Agriculture
Agriculture
New World Screwworm is here, let’s put those Checkoff dollars to work
It is about 1,500 miles from the Imperial Valley of California to Zavala County, Texas, where the invasive pest was discovered recently. The announcement of the 3-week-old calf carrying the insect caused a ripple of alarm through the livestock industry nationwide. There are a few things to note immediately. First, ...
Agriculture
Time to right size the Farm Bill
The first Farm Bill was passed in 1933 to stabilize food production and protect the land the U.S. food supply was grown on. The economic collapse of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl were hardships, in part, to be corrected by the New Deal and the Farm Bill. The ...
Agriculture
What’s in a label?
“Free range,” “cage free,” “organic,” “non-GMO,” “hormone free,” and now “ultra processed” are all food terms that can confuse even the most astute shopper. As consumers move farther from the farm but express deeper concern about where their food comes from and how it is produced, answering those concerns becomes ...
Agriculture
Farmer’s share of the grocery dollar shrinks again
Almost everything from the price of a dinner out to the cost to heat one’s home seems to take a bigger chunk out of the wallet lately. According to the Consumer Price Index, the overall cost of goods rose 2.4 percent in January. Even as grocery store prices rose, the ...
Agriculture
Farming, actually … is all around
There is this movie – either you love it or you hate it. That is how I feel about National Agriculture Month. At the beginning of that movie, though, there is a monologue that is pretty good and ruminates on the meaning of, well, love, but it works for food ...
Agriculture
Farm Bill looks to save California, and everyone else, from Prop 12
While the controversial Prop 12 was passed by California voters in 2018, it was not fully implemented nationwide until January 2024. Under the requirements of Prop 12, veal calves must have at least 43 square feet of pen space, egg-laying hens must be housed in “cage-free” environments, and hogs must ...
Agriculture
SCOTUS’s rollback of tariffs is a win for farms
When the Trump Administration announced “Liberation Day” in April 2025 and told farmers to “have fun,” it was with the expectation that food producers would be able to market their product domestically rather than relying on the global market. It was a far-fetched expectation. Farmers and ranchers in the United ...
Agriculture
Wolf plan needs to develop more quickly
While wolves decide beef is what’s for dinner, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife is slow to address the urgent need for ranch rescue plans. A New Year’s Day wolf attack at a ranch in Lassen County highlights that, perhaps, the state is moving too slowly in its approach ...
Agriculture
Chocolate cake is real food, too
All food is “real” food. The implication of using phrases like “real food” suggests there are food that are “fake,” “dishonest,” “artificial,” or in some other way harmful. The colloquialism “the dose makes the poison” is as applicable to food as it is to its toxicological origins. More specifically, one ...
Agriculture
New paper on predator management looks at wolves in the western U.S.
The answer is nuanced and differs based on what each state hopes to achieve by having wolves living within the state’s borders. Each state in the western United States has either developed its own map for success or seems to be grappling with how to address a way forward now. ...
New World Screwworm is here, let’s put those Checkoff dollars to work
It is about 1,500 miles from the Imperial Valley of California to Zavala County, Texas, where the invasive pest was discovered recently. The announcement of the 3-week-old calf carrying the insect caused a ripple of alarm through the livestock industry nationwide. There are a few things to note immediately. First, ...
Time to right size the Farm Bill
The first Farm Bill was passed in 1933 to stabilize food production and protect the land the U.S. food supply was grown on. The economic collapse of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl were hardships, in part, to be corrected by the New Deal and the Farm Bill. The ...
What’s in a label?
“Free range,” “cage free,” “organic,” “non-GMO,” “hormone free,” and now “ultra processed” are all food terms that can confuse even the most astute shopper. As consumers move farther from the farm but express deeper concern about where their food comes from and how it is produced, answering those concerns becomes ...
Farmer’s share of the grocery dollar shrinks again
Almost everything from the price of a dinner out to the cost to heat one’s home seems to take a bigger chunk out of the wallet lately. According to the Consumer Price Index, the overall cost of goods rose 2.4 percent in January. Even as grocery store prices rose, the ...
Farming, actually … is all around
There is this movie – either you love it or you hate it. That is how I feel about National Agriculture Month. At the beginning of that movie, though, there is a monologue that is pretty good and ruminates on the meaning of, well, love, but it works for food ...
Farm Bill looks to save California, and everyone else, from Prop 12
While the controversial Prop 12 was passed by California voters in 2018, it was not fully implemented nationwide until January 2024. Under the requirements of Prop 12, veal calves must have at least 43 square feet of pen space, egg-laying hens must be housed in “cage-free” environments, and hogs must ...
SCOTUS’s rollback of tariffs is a win for farms
When the Trump Administration announced “Liberation Day” in April 2025 and told farmers to “have fun,” it was with the expectation that food producers would be able to market their product domestically rather than relying on the global market. It was a far-fetched expectation. Farmers and ranchers in the United ...
Wolf plan needs to develop more quickly
While wolves decide beef is what’s for dinner, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife is slow to address the urgent need for ranch rescue plans. A New Year’s Day wolf attack at a ranch in Lassen County highlights that, perhaps, the state is moving too slowly in its approach ...
Chocolate cake is real food, too
All food is “real” food. The implication of using phrases like “real food” suggests there are food that are “fake,” “dishonest,” “artificial,” or in some other way harmful. The colloquialism “the dose makes the poison” is as applicable to food as it is to its toxicological origins. More specifically, one ...
New paper on predator management looks at wolves in the western U.S.
The answer is nuanced and differs based on what each state hopes to achieve by having wolves living within the state’s borders. Each state in the western United States has either developed its own map for success or seems to be grappling with how to address a way forward now. ...