To me it makes more sense to let processors do their own promotion for their own brands, with their own money instead of jumping on the sweating backs of farmers for a mandated checkoff.

Bruce Scholten’s in-depth and thoughtful analysis of U.S. organic dairy politics begins with his own memories of growing up on a Washington State dairy farm. From what was common in his childhood, small dairy farms operated by multi-generational family labor, pasturing their cattle, building the soil and supporting local communities, Scholten shows the reader how things have changed over the past five decades.

Many supporters of local food production were glad to see these topics put in print in the New York Times and Washington Post. I agree, food is something everyone deals with everyday, many without thinking about where it came from, how it was produced, what kind of chemical residue it carries, its nutritional value. Others of course probably saw talk of national food policy as more socialism from the liberal media.

I had a list of things I needed to get for the farm (I didn’t care where I found them, Farm & Fleet, the Co-op whoever might have them) a feed scoop, a barn broom, a couple of neck straps for the cows, small things, but necessary. I stopped at a big hardware store last Saturday on the way home from the Farmers Market. They used to cater to small farmers — no more, unless you have only horses or pets.

The Union of Agricultural Work Committees, an organization dedicated to assisting Palestinian farmers in the fight for sovereignty over their trade and their land, was born in 1986. ElRahman, the organization’s board chairman, visited the United States for the first time this year to receive the Food Sovereignty Prize from the U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance on October 15 in Des Moines, Iowa.

When President Barrack Obama stated in his recent State of the Union address that one avenue to advance the economy was to increase U.S. agricultural exports, I cringed.  Right out of Milton Friedman, export agriculture is the neo-liberal free market capitalist approach to agriculture that, if anything, has been successful in destroying family farmers. Obama’s announcement was yet another death-knell to the world’s family farmers. It was a gift to corporate agribusiness. It meant yet another wave of family farmers throughout the world being forced off the land resulting in another period of rural repression and dislocation. Don’t think when you read this that the scenario is somewhere other than the United States. This is a U.S. story as well.

We are pleased to announce that  NFFC President, Ben Burkett was awarded the 2014 James Beard Foundation Leadership Award on October 27th.  The award was given to Ben primarily for his work with The Federation of Southern Cooperatives and their Land Assistance Fund, which aims to enhance and stabilize income  for  family farms across the south.

Every year since 1986, the Norman Borlaug fan club, made up of the big winners in the Green Revolution, has awarded a prize to some corporate tiller of the field. The “World Food Prize” is headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa in the former public library building. From this modest address, the chemical producers, giant combine builders, soybean processors and hog owners give the award mostly to researchers who have helped build the system of patented seeds and chemical inputs—a system that excludes small farmers and has convinced the rest of us that chemically-flavored soy paste and corn sweeteners are nutrition.