Mike, In December 2017, we sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for illegally withdrawing critical protections intended to shield family farmers and ranchers from predatory and retaliatory practices by big agribusiness corporations. These protections were known as the Farmer Fair Practices, or GIPSA Rules. We’re fighting to protect family farmers from predatory practices. Can…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, March 30, 2018 Family Farmers File Brief Against Department of Agriculture for Unlawful Withdrawal of Farmer Fair Practices Rules Administration Unlawfully Withdrew Rules that Would Have Helped Level the Playing Field Between Farmers and Agribusiness New Brief is Latest Development in Suit Against the Trump Administration for Siding with Big Ag…

Thursday, March 29, 2018 newsletter A recent U.S. Department of Agriculture report concludes that big farms keep getting bigger while smaller farms keep disappearing. Since 1989, the USDA finds, the number of large crop farms has nearly doubled while the number of midsize farms has fallen nearly in half. No news here, even for people…

by Olivia LaVecchia | March 27, 2018 In many U.S. cities, finding and keeping an affordable location has become a major challenge for independent businesses. Two years ago, we took an in-depth look at the issue in our report, Affordable Space: How Rising Commercial Rents Are Threatening Independent Businesses, and What Cities Are Doing About…

By Lela Nargi | 03.26.18 Researchers have begun asking children about their households’ lack of food—and making surprising discoveries. Starting midway through my sixth-grade year, off and on for three years, my mother and I were food insecure. This began when my mother left my father, then lost her job, the combination of which plunged…

By Chris Hedges | March 27, 2018 A 65-year-old New York City cab driver from Queens, Nicanor Ochisor, hanged himself in his garage March 16, saying in a note he left behind that the ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft had made it impossible for him to make a living. It was the fourth suicide by…

March 26, 2018 President Trump’s efforts to change the terms of NAFTA have divided farmers and ranchers, who depend, in different ways, on global trade. Special correspondent Grant Gerlock of NET traveled around the state to hear their perspective on the ways the trade agreement between the U.S., Mexico and Canada affects their income and…

by ROBERT DIGITALE | March 25, 2018 With gray skies drizzling upon him, Doug Beretta rode his all-terrain vehicle back to the milking barn after doctoring a downed cow. The brown-faced Jersey had calved the day before and looked healthy that same night when Beretta checked on his animals. But the next morning the cow…

By Bryce Oates | March 27, 2018 Government programs that support healthy soils, crop diversity, and wildlife habitat are popular among farmers—so why aren’t they slated to get more farm bill funding? On his diversified row crop and livestock farm in Grundy County, Iowa, Fred Abels explained how two federal conservation programs have helped him…

by Rick Barrett, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | March 24, 2018 MILWAUKEE — You’re in Wisconsin, America’s Dairyland. You go to the store and buy some organic milk. You have this image of a small farm somewhere in rural Wisconsin, maybe one of those cool little towns in the Kickapoo Valley. But it could be from…