This year during Shavuot, the Jewish holiday which marks the end of the harvest, I am reminded of my commitment to alleviate hunger.
This year, thanks to a mild spring, corn farmers are hoping for a bumper crop. The impact of this will be felt around the world. Here's what you need to know.
Known as the Farm Bill, this legislation is projected to cost a half-trillion dollars over five years. A legislative package so large that it will impact the food process from sowed seed to second serving deserves better than both sides of the aisle.
Some of the voices least often heard in the corridors of Congress are those of the families who can't afford lobbyists, don't make campaign contributions, but who can bear witness first hand to the life-changing benefits of a food and nutrition assistance program like SNAP.
The food and beverage industry has been relentless in Washington lately, more than doubling their spending in Washington during the past three years, completely outpacing public interest groups looking out for children's health.
Is offering a healthy snack the only idea in the farm bill that should matter to the food movement? Of course not.
It marked the peak of the American Dust Bowl, a nine-year period that destroyed farmlands, blackened skies and left millions homeless.
Water is running off poorly managed fields that have been treated with chemical fertilizers and manure is loaded with nitrogen and phosphorus, two potent pollutants that set off a cascade of harmful consequences.
The government can reward good behavior by subsidizing broccoli, lentils, kale, pumpkin -- all the produce we know we should be eating, rather than subsidizing beef, no one's idea of health food. How the government allocates the funding for our food system is a pivotal issue in the upcoming Farm Bill -- one we should watch.
A rational, coherent blueprint for a healthy national food supply might be too much to ask. But after years of studying the Farm Bill, I'd be thrilled to see a dent made in four of its most glaring conflicts of purpose.
Would critics of SNAP exhibit the same level of outrage if they learned that several Roby, Texas, cotton farmers shared a $46 million jackpot in 1996 and still receive hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece in federal subsidies for years after?
American farmers suffered more crop losses in 2011 than in any other year in recorded history. Total insurance payouts have surpassed $9 billion, and ...
While most Americans spend about 10% of their family's budget on groceries, about one-third of them actually spend closer to 20%, so large increases in grocery prices means less spending on consumer goods, which account for a great portion of our economic activity.
WASHINGTON -- Promoting farm subsidies was once a no-brainer for rural members of Congress seeking re-election. This year, it's a bit trickier. As la...
The budget situation offers opportunities to reform American farm policy to make it more efficient and equitable -- at home and abroad -- but only if the issues are debated fully and openly and with all the stakeholders represented.
Climate Change activists should be concerned about proposed cuts to farm bill conservation programs, which would be the carbon emissions equivalent of adding 2 million cars a year to America's roads.
Food accessibility, costs, and subsidies will come into sharp focus as Congress looks to cut at least $23 billion in subsidies in the 2012 Farm Bill. While cuts are crucial to stem the growing deficit, many will only hurt the population and can threaten the economy in the long run.
It wasn't a hurricane that devastated Mark Doyle's apples this year. Rather, an unusually cold and wet spring in the Northeast had already done enough...
On October 17, a massive dust storm hit Lubbock, Texas, adding to already significant agricultural and environmental devastation across the South this...
A cartoon consumer appears happy and healthy, eating a meal of fresh carrots, corn and chicken as the calendar cycles through the 1950s, '60s and '70s...
Some U.S. farmers are paid to leave their land wild; others are compensated when weather devastates their cultivated land. Still others receive money ...
It is good news that some farmers recently have been able to buy back their acreage from developers as land prices have fallen and crop prices have risen. But this news is not nearly good enough.
This big price of cheap is a paradox that is familiar to many, but in this season, the nested ironies are worth remembering.
While the big news among food activists has been the unsettling possibility that a secret farm bill could be snuck into the super committee's recommendations and passed with no public input, Republicans have furtively dealt a crippling blow to family farmers and consumers.
Like many of you, when I heard that Congress decided that pizza is a vegetable, I thought it had to be a headline from The Onion.
