coffee, et al silos.

On a number of occasions in the past I have documented the disappearing act our honeybees are performing, commonly referred to as colony collapse disorder, and the impact it may have in relation to bible prophecy. It's time to revisit that issue. I've heard it said that one of out of every three bites of food we eat in a day exists because of honey bees. If that's correct, we have a lot to be concerned about where the survival of the honeybee is concerned and beekeepers are sounding the alarm once again. Something is wrong, they're telling us. The...

WASHINGTON (NNPA) - President Obama has announced plans to include $1.250 billion in settlement funds in the 2010 budget to bring closure to the long-standing Black farmers’ lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the White House has announced. “This is an issue I worked on in the Senate, and I’m pleased that we are now able to close this chapter in the agency’s history and move on,” the President said in a release. “My hope is that the farmers and their families who were denied access to USDA loans and programs will be made whole and will have the...

Caffeine addicts face higher prices for their daily fix as the wholesale cost of both coffee and sugar rise sharply because of poor crops and robust demand.

California's pistachio producers could potentially boost research and promotion efforts and do more to combat disease, under Agriculture Department recommendations made public Tuesday. The proposed changes will expand how the Valley-based pistachio industry regulates itself. Growers from Arizona and New Mexico will be folded into an existing marketing order, a grower-run organization which will gain new powers under the proposal. "We're going to reduce the risk of a food safety crisis," said Bob Klein, manager of the Fresno-based Administrative Committee for Pistachios.

A new method for irrigating fields has been developed in Israel and will be presented at the upcoming International Agritech Exhibition 2009 in Tel Aviv. The water crisis in Israel and throughout the world is expediting the development of technological solutions for reducing the amount of water used in agriculture. In the new method, dew that falls during the night is channeled and used to irrigate produce. Normally, drops of dew that fall on a field would not reach a plant's roots since the small amount of water doesn't penetrate deep into the soil. But with the new technology...

I have changed my mind about participating in the carbon credit program. And have resolved to give the money I received to St Jude’s Children’s Hospital. Here is why. Recently I sat in the fire hall with a few dozen farmers. We had been invited to hear how we can get paid for carbon credits. The speaker explained how their satellites can measure the carbon in our land individually and how much money we could get. Then asked for questions. I asked “what is the source of this money”? The presenter said it comes from big companies that pollute. I...

> Lees - a gardener at the camp - helped dig the tunnels, but because he was not an officer he was not given the chance to escape himself. He used an ingenious system to dispose of the soil from the three tunnels, storing it in a bag hidden under his trousers and then dumping it on the camp's vegetable garden. > Lees praised the filmmakers for producing an accurate version of events, telling the Paisley Daily Express newspaper: "It was just the way it was portrayed in The Great Escape movie". >

What's Behind Us Is No Longer Important Paradigm Shift: Fundamental unperceived change in an individual's or a society's view of how things work by JAIME E. CARRASCO CFP | april 22, 2009 The bears were out in full form two weeks ago in Toronto. Papa Bear himself, Eric Sprott, gathered Meredith Whitney of Meredith Whitney Advisory Group, Nouriel Roubini of New York University and Ian Gordon, author of The Long Wave Analyst newsletters, to tell us how the world we know is over and of how from the resulting Armageddon a new reality will reshape our world. As a friend...

Much of Oklahoma's Wheat Crop Damaged Apr 17, 2009 9:42 PM By Colleen Chen, NEWS 9 for NewsOn6.com OKLAHOMA CITY, OK -- Oklahoma wheat producers are beginning to see the effects from a hard freeze earlier this month. Oklahoma Wheat Commission Executive Director Mike Schulte said some fields suffered damage of up to 90 percent. While consumers likely won't see any price jumps at the grocery store in the short term, Schulte said they will likely see price changes a few months from now. Learn more about the Oklahoma Farm Report, broadcast on the Radio Oklahoma Network. Find RON Radio...

For the first time, scientists have isolated the parasite Nosema ceranae (Microsporidia) from professional apiaries suffering from honey bee colony depopulation syndrome. They then went on to treat the infection with complete success.

If we don't rise up and stop this Joker now, we will be in a depression, close to famine and at war with China, Russia, Syria & Iran by 2012. The Axis of Evil is going to wait for the Cap n Trade to cause our agriculture sector to grow for fuel or not at all and then China (through Venezuela), after it stops importing to the US, will force Brazil (Third Largest Exporter in the World) & Other Central/South American Countries to stop exporting to the US (20% of total distribution). The damage of removing Farm Subsidies coupled with...

YOU never know where goat will take you. When I asked the smiley butcher at Jefferson Market, the grocery store near my apartment in the West Village, whether he had any goat meat, he told me: “No. I got a leg of lamb, though — I could trim it nice and thin to make it look like goat.” I politely declined. We fell into conversation. I found myself telling him: “Koreans think eating goat soup increases virility. It can lead to better sexytime.” My new friend responded: “My lamb does that a little. You won’t want to every night, but...

On the March 28 World News Saturday, ABC gave rare attention to the plight of drought-stricken farmers in California who have been denied access to a major water supply by a judge citing the Endangered Species Act to protect a type of fish. During a story recounting the unusual level of problems facing these farmers – a recession coinciding with drought – correspondent Lisa Fletcher informed viewers: "And for the first time ever, farmers may be completely cut off from one of their sources of water. Farmers don't have access to this water that runs right through the center...

"Feed Me Seymour" Israeli scientists have developed a product that enables plants to tell farmers that they are hungry or even turn on the water itself. OK its not a talking plant like "Little Shop of Horrors" its a sensor that measures the stress of plants and their water levels. Israel is a country with a severe water problem, and this invention will enable farmers to use water only when needed. It is projected to save farmers up to 30 to 40 percent in water use. More Below:

FALLS CHURCH, Va.--The Acting President of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund said that the new White House Garden will serve as a much-needed catalyst for a discussion of how to make it easier for consumers to reap the dietary benefits of food that is produced sustainably and close to home. “We applaud Michelle Obama for starting the garden and demonstrating how healthy food can and should be part of everyone’s diet,” said Pete Kennedy. “But more work is needed. For even as the First Family is highlighting the importance of fresh, sustainable, garden-raised food, Congress and the President’s own Agriculture...

Sugar, the nutritional pariah that dentists and dietitians have long reviled, is enjoying a second act, dressed up as a natural, healthful ingredient. From the tomato sauce on a Pizza Hut pie called “The Natural,” to the just-released soda Pepsi Natural, some of the biggest players in the American food business have started, in the last few months, replacing high-fructose corn syrup with old-fashioned sugar. ConAgra uses only sugar or honey in its new Healthy Choice All Natural frozen entrees. Kraft Foods recently removed the corn sweetener from its salad dressings, and is working on its Lunchables line of portable...

Some small farms and organic food growers could be placed under direct supervision of the federal government under new legislation making its way through Congress. Food Safety Modernization Act House Resolution 875, or the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, was introduced by Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., in February. DeLauro's husband, Stanley Greenburg, conducts research for Monsanto – the world's leading producer of herbicides and genetically engineered seed. DeLauro's act has 39 co-sponsors and was referred to the House Agriculture Committee on Feb. 4. It calls for the creation of a Food Safety Administration to allow the government to regulate food...

Mr Ure writes: "...I am really ragging on folks to get - plant - and begin harvesting their own seed supplies for future food crops from open-pollinated, heritage (non-genetically modified) vegetable seeds. ...it would be prudent to buy a large supply of open pollinated seed now, before these seeds become is short supply. ... ...'terminator seed technology' and at the core of that monstrosity are seeds which would only live once and yield nothing edible in future crops. Sort of like fields of eunuchs.... ...The problem which always faces those at the top of the socioeconomic heap is that they...

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says the government should move quickly to increase the amount of ethanol allowed in gasoline. Ethanol producers asked the Environmental Protection Agency last week to increase the amount of ethanol that refiners can blend with gasoline from a maximum of 10 percent to 15 percent, which could boost the demand for the renewable fuel additive by as much as 6 billion gallons a year. However, automobile and small engine manufacturers have said there's no certainty yet that such an increase will not harm engines and fuel lines.

Truth for Tuesday---Sharon Zechinelli This week Truth Farmer will feature guest, activist and author extraordinaire, Sharon Zechinelli. Sharon has been fighting against the National Animal Identification System for years. Sharon has written a book entitled "First They Came for the Cows" which is available through her directly at henwhisperer@gmail.com, or through Amamzon.com chronicling the events and discoveries made by "Maddie" as she unwound the web of deceit used to foist this program upon the public. Sharon and Doreen have appeared together on a few radio shows and Cattlenetwork.com "Five Minutes with Jolley". Sharon has a wealth of information to share...

HR 875 - The Federal Take-Over of Food Regulation On February 4, 2009 Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) introduced the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 (HR 875), a bill that would establish the Food Safety Administration (FSA) within the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). HR 875 represents a tremendous expansion of federal power, particularly the power to regulate intrastate commerce. While the proposed legislation tries to address the many problems of the industrial food system, the impact on small farms if the bill becomes law would be substantial and not for the better. HR 875 is a major...

Fish Studies Answer Flood Question by Brian Thomas, M.S.* According to the Bible, the world before Noah’s Flood, including the oceans, must have been idyllic. That was destroyed by the year-long global deluge, during which the earth’s land mass broke into continents, massive amounts of sediment were deposited and then partially eroded, and new and perhaps deeper oceans became more salty from continental runoff. If this historical picture is accurate, then at least one area of confusion needs to be addressed: How did “saltwater fish” live through all that?...

U.S. Senate at deadlock over earmarks for Weslaco agricultural center, others No one knows yet what causes the bees to disappear. One day the beehive is humming along; the next day the bees are just gone. Pesticides, bee diet and environmental stresses are factors believed to contribute to what's known as "colony collapse disorder," said Sandy Miller Hays, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief research agency. Bees are used to pollinate much of the nation's crops, she said, and yet questions persist about the phenomenon. Scientists are investigating bee disappearance and related topics at Weslaco's Kika de...

The economic crisis has contributed to a glut of bees in California. That raises questions about whether a supposed global pollination crisis is real ___ The annual orgy of sexual reproduction in the Californian almond orchards owes little to the unintended bounty of nature. Francis Ratnieks, a professor of apiculture at Sussex University who has worked on the state’s almond farms, says the crop is so large and intensively grown these days that it has greatly surpassed the region’s inherent ability to supply pollinators. Decades ago, when there were fewer almonds, farmers could rely on pollination just from the beekeepers...

Heeding the advice of Gen. David Petraeus, Barack Obama has committed 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan and will keep 50,000 in Iraq after U.S. combat operations end in August 2010. But are U.S. vital interests more threatened by what happens in Anbar or Helmand than in the war raging along our southern border? Prediction: After all U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and Korea have come home, there will be a U.S. army on the Mexican border. For this is where the fate of our republic will be decided, as the fate of Europe will be decided by the millions streaming...

Scary stuff...