Free Republic

Anti-Shariah activist Pamela Geller’s campaign to get halal meat labeled on American supermarket shelves has been sent down the memory hole by the federal government. Geller started a petition drive in November 2011 with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service seeking to have halal meat – which is ritually slaughtered in the presence of an imam to make it suitable for Muslims to consume – labeled as such. It was only fair, she said. Kosher meat, which is blessed by a rabbi before slaughter, is labeled on store shelves so why not halal meat? More than...

Even in marketing efforts, the racist quality of milk is emphasized: "Early milk promoters associated the whiteness of milk with the putative purity of racial whiteness," Freeman writes. Freeman's academic paper, "The Unbearable Whiteness of Milk: Food Oppression and the USDA," looks at the broader issue of "food oppression" as well, noting that "food oppression is a difficult concept for many to embrace because of the powerful rhetoric regarding personal choice that is endemic in the United States."

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Students might notice some changes in the cafeteria when they go back to school in a few weeks. The USDA will announce rules today that require schools to get rid of unhealthy snacks and eliminate students’ exposure to junk food, ABC News has exclusively learned. Rhode Island already complies, having phased in these healthy guidelines about seven years ago, before they were official rules. "We're proud of what we're doing in Rhode Island,” said Elliot Krieger, spokesman for the state Department of Education. “We've been a leading state on this and it's great that our students have...

The FDA is stockpiling military weapons — and it’s not alone AMERICA’S GUN CULTURE has been a subject of intense interest and controversy for years, with concerns frequently raised about shadowy militias, paramilitary extremists, and unstable zealots in possession of alarming quantities of explosives and firearms. Amid the current din over assault weapons and body armor, consider one domestic organization’s fearsome arsenal of military-style equipment. In the space of eight years, the group amassed a stockpile of pistols, shotguns, and semiautomatic rifles, along with ample supplies of ammunition, liquid explosives, gun scopes, and suppressors. In its cache as well are...

Northeast dairy farmers who have been strapped for months by low milk prices say a voluntary insurance program that was supposed to be a safety net isn’t helping. The margin protection program provides financial assistance to enrolled farmers when the gap between the price of milk and national average feed costs falls below the coverage levels picked by individual farmers. […] Farmers say the margin protection program is not based on Northeast farmers’ feed costs but on the national average feed cost, which is less. The chairman of the National Milk Producers Federation testified in Washington last month that the...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has refused to pay claims filed by two Idaho families who contend its pesticide treatment contaminated their crops and poisoned a cattle herd. Instead, USDA told the families to file a lawsuit — a costly endeavor that could bankrupt the farms and risk the $70 million potato pest eradication program in Idaho. The Potato Cyst Nematode (PCN) was discovered in 2006, threatening Idaho’s $900 million potato industry. The next year, the USDA began treating infected fields with methyl bromide. The treatment reduced the pest, but it was stopped in 2014 because of concerns from a...

A partnership led by Arizona Land and Water Trust has been awarded $5.9 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and its partners to advance its efforts to conserve land and water around Fort Huachuca while maintaining military sustainability. The project is one of 84 nationwide and one of only two in Arizona awarded by the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) out of 265 proposals. Arizona Game & Fish Department was awarded $900,000. "Fort Huachuca is a national security treasure that houses many of our military's unique and indispensable capabilities," said U.S. Rep. Martha McSally. "It's taken significant steps...

While many are still reeling from the outrageous shooting of LaVoy Finicum, and the aftermath of the Oregon standoff and arrest of patriots linked to it, there are other battles against the feds taking place across the country. Much less attention was paid to Sheriff Brad Rogers, of Elkhart County in Indiana, who just successfully concluded his own showdown with federal officials from the FDA. The scenario was quite different, but the principals involved strike a similar chord - burdensome overreach and tyranny on the part of the federal government and its swarm of agents. As activists have seen...

Retailers that accept food stamps would have to start stocking a wider variety of healthy foods or face the loss of consumers under proposed rules expected to be announced by the Agriculture Department on Tuesday. The rules are designed to ensure that the more than 46 million Americans who use food stamps have better access to healthy foods although they don't dictate what people buy or eat. A person using food stamp dollars could still purchase as much junk food as they wanted, but they would at least have more options in the store to buy fruits, vegetables, dairy, meats...

According to the government's new dietary guidelines, Americans need to cut sugar, salt and fat from their diets and eat more fruits and vegetables. To do this, people should choose a variety of nutrient-dense foods - things with lots of nutrients but comparatively few calories - in all food groups. ...

Opting for that plate of bacon instead of a salad can actually help save the environment. A newly released study conducted by Carnegie Mellon University researchers found that following the U.S. Department of Agriculture recommendations to eat more fruits, vegetables, dairy, and seafood is more harmful to the environment than eating meat. According to the study, a vegetarian diet requires more greenhouse gas emissions per calorie than meat. ...

Congress rejected the Forest Service plan to give the agency access to up to $2.9 billion a year to suppress wildfires. In response, Secretary of Agriculture threatened to let fires burn up the West unless Congress gives his department more money. In a letter to key members of Congress, Vilsack warned, “I will not authorize transfers from restoration and resilience funding” to suppress fires. If the Forest Service runs out of appropriated funds to fight fires, it will stop fighting them until Congress appropriates additional funds. This is a stunning example of brinksmanship on the part of an agency once...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is embarking on a partnership with universities across the country in hopes of infusing its ranks with more diversity as it faces civil rights complaints from Latino farmers and ranchers. But some members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are voicing frustration, saying the agency has been dragging its feet and has yet to adequately address their concerns. The caucus had asked for a meeting with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in October, saying members received reports from constituents indicating significant civil rights violations and discrimination by the agency. Caucus members also pointed to a 2013 review...

The nation's net farm income is the lowest since 2002, and with another year of low commodity prices, demand for agriculture loans is surging as farmers struggle to make ends meet. [...] Agricultural lenders say they are seeing people who had operating loans requesting larger ones, and some who had operated with cash are borrowing money. But it's unlikely the current run on loans will be anything like the farm credit crisis of the 1980s, when those who survived the significant year-to-year losses were without large debts to repay. ...

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said on Tuesday that his agency is looking for “creative ways” to give public school students access to more meals, including a way to provide them breakfast, lunch and dinner year round. “We have focused on efforts to try to figure out ways in which we can expand in those time periods when youngsters may not have access to school meals,” Vilsack said in remarks at the liberal Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. That includes giving students access to meals “across the school day, across the school year and across the calendar year,” he...

Sometimes government’s dishonesty, incompetence, wastefulness, and misguided nannyism combine to make a perfectly ridiculous story. Today’s comes to us from Florida, where the Ocheesee Creamery is being forced to dump gallons upon gallons of good, natural skim milk because the state is requiring the business to label its good, natural skim milk “imitation” because they haven’t added anything to it. Paul and Mary Lou Wesselhoeft have been fighting this in federal court with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs, which had formerly allowed them to sell their skim milk while calling it skim milk. No one seemed confused...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued a regulation on Thursday to stop referring to midget raisins as “midget” after an activist group called the term offensive. The USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) issued the proposed rule, announcing the U.S. “Standards for Grades of Processed Raisins” would eliminate all five times the word midget is used. Midget has long been used to describe the differences in sizes of California raisins.

(CNSNews.com) - The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 changed the nutrition requirements for school lunches and breakfasts, but the U.S. Agriculture Department says the law also gives schools the flexibility to prepare meals that are "familiar to kids from culturally diverse backgrounds."Blogging at the USDA website on Wednesday, Dr. Katie Wilson, deputy undersecretary for for food, nutrition and consumer services, hailed the nation's "diversity" of people, ideas, and culture: "One of the way culture is expressed is through the foods we eat," she wrote. "Our nation's school meals should be no exception." Wilson said she recently participated in one...

In a blog posted on Friday on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website, the department boasts that food stamp spending at U.S. farmers markets has increased “nearly six-fold” since 2008. “National SNAP redemptions at those outlets totaled $18.8 million during fiscal year 2014 (Oct. 1 to Sept. 30), a nearly six-fold increase since 2008,” the blog states, calling the increase “a win-win for all.” (SNAP is the acronym for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the food stamp program.) […] Calling food stamp payment at farmers markets a “top priority” for the USDA, the department is providing free wireless equipment to...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is spending millions on green energy projects for farms, including putting solar panels on the tops of chicken coops.The federal agency announced Friday that its Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) will spend $63 million on solar panels and wind turbines for the farming industry.One project, totaling $16,094, was awarded to Blue Sky Poultry, Inc., of Bainbridge, Ga., to “install a solar array on the roof of poultry houses.”Other projects announced by the USDA included $18,000 for solar panels for a fruit farm in Ohio, and $19,750 for a wind turbine for a farm...