Free Republic

Oil lobbyists aren’t accustomed to hearing the word "no." And from an all-of-the-above perspective, that’s not always a bad thing. America needs more energy, not less. We still import about a quarter of all the oil we consume. But some petroleum companies seem to be taking their influence for granted, and that could prove their undoing with a White House that is known for drawing a clear line between friends and foes. Most recently, a few refiners have begun smearing the president and his allies in Congress for refusing to abandon the Renewable Fuel Standard, which protects U.S. production of...

As reported in Frontrunning, President-elect Donald Trump will nominate Iowa Governor Terry Branstad as the next U.S. ambassador to China, choosing a longstanding friend of Beijing after rattling the world's second-largest economy by speaking to Taiwan's president. Earlier in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang called Branstad an "old friend" of China when asked about a report on the appointment, although he added Beijing would work with any U.S. ambassador.The appointment of Branstad will likely ease trade tensions between the two countries, the world's two biggest agricultural producers, diplomats and trade experts said according to Reuters. It also suggests...

Here’s an excerpt from the Wheat Belly Cookbook about modern high-yield, semi-dwarf wheat, what I call the “Frankengrain” because of the extensive and bizarre changes introduced into this grass by geneticists and agribusiness. (Even though a cookbook, I tried to make the Wheat Belly Cookbook a standalone book that discusses the background on why and how the Wheat Belly lifestyle yields such unexpected and extravagant health and weight loss successes. For this reason, the first 90 pages of the cookbook reiterate many of the Wheat Belly basic concepts.)From the Wheat Belly Cookbook: Wheat encapsulates a fundamental dilemma of our technological...

Gainesville -- Officials at Mar-Jac Poultry said they were shocked to find out Thursday that federal officials suspect the company might have ties to terrorist funding. Company Vice President Doug Carnes said at least a half-dozen U.S. Customs agents spent all day Wednesday gathering financial records and charitable contribution files. They were "real nice, professional and complimentary," he said, but they didn't disclose the nature of their visit. It was only on Thursday that Carnes was alerted by company officials in Virginia as to what the agents were looking for. "I'm shocked. I'm in disbelief. I've worked for them for...

<p>I recently took a few road trips longitudinally and latitudinally across California. The state bears little to no resemblance to what I was born into. In a word, it is now a medieval place of lords and peasants-and few in between. Or rather, as I gazed out on the California Aqueduct, the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Luis Reservoir, I realized we are like the hapless, squatter Greeks of the Dark Ages, who could not figure out who those mythical Mycenaean lords were that built huge projects still standing in their midst, long after Lord Ajax and King Odysseus disappeared into exaggeration and myth. Henry Huntington built the entire Big Creek Hydroelectric Project in the time it took our generation to go to three hearings on a proposed dam.</p>

The whole of economics can be reduced to a single lesson, and that lesson can be reduced to a single sentence. The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.” — Henry Hazlitt, “Economics in One Lesson” One of the greatest fallacies of recent generations is the argument that free market capitalism has failed and that said failure is responsible for America’s moribund economy, the ongoing destruction of the middle...

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados — A breed of giant, ravenous snails that first appeared in Barbados five years ago has thrived on the tropical island, destroying crops and prompting calls for the government to eliminate the slimy pests. A nocturnal "snail hunt" last weekend reported finding hundreds of thousands of giant African snails swarming the central parish of St. George, the country's agricultural heartland, where farmers had complained of damage to crops including sugar cane, bananas and papayas. "We saw snails riding on each other's backs and moving in clusters," said David Walrond, chairman of the local emergency response office, which organized...

...A traveler from Ghana tried to bring 14 Giant African Land Snails into the US...one of the worst invasive species...could have been devastating to crops.

The future is always filled with uncertainty, especially for individuals involved in growing and producing safe, nutritional food for the world. As the agriculture community, spends a great deal of time and effort in pondering the “what ifs”, consumers still sit in the driver seat. One thing futuristic minds can agree on is the world population clock is clicking away at much quicker rate than the U.S. population. Recent estimates show a global population will not slow down its pace even after it reaches the United Nation’s projection of 9.2 billion in 2050. For now, the drop in global population...

Last month, I ate a strawberry. The taste exploded in my mouth as my throat was bathed in rich juices. The meat of the berry was soft and succulent. I was in France. Last week, I ate another strawberry. There was a slight reddish flavour, which combatted the petroleum essence of the packaging. The meat of the berry was corky, dry and flavourless. I was in Canada.

… The bill will cost nearly a trillion dollars over ten years. But, considering the bill itself is 702 pages long, the bill will cost about $1.4 billion per page. If that doesn’t garner the attention of taxpayers, there was something else that bothered at least one member of the House today—how settling on cutting $8 billion of waste could be a called “compromise” between a $40 billion House cut and a $4 billion Senate cut. …

Subsidies: Former Indiana congressman (and now state governor) Mike Pence used to quip that he was 99% capitalist but 1% socialist, and that turns socialist "when it comes time to vote on a farm bill." At least he was honest. Just what is it about farm bills that make Republicans abandon their principles of limited government and fiscal restraint? The sad answer: Farm bills are classic examples of Republican pork delivered to their own voters. The $1 trillion bill that will be voted on this week is another big pail of slop. It includes subsidies for corn, cotton, wool, sugar,...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has given an award of $1,123,463 to the University of California, Davis to develop “relatively small, inexpensive robots” to aid in harvesting strawberries. The announcement was made in late October as part of a series of USDA awards “to spur the development and use of robots in American agriculture production,” according to a USDA press release. The release describes the UC Davis robotics grant as a “project (that) will develop relatively small, inexpensive robots to aid in human harvesting of strawberries.” …

Illinois lawmakers are considering a tax incentive package in hopes of persuading agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland Company not to move its global headquarters out of the state. The proposal filed Friday in the Illinois House would give ADM a 10 percent break on utility taxes for up to 30 years and a credit against some state income tax withholdings. The value of the incentives was not disclosed. The package was introduced by state Rep. John Bradley, a Democrat from Marion who is chairman of the House Revenue and Finance Committee. The committee is scheduled to meet Tuesday in Chicago...

On a windy morning in California’s Salinas Valley, a tractor pulled a wheeled, refrigerator-sized contraption over rows of budding iceberg lettuce plants. Engineers from Silicon Valley tinkered with the software on a laptop to ensure the machine was eliminating the right leafy buds. Hired by a Salinas-based agricultural produce company, the engineers were testing the Lettuce Bot, a machine that can “thin” a field of lettuce in the time it takes about 20 workers to do the job by hand. The thinner is part of a new generation of machines that target the last frontier of agricultural mechanization—fruits and vegetables...

For decades, country and city interests had come together every few years to pass the farm bill, a measure that provided billions of dollars in subsidies to farmers and businesses in rural areas and food stamp money for urbanites. No more. The recent defeat of this year’s farm bill—traditionally a sturdy, albeit lonely pillar of cooperation in Washington—highlighted how the country-city political marriage became yet another victim of partisan politics in polarizing times. … Here’s how the breakdown of a longtime coalition happened: Newly emboldened conservative groups pressured rural-state Republicans—many representing agricultural districts—with radio ad campaigns to oppose the five-year...

Dairy farmers expressed frustration this week with Congress’ failure to pass a farm bill, saying the uncertainty made it hard to do business and some could go under without changes to the federal milk program. Farmers also worried that if a current nine-month extension of the 2008 farm bill expires with no action, a 64-year-old law will kick in, sending milk prices spiraling. While that might provide short-term profits, they say, it’d hurt them in the long run because no one wants to buy milk at $6 a gallon. …

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says his chamber won’t pass an extension of farm policy this year and is pressuring the House to figure out how to pass a farm bill. The House rejected its version of a five-year, half-trillion-dollar farm bill last week, with 62 Republicans voting no after Speaker John Boehner urged support. The Senate passed its farm bill earlier this month with support from two-thirds of the chamber. Reid on Monday urged Boehner take up the Senate farm bill before current policy expires Sept. 30. … Both bills expand farm subsidies while saving money overall and making...

The House version of the farm bill that failed to glean the necessary votes to pass and move to conference with the Senate’s version on Thursday afternoon certainly might not have been the most watched or well-known piece of legislation hanging over the country, but the fact that it was unexpectedly thwarted was quite the dramatic turn of events on Capitol Hill.The many farm and agribusiness lobbyists who were relying on the bill’s passage to safeguard the status quo and their countless specially interested, pork-tossing programs were shocked — righteously, indignantly shocked, I say! — and plan to continue to...

Genetically modified crops are not just those that have been selectively bred, but they have had their DNA modified in some way as to make them more pest resistant and produce better yields. In many cases genes from other plants or even bacteria have been added to the DNA of a specific plant.This process has caused great concern among some that question whether the plants with modified genes are safe for human consumption or if there may be any long-term effects from the continual eating of these plants. There have been numerous challenges to the use of genetically modified crops...