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Down and Out on the Family Farm: Rural Rehabilitation in the Great Plains, 1929-1945 (Our Sustainable Future)

Down and Out on the Family Farm: Rural Rehabilitation in the Great Plains, 1929-1945 (Our Sustainable Future)

Focusing on the Great Plains states of Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota between 1929 and 1945, Down and Out on the Family Farm examines small family farmers and the Rural Rehabilitation Program designed to help them. Historian Michael Johnston Grant reveals the tension between economic forces that favored large-scale agriculture and political pressure that championed family farms, and the results of that clash. The Great Depression and the drought of the 1930s lay bare the long

List Price: $ 39.95 Price: $ 29.25

Tags: 19291945, Down, Family, Farm, Future, Great, Plains, Rehabilitation, Rural, Sustainable

MALAWI: Water Drives Integrated Agriculture on Small Farm

When the original owners of a 3.5 hectare piece of land put it up for sale
because it was too waterlogged to farm on, Diana Sitima and her husband,
Wilson, jumped to buy it.

Southern Africa – INTER PRESS SERVICE

Tags: Agriculture, Drives, Farm, Integrated, MALAWI, Small, Water

Couple’s Environmentally-Friendly Home and Farm Featured in Berkshire Living

Acramdale, NY (PRWEB) June 14, 2008

Herondale Farm, owned and maintained by Jeremy and Iva Peele, was recently profiled in Berkshire Living, a magazine about the culture, people and events of the Berkshire, New York area. The couple wanted a place where they could live their “organic” lifestyle — a lifestyle in which people eat and live using only materials that be found naturally on the earth. According to the article in Berkshire Living, the Peele couple wanted a farm and home that was “a place to honor their vision of an environmentally cognizant property that could serve as a working farm, home, and studio.”

“I spent a lot of time on farms,” said Jeremy Peele. “That’s how I got interested in it.”

In order to accomplish the building of this environmentally-friendly farm and home, the Peele couple enlisted the help of Andy and Peggy Matlow, the founders of the Great Barrington Cottage Company. The Great Barrington Company helps people to renovate old houses and properties to make them more environmentally-friendly, while still retaining their original character.

The Matlow couple and the Peele couple created some solutions that saved money and reduced harm to the environment. According to Jeremy Peele, the farm produces 60 to 70 percent of its electricity from a large bank of solar panels on a garage. Iva Peele also tried to make the best use of materials that she found on the property. For example, she used a old steel gear that she found to create a wall sconce. Chains from the barn, cleaned off and disassembled, were given new life as dishtowel hooks.

The Peele couple was also able to use government grants for farms and homeowners in order to fund the materials needed to make and environmentally-conscious farm and home.

For more information about Herondale Farm and Herondale Farm products, go to: www.herondalefarm.com.

About Herondale Farm:

Herondale Farm is mixed livestock certified organic farm that is owned and maintained by Jeremy and Iva Peele. The couple has been eating organically for two decades and created the farm in an attempt to produce organically-raised livestock. According to the Herondale Farm Web site, “By raising the animals in their natural environment and with natural diets we [Herondale Farm] are simply letting nature dictate the quality of their lives and their meat.”

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Related Government Grants For Farming Press Releases

Tags: Berkshire, Couples, EnvironmentallyFriendly, Farm, Featured, Home, Living

$1.4 million for Farm Environmental Projects in Ontario

Port Perry, ON (PRWEB) April 15, 2006

Farmers on the Oak Ridges Moraine, part of Ontario’s Greenbelt, are now eligible for significant additional funding support for management practices that help protect soil, water and habitat resources. The initiative is an innovative partnership between the Oak Ridges Moraine Foundation (ORMF), farm organizations, the federal and provincial government and conservation groups.

The ORMF today presented a $ 1.4 million grant to the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association (OSCIA), at an event near Port Perry, Ontario. The Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority, a member of Conservation Ontario, will partner with the OSCIA in administering this grant.

This funding will be delivered through existing procedures established for the Canada-Ontario Environmental Farm Plan program and its associated cost share programs, currently provided by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs under the Agriculture Policy Framework, an agreement among federal, provincial and territorial governments.

“We are committed to working with the private landowners, who own over 90 per cent of the moraine,” explained Russ Powell, Chair of the ORMF. “This grant today, and our announcement last week of the ‘Caring for the Moraine Program’, demonstrate the importance of working in partnerships to deliver technical and financial assistance to farm and rural communities on the Moraine, one of the prominent features of Ontario’s Greenbelt.”

OSCIA President Keith Black thanked all of the program partners in attendance. “We have created a unique and unprecedented partnership today,” he said. “We have brought together the working farm community, the federal and provincial governments, and leading conservation organizations on the Moraine, in a program that benefits farmers, and helps them enhance the environmental importance of their land.                                                            

“The Environmental Farm Plan program was developed by farmers for farmers. We are pleased that the Oak Ridges Moraine Foundation has recognized this highly successful program as an effective way to invest in farm stewardship practices on the Moraine,” stated Ontario Farm Environmental Coalition Steering Committee member and AGCare Chair, Brian Besley. (Agricultural Groups Concerned about Resources and the Environment).

With this new funding, farmers on the Moraine are now eligible to recover up to 90 per cent of their costs for implementing beneficial management practices from a list of eligible projects, such as installing alternative watering systems for managing livestock and fencing to manage grazing and protect watershed areas and construction of new ponds for storing water will be working to ensure all farmers on the Moraine are aware of these new funding opportunities, and the one-stop application process now being administered by the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association.

The announcement today was attended by representatives of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, the Ontario Farm Environmental Coalition, numerous farm organizations, Conservation Authorities and other conservation groups across the Moraine.

For more information contact:

Michael Scott, ORMF Executive Director

905-833-5733

For ORM Environmental Enhancement Program details contact:

Andy Graham, Program Manager, Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association

519-826-4216

The ORMF website is www.ormf.com

About The Oak Ridges Moraine Foundation:

The Oak Ridges Moraine Foundation was created in 2002 to help protect, preserve and restore the Oak Ridges Moraine, part of Ontario’s Greenbelt and one of the province’s most prominent geological landforms, extending 160 kilometers across southern Ontario, from the Trent River to the Niagara Escarpment.

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Tags: $1.4, Environmental, Farm, Million, Ontario, Projects

The renovation of abandoned farm buildings can provide crucial extra revenue

The recent success of the BBC’s Restoration Village has seen a dramatic number of people turning their attention towards the renovation of abandoned countryside buildings. This has seen a particularly rapidly increasing trend within the agricultural sector; if you’re a farmer and you own a redundant building, renovation may be an excellent way to diversify and raise your revenue.

Diversification, however, can be a particular problem for farmers and a seemingly daunting risk to take. Yet, many abandoned farm buildings may make excellent craft workshops, rural meeting places, stores or office facilities, particularly if they are located near a main road. This type of renovation can however be costly; Local Authorities often require that owners obtain planning permission before changing the designated usage of a building; these costs may differ widely depending on the area and the extent of the conversion work required. Yet some owners may be able to obtain grants for certain renovation work, and some banks may even be prepared to provide support for business plans that seem professional, well prepared and potentially lucrative. Often, if the conversion is successful, the costs of refurbishing abandoned farm buildings will be far outweighed by the benefits it will reap.

If the renovation project aims towards renting, rental income can vary greatly from £2 to well over £5 per square foot, depending on location, size of building, quality and a variety of other factors. If rural workshop units or office facilities are being set up, then adequate car parking facilities will also need to be provided for staff, customers and trade service providers.

Novice landlords may come up against some general problems, such as how to decide prospective tenants, and how to draw up a watertight lease. Generally, most landlords should obtain references before deciding on tenants, as well as credit references, bank references and, in some cases, references from the prospective tenant’s accountant or financial adviser. The taking of an initial deposit is often wise, as is collecting rent quarterly in advance, and leases should be drawn up to diminish the possibility of further expenditure by the landlord during the term of the lease.

As well as refurbishing abandoned farm buildings to create workshop or office space, farmers in tourist regions may convert redundant buildings into holiday accommodation, in order to generate a high amount of letting income. However conversions to residential homes or rooms generally cost much more than comparatively simple workshop conversions, and this kind of decision requires much more thought and a hefty business plan behind it.

If you are the owner of redundant farm buildings and are thinking of diversifying, there are many estate agents and property market organisations, such as Prime Location, who offer advice and information on making better use of country properties, as well as offering a wide variety of ads for farms, estates and land up for sale or rent.

About Michael:
Michael is a keen writer, and internet marketer living in Scotland:
Contact details:
E-mail: samqam@googlemail.com
Phone: 0131 561 2251
Michael’s Website: Belfast Taxi

Tags: abandoned, Buildings, Crucial, Extra, Farm, Provide, Renovation, Revenue

Developing Countries Voice Fury at Farm Subsidies

Developing world economies today turned on rich nations at the World Trade Organisation talks in Hong Kong over their reluctance to open up farming markets.

The talks – now in their third day – were intended to conclude the Doha round on meeting the needs of poorer countries. However, they have become deadlocked amid squabbling between the EU and the US.

Developing economies say the EU, US and other rich nations must cut subsidies to their farmers and tariffs blocking imports as part of a global free trade deal.

The Chilean foreign minister, Ignacio Walker, criticised the EU farm subsidies, which amount to $2 (£1) a day for each cow. “So many poor people wish they would be at least as well off as an EU cow,” he said.

The World Bank added to the indignation expressed by the least developed countries over their treatment at the WTO meeting, saying there had been much talk about development but too little action.

“In the three days the meetings have taken so far, the rich countries have transferred more than $2bn to their farmers in various forms of support,” the World Bank’s vice president, Danny Leipziger, said in a statement.

“In the same period, the 300 million poorest people in Africa have earned less than $1bn between them.”

European nations say they have already offered a 46% cut in agriculture tariffs, and that developing countries – particularly Brazil, India and China – now need to come up with offers to lower trade barriers to services and manufactured goods.

“The EU has presented a complete agricultural package,” Elena Espinosa, Spain’s agricultural minister, said. “What did the others present? Nothing, nothing, nothing.”

Peter Mandelson, the EU trade commissioner, said he had “had no offers, no matching offers”, but negotiations were now becoming serious and around 20 different topics relating to industrial and farm goods were now being discussed.

The US agriculture secretary, Mike Johanns, said he was discouraged by the EU’s failure to match a US proposal to make steeper cuts to its farm tariffs and subsidies. “I am concerned about time,” he said. “We are still waiting for the EU.”

Talks later in the day suggested some progress was being made. “The dynamics are changing,” an Indian trade official, who asked not to be named, said.

“We had a very good meeting in the morning. There is a desire to move forward,” Keith Rockwell, the chief spokesman for the WTO, said.

However, the Hong Kong meeting, mired in a stalemate over agriculture before it began, encountered further problems today when Honduras said it might reject an overall agreement unless the EU agrees to reform its banana import policies.

“We hope to try and find an agreeable solution before Sunday,” the Honduran WTO ambassador, Dacio Castillo, told the Associated Press.

“Otherwise, it’s going to be difficult to accept whatever will be the outcome of this meeting.”

The WTO bases its decision on consensus, and the agreement of each of its 149 members is required on any deal. A global free trade treaty is not expected until at least the end of next year.

The most prominent anti-WTO protesters in Hong Kong, the South Korean farmers, today switched to Buddhist tactics, repeatedly kneeling and kowtowing as they marched to the meeting venue.

Wearing black headbands, around 300 protesters walked down the street in rows of five. After taking three steps, they knelt down and touched their foreheads to the ground before getting up and doing it again. Many chanted “Down, down WTO,” to a loud drum beat.

The farmers say opening their domestic rice market to foreign competition under a WTO treaty would bankrupt them.

“This is to express our firm wish in the most desperate and humble way,” protester Park Min-yung, the secretary-general of the Korean Peasants League, said.

Tags: Countries, Developing, Farm, Fury, Subsidies, Voice

ND Farmer Wants to Have the First Hemp Farm in the US

Last month the North Dakota Agriculture Department finalized legislation concerning the guidelines farmers must follow to grow industrial hemp. The hemp plant is related to marijuana, but it does not have the same hallucinogenic properties. Hemp is used by manufacturers of many products, including rope, car panels, paper products, lotions, carpet backing, and animal bedding materials.

There are seven states in the U.S. that have authorized farming of industrial hemp. Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, West Virginia, Maryland, Montana, and now North Dakota, all allow farmers to apply for license to grow hemp, according to the industrial hemp advocacy group Vote Hemp. The group is a non-profit organization dedicated to establishing a free market for farmers to grow industrial hemp, which is now classified as a drug under the Controlled Substances Act.

The reason politicians worry about growing industrial hemp in the United States is that law enforcement officials believe fields of hemp can hide the illegal cultivation of marijuana. In 2005, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas introduced legislation that would remove industrial hemp from the definition of marijuana in federal drug legislation, but the measure was never voted on. California approved legislation last year that provided a general overview of industrial hemp production, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it.

Even though the North Dakota legislature has voted to allow hemp farming in the state, there are still some major hurdles before Monson can plant his crop. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration has to give its approval to the state’s new guidelines, and their annual registration fee is $2,293, which is nonrefundable whether or not the agency grants its permission. State Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson said that North Dakota’s new rules were developed with the DEA’s concerns in mind.

Applicants for a license must provide along with their application the latitude and longitude coordinates for their proposed hemp fields, and they must be fingerprinted. The costs to file an application are over $200, and include $37 to cover the cost of a criminal record check. Johnson said that Monson provided a complete application, including fingerprints, and it should take about a month to process his paperwork.

Monson, who farms near Osnabrock in the northeastern corner of North Dakota, is the assistant Republican majority leader in the North Dakota House of Representatives. He is also the school superintendent of nearby Edinburg. He would like to start by growing just 10 acres of hemp to get a feel for what it would entail. Canada’s provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, which lie along the northern border of North Dakota, were the largest hemp producers in Canada last year, and Monson is already assured that his land would be well suited to the crop. “I do know that industrial hemp grows really well 20 miles north of me,” Monson said. “I don’t see any reason why that wouldn’t be a major crop for me, if this could go through.”

Tags: Farm, Farmer, First, Hemp, Wants

On the farm ‘We are addicted to subsidies’

Oliver Walston farms 2,000 acres of prime arable land at Thriplow, near Cambridge, and gets a subsidy of around £160,000 annually.

“The CAP has succeeded brilliantly.

“It sought to make Europe self-sufficient in temperate foods, like grain, bring up the standard of living in the countryside, and (unspoken) ensure French and Italian peasants didn’t vote communist, which seemed fairly likely at one stage.

“However, 50 years and two generations of farmers have passed, and to suppose that the objectives of 50 years ago are valid today is total bollocks.

“We are in surplus in some areas like cereals. In the early ’70s, when we went into the Common Market, we considered on this farm if we got five tonnes of wheat to the hectare we were doing bloody well. Within a decade we were hoping to get 10 tonnes to the hectare.

“As a result, this country moved from being a net importer of cereals to a net exporter.

“In some areas of Europe, the Highlands of Scotland or southern Italy, farmers should receive a subsidy because agriculture is the biggest industry. A farmer goes bankrupt there and everyone locally suffers.

“If I go bankrupt – simple. My neighbour takes over the land.

“In a way, we are addicted to subsidies. I have got into bad habits and incurred debt on the basis of income guaranteed.

“But you can’t cut subsidies overnight. If you said to me ‘as of December 31 this year you get nothing’, I would be totally knackered. What you’ve got to say is ‘you’ve now got five years to get your business in order and at the end of that you’ll get nothing’.

“It [CAP] has been a wonderful cushion, but it cannot go on and every farmer in his heart knows it.

“There are two objectives. In the upland areas of Europe, you’ve got to keep agriculture going, so the farmer gets a cheque. But in East Anglia you [might] get a cheque for another reason.

“What they are saying is they will pay me money to look after the countryside along different lines – which may mean farming less intensively than I do now, or putting down ‘beetle banks’ for birds to feed on, or having strips around the fields which are not sprayed – but they are not going to pay me anything for producing more wheat.”

Tags: addicted, Farm, Subsidies

West meets tough opposition to farm subsidies

Washington and Brussels were last night trying to drive a wedge between a group of more than 20 developing countries which are holding out for deep cuts in the west’s lavish farm subsidies.

Despite the personal intervention of the US president, George Bush, the developing countries held firm yesterday and delayed the start of talks on agriculture, which are seen as crucial to a trade liberalisation deal in Cancun.

The EU, meanwhile, warned former colonies in Africa and in the Caribbean that their joining the so-called Group of 21 could well endanger their privileged access to Europe’s single market. Washington told Costa Rica, El Salvador and Guatemala that if they left the G21 they would get a “sweetheart deal” giving them increased access to America’s $10 trillion economy.

“At every ministerial meeting we see the US and the EU playing divide and rule while claiming to act in the interests of developing countries”, said Duncan Green, of the Catholic aid agency Cafod. “Nobody believes them any more.”

Ahead of this week’s meeting of ministers from the World Trade Organisation’s 146 member states, President Bush contacted the leaders of four key developing countries, India, Pakistan, Brazil and South Africa, in an attempt to prevent their opposition of a deal on agriculture agreed by Washington and Brussels.

Brazil has led the opposition to the modest concessions offered by the EU and the US, and has become the target of Washington and Brussels, seen as the main obstacle to the west’s agenda.

Celso Amorim, Brazil’s foreign minister, stormed out of a late-night meeting with Washington’s main trade negotiator, Robert Zoellick, after the Americans demanded Brazil withdrew the G21′s alternative proposal on agriculture. Mr Amorim told ministers yesterday that the G21 represented 63% of the world’s farmers: “Our proposed framework incorporates significant negotiating positions [and] has been carefully designed, technically as well as politically. It cannot be ignored. Already we see a new dynamic which hopefully can lead to real negotiations.”

The hardline stance of Brazil and its allies forced the EU and the US to plan separate meetings with the G21 yesterday before the agriculture negotiations. “It’s very difficult to put the hammer on countries like China, India and Brazil,” said one senior trade source. “They are powerful separately, let alone together.”

The deputy US trade representative, Peter Allgeier, warned that all member states would have to compromise for a successful deal. He said he was perplexed by the G21 which includes both large, food exporting countries, such as Brazil and Argentina, interested in finding new markets for their produce, and countries such as India, which traditionally favour protection for their small farmers. “It is not immediately obvious that they are a coherent group.”

Washington’s attempts to appease anger in the developing world through concessions on cotton also ran into difficulties. West African countries are holding out for real cuts in the $4bn (£2.6bn) the US spends yearly subsidising its cotton growers who flood world markets with their surplus produce, depressing the prices for reportedly more efficient producers in Benin, Chad, Burkino Faso, and Mali.

Sources in Cancun said that the US position was made more difficult because it had to get any deal on cotton through Congress, where the chairperson of the influential senate agriculture committee came from Mississippi, the biggest cotton producing state.

Fatiou Akplogan, Benin’s trade minister, said: “If nothing is done urgently this could lead to the total loss of revenue for our producers, an increase in poverty and destruction of our economic system.”

Yesterday, the director-general of the WTO, Supachai Panitchpakdi, took charge of the negotiations.

Tags: Farm, meets, opposition, Subsidies, Tough, West

State Farm Insurance – Is State Farm The Cheapest Car Insurance Company?

Q: I just got a quote from State Farm insurance and they claim it is the cheapest car insurance provider in Kentucky. Is this true? I am really trying to get the best deal possible!

A: It may very well be true depending on the type of policy they are offering. It is more likely that the cheapest car insurance is not always provided by one specific company.

Let me explain. Coverage that can be bought is going to differ by perhaps hundreds of dollars depending on the person purchasing the policy, and one provider may not always be the lowest cost.

State Farm may very well offer the least expensive auto insurance for someone in your situation. They are a reputable company, but before buying a policy from any company make sure you investigate all your options.

The old advice is best when searching for the cheapest car insurance rates. Do your homework, get multiple quotes, and then purchase the policy that offers the amount of coverage you need at a price you can afford. While this may sound like common sense, most drivers fail to follow through with this when they are searching for new coverage and end up overpaying as a result.

We strongly recommend that you get online and spend a little time obtaining quotes from several competing automobile insurance providers. Comparison shopping is one of the easiest ways to save hundreds of dollars on coverage and will ensure that you receive the highest quality policy and service at the lowest price.

Tags: Cheapest, Company, Farm, Insurance, State