With rural issues in the spotlight following the election, Iowa's poet laureate, Mary Swander, speaks about her work with farmers, the concerns of her neighbors in this political moment, and the role of art in challenging times.
The food activist group, Eco Practicum, came together for five days in New York City for the third annual program produced in partnership with Our Name Is Farm, a training aimed at building “effective advocacy for a better food system.”
Simran Sethi's book, "Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love," is a call to arms: a warning of the dire consequences of what she sees as a disturbing lack of diversity in the foods we eat.
Hiring migrant farm labor is very profitable for big agribusiness. Last year workers walked out of the fields at Sakuma Brothers Farms in Washington - one of the largest berry growers in the state. Berries are big business, with annual sales of $6.1 million, and big corporate customers like Häagen Dazs ice cream. Here is their story.
Milking cows is a dirty, monotonous job, and as we found out in our latest episode of Immigrant America, it's not a job many unemployed Americans are willing to do. But the government doesn't give dairy farms a way to recruit foreign workers legally. We went to upstate New York to try to understand the cat and mouse game between dairy farms and immigration authorities.
At its best, sensible policies about how land is used, transferred, and owned can make it possible for young people to farm with dignity, a living wage, and a future. It can help poor people stop being poor. It can let young farmers who want to farm break through the barriers to entry. It can provide a secure retirement for America’s older farmers. It can happen and should happen in countries as democratic and as rich as the United States.
Women Finally Take the Podium at Washington March; Miley Cyrus Shows Off Her Minstrelsy; The Race Conversation We Are Already Having; Farmers Need to Grow More Cannon Fodder; Uruguayan Workers Make a Bid for a New TV Station
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Republicans show they are willing to compromise on the farm bill by eliminating the part they refused to compromise on.
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