September 30, 2016
As the 2016 fiscal year comes to a close today, Congress is heading for the doors, and in many cases back out to the campaign trail. With a packed legislative calendar and a limited number of working days in September, Congress managed to attend to some important issues (like avoiding a government shut down, […]
September 30, 2016
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Ferd Hoefner, 202-547-5754 National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition Applauds Action to Preserve Grassfed Label Ongoing oversight will be needed to prevent against misleading label claims Washington, DC, September 30, 2016 – In response to significant criticism from producers and consumers of sustainable meats following their revocation of the grassfed label claim in early […]
September 29, 2016
Americans’ interest in knowing more about where, by whom, and how their food is produced has been steadily building over the last decade. As the local food movement has grown, so too has interest in urban agriculture. Urban agriculture gives city dwellers a chance to purchase foods from farmers not just in their state, but […]
September 29, 2016
Local and regional food systems are expanding nationwide; supporting job growth in agriculture, revitalized rural and urban communities and increased consumer access to healthy sustainable local food and farm products. Developing markets for local and regionally produced food – building connections between farmers and consumers is no small task. That’s why the U.S. Department of […]
September 28, 2016
Organic farmers and the organic food sector have production, marketing, and policy research and education needs just like the rest of agriculture, yet the federal investment in such research still lags behind the size of the sector. In recent farm bills and government funding bills, however, Congress has taken some steps to begin to address […]
September 27, 2016
Small rural businesses are vital to growing and sustaining rural jobs and economies, but starting and growing them isn’t easy. That’s why the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) operates the Rural Business Development Grant Program (RBDG), which awards grants on a competitive basis to support the development and growth of rural small and emerging businesses […]
September 23, 2016
The ever-evolving biotechnology sector continues to be an important topic among farmers and consumers, and business and the government. However, the process has been criticized for being convoluted and uncoordinated in its nature, with unclear boundaries of where each federal agencies’ jurisdiction lies, and how stakeholder input is obtained and utilized across agency functions. In […]
September 22, 2016
Education and training to help farmers manage risks related to food production and the natural resources that underlie that production – as well as all manner of financial, marketing, and legal risks – can play a critical role in keeping farmers on the land and helping a new generation of farmers get off to a […]
September 22, 2016
On Tuesday, September 20, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing to probe further into a series of recent proposed mergers and acquisitions in the seed and agricultural industry. The hearing was convened after news of three significant mergers of top agricultural input companies that control 60 percent of the global seed market and 64 […]
September 20, 2016
Organic acreage has increased 20 percent from 2014 to 2015, reaching about 4.4 million acres. A closer look at the 2015 Organic Production Survey reveals that virtually all of the increase of 691,289 acres can be attributed to a single organic operation becoming certified in September 2015. Due to the addition of this large livestock […]
