Ag Lobby Archive

25 June

Sweet Cornageddon

Written by Don Carr

The modern farm lobby has many similarities with the Republican Party like denying climate change and calling for the repeal of Obamacare in policy books. Until today, DC based ag lobbyists have largely adhered to a peace accord similar to the GOP 11th Amendment axiom made famous by Ronald Reagan to not attack other...

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22 June

Mercy for the Messenger

Written by Don Carr

Consumer preference for more ethical and healthy fare is driving change in food and farming. Animal welfare concerns are often at the heart of this change. Spurred by activists exposing cruel treatment of livestock, many operations have made welcome and humane improvements in how farm animals are handled. Still, it seems every week another...

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05 June

Get Big or Get Out

Written by Don Carr

Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley is a prototypical rural conservative, in that he decries government involvement while championing federal agriculture subsidies and mandates for corn ethanol. Where he breaks from the herd is the Senator’s laudable, principled stand against gross inequity in the farm subsidy program by fighting year after year for payment limits to mega farms...

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01 June

ADM’s Gloop Glop

Written by Don Carr

Food historian Rachel Laudan touched a nerve last week when a long ago published essay “A plea for culinary modernism” resurfaced on Jacobin magazine. The gist of her thinking is that the good food movement is unjustly ignoring the efficiency and bounty our industrialized food system produces. From an interview of Laudan by Washingtonian’s...

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18 May

Ag Lobby Paints Itself Into a Conservation Corner

Written by Don Carr

There’s a growing public fight brewing over industrial agriculture’s water pollution. The most prominent scuffle is the Environmental Protection Agency’s highly contentious Waters of the US rule. At the local level much of the heat is centered on the recent lawsuit filed by the Des Moines’ Water Works over fertilizer derived nitrate run-off. Minnesota...

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31 March

An Incoherent Salad Bar of Attacks

Written by Don Carr

This morning Julie Kelly and Jeff Stier took aim at chef, restaurant owner and MSNBC food correspondent Tom Colicchio’s food and farm activism. In a National Review piece titled No, the culinary is not political, they write: Colicchio is now cooking up liberal food policy to expand the government’s ever-encroaching role in how we...

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19 March

Congressman Tim Ryan Wants to Start a Food Revolution

Written by Don Carr

When it comes to changing the food system, Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) might be the most outspoken member of Congress yet. Now in his sixth term, Ryan is the author of Real Food Revolution, Healthy Eating, Green Groceries, and the Return of the American Family Farm. Former President Bill Clinton describes the book as “a straightforward and much-needed...

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15 March

The GOP’s king corn problem

Written by Don Carr

Republican politics — especially the presidential primary — have become a contest of appealing to the far right voter by demonstrating conservative street cred. That’s why it was fascinating to observe March 7th’s awkward march of Republican candidates to the Iowa State Fairgrounds to articulate their position on the Renewable Fuels Standard — a government handout for those...

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12 February

The Case for Greens to Abandon Farm Bill Conservation Programs

Written by Don Carr

The 114th Congress has convened and the agriculture committee membership has been set. It’s a little-known fact is that the federal farm bill – drafted by the agriculture committees — represents the single largest U.S taxpayer investment in the environment, with $39 billion spent on agriculture-related conservation programs from 1995-2012. The conservation programs authorized...

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03 February

Rating the Politicos Shaping Our Food System

Written by Don Carr

How do the agriculture committees in the 114th Congress stack up? Last November, Mark Bittman, Micheal Pollan, Olivier De Schutter, and Ricardo Salvador made the case for a national food and farm policy to improve American diets and the environment. In a collectively penned Washington Post opinion piece, the authors and food system experts identified a...

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