The Gutting of Rural America – What Happened? Posted on December 30, 2023 by Mike Callicrate The rural America that once fed us dependably from family farms is seeing its last days – Abandoned farmsteads and dollar stores mark the graves of once prosperous communities There’s an economic term to describe this phenomenon, it’s called…

Op-Ed by Gilles Stockton, Montana Cattlemen’s Association Director January 2, 2024 We have a dilemma to work through. This past November, Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack announced that USDA will henceforth purchase meat born, raised, and harvested in the USA for their commodity programs. Great news. We hope – pray – that these purchases will prioritize…

Smoke fills the sky at the farm April 10, 2023. Castro County Emergency Management/AP Rick Jervis, December 27, 2023 USA TODAY This article contains disturbing images. CASTRO COUNTY, Texas – The aroma of cow manure rode the spring breeze, as it always does in this stretch of Texas panhandle, where the wind lifts an endless…

Note from Basel Musharbash: No group punches above its weight like Farm Action does. No group has done more expansive and impactful work to help policymakers understand — and address — monopoly power in our food and agriculture system than Farm Action has. Take a look at what they did just this year: 2023 in…

All legal remedies for cattle producers were exhausted. Hope was lost. December 17, 2023 by Mike Callicrate May Judge Strom rest in peace. Judge Lyle E. Strom died on Dec 1st, twenty years after his landmark decision to reverse the $1.28 billion jury verdict in the cattlemen’s case for fair markets, Pickett vs IBP. Between…

BY SENS. CORY BOOKER (D-N.J.) AND MIKE LEE (R-UTAH), OPINION CONTRIBUTORS – 12/20/23 7:33 AM ET FILE – Cows graze in a field at a farm, Aug. 17, 2021, in Penobscot, Maine. The USDA trying to strengthen its system for animal-raising claims such as “pasture raised” and “grass fed”. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File) Fairness…

SEC Alleges Texas Cattle Investment is $191 Million Ponzi Scheme About to Implode 12/14/2023 | 3:42 PM CST By DTN Ag Policy Editor OMAHA (DTN) — The Securities and Exchange Commission has frozen the assets of a Texas-based cattle marketing company, alleging the company fraudulently sold securities in "cattle contracts" as a $191 million Ponzi…

November 28, 2023 Introduction Every year, the U.S. government spends billions of dollars on food. In 2022, including everything from food for military bases to school lunch programs, the government spent more than $9 billion on food procurement. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Defense get the biggest slices of the…

After two restaurant deliveries, Greg makes an early morning flight to DC. Greg Gunthorp comments on the Effective Food Procurement Act. Good afternoon, I’m Greg Gunthorp. Artisanal Farmer and processor. I’m on the board of American Grassfed Association and member of Farm Action and National Farmers Union. We raise pastured pigs, pastured poultry, and grassfed…

Burdened with relatively higher operating costs than the largest meat processors, small meatpacking plants are struggling to survive — even with $1 billion in federal grants available to them. by John McCracken, Investigate Midwest November 30, 2023 Why you can trust Investigate Midwest Greg Gunthorp in a pasture at his farm near LaGrange, IN, on…