By Grant Gerlock Tim Mueller has raised corn and soybeans on 530 acres near the city of Columbus, Nebraska, for decades, but today he is planning to take a big gamble. The big box retailer Costco is building a new chicken processing plant in Fremont, about an hour from Mueller’s farm. The company plans for…
By Helena Bottemiller Evich | 06/08/2017 10:00 AM EDT With help from Catherine Boudreau, Brent Griffiths, Esther Whieldon, Annie Snider and Adam Behsudi R-CALF WANTS DOJ AND HILL PROBES OF JBS: The Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund has asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley to examine the U.S. business practices of…
by Jim Goodman | dairy farmer from Wonewoc Jun 6, 2017 For a farmer, getting the news that you no longer have a market for your product is devastating. I know — I got one of those letters a few months ago. It is especially problematic if you are a dairy farmer, since cows need…
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 7, 2017 Contact: Andrew Jerome, 202-314-3106 ajerome NFU Urges Immediate Adoption of Farmer Fair Practices Rules WASHINGTON – The Farmer Fair Practices Rules, a set of three rules that provide very basic protections for farmers and ranchers, were released in December 2016 to address the most anti-competitive and abusive practices levied…
R-CALF USA Seeks U.S. Probe into JBS Corruption Scandal Billings, Mont. – Today, R-CALF USA sent a comprehensive, 11-page request to President Trump, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue for a full investigation and strict antitrust enforcement action in the wake of the unfolding corruption charges…
By Timothy Mclaughlin and P.J. Huffstutter | ELK POINT, S.D./CHICAGO ABC News’ characterization of a South Dakota meat processor’s ground-beef product as “pink slime” almost put Beef Products Inc out of business, BPI’s lawyer said on Monday in the opening salvo of a closely watched trial. The $5.7 billion lawsuit pitting big agriculture against big…
By Twilight Greenaway 06.05.17 Paul Hawken, the editor of a new book, ‘Drawdown,’ has found that changing the way we grow and eat food has surprising potential to reverse climate change. Donald Trump’s recent decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement on climate has many wringing their hands. But Paul Hawken doesn’t have…
Survey: More consumers concerned about animal welfare Food companies making changes in supply chain. Jun 02, 2017 More than half of U.S. consumers (58%) are more concerned about food animal welfare now than they were just a few years ago, according to a recent report, “Animal Welfare: Issues & Opportunities in the Meat, Poultry &…
By Laurie Bedord 5/31/2017 The quality of food Paul Brown raises hinges on the quality of the soil on which it is grown. “When my parents purchased the farm from my grandfather in 1991, the soil’s organic matter ranged from 1.7% to 1.9%,” he says. “Four years of crop failure and nearly going broke got…
June 1st , 2017 by Baylen J. Linnekin But a growing chorus of politicians and advocates think mandatory checkoffs could use a little transparency. In 2010, Michael Moss, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times investigative reporter, exposed how a government-created entity was using “checkoff” money it raised through federally-mandated fees it charged America’s dairy farmers…