NFU Blog

Have you ever wondered about crop conditions around the country? Sure, you can learn about them on the news or look them up online - but now you can discover first-hand how America’s fields are doing from fellow Farmers Union members through our new Crop Conditions Blog.

What’s the catch? We need you to submit reports of how your crops are coming along. To do this:

1. Sign up for a Google account - it’s free!
2. Email your new Google username to us at nationalfarmersunion@nfudc.org
3. We’ll then activate your profile as a contributor to the blog and give you further instructions.

Good luck and happy blogging! Check out the blog today to see the first few entries.

**Thanks Minnesota Farmers Union member Tim Henning for the great idea!

Nearly everyone has wondered at least once why in the world we change our clocks twice a year to adjust for “daylight” hours. Most people will attribute it to farmers, who presumably need the extra sunlight for planting and harvesting crops. Others still will attempt to use an ancient tale of those living in nearly constant darkness to explain this strange necessity.

My intuition tells me neither is true.

Whatever the explanation may be, ABC’s 20/20 attempts to uncover the secrets behind the bi-annual tradition and debunk the myth that modern-day farmers actually need the extra daylight hours to feed and fuel America.

Watch the show, “Your Weather: Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity,” on Friday, April 18 at 10:00 p.m ET. ABC also ran a story, “What (or Who) Is Daylight-Saving Time Saving? Myths and Truths About Why We Change the Clocks,” yesterday about the time-change mystery.

This afternoon, NFU President Tom Buis attended “The Rural Development Title of the Farm Bill: Why it is Vital to Rural America,” a briefing sponsored by the National Grange Foundation. Presenters at the event addressed specific rural development issues including access to high speed internet, renewable energy development and library facilities in rural areas.

Title VI of the farm bill addresses rural development, and this briefing aimed to highlight the importance of funding programs in rural America. Access to high speed internet is vital for rural economic development; studies have shown that state-of-the-art communications, coupled with transportation, education and library services, is absolutely essential in stimulating economic development in rural America.

Buis also highlighted the importance of providing incentives and opportunities for growth in the renewable energy sector in rural America. Locally-owned projects generate 2.6 times more jobs and 3.1 times more rural economic benefit than those with outside ownership.

“Rural areas will see much more economic activity from locally-owned projects than they will from corporate-owned projects,” Buis said. “Local investors will re-invest in the community where the project is based. Big companies will filter out their profits to other areas.”

In the United States, the average grocery store’s produce travels nearly 1,500 miles between the farm where it was grown and your refrigerator. The industrialized method of food production is considered efficient and profitable for large corporations, but it can be harmful to our health, the environment and rural communities. Fresh produce from local, family farms can provide consumers with fresher, healthier products while reducing the carbon footprint left by reducing the transportation necessary to get the products from the farm to your table.

For Our Health - Buying local food from local farms means getting food when it’s at its prime. Fresh food from local farms are healthier and tastier because food doesn’t spend days on trucks and shelves losing valuable nutrients or undergoing extensive processing.

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Watching the crowds surrounding the presidential candidates made me wonder. What are some of them so afraid of? 

By Richard Oswald, Missouri Farmers Union Member

I just got back from another [2] Presidential Summit in Iowa. I heard some new things, some old things, and I remembered a couple of lessons learned. I take my hat off to the people of Iowa. Your capacity for this stuff is remarkable.

Last year, for eight months, I was a politician. I saw myself as a populist: a man who lives and works among the people while seeking to better their lot in life. Too many times, though, I was more like a stranger in a strange land. I had trouble with that, but I learned something from my opposition.

Standing out in the crowd is one way to gain recognition and votes, and one way to identify a winner is by the number of followers that person has. Last year I called it the Republican Mafia.

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Today is World Food Day, a worldwide event designed to increase awareness and action to alleviate hunger.

On this day, as a World Food Day sponsor, National Farmers Union recognizes the contributions that family agriculture producers make to the availability, affordability and quality of America’s food supply.

Americans spend less on food than anywhere else in the world! Of every dollar Americans spend, just 9.9 cents is spent on food.

Farmers receive only a portion of the food dollar, with the large majority going into marketing, processing, wholesaling, distribution and retailing. For example, an 18-ounce box of Corn Flakes is priced at $3.70 in Washington, D.C. grocery stores. The farmer’s share of that total? Five cents.

Recognize World Food Day — and the farmers who produce our food — today by:

1) Visiting NFU’s MySpace and leave a message thanking family farmers for their contribution to our nation’s food supply.

2) Subscribing to the NFU MySpace blog and reading the latest entry: “Food vs. Fuel.”

3) Visit World Food USA Today for events and ideas for fighting hunger. Share ideas of your own.

4) Becoming a “Friend of the Family Farmer.” More information is available here.

5) Reposting this so that your friends can recognize the day as well.

The U.S. Constitution gives citizens the right to petition their government. Every once in a while, it’s good to do that…in person.

By Richard Oswald, Missouri Farmers Union Member

After a layover in the City of Brotherly Love, I’m on my way home. I feel a bit of a glow.

As I write this, I’m sitting in the airport in Philadelphia. Although I got a quick look out the window of the plane on the way in, it didn’t really do justice to Independence Hall. This is not the best way to see Philadelphia.

The reason I’m here has nothing to do with Pennsylvania, and everything to do with freedom. You see, I just spent three days honoring the Constitution. For the first three days of the third week of September, I donated my time to serve as an unpaid lobbyist, visiting Congressional offices in Washington, DC.

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As we become increasingly dependent upon the Internet, a large portion of rural America is left without the possibility to get online unless using a painfully slow dial-up phone line connection. As the world moves more high-tech, the content online is more complex and requires faster connections.

A recent article in Computerworld highlights the problems that rural internet users, and Internet Service Providers, struggle with. Covering the vast distances between houses in rural America with broadband infrastructure is much harder, more costly and more time-consuming than in urban areas. But does this mean that rural Americans should be denied the Internet access that other Americans enjoy?

Is having access to high speed Internet as essential to society as having access to a telephone? Missouri Farmers Union president testified before the House Small Business Committee Subcommittee on Rural and Urban Entrepreneurship on exactly that. Internet access for rural Americans is just as important as it is anywhere else in America.

Your thoughts and concerns are encouraged—post a comment below!

Read more about NFU’s rural broadband connectivity policy.