Free Republic

The federal government is worried that America is too stressed out to deal with Thanksgiving dinner safely so at least two departments have entered to help everybody live through the uniquely American holiday while also curbing global warming. "This week millions of Americans will gather family and friends around the dinner table to give thanks. But for those preparing the meal, it can be a stressful time. Not to mention, for many it is the largest meal they have cooked all year, leaving plenty of room for mistakes that could cause foodborne illness," warned the Agriculture Department. As a result,...

Departing Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas tells reporters he is talking to President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team about joining the new administration, possibly as secretary of Agriculture. “It is a possibility,” Huelskamp says. The conservative has an PhD in agricultural legislation, but was booted off the House Agriculture Committee in 2013 after he spoke up against the reelection of Speaker John Boehner. “A lot of emails go back and forth–a lot of emails go back and forth,” he said. Pressed, the congressman said he was not sure if he would take a job if it was offered. “I don’t know,...

We don’t force our faith on anybody else,” Chuck Wingate, executive director of Bethesda Mission, told PennLive.com. “But we find the whole idea that the government’s going to come in a[nd] tell us what we can and cannot do in our own facility to be out of bounds, especially in matters of faith.” Wingate, who says his Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, ministry serves 100,000 people a month, was referring to a new U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulation forbidding recipients of USDA food from requiring “a beneficiary to attend or participate in any explicitly religious activities that are offered by the organization.”...

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced grants totaling $200 million “to improve the education, food security, and health of school-age children, especially girls in developing countries.” The Foreign Agricultural Service grant, announced late last month and open for applicants until Jan. 21, 2017, further states that the funds can cover “food for education, food assistance, school feeding, child nutrition, teacher training and gender equity.” …

Farmers in the U.S. are pouring out tens of millions of gallons of excess milk, amid a massive glut that has slashed prices and has filled warehouses with cheese. More than 43 million gallons’ worth of milk were dumped in fields, manure lagoons or animal feed, or have been lost on truck routes or discarded at plants in the first eight months of 2016, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That is enough milk to fill 66 Olympic swimming pools, and the most wasted in at least 16 years of data requested by The Wall Street Journal....

WASHINGTON -- Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said America needs to stop wasting food, even if that means teaching people to cut back on the amount of food on their plates. Speaking at the National Press Club on Monday, the former Iowa governor said long-term food insecurity "is a challenge, because we're going to have to increase food production -- I've seen anywhere from 50 to 70 percent in the next 35 years -- to meet a growing world population." "But the first step, and the one way the USDA can provide help and assistance to meet this need, is to...

The Agriculture Department has closed offices in five states after receiving anonymous threats. USDA spokesman Matthew Herrick says in a statement on Tuesday that the department had received “several anonymous messages” that raised concerns about the safety of USDA personnel and facilities. He said six offices are closed until further notice. …

Washington has stepped in to tackle America’s cheese mountain with the Federal government buying 11 million pounds of the surplus. It has cost the American taxpayer $20 million (£15 million), the US Department of Agriculture said. The cheese will be distributed to food banks across the country. There are several reasons for the cheese mountain in the US. Farmers had boosted production when they were getting record prices. But thanks to the strength of the dollar, demand has slumped, creating a huge cheese surplus which has reached a 30-year high. Cheese has been a source of tension between the United...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is holding summits to promote the role of lesbian farmers as a part of its “Rural Pride” campaign. The agency is working with singer and LGBT activist Cyndi Lauper for a “day of conversation” about the struggles of gay and transgender individuals in rural America. The agency says its wants to change the perception of what it means to be a farmer in America away from the “white, rich male.” The latest summit, first reported by the College Fix, will be held on August 18 at Drake University in Iowa. “The Office of the Assistant...

This is an outrage. If the roles were were reversed and it was Muslims being ignored, Muslims whose dietary religious traditions being violated, all hell would break loose. Pamela Geller: USDA Ignores AFDI Petition to Require All Halal Meat Be Labeled as Such A great deal of meat sold in this country is halal but is not labeled is such. It’s a scandal — but an established practice: meat packers generally do not separate halal meat from non-halal meat, and do not label halal meat as such. We attempted to right that wrong. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture has...

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. ...