Free Republic

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...

Sir Keir Starmer told the Welsh Labour conference he would defend Labour’s Budget “all day long” as farmers protested against inheritance tax changes outside the venue. Hailing a “new era” of Labour Wales and Labour Britain “pulling in the same direction”, the Prime Minister said the Welsh branch had “carried the torch” for the party during 14 years of Conservative rule in Westminster. In his first address as Prime Minister to the conference, Sir Keir praised the election of 27 MPs in July, making Wales a “Tory-free zone” . As he spoke, farmers unhappy with the changes to inheritance tax...

I have been reading the articles concerning Proposition 127 and how this undermines the Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s ability to properly manage wildlife. I agree 100 percent. However, there is another insidious movement underway that will undermine both the CPW and hunting in a big way. The National Forest Service is quietly, but steadily closing off dispersed camping — camping in areas other than designated campgrounds. I experienced this in September on my muzzleloading deer/elk hunt in South Park. This will probably be the last tented hunting camp I will be able to do with my hunting partner. I am...

Jusper Machogu, a farmer in Kenya, Africa, wants people who think Africa shouldn’t develop with fossil fuels to see what a low-carbon lifestyle is really like. He and his family live it every day, and he told Cowboy State Daily that people, especially those of the West, don’t really grasp what it means not to have access to energy. In an effort to combat global emissions, wealthy nations are trying to discourage African countries from using fossil fuels, which Machogu said that will keep Africa in poverty. That’s why he’s offering an educational tour of his low-carbon lifestyle, which he...

Hidden deep within the new omnibus bill is a secret provision to allow the federal government to electronically track all cattle in the United States. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) warned about the hidden provision on X, stating that lobbyists will receive $15 million in taxpayer funds to unleash the electronic tracking grid on the nation’s meat-producing cows and bison. As stated directly from the omnibus, the agreement “directs the Department to continue to provide the tags and related infrastructure needed to comply with the Federal Animal Disease Traceability rule (9 CFR 86), including no less than $15,000,000 for electronic identification...

Google will shutter Mineral, its agricultural technology operation...Mineral was launched as a separate business in January, 2023, after five years of development by X, Alphabet’s innovation lab. With a mission to help scale sustainable agriculture., the Mineral team’s work included robots designed to inspect every plant in a field and the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI to help companies tackle the challenges of food waste, forecasting and the collection of high-quality data. Mineral CEO Elliott Grant wrote, “Our mission has always been to make a meaningful, positive difference to the global food system - which we knew...