Month: August 2018

CNN: Emails show the swamp stretches to the Agriculture Department

by Rene Marsh, CNN | August 23, 2018 (CNN) – From suggestions for members of a science committee to emails sent “on the sly” and thoughts for the secretary’s speeches, new internal emails from the US Department of Agriculture show big food industry lobbyists are working hand-in-glove with agency staffers. The newly released emails were…



New Food Economy: Here’s the ugly truth about the ugly produce movement

by Food First Phat Beets Produce | August 23rd, 2018 VC-backed startups are commodifying need and undermining food banks and CSAs while they’re at it. It’s a market solution disguised as activism. Back in 2015, we at Phat Beets Produce received a curious email from a “startup” produce company serving the East Bay in California,…



The Guardian: If you want to save the world, veganism isn’t the answer

by Isabella Tree | August 25, 2018 Intensively farmed meat and dairy are a blight, but so are fields of soya and maize. There is another way Veganism has rocketed in the UK over the past couple of years – from an estimated half a million people in 2016 to more than 3.5 million –…



Civil Eats: Renewing a Vision for Rural Prosperity

By Mary Berry and Debbie Barker | August 15, 2018 Mary Berry, Wendell Berry’s daughter, and food policy advocate Debbie Barker show how the Burley Tobacco Growers Co-operative offers a model for rebuilding farmers’ livelihoods—and rural communities—in Kentucky and beyond. “We see the hideousness and the destructive-ness of …the kind of mind that can accept…



Bizwomen – The Business Journals: She got $8.5M in funding to save ugly produce

by Anne Stych, Contributing Writer Full Harvest, an online marketplace for excess produce that would otherwise wind up in landfills, has secured an $8.5 million Series A round of financing. Founder and CEO Christine Moseley said in a statement that Full Harvest, a business-to-business marketplace for surplus and imperfectly-shaped produce, will use the investment to…



New Food Economy: Why is Trump slashing the USDA’s independent research arm? Look at its findings

by Sam Bloch | August 20th, 2018 The Economic Research Service has undercut Trump’s claims about food stamps, farming, and the environment. Now, it’s about to get booted from Capitol Hill. Last Tuesday, staffers at the Economic Research Service (ERS), the research arm of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), were called to a…



The Washington Post: The alleged conspiracy to fix the price of chicken meat, explained

by Caitlin Dewey | February 1 The two largest food distributors in the United States declared war Tuesday on Big Chicken, alleging in two separate lawsuits that poultry producers have conspired to drive up chicken prices across the country. The producers — Tyson, Perdue, Pilgrim’s Pride and Koch Foods among them — control well over…



Beef Central: Exploring the risks and rewards of a vertically-integrated beef enterprise

by Beef Central | 14 August 2018 A SIGNIFICANT change in consumer behaviour is prompting some beef producers to look beyond the farm gate and into the realm of vertical integration, as communities place greater emphasis on quality, welfare and transparency. Understanding the risks and rewards of the beef value chain has been the focus…



The Progressive: ‘It Brings Us All to the Same Table’: Meet The New Progressive Farmers

by Alexandra Tempus | August 19, 2018 Wisconsin farmers, like rural folks across America post-2016 election, are reclaiming their legacy as key players in the country’s progressive movement. Two days after Wisconsin’s primary election, on the shores of one of the state’s 15,000 lakes in a log cabin at the end of a winding country…



HPPR: Our Turn At This Earth: The Missing Loop

By Julene Bair | August 16, 2018 By lucky coincidence, my visit this May to the North Dakota farm of the remarkable soil health advocate Gabe Brown corresponded with a study being led by two other remarkable men. One of them was Abe Collins, who has spent most of his life raising cattle and sheep….