On Friday, July 9, USDA announced the award of $6.6 million in FY2010 conservation funding for 26 Conservation Cooperative Partnership Initiative (CCPI) projects in 15 states. In addition, 4 projects were awarded $1.3 million under the special Chesapeake Bay Watershed Initiative of the CCPI. The CCPI supports special state and regional conservation projects that […]
Archives for July 2010
Time Running Out for a Healthy School Lunch
ACTION ALERT July 9, 2010 Urge Your Representative to Move Forward Now on Farm to School Funding in the Child Nutrition Bill! If your Congressman sits on the House Education and Labor Committee – See Chart Below – please make a call in support of a healthy school lunch. Time is running short for Congressional re-authorization […]
USDA Program for Voluntary Public Access on Farm, Ranch & Forest Land
Program Interim Rule On Thursday, July 8, USDA issued an interim rule for the Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program (VPA-HIP), which was established in the 2008 Farm Bill. The Farm Bill authorizes $50 million in funding for the Program through FY 2012. The basic goal of the program is to increase public access […]
California Bans Battery Cage Eggs As of 2015
The State of California will end the sale of eggs from out-of-state battery cage facilities beginning January 1, 2015. On Tuesday, July 6, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law Assembly Bill No. 1437, which requires all sales in California of shell (whole) eggs for human consumption to comply with the state’s Prevention of Farm Animal […]
Farmers Agree, Mr. Vilsack: Farm Bill Should Emphasize Beginning Farmers
By Anna Jones-Crabtree from Vilicus Farm On July 1st, NSAC posted a blog to applaud Secretary Vilsack’s plea to Congress to support beginning farmers and to encourage USDA to walk the talk. Farmers agree. Here is how Anna Jones-Crabtree from Vilicus Farm in Montana responded to our blog: We would not be farming if it […]
Say It Ain’t So Mr. Secretary!
One day. Two House of Representatives hearings. USDA schizophrenia. That is one of the story lines from Thursday, July 1. See here and here for our earlier posts on Thursday’s Child Nutrition hearing and Conservation Program hearing. But now for the bigger, underlying story. The Child Nutrition Reauthorization bill needs to pass and needs to […]
House Subcommittee Hearing Reviews Conservation Technical Assistance
On Thursday, July 1, the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit, Energy and Research held a hearing to review the administration and delivery of conservation programs. Subcommittee Chairman Tim Holden (D-PA) emphasized the importance of accessible and efficient technical assistance for proper land management and implementation of conservation practices. According to the testimony from Steve […]
Farm Credit, Pigford Settlement Funding in House Supplemental War Spending Bill
Late on Thursday, July 1st, the House adopted by key amendments to the 2010 supplemental war spending bill (HR 4899). The House amended a Senate-passed version of the bill from May. Click here to view NSAC’s initial blog on this bill. The Senate bill included $950 million worth of Farm Service Agency direct and guaranteed […]
Ohio Agrees to Improve Farm Animal Welfare
On Wednesday, June 30, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, the Ohio Farm Bureau, Ohioans for Humane Farms, The Humane Society of the United States, and other parties announced a landmark farm animal welfare agreement. This announcement came on the day that animal welfare activists were poised to submit 500,000 signatures to the Ohio Secretary of State […]
Child Nutrition Bill with Farm to School Begins to Move in House
On Thursday, July 1, the full House Education and Labor Committee held its first hearing on Chairman George Miller’s (D-CA) Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act. Throughout the hearing endorsements for the Farm to School program were loud and clear, both from Committee members and from Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. The Miller bill includes […]
Vilsack: Farm Bill Should Emphasize Beginning Farmers
A funny thing happened on the way to a Senate Agriculture Committee farm bill hearing to review progress on implementation of the 2008 Farm Bill’s commodity, crop insurance, and disaster assistance programs. As the lead witness at the June 30 hearing, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack did not read a single word or convey a single […]