Free Republic

A new lidar survey of Michigan's Upper Peninsula revealed evidence of extensive farming by Native Americans that has stunned archaeologists, according to a statement released by Dartmouth College. The region's climate and short growing season has traditionally made it a difficult area for farming. However, researchers studying the Sixty Islands archaeological site near the Menominee River detected a huge network of raised garden beds spread across 330 acres, where the ancestors of the Menominee Tribe used to grow crops such as corn, beans, and squash. Radiocarbon dating of charcoal uncovered during preliminary excavations indicates that the agricultural system was used...

Why is it that the organic apple must wear a label, pay a certification fee, and carry a price premium—while the conventional apple, grown with chemical fertilizers and synthetic pesticides, is simply called an apple? What if we flipped that?What if the organic apple was just an apple—and the one grown with chemical inputs had to be labeled chemically grown? Why does the burden fall on the farmer doing the right thing, while the one using harmful practices skates by without warning, cost, or consequence?Why does the farmer who’s working with nature—protecting our water, preserving our soil, and nourishing our...

Illinois’ unpredictable weather is throwing a curveball to the state’s farmers. Some areas of the state are significantly behind in rainfall and early indications are that the conditions will persist this summer. “It has just been super dry from Springfield and Peoria up to Rockford and especially over the Chicago area we have had half of our normal rain, a third of our normal rain,” said CBS Chicago meteorologist David Yeomans during an Illinois Soybean Association webinar. According to the latest crop progress and condition report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, nearly a fifth of farmers who responded said...

Vladimir Putin is demanding urgent potato imports from Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, while he delays supplying the ally with promised notorious Oreshnik horror missiles. Putin has made the shameful admission that he has run out of spuds - one of his country’s leading food staples - amid economic meltdown during his war with Ukraine. It now appears Belarus will not get the lethal missiles until after Lukashenko supplies Putin with new exports of potatoes which have spiralled in prices in Russia. The Minsk tyrant has even cancelled sanctions against imports from the EU to stock up to supply Russia. -snip-...

Russian president Vladimir Putin has acknowledged crop shortages as pressure on the country’s economy continues to mount. Pressure is mounting on Russia amid labour shortages, international sanctions, record interest rates, and inflation, but Putin’s admission of shortages of key crops marks a milestone in the nation’s woes. Speaking yesterday in a televised meeting, he said: “Yesterday, I met with representatives from various business sectors, including agriculture. It turns out that we don’t have enough potatoes. “I spoke with Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko. He said, ‘We’ve already sold everything to Russia’.” Potato shortages have become a serious problem in neighbouring Belarus, with...

According to an email sent May 13, 2025, by Department of Natural Resources Director Dan Gibbs, Nicole Rosmarino is the sole finalist for the director of the State Land Board, which is the state’s second largest landowner with 2.8 million surface acres and 4 million mineral estate acres. Gibbs said, per statute, the board provides public notice for 14 days prior to a formal appointment which will occur at the next regularly scheduled public board meeting, which is June 11 and 12 in Denver. An email sent to DNR confirmed the hire Friday. The mission of the State Land Board...

These photos of a South African farm show the effects of the country’s land reform. I got these two photos from this link:Original: https://martinplaut.com/2024/09/02/the-utter-failure-of-the-south-africas-agricultural-reforms/Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20240902055937/https://martinplaut.com/2024/09/02/the-utter-failure-of-the-south-africas-agricultural-reforms/This is the first photo. The caption says, “Irrigated fields of potatoes and other vegetables at Dawn Valley farm in 2002, six years before the land claim settlement. (Source: Google Earth Pro).”This is the second photo. The caption says, “A satellite image of the same fields in 2022, shows few signs of any cultivation. (Source: Google Earth Pro).”

American farmers are behind President Donald J. Trump and his relentless push to restore fairness in global trade and secure new markets for homegrown producers.According to the latest Purdue University-CME Group Ag Economy Barometer:70% of farmers expect the President Trump’s tariffs to strengthen the agricultural economy in the long-term.Farmer sentiment improved in April, marked by rises in current and future expectations.The Farm Capital Investment Index rose to its highest reading since May 2021. “This month, one out of four respondents said it was a good time to make large investments, nearly double the percentage of respondents who said it was...

Carolyn Jones never thought it was controversial to herd her cattle to different parts of her 200-acre ranch in northeastern Mississippi to give the grass time to grow back between grazing. “This is really simple stuff we have been doing since the beginning of time,” said Jones, a lifelong farmer and the head of the nonprofit Mississippi Minority Farmers Alliance. About 40 percent of U.S. cattle ranchers already use this technique. It helps ranchers keep their grass healthier, but it also helps the environment. Last year, the Alliance won a USDA contract to educate other farmers about these long-standing conservation...

What was America like before rapid industrialization and suburbanization, which dramatically altered the way of life in the United States? Critical race theory and DEI proponents look down on this period in American history, which stretched through much of the early to mid-20th century, saying it was an era marred by “white supremacy” and the “KKK.” That couldn’t be further from the truth, argues Victor Davis Hanson on this edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words.” “But what I'm getting is, everybody got together, they were ethnically and racially diverse, there was no prejudice. Or if there was,...

Well, who could've seen this coming? The UK's Labour government, in its infinite commie wisdom, decided that family farms should be treated like corporate cash cows. Jeremy Clarkson just joined the protest against the UK's commie plan to tax farmers out of existence and gave the BBC a piece of his mind If you haven't heard about Europe's communist war on farmers, it's time to start paying attention. Now, thanks to their brilliant 20% inheritance tax on agricultural land over £1 million, thousands of farmers have taken to the streets — again. [Warning: Language in the next video] VIDEO AT...

The recent Telegraph headline rang out of England recently with unsettling tones: Tenth of farmland to be axed for net zero More than 10 per cent of farmland in England is set to be diverted towards helping to achieve net zero and protecting wildlife by 2050, the Environment Secretary will reveal on Friday. Swathes of the countryside are on course to be switched to solar farms, tree planting and improving habitats for birds, insects and fish. The move comes on the back of an aggressive and highly unpopular inheritance tax placed on generational farmers by British politician Rachel Reeves that...

On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the Commerce and Interior secretaries to reroute more water from Northern California to other parts of the state. This move aims to address water shortages affecting Central Valley farmers.

(Credit: Hebrew University) A new variety of synthetic meat, comparable in flavor to lamb or beef, has been created by an Israeli-based research team using metamaterials and injection molding technology. The artificial meat is reportedly difficult to distinguish from its naturally farmed counterparts, according to scientists with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem involved in the research. The team calls their meat substitute a “major step” toward producing sustainable alternatives to traditional protein sources derived from livestock. The innovation is described in a new paper that appeared in Nature Communications. Artificial Whole-Cut ‘Meta-Meat’ Whole cuts currently represent more than half of...

....The Danish government will pay farmers to convert fields used for animal feed into woodlands.... ...The initiative could serve as a blueprint for other nations looking to make similar shifts....

Oh, Deere The largest farming-equipment manufacturer in the world, John Deere, unveiled a new crop of autonomous tractors and trucks at CES 2025 earlier this week, as the heavy-machinery giant looks to capitalize on the buzz around all things self-driving. If your immediate thought is that this sounds like a job killer... it is. John Deere has talked up its machines’ capabilities for precisely that purpose: to help alleviate some of the labor-shortage issues that farming faces, with the company’s chief technology officer, Jahmy Hindman, saying that “there is not enough available and skilled labor” to do the kind of...

California farmers could soon enjoy bumper crops thanks to President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to lift water restrictions. But who will pick them if he follows through on his deportation threats? The country’s largest agricultural constituency backed Trump in November, bucking California’s deep-blue electorate over his campaign promises to “open the faucet” and deliver more water to the state’s parched, conservative-leaning Central Valley. But now it’s reckoning with an uncomfortable contradiction: Trump also campaigned on mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, who make up at least half of the state’s agricultural workforce. That’s left California’s agricultural barons, who employ the most farm...

Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life is one of cinema’s most enduring classics, a sentimental yet profound exploration of how one person’s contributions ripple through a community. The story’s alternate timeline, where George Bailey never existed, paints a grim picture of what life would be like without his sacrifices. Inspired by this tale, let’s imagine an alternate reality of a different sort—a world where fossil fuels never existed. Could we, like George’s Bedford Falls, find ourselves in a global Pottersville? Let’s explore how the absence of fossil fuels might affect the very fabric of our lives, from economic systems to...

Modern tractors rely on precise GPS coordinates to navigate fields. But with charged particles distorting radio signals from GPS satellites, some of them started acting erratically, stopping abruptly or weaving back and forth. "I would guess 80 percent or more of all farmers in the Midwest use at least basic GPS for something — whether it's auto-steer or yield mapping," John Deere service manager Ethan Smidt told SpaceWeather. "At least 50 percent of all farmers are VERY reliant on GPS and use it on every machine all year long." During particularly violent solar storms, charged particles fill the Earth's ionosphere,...

Momentum is building among Democrats to oust their ailing leader on the House Agriculture Committee, part of the party's generational shake-up on Capitol Hill in the wake of their demoralizing losses in November. Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) — the committee’s current ranking member — faces a challenge from fellow Democratics Reps. Jim Costa of California and Angie Craig of Minnesota for the post in the next Congress. And, according to more than two dozen House Democratic lawmakers and aides granted anonymity to discuss the matter, Scott is poised to lose the vote if he doesn’t step aside before then. “The...