By Melanie Arthur, NFU Intern Pre-pandemic, you needed a few essential things to host an on-farm tour or educational event. First, a place for people to park. Second, some hot coffee brewing. And, finally, a good story to tell and a megaphone to carry your voice across the farm and to your attendees. Now, with trucks staying parked at home and farmers getting their coffee refills at home, farm … Read More
By Jeanne Janson, NFU Journalism Intern The last 400 years of Native American history is marred with stories of land being stolen, children being forced into boarding schools and a crusade for assimilation through the erasure of culture. One result of this traumatic history is an entrenched cycle of poverty that persists on many reservations … Read More
By Billy Mitchell, NFU FSMA Training Coordinator Over the years, the picture of a farmer and farm service provider working together has often looked the same – two people, sometimes with paperwork sprawled across a tailgate, looking out over rows and rows of a crop surrounded by farmland stretched to the horizon. It’s a classic … Read More
By Tracy Heim, NFU Intern As fall transitions to winter, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is reviewing their New Era of Smarter Food Safety Blueprint implementation. On October 26, the FDA hosted a webinar that gave an inside look at the progress made in the first 100 days since the Blueprint announcement in July. … Read More
By Billy Mitchell, FSMA Training Coordinator Like a moth to a glowing jack-o’-lantern, you may be drawn towards towering shelves of mass-produced candy this Halloween season and tricked into thinking that local treats are a thing of the past. Do not be scared: farm-made, value-added products are alive and well in 2020. The old classics, … Read More
By Jeanne Janson, NFU Journalism Intern From mid-August through the end of September, Megan Brown spent countless hours fireproofing the livestock enclosures at her family’s ranch in Northern California and preparing to evacuate should the LNU Lightning Complex Fire—the third most destructive in the state’s history—get too close. Unfortunately, this has become a sort of … Read More
By Melanie Arthur, NFU Intern “Parking lot, go ahead and blow your horns. Let everybody know that you are here!” food safety trainer and technical service provider Darrell McGuire shouted at the crowd. Alabama farmers and ranchers – who had drove their vehicles up to the Bethel Spring Missionary Baptist Church to hear speakers present … Read More
By Tracy Heim, NFU Intern On the second Monday of every October, Indigenous Peoples’ Day is celebrated across the United States to honor the original inhabitants of the Americas. On this Indigenous Peoples’ Day, National Farmers Union (NFU) celebrates the invaluable contributions of Native Americans and the Indigenous origins of many practices currently used in … Read More
By Charlie Michel, National Farmers Union Education and Outreach Coordinator When a statewide COVID-19 lockdown upended their food safety event planning, Mary Howell and Mercedes Taylor-Puckett of Kansas Farmers Union (KFU) were quick to respond with creative solutions for delivering on-farm education to Kansas growers. A primary challenge was reaching producers in cities like Wichita, … Read More
By Hannah Packman, National Farmers Union Communications Director A year ago, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) abruptly relocated two of its major research agencies – the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and the Economic Research Service) – from Washington, D.C. to Kansas City. The move forced dozens of experienced employees to quit, taking their expertise … Read More
By Melanie Arthur, NFU Intern The Covid-19 pandemic has created new challenges for our food system, especially for those operating or working on farms or in food facilities. To simplify and streamline pandemic-related decisions, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) released a new resource, the Employee Health … Read More
By Hannah Packman, NFU Communications Director Many years before the coronavirus pandemic, there were concerns that meat plant workers were at high risk of contracting contagious diseases – concerns that have only ramped up in recent months. For one, meat plants are cold, which increases the risk of transmission. Masks are the obvious protection, but the physical demands and … Read More
Next week, hundreds of hundreds of farmers, ranchers, and rural residents will gather online to speak directly with their elected representatives and administration officials as part of National Farmers Union’s (NFU) virtual legislative fly-in. While signup for the full event has closed, we are opening several of the fly-in sessions to the public. All three are … Read More
By Hannah Packman, NFU Communications Director The farm economy was weak long before the pandemic. For years, chronic overproduction has severely depressed commodity prices. Global trade disputes that eroded export markets certainly didn’t help, nor did corporate control of the agriculture industry. But new pandemic-related disruptions have pushed down prices even lower than they were before – so much so … Read More
By Jenny Hopkinson, NFU Senior Government Relations Representative It seems everyone in Washington is talking about agriculture’s role in combatting climate change. Across the government, officials are embracing the need for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving soil health – both of which are key for addressing the climate crisis. This summer, there was a … Read More
By Brittany Olson, Wisconsin Farmers Union Member This piece originally ran in the September/October issue of Wisconsin Farmers Union News and is available for distribution. Learn more about the Rural Voices project at www.wisconsinfarmersunion.com/rural-voices or on the WFU blog. Even though my days as a farm journalist are getting farther and farther behind me in … Read More
By Hannah Packman, NFU Communications Director Climate change is not a future or hypothetical problem – year after year, farmers and ranchers across the country are enduring more frequent and extreme weather events and natural disasters. This year has been no different. In California, dozens of fires have burned through hundreds of thousands of acres, destroying farm … Read More
By Billy Mitchell, NFU FSMA Training Coordinator The term “urban farming” evokes images of gleaming greenhouses scattered across New York rooftops, shipping containers full of greens in Charleston, South Carolina, or raised beds in the shadow of the Oakland A’s stadium. But in small rural towns, some farmers are adopting practices that are hallmarks of … Read More
By Hannah Packman, NFU Communications Director The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has been experiencing financial issues for many years, but dwindling mail volume during the pandemic has made matters worse, severely cutting into the agency’s revenue. Unlike most other government agencies, which are funded by taxpayer money, USPS funds itself with revenue from postage and postal service. Though the … Read More
By Hannah Packman, NFU Communications Director Hurricane-force winds tore through the Midwest this week, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. The storm, known as a derecho, passed from South Dakota to Ohio, knocking out power for more than a million people, blowing down trees, damaging buildings and grain bins, and flattening crops. In … Read More
By Hannah Packman, NFU Communications Director According to new analysis published this week by NBC News, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has disproportionately helped certain kinds of farmers more than others with its Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP). The publication asserts that the agency “favored large, industrialized farms over smaller, diversified ones, provided loopholes … Read More
By Hannah Packman, NFU Communications Director Brazilian company JBS, the world’s largest beef and pork processor, plans to buy the second largest lamb processing facility in the United States and use it to process beef instead, drawing concern from farmers, legislators, and anti-trust advocates. The plant, which is based in Colorado, processes about 350,000 lambs … Read More
By Billy Mitchell, FSMA Training Coordinator A mountain of paperwork just to wash your hands. Out of control costs with no end in sight. Common sense concepts lost in a maze of regulations. For a lot of growers, these are the real and perceived barriers that come with keeping our food safe. In the past … Read More
By Billy Mitchell, NFU FSMA Training Coordinator Just five short months ago, National Farmers Union (NFU) members attending the organization’s annual convention breezed through Forsyth Park Farmers Market in Savannah, Georgia. Today, the scene would be unthinkable: customers hugging farmers, friends standing shoulder to shoulder, shoppers testing produce ripeness with their bare hands, families generously … Read More
By Hannah Packman, NFU Communications Director In the last 12 months, food prices at grocery stores have risen 5.6 percent – the largest annual increase in nearly a decade. The severity of price increases vary drastically depending on the product; beef prices, for instance are 25 percent higher than they were a year ago, while those for … Read More