Essential Steps in Family Farming
Agric4profits
SEPTEMBER 28, 2024
Family farming is a vital part of agriculture, providing food security and sustaining rural communities. This guide will cover essential aspects of family farmi
Agriculture Family Farming Ruralism 
Revitalizing Rural Communities Means Supporting Small Farms
Food Tank
JUNE 28, 2024
In the United States, consolidation throughout the agricultural sector makes it difficult for smaller, independent farms to survive. According to the 2022 Census of Agriculture , large farms comprise only 4 percent of the total number of farms in the U.S. but control two-thirds of agricultural land.
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Are American Family Farms Disappearing?
Trimble Agriculture
JULY 3, 2024
The American family farm is the cornerstone of our nation—but is its existence in jeopardy? As the land of the free and home of the brave, the American family farm has been a foundational part of this nation and the meaning of independence. According to the 2022 ag census, family farms still dominate U.S.
Bringing Youth Back to the Farm in Rural America
Food Tank
MAY 3, 2024
Large factory farm facilities have replaced smaller family farms. The state lost nearly 90 percent of its hog farms from 1982 to 2017, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Census data. And it helps first-generation farmers pursue a career in agriculture.
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Opinion: In American Agriculture, Size Matters
Modern Farmer
SEPTEMBER 6, 2023
Recent statistics on American agriculture reveal a decline of 200,000 farms between 2007 and 2022. million farms —to 2 million from 6.8 The marginalization of smaller-scale farms has severe consequences. It’s even worse when the owners of large-scale farms don’t live in or meaningfully contribute to the community.
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RFA Roundup: Spring 2024 Sustainable Agriculture Funding Opportunities
National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
FEBRUARY 15, 2024
Photo credit: Lindsey Scalera With spring on the horizon, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced a number of funding opportunities for sustainable agriculture. For more detailed information on these and other USDA grant programs, see NSAC’s Grassroots Guide to Federal Food and Farm Programs.
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The Women and Stress Behind Rural Farming in America
Daily Yonder
NOVEMBER 25, 2024
And one of the big factors in helping farms survive is women.” Women Vital in Farming, On and Off the Agricultural Field The researchers held six focus group sessions with more than two dozen women married to farmers in rural Georgia. Women are vital in farming, Scheyett said. Another obstacle is child care.
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‘We’re Cut Off’: Rural Farmers Are Desperate for Broadband Internet
Daily Yonder
DECEMBER 19, 2023
In a rural area, that same mile of cable might connect a single family, so ISPs aren’t financially incentivized to run cable in those regions. Meinrath says when you get down into the data, you find that the majority of people who aren’t connected to the internet are rural Americans and the poorest in the country.
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‘We’re Cut Off’: Rural Farmers Are Desperate For Broadband Internet
Modern Farmer
NOVEMBER 13, 2023
In a rural area, that same mile of cable might connect a single family, so ISPs aren’t financially incentivized to run cable in those regions. Meinrath says when you get down into the data, you find that the majority of people who aren’t connected to the internet are rural Americans and the poorest in the country.
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Sarah Vogel: Midwestern Attorney Supporting Family, Women, and Native American Farms
USDA Blog
SEPTEMBER 20, 2024
Known as the Farmer’s Lawyer, Equity Commission Agriculture Subcommittee member Sarah Vogel has been vocal on issues impacting rural and Tribal communities; farmers who are young, new, and beginning; women; and Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), and farmworkers.
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The Fight for Fair Markets: The Imperative of Antitrust Enforcement in Agriculture
Wisconsin Farmers Union
AUGUST 10, 2023
by Tommy Enright, WFU Communications & Special Projects Coordinator In recent years, concerns about the lack of competition in the agriculture and food industries have been growing. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on July 19th launched the Agricultural Competition partnership, aiming to tackle anticompetitive practices and price gouging.
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A Young Farmer Makes the Business Case for Humane Hog Farming
Food Tank
JULY 19, 2024
When his agriculture professors taught about conventional hog production, he would ask questions like, “What about letting these animals get outside a little bit?” These big universities, the agricultural departments are pretty much paid off by Big Agriculture,” says Roberts. According to the U.S.
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Rural Roots and Inspiring Stories: America’s Newest Farm Podcast
Trimble Agriculture
JUNE 28, 2023
Your new favorite farm podcast about overcoming adversity, achieving success, and appreciating everything rural life has to offer. Many Americans grow up without understanding the resilience, dedication, and courage it takes to get food from the farm to the table. years back in 2017.
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Finding Balance as a Sixth-Generation Pig Farmer
Food Tank
NOVEMBER 3, 2023
Being a naive kid, living in rural America…you get burned out on a community that you know everybody in and you don’t take it for what it is. By his senior year, Williams was trying to figure out how to return home and take over the family farm. I was just working [on the farm] all the time and loved it.
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Q&A: Should Crop Insurance Be Subsidized?
Daily Yonder
JUNE 28, 2024
Each week, Path Finders features a Q&A with a rural thinker, creator, or doer. Shane Hamilton is a historian of American agriculture and agribusiness who teaches at the University of York in the United Kingdom. How’d you decide to focus on the industries that cropped up around farming, instead of the act of farming itself?
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Release: Strengthening Local Meat Economies Act Promotes Fairness in Procurement
National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
SEPTEMBER 15, 2023
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Laura Zaks National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition lzaks@sustainableagriculture.net Tel. Learn more and get involved at: [link] The post Release: Strengthening Local Meat Economies Act Promotes Fairness in Procurement appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. 2972 , (SLMEA).
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Man vs machine: What can agriculture teach us about AI and the future of work?
Sustainable Food Trust
SEPTEMBER 27, 2023
Since closing our egg business , I’ve had to look for work off the farm. It’s very common for farmers to have an off-site job to support the farm business. Life before mechanised agriculture was not easy, but the countryside was much more populated, rich with culture and a sense of community.
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The contribution of farming to the rural environment: A farmer’s viewpoint in 1985
Sustainable Food Trust
OCTOBER 1, 2024
Today, farming is far from a simple livelihood. As well as growing food, farmers are tasked with delivering a broad spectrum of ‘public goods’ – from wildlife habitat and healthy soils to public access and rural employment. Is it the period 1750-1850 when most of the present rural features were planted or built?
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Q&A: Why Do Small-Scale Farmers Persist in Place?
Daily Yonder
FEBRUARY 16, 2024
Each week, Path Finders features a Q&A with a rural thinker, creator, or doer. Enjoy our conversation about Wendell Berry, the fall of tobacco, and “right-sized” farming, below. Brooks Lamb on his family’s farm. Brooks Lamb: I grew up on a small farm in rural Tennessee. Like what you see here?
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Commentary: A Chorus for Conservation
Daily Yonder
OCTOBER 24, 2024
In the face of all sorts of adversity—challenges posed by agricultural consolidation; threats from farmland conversion; injustices that farmers of color have faced for centuries and still face today—it is affection, rooted in a deep connection with the land itself, that inspires their devotion and care. Why stay instead of sell?
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Farm Financial Conditions are Rough
Agwired
JULY 24, 2024
The House Agriculture Committee convened a hearing Tuesday to hear from farmers and rural lenders about the state of financial conditions in farm country. We are living through the largest two-year decline in farm income in history,” said Thompson. has seen since at least 1970.
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Book Excerpt: Commodities and Consolidation
Food Tank
APRIL 29, 2024
As farms consolidate, more and more of the wealth leaves rural communities and flows to the Cargills of the world. Most land in Iowa is not even farmed by owners anymore. Although the Wall Street Farm Bill has been repeatedly extended and tweaked since 1996, the core of the law has remained the same.
Four Barriers of Farm Succession (and How to Overcome Them)
Trimble Agriculture
AUGUST 2, 2023
Over the last 75 years, 28 percent of agricultural land has been lost. This poses a serious threat to the future of American family farms and ultimately compromises our domestic food security. The groups have introduced a bipartisan bill—the Expanding Childcare in Rural America (ECRA) Act of 2023.
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Farm Bill Coalition Letter
NASDA
JULY 25, 2024
We write to express our gratitude for your efforts to advance the 2024 farm bill within your jurisdictions and to seek your continued support for passing this critical legislation before the end of the year.
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Op-Ed | A Missing Investment Strategy: Climate Resilience Hides in Local Food Markets
Food Tank
DECEMBER 11, 2024
Over the last several years, agriculture has stormed onto the climate agenda. Remember that family farms continue to feed 70 percent of the worlds population. Strong markets for agroecology mean that farmers are incentivized to practice climate resilient agriculture. And its about time.
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Consolidation in the U.S. Ag Finance Sector
Trimble Agriculture
OCTOBER 30, 2024
agriculture is a hot one, but it’s primarily discussed at the farm and processing level. Both are critical topics, as monopolies in the meatpacking industry or the disappearing American family farm have significant impacts on the present and future of our food system. The topic of consolidation in U.S.
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Bringing Back Local Milk, Ice Cream, and Cheese
Civil Eats
JULY 2, 2024
The ice cream shop is an extension of the Nicholson family’s sixth-generation, 120-acre farm in nearby Ferndale. Since taking over the dairy a decade ago and branding it Foggy Bottoms Boys , the couple has been bucking convention and helping their rural community navigate changing economic tides.
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Black Earth: A Family’s Journey from Enslavement to Reclamation
Civil Eats
DECEMBER 10, 2024
In the months before Patrick Brown was born in November 1982, his father, Arthur, lay down on a road near the familys farm to prevent a caravan of yellow dump trucks from depositing toxic soil in his community. Patrick currently operates Brown Family Farms on the land that Byron worked as a sharecropper once he was freed.
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Uninsured Country: Affordable Health Care Eludes Many Family Farmers and Ranchers
Daily Yonder
MARCH 4, 2024
of farm household members had no health insurance, higher than the 9.1% Department of Agriculture report using 2015 data, the most recent available. million farmers and ranchers in the country, according to the USDA’s 2022 Census of Agriculture. The rural areas they live in suffer from shortages of doctors and hospitals.
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Gov Newsom eliminates disaster safety net for small & BIPOC farms, dairies in may-revise budget proposal
Caff
MAY 14, 2024
Small family farms like mine are struggling to keep up with emergency repairs and we cannot remain viable without some sort of a safety net. Without the safety net provided by CUSP, many California organic dairy farms would likely have gone out of business.
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Farm Bill Coalition Letter
NASDA
SEPTEMBER 10, 2024
Given the enormous challenges facing production agriculture – including a farm economy that has taken a downward spiral – it is imperative Congress act before year’s end to strengthen farm policy for America’s farmers. Farmers are struggling, and the decline in the farm economy is real. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
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Digging into the House Farm Bill: Part 4
National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
AUGUST 28, 2024
Editor’s Note: This is the fourth post in a multi-part blog series analyzing the Farm Food and National Security Act of 2024 (FFNSA), which was reported out of the House Agriculture Committee on Friday, May 24. public, across party lines, is concerned about the impacts of climate change on agriculture and food production.
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RELEASE: Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) introduces legislation focused on equitable land access solutions for the next generation of farmers through the 2023 Farm Bill
National Young Farmers Coalition
JULY 20, 2023
The Increasing Land Access, Security, and Opportunities Act expands upon the novel Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access Program (LCM), a one-time, $300 million funding opportunity offered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in August 2023. A bipartisan version of the bill was introduced in the House on June 9, 2023.
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Farmer Conservation Stories: Why Inflation Reduction Act Funding Must Remain Focused on Climate Change
National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
DECEMBER 15, 2023
Last week’s post highlighted the stories of farmers who have used practices from the Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry practice list to build climate resilience and mitigation solutions. This week’s post adds stories created and gathered by National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) members around the country.
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USDA Announces $300 Million in Awards to Support Access to Land, Capital, and Markets for Beginning and Undeserved Framers
National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
JULY 28, 2023
The awardees – which include many National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) members – proposed national, regional, and local projects that cover 40 states and territories including Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands.
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The Path to Land Ownership for U.S. Farmers
Trimble Agriculture
SEPTEMBER 25, 2024
Land ownership is a crucial milestone for young farmers, representing stability, investment, and a future in agriculture. Rising land prices, limited availability, and financial barriers pose significant challenges to young farmers seeking to secure their place in the agricultural community. agricultural industry.
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On the Ground with the Midwest Farmers Going All-In On Agroforestry
Modern Farmer
FEBRUARY 13, 2024
She and Rafkin had a goal of adding diversity and value to her family’s farm through organic agriculture, but they found few organic farmers in the area at the time and none that were implementing agroforestry. Johnson found support through Practical Farmers of Iowa, a group dedicated to building resilient farms and communities.
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Understanding the farmer protests
Sustainable Food Trust
FEBRUARY 28, 2024
How can we best understand and relate to the farmer protests which are going on all over Europe, including down the road from our farm in West Wales? Although we might not have been aware of this, we have been complicit in precipitating the European farming crisis, due to the relentless race to the bottom when it comes to food pricing.
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Food Systems 101: How Community Colleges Are Helping Students Connect Farm to Fork
Modern Farmer
AUGUST 29, 2023
Those cows are just one part of the closed-loop system the college aims to highlight in its new farm-to-fork program that is rolling out this school year. Walla Walla Community College’s program may be one of the most extensive culinary-agriculture curriculums, but there are others. who will direct the new project. “As
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The value of well-managed grazing on Scotland’s grasslands
Sustainable Food Trust
NOVEMBER 5, 2024
The goats, and to some extent the cows, have been replaced by sheep in recent times, a shift that speaks to the widespread social, cultural and ecological degradation that has occurred thanks to more than two centuries of Highland Clearances , followed by agricultural intensification.
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Three Key Farm Trends from the 2022 Ag Census
Trimble Agriculture
FEBRUARY 28, 2024
Farm income was at an all-time high in 2022 but not without challenges, according to the latest ag census. With multiple records broken, 2022 was a historic year for agriculture. Keep reading to learn more about the top three farm trends the 2022 ag census revealed and why it should matter to all of us.
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Animal Ag News 12/26
Agwired
DECEMBER 26, 2023
This December through July 2024, USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s (APHIS) National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS) are partnering to conduct a national study focusing on sheep and lamb health and management in the United States. Charles, Illinois, area.
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Exiting the Factory Farm
Modern Farmer
MAY 7, 2024
Murphy Family Farms (later bought by Smithfield Foods) helped out with the loan needed to get started. The Faaborgs farmed hogs for 30 years. When Tanner Faaborg came back to the farm as an adult, the family began thinking about ways to transition out of hog farming. “We
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Wisconsin Farmers Union Gears Up for 94th Annual Convention in December
Wisconsin Farmers Union
OCTOBER 12, 2024
“Our annual convention brings farmers together to share insights and shape the policies that will influence the future of agriculture in Wisconsin,” said WFU President Darin Von Ruden. It’s a valuable moment for members to collaborate, engage with leaders, and advocate for a resilient family farm system.”
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