In urban and suburban America, it's easy to take advantage of high-speed Internet access. It's available everywhere: at home, at the office, at the local Starbucks. In fact, we are so spoiled that some of us even get put out when we aren't able to get online on an airplane.
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"Look at this," he said, showing the room a single kernel of corn. "Plant it in the ground, and before you know it, you'll end up with this," he continued, holding up a full ear of corn. "One kernel becomes 560 kernels. If that's not a miracle, I don't know what is."
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In today's information age where everybody's got a venue and is pedaling something, it's hard to know when you're dealing with facts, someone's spin, or just plain fiction. With some very powerful and monied interests lined up against U.S. farmers and ranchers, understanding the facts about exactly who produces all of our food and fiber in this country is made all the more difficult.
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America might be embroiled in an economic recession right now, but there are just some things not worth skimping on—like good, homegrown food. Ninety-five percent of Americans said it was important for the United States to produce its own food instead of depending on imports, according to a new survey by Harris Interactive.
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Zac Yoder is only 28 years old, but he has the kind of background that would impress any potential employer. He received a college degree in aeronautical science, and his first job out of school was at L3 Communications, a prestigious defense contractor. But, a few years into his new career, Zac decided that working in an office all day wasn't for him. He wanted something more challenging. So Zac returned home to work at his family's farm in Dalhart, Texas.
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Each year on the 4th of July, Americans get together with family and friends to celebrate the birth of our nation. Our country's founding fathers probably wouldn't have been able to imagine what America would look like more than 234 years after they signed the Declaration of Independence, but they certainly were right about one thing: the importance of farming to America and its ability to propel our fledgling nation into one of the world's superpowers.
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If you watch the show "Dirty Jobs" on Discovery Channel, you know the name Mike Rowe, the host who shadows people doing jobs most folks don't see on a regular basis. What you might not know is the respect he has for the American farmer, as shown in an editorial recently posted on his website.
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President Obama spent a lot of political capital and will spend a lot of taxpayer money to make sure people can have good health coverage if, heaven forbid, like me, they ever need it," she said. "But there seems to be a level of hypocrisy in the Administration when it comes to other kinds of insurance."
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When we opened up a recent edition of The New York Times and saw the headline "The Obesity-Hunger Paradox," we got excited. Maybe, we thought, someone was finally tackling the issue of world hunger and how the obesity debate could ironically hinder U.S. farmers' ability to address this problem.
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Jeans have come a long way from their humble roots as the tough but affordable work pants made famous by Levi Strauss. It is no longer uncommon to see a pair of jeans selling for $100, $200, or even $300, and the global jeans market is valued at more than $50 billion. To people around the world, jeans represent a symbol of American culture, and many foreigners are willing to save their hard-earned wages for these expensive American imports.
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In the world of unintended consequences, some extreme-minded environmentalists might take the cake. That's because in their quest to revert agriculture to the stone ages, they could actually be starving millions of people.
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Although some farmers bemoan the fact that much of the "mainstream media" are not in touch with the realities facing the American agricultural industry, they are also glad to give credit where it's due.
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Long before he donned an oversize helmet and climbed aboard an M1 Abrams tank, Michael Dukakis had made a name for himself in rural America.
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WASHINGTON (September 28, 2009)—The U.S. unemployment rate may have reached a 26-year high of 9.6% last month but that didn't stop TIME magazine from running an article laying out the case for, of all things, raising the price that financially-strapped American consumers pay for their food.
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The Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry last week named Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) its new chair, making her the first woman in the Committee's history to take the helm.
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Three decades ago, TIME magazine took an in-depth look at “The New American Farmer”. At the time of their feature, the business of farming was rapidly shifting from the inefficient, tiny farms that dominated the 1930s, to larger-scale family run operations that need to be adept at business, engineering, and technology to keep up with the world's growing population.
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In addition to bad hairdos, Woodstock, and butterfly collars, the ‘70s also brought with it groundbreaking technologies that propelled many U.S. businesses into a new era. Farming was no exception. But the new technologies that improved efficiency and boosted yields came with a hefty price tag. The cost of farming skyrocketed during the decade, and the low profit margins that have long haunted the profession got even thinner.
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To hear agriculture's opponents tell it, you'd think most farmers are raking in the big bucks. But anyone who's been around the business knows that's never been the case. The margins in farming are as thin today-maybe thinner-as when TIME magazine had this to say in a 1978 cover story "The New American Farmer."
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Nowadays, it's pretty difficult to get a mainstream news organization to pay much attention to the business of farming or the importance of the profession to the country. Big-city reporters today tend to focus on the sensational and the conflicts created by a handful of over-zealous farm opponents.
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U.S. farmers sometimes worry that the American public takes them for granted.
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All of sudden all things "food" are sexy and media worthy, from recalls of tainted peanut products and spinach—and the accompanying rallying cry from Capitol Hill to reinvent food regulation—to the increasingly self-righteous call for all things edible to be local, natural, holistic and pure.
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