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The New York Times reported Friday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has likely enabled massive fraud in the Pigford series of legal settlements, in which black, Hispanic, female and Native American farmers have claimed to be victims of past discrimination. The cost of the settlements, which could exceed $4.4 billion, is the result of a process that "became a runaway train, driven by racial politics, pressure from influential members of Congress and law firms that stand to gain more than $130 million in fees," the Times notes. Among those influential members of Congress was then-Senator Barack Obama, who...

In the winter of 2010, after a decade of defending the government against bias claims by Hispanic and female farmers, Justice Department lawyers seemed to have victory within their grasp. Ever since the Clinton administration agreed in 1999 to make $50,000 payments to thousands of black farmers, the Hispanics and women had been clamoring in courtrooms and in Congress for the same deal. They argued, as the African-Americans had, that biased federal loan officers had systematically thwarted their attempts to borrow money to farm. But a succession of courts — and finally the Supreme Court — had rebuffed their pleas....

In the winter of 2010, after a decade of defending the government against bias claims by Hispanic and female farmers, Justice Department lawyers seemed to have victory within their grasp. Ever since the Clinton administration agreed in 1999 to make $50,000 payments to thousands of black farmers, the Hispanics and women had been clamoring in courtrooms and in Congress for the same deal. They argued, as the African-Americans had, that biased federal loan officers had systematically thwarted their attempts to borrow money to farm. But a succession of courts — and finally the Supreme Court — had rebuffed their pleas....

Under criticism for handing over personal data on farmers and ranchers to environmental groups, the Environmental Protection Agency defended its actions as “cost-effective under current budget constraints.” “Normally, we’d harry these despoilers of the environment ourselves,” said Bob Perciasepe, Acting EPA Administrator. “But with the budget being hemmed in by the sequester we have to seek other ways of achieving our objectives. We saw arming these environmental groups with potentially useful information as a way of multiplying or leveraging our forces. We thought we’d get more bang for the buck, so to speak.” if you missed any of this week's...

THE Supreme Court has frequently handed down judgments that have shaken America to its core. Now, it has turned its attention to the raisin. A group of farmers has brought a complaint about the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, under which the government confiscates part of the annual national raisin crop. The Court is considering whether the arrangement is constitutional. But why is a country that generally celebrates red-blooded capitalism regulating the raisin trade in the first place?Since the 1940s a government agency called the Raisin Administrative Committee has confiscated a portion of the annual raisin crop: 47% in 2003 and...

Dozens of resorts with permits to operate on national forests have bought or acquired rights to use nearby bodies of water for snowmaking. The Forest Service had adopted a clause that said those resorts had to transfer their water rights to the federal government ... After the National Ski Areas Association sued, a judge ruled last year that the agency violated procedure in not seeking public comment before adopting the clause. The agency now plans open houses April 16 in Lakewood, Colo., on April 17 in Salt Lake City, and April 18 in Lake Tahoe, Calif., to get input.

WASHINGTON, DC - President Barack Obama signed a spending bill, HR 933, into law, the "Monsanto Protection Act," that strips federal courts of the authority to immediately halt the planting and sale of genetically modified (GMO) seed crop regardless of any consumer health concerns. "The provision would strip federal courts of the authority to halt the sale and planting of an illegal, potentially hazardous GE crop while the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) assesses those potential hazards," explains a letter to the House that has been signed by dozens of food businesses and retailers, as well as interest groups and...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Federal investigators have unraveled a massive scheme among dozens of insurance agents, claims adjusters, brokers and farmers in eastern North Carolina to steal at least $100 million from the government-backed program that insures crops. Forty-one defendants have either pleaded guilty or reached plea agreements after profiting from false insurance claims for losses of tobacco, soybeans, wheat and corn. Often, the crops weren't damaged at all, with farmers using aliases to sell their written-off harvests for cash. Prosecutors compared the case to busting a drug cartel, where federal investigators used a confidential informant to ensnare a key...

God Made a Farmer Ram Trucks Super Bowl Commercial with Paul HarveyChrysler’s Super Bowl Ram Truck commercial praising the American farmer was an unexpected big hit and is still being replayed around the country on talk radio. Rich Lowry and Peggy Noonan both contrasted the authenticity of that commercial fantasy with the falsity of the real event. And why not? Even if the clip was a bit corny and overdone, the late Paul Harvey was a masterful throaty narrator in the romantic age before the onset of America’s now ubiquitous metrosexual nasal intonation. Harvey just didn’t sound different from the...

An iconic radio voice took the cake, as Dodge Ram’s “So God Made a Farmer” spot with Paul Harvey as the voice over was the highest-rated commercial during Super Bowl XLVII according to ADBOWL, the original advertising ranking website for consumers developed in 2002 by McKee Wallwork & Company. It wasn’t flashy or filled with special effects, but Dodge Ram’s Super Bowl spot featuring the late radio broadcaster Paul Harvey’s tribute to U.S. farmers won the hearts and minds of viewers Sunday night. The two-minute spot featured a series of stark photos of farmers at work. Along with a montage...

47 percent of their crop, to be precise. It’s J.J. Abrams’ world. We’re all just living in it.Luckily, the Supreme Court decided to take the case of the Horne family, so they may end up retaining the right to freely sell the raisin crop they’ve duly produced, but how is it that they must appeal to the highest court in the land for that right? Well, it all started in 1937, as so many good things do, when the federal government began requiring raising farmers to lay aside a tribute portion of their crops in order to control supply and...

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — The classical definition of a hero is a person who puts himself at risk for the benefit of others. That certainly describes Adolfo Calero, who died June 2 at the age of 80. The obituaries of this remarkable man hardly do justice to his courage, perseverance, faithfulness and humility. Here is the Adolfo Calero I knew, admired and called a friend for nearly three decades: A graduate of Holy Cross High School in New Orleans and the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., he was a devout Roman Catholic and educated to be a...

The New Year could push milk prices to $7 a gallon. With Congress spending all its time trying to avert the fiscal cliff, a slew of other legislative matters are going unattended. One of them is the agriculture bill which, if not addressed, could lead to a doubling of the price of milk early next year. ... Sky-high milk prices wouldn't necessarily be good for dairy farmers either, according to Chris Galen, a spokesman for the National Milk Producers Federation, which represents over 30,000 dairy farmers. While it might provide a short term boost to profits, there's a fear that...

New legislation that jumps the death tax to 55 percent of estates exceeding $1 million threatens 526,421 family farms, of about 25 percent of all farms in America. ... Farm values are largely tied up in non-liquid assets like land, buildings, and livestock. Many farm and ranch families would be forced to sell their assets to satisfy Washington Democrats' insatiable appetite for tax money. Up to 24 percent of America's farm and ranch families could be forced to hand over a large chunk of their heritage to the Internal Revenue Service when a family member dies. This would economically devastate...

They Are Going To Make It Nearly Impossible To Pass On A Farm Or A Business To Your Children By Michael Snyder on November 20th, 2012 If you have a farm or a small business, would you like to pass it on to your children when you die? Well, unless Congress does something, it is going to become much, much harder to do that starting next year. Right now, there is a 5 million dollar estate tax exemption and anything above that is taxed at 35 percent. But on January 1st, the exemption will go down to 1 million dollars...

the estate tax -- also known as the "death tax."... set to soar at the beginning of 2013 ... The estate tax dates back to 1916 when then-President Woodrow Wilson imposed the tax of 1 to 10 percent on the wealthy because World War I reduced federal government revenues. Under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the tax rose to 77 percent, as Congress tried to prevent wealth from becoming concentrated among a few powerful and super-rich families. Ironically, many nations historically more concerned with class and wealth -- namely Russia and China -- have since abandoned their estate taxes.

President Obama is among the slickest practitioners ever of the Washington Wink-Wink -- what professional politicians in both parties do when they say one thing while planning to do something else entirely. There was, for example, Obama's 2008 campaign promise to "cut the federal deficit in half." And that "net federal spending cut" he would achieve by the end of his first term? Anybody think he didn't know then that his first term would explode the deficit and spending to historic highs? Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., the ranking minority member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, sees more...

<p>Madison, Wis. -- For years, vacationers and farmers across northern Wisconsin and Minnesota have heard the eerie howl of the gray wolf and fretted the creatures were lurking around their cabins and pastures. The tables are about to turn there.</p>

More than 92,000 “black farmers” signed up for reparations from the Obama USDA after the Pigford case was extended in 2010. That’s five times the number of blacks who were actually farming during the time period in question and would possibly qualify for the reparations. ... To date, almost $1 billion has been paid or credited to the farmers under the settlement’s consent decree. Democrats want to add another $1.2 billion to the money pot and continue with the reparations. Now the Obama Administration is offering Hispanic and women farmers over $1.3 billion in discrimination payouts. ... Obama’s plan has...

MIDDLETON, Md. -- With at least 4,500 federal laws existing today, some of the most unlikely people are finding themselves charged with crimes and breaking laws they didn't know existed.Such is the case of two Maryland farm families who ran afoul of the "Bank Secrecy Act," which farmer Randy Sowers told CBN News he'd never heard of.Sowers has been farming in the mid-region of Maryland for decades."I've been doing this for 31 years and I've put in most days 18 hours or more," he said.Sowers decided to buck the trend of most farms these days and not work for a...

‘Extortion’: Why Did the Labor Department ‘Drop the Hammer’ on Oregon Farmers? "Oregon farmers and state officials are furious with the U.S. Labor Department after federal authorities in July put a hold on thousands of dollars worth of blueberries, citing “widespread” record-keeping and minimum wage violations, Eric Mortenson reports for The Oregonian. “[T]he department invoked a “hot goods” provision of labor law that prohibited shipment of the berries. Labor officials also notified wholesalers that berries from the farms would be subject to the order and should not be processed or shipped,” according to the report. “Hot goods” orders are used...

Years worth of work could be washed away upon approval of a proposal to flood the wetland WINTER LAKE — Every resident learns to live with the flood. Each year, with cruel seasonality, this peat-land is transformed into a 1,700-acre soup. But this year, emotions have piqued over a different deluge. Next year, earthworks are slated to begin on a $3.5 million project to restore 400 acres of pasture to wetland. Sarah Crawford, an organic farmer on Garden Valley Road, worries that new body of water will radically alter the valley's water table. 'That would ruin us," Crawford said. 'That...

Voter ID has gotten large amounts of media attention, but residents of rural areas are concerned about another identification issue that has remained largely ignored: chicken ID. ... The U.S. Department of Agriculture's proposed rules for Animal Disease Traceability, developed in August 2011, are now in their final stages. They require identification of farm animals, such as poultry and cattle, that cross state lines. Many farmers worry the rules would send them on a literal wild goose chase, forcing them to catch and hold down each bird to attach an identification tag. Read more: http://times247.com/articles/88feds-foist-chicken-id-on-frustrated-farmers6#ixzz20XcTgF3L

... Not all guidance is helpful or benevolent. That is particularly true if the guidance is coming from a government regulatory agency. Take, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency’s effort to expand its regulatory reach under the Clean Water Act to nearly every drop of water, and some dry land, too. Through what’s officially known as a “guidance document,” EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers are seeking to remove the word “navigable” from the Clean Water Act. That action would allow them to regulate even a roadside ditch that holds water for only a few hours after a big...

Midwest farmers were outraged to hear that the Obama EPA was spying on ranches in surveilance planes. Rep. Tom Latham sent a letter to the EPA demanding answers, “No federal agency has the right to treat the American farmer like the Taliban.” To the Obama EPA – Iowa farmers are the enemy. The AP reported: Midwest ranchers have never been enamored with environmental regulators, but they really began to complain after learning that federal inspectors were flying over their land to look for problems. The Environmental Protection Agency flies over power plants and other facilities nationwide to identify potential air,...

A parody music video promoting agriculture! If you like it, feel free to share it with your friends! No copyright infringement of original song intended. Lyrics: When I'm up at seven, the sunrise gives me a glimpse of heaven I get right to work, a farmer's life can be a little berserk yeah This is how I roll, I feed the cattle till their stomachs are full Treat em right, that's my belief, What's for dinner? I say beef! Gotta feed Everybody Gotta Feed Everybody Gotta Feed Everybody (Uh-Huh) I work out (side!) When I step to the bunk (yeah)...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. tomato growers on Monday said they have formally asked the U.S. Commerce Department to tear up a pricing agreement with Mexican producers that they say has become "a charade." Reggie Brown, executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Exchange, told Reuters U.S. producers want the pact voided so they can file a new anti-dumping complaint against Mexico. The rare request comes in a dispute that dates back to 1996, when U.S. industry filed a petition accusing Mexican producers of selling in the United States at unfairly low prices. Brown said the Commerce Department found that Mexican...

This is weird. Missouri US Senate candidate John Brunner donated $10,000 to a radical animal rights group. ReBoot Congress reported: Republican US Senate candidate John Brunner appears to have once supported a radical animal rights group. According to the Brunner Foundation’s 2008 form 990-PF , the Foundation donated $10,000 to the Humane Farming Association (HFA). John Brunner and his wife serve as the two trustees of that foundation, so, does Brunner support the leftist agenda of HFA? HFA is a radical animal rights group based in California. They work to limit or even outlaw the use of antibiotics and pesticides...

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He was afraid his seasonal migrant workforce might not return for the summer picking season, opting to stay away rather than risk running afoul of Alabama's stringent immigration law. The crew he awaits is picking the Florida harvest. "I had to cut back my planting not knowing if the labor is going to be available," said Copeland, 47, who planted just two-thirds of his 30 acres on the far side of Straight Mountain in northeastern Blount County. "I don't know what we're going to do if they run every illegal out of here. It's going to be hard to stay...

The moment when the hunter-gatherers laid down their spears and began farming around 11,000 years ago is often interpreted as one of the most rapid and significant transitions in human history -- the 'Neolithic Revolution'. By producing and storing food, Homo sapiens both mastered the natural world and took the first significant steps towards thousands of years of runaway technological development. The advent of specialist craftsmen, an increase in fertility and the construction of permanent architecture are just some of the profound changes that followed. Of course, the transition to agriculture was far from rapid. The period around 14,500 years...

It's being called a bold move by Tennessee lawmakers - a vote that announces their intent to essentially ignore federal regulations regarding child labor on family farms. That 70-24 vote came on Monday night. State Representative Jeremy Faison sponsored House Bill 2669, and says he did so because he feels the new federal regulations being considered just don't belong in our state. "My immediate reaction was my goodness! This will affect every farm in Tennessee," he said. "We put this bill together to let the Depart of Labor in Washington, D.C. know that they're so far overreaching that we can't...

How safe are Monsanto's genetically-modified (GMO) food crops? Not so much. A new study shows that both of Monsanto's major products (which the company claims are harmless to people) in fact can cause damage to human kidney cells. Bugkiller + weedkiller On the one hand, the study by Gilles-Eric Séralini at the University of Caen, France, found that despite Monsanto's protestations to the contrary, the Bt toxin can distrupt the cell membranes of human cells, leading to their death. The toxin is only supposed to do that in the guts of the bugs it targets. Bt has been used for...

..Tofteland held the farm together after his father was killed, survived drought and the great flood of 1993. Then, commodity prices sank in the mid-1990s. And like most farmers, he has seen too many friends die young. Such are the hazards of life on a farm. But all that Tofteland has worked for was nearly lost in one fell swoop last October. This time, it wasn't a crisis brought on by tragedy or Mother Nature. It was the work of Wall Street and commodity power players in Chicago, a scandal that has become known simply as MF Global.Tofteland had $253,000...

DAYTON, Texas - The talk of the day among Ray Stoesser and other rice farmers is Iraq's decision not to buy U.S. rice, a stinging move that adds to a stressful year punctuated by everything from drought to unusual heat. Stoesser and other farmers know Iraqis struggled during the U.S. invasion and subsequent occupation. They know most countries , and people , buy based on price. But at the moment, with production costs rising, export markets shrinking and rice prices dropping, it's difficult to be rational and suppress emotions so intimately intertwined with their land and livelihood. "That's just not...

In the 18th century, Catherine the Great invited German farmers to come to Russia and cultivate the land. Over two centuries later, the country is recruiting Teutonic pioneers once again to put vast tracts of fallow land to use. The land holds great opportunities for agricultural entrepreneurs -- provided they have strong nerves. Stefan Dürr, 47, is now the owner of more than 170,000 hectares (about 420,000 acres) of prime Russian farmland. He is cultivating fields in the Kursk, Voronezh, Orenburg, Novosibirsk and Kaluga regions. Through his holding company, EkoSem-Agrar, he employs 2,800 people in farming, owns a herd of...

Montana farmers have filed a class action suit against former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine, charging that the failed financial firm run by Corzine stole millions from their accounts to pay off its spiraling debts, and that Corzine's "single-minded obsession" with making MF Global a big player on Wall Street led to the firm's collapse. MF Global's clients included 38,000 wheat farmers, cattle ranchers and others who "hedged" their crop prices by placing millions in MF Global accounts. Those accounts were supposed to be "segregated and secure," according to the federal suit, meaning MF Global could not draw on those...

WASHINGTON – Sacramento attorney Damien Schiff will be carrying the conservative flame Monday when the Supreme Court considers what could become the year's hottest environmental case. For the 32-year-old Schiff, a senior staff attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, the hourlong oral argument marks a personal milestone. The Monday morning session will be his first appearance before the famously aggressive questioners of the nation's highest court. "There is a greater intensity of preparation," Schiff acknowledged Thursday, following a moot court session at Georgetown University Law Center. "Everyone knows that (an attorney) is lucky to have 30 seconds to make their...

As Southwest Florida prepares for a cold snap, farmers are bracing for potential damage to their crops. ... Sorrells says that fog, created through an intricate web of irrigation lines, should raise the temperatures in the groves an estimated 3 to 5 degrees. The water will flow all night into the early morning until the temperatures reach above freezing ... the length of time the oranges and trees remain frozen, and says four hours can damage the fruit and six hours can damage a tree

As 2011 draws to a close, so do opportunities for farmers to take advantage of certain provisions of the federal tax code.... "The ability for bonus depreciation is changing, so if you're looking to make capital expenditures, this is the year to do it," ... "You can depreciate 100 percent now, it will go to 50 percent next year, and after that it could go away completely depending on what Congress does." ... The other significant impending change to the federal tax code involves Section 179, which according to Marrison, works somewhat similarly to the bonus depreciation allowance.

NOTE The following text is a quote: http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2011/alleged-terrorist-indicted-in-new-york-for-the-murder-of-five-american-soldiers Alleged Terrorist Indicted in New York for the Murder of Five American Soldiers U.S. Attorney’s Office December 09, 2011 Eastern District of New York NEW YORK—Today, a federal grand jury in Brooklyn, N.Y., returned an indictment charging Faruq Khalil Muhammad ‘Isa, 38, aka “Faruk Khalil Muhammad ‘Isa,” “Sayfildin Tahir Sharif” and “Tahir Sharif Sayfildin,” with aiding in the murder of five American soldiers in a suicide-bomb attack in Iraq in April 2009. Specifically, he is charged with the murders of Staff Sergeant Gary L. Woods, 24, of Lebanon Junction, Ky.; Sergeant First...

LANSING, Mich. — Sparking outrage across the country’s rural heartland, the Obama administration is proposing rules to curb the ability of children on farms to engage in “corn sex” for pay. Farmers call it corn detasseling, a time-honored but physically demanding chore designed to promote cross-pollination in the field. For decades it has been a way for teens to earn extra spending money — and forge some good-natured field hand camaraderie — for a few weeks each summer. The Obama administration is considering revisions to federal agricultural work rules that effectively would bar teens younger than 16 from engaging in...

The Occupy movement came to Los Angeles aiming for Wall Street titans, but farmers market vendors are the first to take a real hit. Two weeks ago, about 40 vendors who sell on the City Hall lawn every Thursday were forced off the property after protesters refused to remove their city of tents. .. Since that relocation, profits have plummeted, vendors have pulled out and shoppers have become scarce. "The cause is good," said Genaro Lopez, a vendor who initially helped protesters with free sodas and burritos. "But this is our bread and butter, and we've taken a huge hit."...

Would you buy your organic yoghurt from one of these hunky Somerset farmers?

Alabama farmers frantically looking for workers to replace those that have fled the state in the wake of its tough new immigration law should just stop by their local prison, according to the head of Alabama’s agriculture department. John McMillan, commissioner of the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries, told the Montgomery Advertiser on Thursday that inmate labor through the state’s work-release program offers a short-term solution to the sudden labor shortage that has hit Alabama since enforcement of its illegal immigration law kicked in. Some farmers have said the state’s new law has driven away Hispanic migrant farm workers...

NEW YORK (AP) — Northeastern states are facing a jack-o'-lantern shortage this Halloween after Hurricane Irene destroyed hundreds of pumpkin patches across the region, farmers say. Wholesale prices have doubled in some places as farmers nurse their surviving pumpkin plants toward a late harvest. Some farmers are trying to buy pumpkins from other regions to cover orders.

It is possible to create jobs, have healthier diets and improve the local economy by re-birthing local agriculture on small plots of land. Each pound of lettuce or eggs or beef shipped from California, Latin America or Mexico raises our dependency on foreign oil. And buying food from far away costs us jobs locally. Some communities have figured out a new path forward that fixes all that. North Carolina’s Rutherford County has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation. Yet some 6,000 families own between 5 and 20 acres of land, and chefs in nearby Charlotte are in...

A new rule being proposed by the federal Department of Transportation would require farmers to get commercial drivers licenses. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which is a part of DOT, wants to adopt standards that would reclassify all farm vehicles and implements as Commercial Motor Vehicles, officials said. Likewise, the proposal, if adopted, would require all farmers and everyone on the farm who operates any of the equipment to obtain a CDL, they added. The proposed rule change would mean that anyone who drives a tractor or operates any piece of motorized farming equipment would be required to pass...

National Farmers Union (NFU) submitted comments to Thomas Yager of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) about a possible reinterpretation of the Motor Carrier Act of 1935, the Motor Carrier Safety Act of 1984, and the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1986. The FMCSA is exploring the possibility of categorizing "implements of husbandry and other farm equipment" as commercial motor vehicles, thus requiring a commercial driver's license (CDL) to operate. "Most farmers have little, if any, control or knowledge of the final destination of the commodities they produce," said NFU President Roger Johnson. "As such, it is inappropriate...

WRAY, Ga., - One of the toughest laws yet to fight illegal immigration went into effect today in Georgia. A federal judge has temporarily blocked the most controversial provision - requiring police to check the immigration status of suspects who don't have proper identification. But it is now a felony to use false documentation to apply for a job. CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann says Georgia farmers have been anticipating this day, and the law is already having a big effect. In south Georgia, it's a banner year for blackberries - but a bad year for berry farmer Gary Paulk....