Free Republic

President Donald Trump will meet with a group of Republican lawmakers Thursday to discuss ways of addressing problems oil refiners have with the EPA’s biofuels mandate. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is among nearly a dozen Republican lawmakers prepared to confront Trump over his administration’s refusal to ratchet down the biofuel standard. They want to find a way to lessen the impact the standards have on oil refiners. “President Trump will meet with senators today to discuss his commitment to the Renewable Fuel Standard and how to effectively address the program’s impact on independent refiners,” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said...

This is a bombshell because the agriculture industry, the governor's office, and the legislature knew the result could be the entire law being thrown out “The Marxians love of Democratic institutions was a stratagem only, a pious fraud for the deception of the masses within A Socialist community there is no room left for Freedom.”— Ludwig Von Mises California Gov. Jerry Brown and the Democrat-supermajority State Legislature hold the state Supreme Court’s purse strings. Evidence of this can be found in the Monday California Supreme Court 7-0 decision in the Gerawan Farming case.

As global warming exacerbates drought and floods, farmers’ incomes plunge – and girls as young as 13 are given away to stave off poverty. ... Everyone has their own idea of what climate change looks like. For some, it’s the walrus struggling to find space on melting ice floes on Blue Planet II. For others, it’s an apocalyptic vision of cities disappearing beneath the waves. But for more and more girls across Africa, the most palpable manifestation of climate change is the baby in their arms as they sit watching their friends walk to school. Many experts are warning a...

SEATTLE — Only 10 active Houston Texans players stood for the national anthem with the rest of the team kneeling down. The Texans had indicated there would be some type of protest following comments by owner Bob McNair. McNair has issued two apologies and is attempting to explain his comments after a story in ESPN The Magazine this week revealed that he said "we can't have the inmates running the prison" during a meeting of NFL owners about players who protest by kneeling during the national anthem. There were reports the Texans would consider staying in the locker room for...

Solar farms are cropping up in Will County As harvest season approaches, some Will County farmers may already be considering alternatives to the future of their corn and soybean fields. They are learning that the sun they now rely on to produce vegetables, could be harnessed into a new cash crop. Empowered by Illinois' new Future Energy Jobs Act, solar companies have approached area farmers in recent weeks about converting a portion of their property into solar farms. Cypress Creek Renewables, which currently operates solar farms in eight states, has an agreement with a landowner in Crete Township to convert...

French authorities warn farmers of Jewish thieves ahead of Yom Kippur Municipal veterinary service says Jews and Muslims may try to steal chickens and sheep to use in ‘unauthorized sacrifices’ for holidays Veterinarians in a municipality near Paris warned farmers of an elevated risk of theft of sheep and fowl ahead of the Muslim and Jewish holidays of Eid al-Adha and Yom Kippur, respectively. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories FREE SIGN UP! The warning, which provoked angry reactions on the part of communal leaders who felt it was discriminatory, came...

Every time the media does an emotional story on farmer suicides or farmer protests, there are suggestions for what government should do. Usually, these suggestions include more subsidies, price supports, and other forms of government intervention. There is one solution that is never mentioned but is by far the simplest one. To increase farmer incomes, it is necessary to reduce the number of farmers. The law of supply and demand tells us that when the supply of something is very high relative to demand, the price it can fetch is very low. The same law applies to farmers as well....

"Their deaths have reignited the bitter debate over the presence of bears in the mountain range that straddles the French-Spanish border, where they were reintroduced 20 years ago after disappearing in the early 1990s."

A Leave-voting business owner has said he regrets the decision because his fruit farms will collapse if he has no access to EU workers after Brexit. ... He said: “I regret my vote in the face of the Government I'm given. “The reason I voted to leave was that I'm in favour of sovereignty. This was about sovereignty for me. “As businessmen we need clarity about our future direction. “If I don't have my 2,500 staff that I need, or I have no certainty of that from 2019 onwards, I don't have a business. It's as simple as that.” A...

Both U.S. Senators from North Dakota were on hand as Mr. Trump signed his order to eliminate the Obama Administration's Waters of the U.S. rule WASHINGTON D.C. — President Trump has signed another executive order that will impact farmers and ranchers. Both U.S. Senators from North Dakota were on hand as Mr. Trump signed his order to eliminate the Obama Administration’s Waters of the U.S. rule. Senator Heitkamp says it’s time for Congress to act by giving the EPA direction on what water is jurisdictional under the Clean Water Act. Senator Hoeven says the rule was a regulatory overreach that...

armers are generally some of the nicest people you will meet. Being from Alabama, I have many friends who own and operate their own farms, and I can tell you that one way to get even the nicest farmer fired up is to interfere with him getting his work done. Farms run on tight seasonal schedules where a single day of lost work can cost the farmer thousands of dollars in production. Needless to say, a bunch of protesters setting up on this farmers land certainly drew his ire, but as farmers are known to do, he comes up with...

FRESNO — Days after Donald Trump won the White House vowing to deport millions of people in the country illegally and fortify the Mexican border, California farmer Kevin Herman ordered nearly $600,000 in new equipment, cutting the number of workers he’ll need starting with the next harvest. Herman, who grows figs, persimmons and almonds in the nation’s most productive farming state, said Trump’s comments pushed him to make the purchase, larger than he would have otherwise. “No doubt about it,” Herman said. “I probably wouldn’t have spent as much or bought as much machinery as I did.”(continued)

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) — Got milk? Chances are it’s from California. There are more dairy cows in the Golden State than anywhere else in the country. But all that milk and cheese comes at a cost to the planet. Tom Frantz keeps a running count. He says dairy farms have taken over his farming community in the San Joaquin Valley. “There are ten of them within what I call smelling distance of my home,” he said, noting they’ve moved in in just the last 10 years.

With all this buzz about technology leading the way in helping make lives better in our society like the one in Africa. Bill Gates donated money to create a technology that can turn poop into water. But, what about for the farmers in the U.S., some farmers rely on selling fertilizers, its their livelihood. Its a good thing DIY is still the tech that most farmers know. Fertilizing your food plot has never been easier or more economical. It’s still a do-it-yourself world! Taking care of your business has never had more meaning than in this fun and, well, disgusting...

When farmers plow their land, it produces grooves called "furrows," bordered by small ridges of dirt. But in pursuit of new regulatory powers, federal agencies refer to the little dirt mounds by another term: “mini mountain ranges.” That seemingly absurd distinction is being used to impose more federal control over private land use decisions made by U.S. farmers. That was the claim described in a U.S. Senate committee report released Sept. 20. The committee reviewed the powers held by the nation’s two largest environmental regulation agencies, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency, and a proposed...

In 2006, Chris Hausman, a fourth-generation Midwestern farmer long accustomed to depending on government support for survival, traveled across the world to witness a revolution in agriculture. It had been more than 20 years since a left-leaning government in New Zealand chose to eliminate government subsidies for farmers, and Hausman was surprised at what had transpired since. “I will tell you it was a shock to their agricultural system,” says Hausman, 58, who farms corn and soybeans on a 1,500-acre plot 150 miles south of Chicago. “You had a system dictated by government programs that was thrown out the window...

There were two sightings of Western yellow-billed cuckoos this year, both in Delta County, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. The secretive birds are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering designating parts of western Colorado as critical habitat for the migratory bird, including lands along the Colorado River through Mesa County. Sightings — which frequently involve people hearing the cuckoo’s distinctive “klak-klak” sound — have been recorded in Mesa and Delta counties in previous years. ... “We have changed the initial map due to comments from the proposed...

DES MOINES, Iowa — Donald Trump received a rockstar welcome from roughly two-thousand people when he took the stage as “I’m Proud to Be an American” played from the speakers at Sen. Joni Ernst’s second annual Roast and Ride in Des Moines, Iowa on Saturday. “The GOP is offering voters a chance to break up the corrupt establishment and create a new American future,” the Republican nominee stated. “This chance will never come again.” “Our campaign is about protecting those who have no power,” he added. “These are the people that work hard, but don’t have a voice.” The outsider...

Donald Trump warned Saturday of a “war on the American farmer,” telling a crowd in Iowa that rival Hillary Clinton “wants to shut down family farms” and implement anti-agriculture policies. Trump’s speech at the annual “Roast and Ride” fundraiser for Republican Sen. Joni Ernst came just hours after Clinton received her first national security briefing as the Democratic presidential nominee. […] “Hillary Clinton wants to shut down family farms just like she wants to shut down the mines and the steelworkers,” he said in front of a wall of straw bales at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. “She will do this...

The internet has been abuzz with headlines declaring, “Almost Everything the Media Tell You About Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Is Wrong,” and “Johns Hopkins Shrinks Warn Against Kids Going Transgender.”As reported by Ryan T. Anderson on Monday, “A major new report, published today in the journal The New Atlantis, challenges the leading narratives that the media has pushed regarding sexual orientation and gender identity.”How significant was this report?“Co-authored by two of the nation’s leading scholars on mental health and sexuality, the 143-page report discusses over 200 peer-reviewed studies in the biological, psychological, and social sciences, painstakingly documenting what scientific...