“It Came from the Grocery Store”/GreenpeaceImage: via Scientific Misconduct Food is life. But suppose we allowed U.S. agriculture to consolidate into five large corporations that account for nearly all of the processed food in the United States. And suppose those corporations grew so large that they had tentacles extending into nearly every food-related business in […]
Posted inPolitics and Government
Colorado Rep. Salazar Latest In Ag Secretary Derby
Now Colorado U.S. Rep. John Salazar is lead horse in the race to become the next secretary of agriculture, according to the Denver Post. Salazar is a third-term congressman and a farmer from the San Luis Valley town of Manassa. His brother, Ken, is a U.S. Senator from Colorado. (Ken is above left; John is […]
Posted inEnergy, Environment
Late Rule Change Eases Rules On Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining
The Bush White House and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agreed to revoke a 25-year old rule that could make it harder for coal mining companies to remove the tops of mountains and deposit the soil and rocks in streams running through the valleys below. Mountaintop removal mining has been a concern of people living […]
Posted inRural Economy
A Look Around Yonder On Recession’s One-Year Anniversary
This is downtown Arco, Idaho, where high school classes paint their numbers on the rocks above town and where Fuzzy worked as a true country doctor. His story can be found on the next page. Photo: sfantti It’s official. We’re in a recession. It began a year ago. Actually, since the experts agree that the […]
Posted inEnergy
Power Couple Reaps a Right, Light Harvest
The Branscomes, with a home solar-energy station in Montrose, Colorado, will be selling power to the local utility company by next spring Photo: Jim and Sharen Branscome While our government in Washington has been busy bailing out banks right and left, we’ve been busy doing our little thing to bail out utilities instead. Our little […]
Posted inAgriculture, Environment
A Cow Tax? Say It Ain’t So
Okay, what’s the deal with the cow tax? The American Farm Bureau issued a release on November 20 saying it was opposed to allowing the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases because this would lead to a tax on livestock. Cows and hogs belch and, well, you know, they emit other gases containing carbon. […]
Posted inRural Economy
Packaged Foods and Cheaper Goods Flourish as Rural Communities Face Downturn
The 40 stocks picked to represent the rural economy turned slightly upward over the last two weeks — before plummeting Monday morning — but weakness in retail sales and energy pulled the Yonder 40 even with the other major stock indexes. The Yonder 40 had been leading both the Dow Industrials and the Standard & […]
Posted inCool Places, Politics and Government
Mazal Tov and Yee Haw: A Thanksgiving Toast
Thanksgiving morning in San Angelo, Texas: Vic Choate welcomes guestsAll Photos: Bill Bishop Vic Choate and family of San Angelo, Texas, wind down 2008 with a toast. It’s a family tradition to invite their many friends, old and new, to the former Coney Island Cafe on Chadbourne Street at 11 a.m. sharp Thanksgiving morning. Everybody’s […]
Posted inReligion and Faith
Thankfully, One Size Doesn’t Fit All the Faithful
Altar with cornucopia for Thanksgiving, Community Prebyterian Church, Sandy, OregonPhoto: David Nelson October’s glorious reds and golds in this part of rural Oregon have passed, the last hurrah of sunny weather, the precursor of many weeks of rainy, chilly, wintry weather. Nestled beneath canopies of spreading maples, alders, firs, and cedars are buildings filled with […]
Posted inAgriculture
What the Farmer Takes From Thanksgiving Meal
The National Farmers Union reminds us in this time of friendly gluttony that little of the cost of that Thanksgiving dinner you are now buying goes to farmers. The NFU (quoting the Agriculture Department) notes that 80% of the cost of food goes for off farm costs, such as marketing, processing, wholesaling, retailing and the […]