The Economics of Farm Labor Shortages
Looking at farm labor shortages, people often scratch their heads, thinking, “Why can’t native-born Americans do that work? ”
Here’s why.
Economics
We Don’t Need GE Crops But Africa Does
Robert Paarlberg argues that anti-science environmental groups and corrupt local governments deprive African farmers of the crops needed for progress.
Revitalizing Main Street with Cooperatives
The intersection of Central and Lowry Avenues in northeast Minneapolis is bustling. On the northwest corner is a trifecta of local businesses: A bike shop, a cooperative brewery, and a bakery. The neighborhood grocery co-op is one block up the street.
This commercial stretch didn’t always look like this.
The Farms Are Too Damn Small: The Small Farm Glut
A recent story in the Wall Street Journal on an increased reliance by small farmers in the Midwest on off-farm income highlights that we don’t have a shortage of farmers, we have glut of small farms.
How to Make Sure We All Benefit When Nonprofits Patent Technologies Like CRISPR
GUEST AUTHOR Shobita Parthasarathy:The public partially underwrites nonprofit discoveries via tax breaks and isn’t seeing a lot of benefit in return. Non-profit patent licenses are one place where reforms can be made to put the public interest at the center.
Wage Theft and Class War
. . . Now, let’s imagine that a waitress decides that it’s not worth haggling with her supervisor everyday over the $10 a day the restaurant owes her to fill the gap between her $2.13 wage, her tips and the $7.25 an hour she is supposed to be making. But then she makes the wrong, but perhaps understandable decision to start skimming the $10 a day by pocketing the check for a table or two each day that pays in cash that she avoids ringing in.
Tricks Are for Kids
To get a first hand feel for this creepy phenomenon, I hoofed it over to my local Fred Meyer to browse the cereal aisle, a place I’ve only stopped in once before to grab some store brand bran flakes for homemade muesli. There they were, relegated to the bottom shelves. And here’s the creepy thing. They were looking up at me, trying to make eye contact from the place on the floor.
Stand Up for Family Farmers – Pass the Farmer Fair Practices Rules
The Farmer Fair Practice Rules consist of one interim final rule and two proposed rules. The interim final rule deals with competitive injury disputes for contract growers. Currently, contract poultry growers must prove harm for the entire $48 billion chicken industry rather than harm to themselves when seeking relief from poultry companies for abusive contract practices. This outrageous interpretation of the Packers and Stockyards Act not only places undue burden on individual growers – it also allows the meatpacking industries to continue abusive practices largely free of consequences. The interim final rule eliminates that burden, thereby taking some power from the multinational meatpackers and placing it with the individual farmers.
The Resistance of Peruvian Coffee
In Peru, as yellow rust disease has devastated top quality coffee harvests, coca for cocaine is filling for farmers who need to bolster sagging incomes.
Crop Insurance Subsidies Should Be Capped
Large farms should be able to buy crop insurance on every acre, but there should be limits to the amount of their bill that taxpayers are responsible for. Other subsidy programs have a payment limit. Why should crop insurance be different?
A Canadian Dairy Farmer Explains Supply Management
Manitoban dairy farmer Matt Plett explains the benefits to dairy farmers of the Canadian system of supply management.
Milking Scapegoats
Wisconsin farmer Chris Holman sorts out the issues in the dairy industry laid bare by Grassland Dairy Products announcement that they were dropping 75 farms as suppliers and the finger pointing by the Trump administration as it tries to deflect attention away from domestic troubles towards Canada.
Cooperatives: Restoring Control for Farmers and Communities
Jim Dula of the National Farmers Union and Glassier Gardens, a 14-acre shared land use cooperative in Basalt, CO discusses a little bit of the history of co-ops and some of his experience exploring co-ops as part of the NFU’s College Conference on Cooperatives.
Farming or Gardening? What’s the Difference?
Food historian Rachel Laudan unpacks the historical differences between gardening and farming and the important roles they have played in different cultures. The “digging stick” vs the “plough”.
Carbon Farming for Fun and Profit. Good Policy Can Help.
With shifting political winds and poor commodity prices, farmers may now be willing to consider new ways of generating income by adopting environmentally friendly practices, such as planting cover crops, extending crop rotations or eliminating tillage. Many farmers are already using these practices on a small scale. To combat climate change and stabilize incomes, farmers should look to policy to tackle both in tandem.
#Cargillgate Dissonance
When Cargill announced on Twitter that they had partnered with the Non GMO Project all hell broke lose in the agvocacy community in a way that seemed out of proportion to the crime. The problem may stem from a breach of trust within a coalition than the real world impacts.
Race and the Proletarianization of the American Farmer
Despite contributions made by African Americans, the most recent Census of Agriculture found that of the 2.2 million farms in the United States, 83 percent have white males as principal operators; African Americans constitute only 1.4 percent of principal farm operators
How Neighbors Turned Unused Buildings into a Thriving Community Hub
As rents rise and independent businesses in Minneapolis lose their leases to large national chains, a first-of-its-kind co-op found a solution. They created the economic space for a cooperative brewery and brewpub and other co-ops in their neighborhood.
From Grocery Stores to Labor Unions, Cooperatives Were the Answer
Worker-ownership economics catch on in Ohio, Nevada, and North Carolina.
New Maps Show How Our Consumption Impacts Wildlife Thousands of Miles Away
Global trade has made it easier to buy things. But our consumption habits often fuel threats to biodiversity — such as deforestation, overhunting and overfishing — thousands of miles away.
Now, scientists have mapped how major consuming countries drive threats to endangered species elsewhere. Such maps could be useful for finding the most efficient ways to protect critical areas important for biodiversity, the researchers suggest in a new study.