Joanie Stiers - The Register-Mail:
Fewer Young Farmers Entering Field Despite Bumper Crop in College
Despite the young farmer decline in western Illinois, college agriculture programs, such as the University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, have more students than ever. Enrollment increases each year and 38 percent of incoming freshmen are turned away from the agriculture college... current farm policies, drive land prices higher and encourage larger production while low commodity prices have been the norm. This creates a competitive atmosphere that beginning farmers have difficulty entering...

 Joanie Stiers - The Register-Mail:
Breaking in Often Means Keeping Off-Farm Jobs
Beginning farmers face a competitive land market in which prices are at historical highs for both cash rent and buying land... Machinery is costly - a new combine to harvest corn and soybeans costs a quarter million dollars. Seed and chemical payments are due before a profit is made...

 Farm Week:
Global Changes Exerting Pressure on Farm Policy
Illinois Farm Bureau’s Farm Policy Task Force (FPTF) has fine-tuned some potentially provocative proposals for the 2007 farm bill, including movement from loan deficiency payments (LDPs) to a new farm revenue “safety net” and increased conservation incentives...

 Charles Lardner - Intelligencer Journal:
Rendell Backs New Farm-Protection Bill
Municipal laws restricting the ability of farmers to control their businesses are a growing problem in Pennsylvania, state lawmakers say...

 Omie Drawhorn - Silverton Appeal Tribune:
USDA Pproposed Changes Are Sour Milk to Mallorie’s Dairy
A regulation amendment targets producer-handlers in the Northwest and Arizona...

 Joyce Lobeck - The Sun:
Determined to Remain Independent
Hein Hettinga, owner of Sarah Farms, is an independent milk producer and processor. And he would prefer to stay that way, saying that he is able to offer consumers a lower price for milk as a result...

 CattleNetwork.com:
NFU Tells Senate Ag Committee CAFTA is a Raw Deal
The National Farmers Union stood before the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee today, to tell its members that the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is a raw deal for American farmers and ranchers. ...the results of agricultural trade negotiations and the agreements that follow have consistently failed to match the promises and rhetoric of free trade proponents...

 Christine Souza and Dave Kranz - California Farm Bureau Federation:
Farm Bureau Leaders get Energized in Washington D.C.
Two groups of Farm Bureau leaders toured the nation's capitol in the last few weeks, some of them for the very first time, but all wanting to learn more about the legislative process and to promote Farm Bureau policies to protect California family farms and ranches...

 Daisy Nguyen - Associated Press:
California Farmers Lobby for Relief to Save Sinking Family Farms
California is losing about 1,000 farms a year... more and more California farmers are lobbying for relief from the economic pressures forcing many to downsize or sell their land to developers and quit farming altogether...

 Howard Weiss Tisman - Brattleboro Reformer:
Farming's Future Discussed at Summit
"The decline of dairy farms in the past was brought on by the conscious decisions that we made," Pollina said. "The loss of farms is not inevitable. It is not just the way it is. It is the way we made it."

 Associated Press:
Kaine Wants to Save Family Farms
Democrat Tim Kaine has the key to building upon the economic success in the Commonwealth, and it involves saving family farms...

 Ohio Farm Bureau Federation:
OFBF Succeeds in Getting Tax Change
OFBF has succeeded in reducing the number of small family farms impacted by a proposed state commercial activity tax (CAT)... Most family farms are exempt from paying the tax...

 Tom Barnes - Post-Gazette:
Lawmakers Want to Save More Farms - Bill Would Increase State Spending on Land Preservation
With development pressures continuing to threaten prime farmland across the state, two lawmakers are proposing measures to keep family farms in the family and prevent them from being turned into sites for luxury housing or big-box retail stores...

 Press Release - The Progress Report:
Agribusiness Corporations versus American Citizens
Wisconsin's Senator Feingold introduces legislation to curb large corporate water subsidies...

 Dave Kranz - California Farm Bureau Federation:
Survey Shows Strong Support for California Family Farms
Whether they live in big cities or small towns, whether they're registered Democrats or Republicans, Californians agree: California farmers make a major contribution to the state's economy and job base. A new statewide survey shows that voters overwhelmingly recognize the importance of maintaining family farms and ranches...

 Dale Hildebrandt - Billings Gazette:
Sugar Beet Farmer Fears CAFTA
Sugar beet producers have a long, hard fight ahead on the various trade agreements currently being considered that would allow more sugar to be imported into the United States...

 Sally Spaulding - The Daily Sentinel:
Creativity Key to Keeping Some in Agriculture
The market value of locally produced agricultural items has risen drastically in recent years, but farmers aren’t always guaranteed a healthy bottom line in Mesa County unless they’re willing to try something different...

 George Breithaupt - Mount Vernon News:
Program Contributes to Agriculture
“When people buy Ohio products they are helping to support the state’s 77,000 family farms,” said Fred Dailey, director of the Ohio Department of Agriculture. “Every dollar spent on these products gets reinvested into local communities.”

 Britt Bailey and Brian Tokar - Z Communications:
Industry Aims to Strip Local Control of Food Supply
New laws being pushed by industry prevent local decisions about plants and seeds...

 Leslie Knopp - KOMO-TV News, Seattle:
Family Dairy Farms Could Be Squeezed Out
Smith Brothers Farms in Kent still delivers milk right to customers' doors. The farm is one of the few large family farms in the country that produces milk, from cow to carton. But Smith Brothers is fighting proposed new U.S. Department of Agriculture rules that will force it to sell its milk to a pool system so big companies can buy it and market it...

 Patrik Jonsson - The Christian Science Monitor:
Bees, Please: Why Farmers are Buzzing for More Hives
Easily domesticated, and crowding into hives by the tens of thousands, honeybees are perhaps the world's perfect pollinators, and their shortage has farmers scrambling...

 James Ritchie - The Leaf-Chronicle:
Group Offers Options to Save Family Farms
A Nashville-based group offers options for landowners who don't ever want to see their property turned into a subdivision, shopping center or industrial development...

 The New Standard:
Fair Trade Advocates Say Open Markets Could Shatter Small Farms
"[CAFTA] is going to be a disaster for farmers, in particular in the other member countries," predicted Robert Scott, director of international programs at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a progressive think tank that analyzes how free trade agreements disrupt rural economies...

 Bill Whitaker - CBS News:
Ag Entertainment - It's Show Business or No Business
Farmers in California have been hit hard by rains and losses from increased foreign competition. It's enough to inspire farmers to go into a whole new field...

 Isaac Guerrero - Rockford Register Star:
They're Growing Rooftops - Farms Have Disappeared as Residential Growth has Boomed in Boone
Bob Mickey is under heavy pressure to sell his land to developers who covet the flat, featureless landscape for houses and strip malls...

 J.D. Wallace - KOLD News 13:
Illegal Immigration Costly for Southeastern Arizona Ranchers
In southeastern Arizona, one cow needs about 50 acres of land. Rob Krentz has about 35,000 acres. But for this lifelong rancher, the people, illegal immigrants crossing his land, not the cattle, have him concerned...

 Joel Davidson - Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, Alaska:
New-generation Farmers Sprouting
Family farmers have a tough row to hoe in this age of multi-billion-dollar corporations, international marketing campaigns and farms spanning 10,000-acre fields. Many small-scale farmers wither in the face of such competition -- a few, however, have found ways to survive...

 Indiana Agriculture Department:
Ag Plan Designed to Take Indiana to 2025
Indiana Lieutenant Governor Becky Skillman is releasing details of a strategic agriculture plan designed to make Indiana into the global center for food and agriculture innovation and commercialization...

 Cecil Yancy - Southeast Farm Press:
Trade, Farm Policy Play on New Farm Bill
Groups from a wide-ranging ideological perspective are lining up supporting a different kind of farm bill that focuses on getting the program out of the seemingly amber glow that attracts trade protests from other nations...

 Jenn Ooton - The Daily Times-Call:
CAFTA Could Turn Colorado Sugar Beets Sour
Fred Walker is one of the driving forces behind the county’s break with the national Farm Bureau organization over CAFTA, a trade accord that would lift import restrictions and tariffs on $33.4 billion worth of goods traded between the United States and Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua...

 Rita Brhel - Yankton Daily Press:
CAFTA Could Have Negative Effects For Area Family Farmers
According to trade expert Evert Van der Sluis, associate professor of economics at South Dakota State University, "The corporations would be the winners, and the farmers would be the big losers -- not just in the U.S. but in all the countries. Just as with the NAFTA, CAFTA would lead to multi-national corporations benefiting at the expense of family farmers."

 Bill Lambrecht - St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
Brazil Poses Growing Threat to U.S. Farmers
Brazil is fast transforming agriculture in much the same way that China changed manufacturing with cheap labor and low prices. The agriculture boom in Brazil's Midwest leaves farmers in America's Midwest wondering if their business is going the way of Rust Belt manufacturing...

 Elizabeth Weise - USA Today:
Support from City Folk Takes Root on the Farm
A new way of farming is quietly sowing seeds of change. It has brought new life to family farms in Illinois, let city dwellers cultivate deep relationships with the people who grow their food in Rochester, N.Y., and allowed new farms to sprout up in Tulsa. The ultimate harvest may be the preservation of the family farm...

 Jane Meggitt - Examiner, Allentown, New Jersey:
Brothers Say Family Farms Under Siege
Upper Freehold’s zoning laws pose biggest threat to their prosperity, farmers say...

 Betsy Scott - News-Herald, Northeast Ohio:
Farmers Say They are Feeling Pressure to Sell to Developers
There's a rumble in the distance, and it's getting closer. It's the sound of heavy machinery paving the way for more houses in many former pasturelands across the area, and it's ringing in the ears of some farmers, who say they are increasingly feeling pressure to sell their property for housing developments...

 Forrest Laws - Southeast Farm Press:
Study Shows Family Farms Still Have a Role
...nearly one-quarter of the nation’s farms that have multiple operators have operators in different generations. The paper’s authors say those numbers imply the farms may have a succession plan, but it also can be interpreted to mean that most of those operations are run by members of the same family... The complete study can be found here...

 Andrea Kendrick - The Arkansas Traveler:
Number of Family Orchards Declines
Fred Van Zant sells his apples, peaches and grapes retail at a roadside market in Lowell and wholesale to different produce houses. He blames the consolidation of family farms into large farms and the demise of the smaller grocery stores for the diminishing number of orchards in the area...

 Josh Nelson - Iowa State Daily:
House Passes Bill Seeking Federal Estate Tax's Repeal
Proponents of the bill, H.R. 8, said the estate tax has harmed people's ability to pass on property and other items of value to their family members, including family farmers...

 The Tomah Journal:
President's Retreat on Farm Subsidies Lamentable
Farm subsidies might pass the morality test if they focused on small family farms and kept agriculture production in the greatest possible number of hands. Farm subsidies, however, accomplish the opposite. Eight percent of the producers receive 78 percent of the benefits, and the conservative Heritage Foundation says, "Subsidies that are concentrated among the largest and most profitable agribusinesses have helped these large farms buy out smaller farms and further consolidate the agriculture industry...

 Kay Ledbetter - Southwest Farm Press:
Marketing Strategies Critical for Cotton in Times of Uncertainty
The World Trade Organization has challenged key provisions of the farm program as not being in compliance with the agency's guidelines for international trade. Currently, two out of three bales of U.S. cotton are exported and are subject to these guidelines...

 Mechele Cooper - Kennebec Journal:
Family Farms Expand, Acquire to Survive
Jason Cooper and his family knew that, in order to survive the global market, they had to expand their apple orchard...

 Wisconsin Ag Connection:
NFU Among Those Opposed to CAFTA
National Farmers Union stood side by side with House and Senate Democrats and Republicans, as well as a wide array of business, trade, and labor organizations to oppose the Central American Free Trade Agreement...

 Suzanne Gamboa - Associated Press:
Craig's Ag Worker Legalization Bill Dies in Senate
The U.S. Senate on Tuesday failed to head off a filibuster of Idaho Republican Larry Craig's bill to put undocumented farmworkers on the path toward citizenship, effectively killing the plan...

 Suzanne Gamboa - Associated Press:
Senate Passes Visa Expansion for Seasonal Workers, Rejects Competing Farmworker Bills
The Senate voted overwhelmingly to expand a visa program to allow seasonal workers to return to jobs in New England's tourism regions this year, but balked at using an Iraq-Afghanistan aid bill to make it possible for immigrant farmworkers to win permanent or temporary legal status...

 Holly Yeager - Financial Times:
US Farm Debate Reveals Divide on Migrants
Larry Craig, an Idaho Republican and chief proponent of one guestworker proposal under debate, said failure to address the legal status of US farmworkers threatened to "collapse American agriculture". The American Farm Bureau estimates that 50 to 70 per cent of its members' workforce are illegal immigrants...

 Lou Dobbs - CNN:
Illegal Alien Giveaway - Ag Jobs Bill
The Senate indicated strong support for the so-called "ag jobs bill", a piece of legislation that would legalize nearly a million illegal aliens now working in this country. But there weren't enough votes to ensure the ag jobs bill would remain attached to the supplemental spending bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...

 Wisconsin Ag Connection:
House Republicans Favor Repeal of Death Tax
House Majority Whip Roy Blunt today praised passage of H.R. 8, the Death Tax Repeal Permanency Act of 2005, which garnered a vote of 272-162. Kenn Holshof (R-9) had introduced the legislation which now moves to the Senate for consideration. Says Blunt, "The death tax is an unfair double taxation that targets the backbone of the American economy: small businesses and family farms..."

 Wisconsin Ag Connection:
Farm Bureau Calls for Passage of Death Tax Repeal
Speaking on behalf of farmers and ranchers from his state and the nation, John Lincoln, president of the New York Farm Bureau and an AFBF executive committee member, provided perspective on how the death tax hurts rural economies and can destroy the economic viability of family farms...

 Wisconsin Ag Connection:
Kind Introduces Bill to Limit Farm Payments
Wisconsin Congressman Ron Kind and Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona have introduced a bill this week that would limit government payments to a handful of large agribusinesses that routinely take advantage of the federal farm subsidy system. "Not only is the current system inequitable because it disproportionately awards oversized payments to large agribusinesses at the expense of small family farms, it is also costly at a time when Congress needs to be clamping down on spending," Kind said.

 Wisconsin Ag Connection:
House Republicans Favor Repeal of Death Tax
House Majority Whip Roy Blunt today praised passage of H.R. 8, the Death Tax Repeal Permanency Act of 2005, which garnered a vote of 272-162. Kenn Holshof (R-9) had introduced the legislation which now moves to the Senate for consideration. Says Blunt, "The death tax is an unfair double taxation that targets the backbone of the American economy: small businesses and family farms..."

 Wisconsin Ag Connection:
Farm Bureau Calls for Passage of Death Tax Repeal
Speaking on behalf of farmers and ranchers from his state and the nation, John Lincoln, president of the New York Farm Bureau and an AFBF executive committee member, provided perspective on how the death tax hurts rural economies and can destroy the economic viability of family farms...

 Wisconsin Ag Connection:
Kind Introduces Bill to Limit Farm Payments
Wisconsin Congressman Ron Kind and Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona have introduced a bill this week that would limit government payments to a handful of large agribusinesses that routinely take advantage of the federal farm subsidy system. "Not only is the current system inequitable because it disproportionately awards oversized payments to large agribusinesses at the expense of small family farms, it is also costly at a time when Congress needs to be clamping down on spending," Kind said.

 Josh St. Peters - BrownfieldNetwork:
CAFTA Arguments Divide Farm Leaders
Farmers from Florida have argued that the CAFTA plan would be a bad idea. The Floridians use the North American Free Trade Agreement as their example, citing thousands of lost jobs. The Economic Policy Institute has estimated that 35, 000 jobs were eliminated with the implementation of NAFTA...

 Libby Quaid - Associated Press:
Bush Needs Farm Support for Trade Accord
Sugar beet farmer Alan Welp fears a new free trade agreement with Central America would wreck his industry. Every pound of foreign sugar shipped to the United States is a pound that U.S. growers will store or just not grow, Welp said. "We are already an oversupplied market," said Welp, who grows sugar, corn and wheat on 3,500 acres in northeast Colorado...

 NFU Cattle Alert:
CAFTA Will Hurt American Farmers and Ranchers
Despite its support by Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, The Central American Free Trade Agreement would be detrimental to the livelihoods of American family farmers and ranchers. National Farmers Union President Dave Frederickson responded to the USDA leader’s assertions today that CAFTA will increase export opportunities for farmers. "We’ve heard these promises of prosperity of trade agreements in the past,” said Frederickson. “For a variety of reasons they never seem to come true. I do not see what makes this one any different. CAFTA resembles failed trade policies of the past that further encourage a 'race to the bottom' for producer prices."

Ag Commissioner Outlines Strategy for Preserving Family Farms
Calling on the state to renew its focus on farming and farm-related businesses, Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler presented state lawmakers with his strategy for preserving family farms in North Carolina...

 Glen Jones - Texas Agriculture:
Small Farms Numbers are Large, Sales Small
The Economic Research Service has released a comprehensive report on the U.S. farm sector that shows small family farms (sales less than $250,000) accounted for 90 percent of the farms in the U.S., but only produced a modest shared (28 percent ) of farm output...

 The Herald Democrat:
Cotton Programs Could Change After WTO Ruling
Changes to the U.S. cotton program could come as soon as July 1 after the World Trade Organization appeals panel upheld its ruling that subsidies create unfair trade. Looking ahead, other U.S. support programs such as soybeans could also be challenged...

 Monica LaBelle - Argus Leader, South Dakota:
Program Delivers Food to Rural Doors - Stigma of Hunger Strong in Small Towns
The loss of family farms and independent businesses has contributed to a disappearance of the middle class in rural areas...

 Betsy Calvert - The Republican:
Milk Firms Try to Save Farms
Dairy companies fight against increasing consolidation of food production and sales, which they believe cuts out small farmers in favor of big agribusiness...

 The Daily News - Jacksonville, NC:
Family Farming a Valued Tradition
Farming families have long been the backbone of this country, with farms passed on from father to son for multiple generations. But those who operate small farms are fast becoming an endangered species...

 Joe Guzzardi - VDARE:
View From Lodi, CA: Garlic And Globalism
The Chinese have effectively been using a trade law loophole to dump millions of pounds of garlic into the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. From there, it is processed and sent throughout the state...

 Frederic J. Frommer - Associated Press:
Wisconsin Farm Subsidies over $250,000 a Year Face the Ax
Six Wisconsin farms received more than $200,000 each in federal farm subsidies last year, according to Department of Agriculture documents. Those subsidies could be curtailed in future years if President Bush succeeds in limiting payments to farmers...

 Jack Moseley - Arkansas News Bureau:
America's No. 1 Survivor
At the end of World War II, there were 6 million family farms in this country. By the 1970s, the number had had been cut in half. If that trend had continued, we would have only about a million small farmers today, but something happened in the last quarter-century to reverse the fortunes of small American farmers. Today, we have about 2.1 million small, family owned farms, and that number has not change significantly in the past 15 years.

 Trade Bits - Fair Trade Now:
Farm Voice
Farmers from Minnesota's Red River Valley have been in Washington D.C. the last two weeks to argue that defeating the proposed Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is necessary for the survival of the farm economy in their region, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports (3/16). The group is arguing that CAFTA will open U.S. borders to more imported sugar "and put a teetering U.S. sugar industry out of business." The Minnesota farmers are part of an "unusual coalition" of "red America" farmers and "blue America" labor, human rights and environmental activists joining forces against the Bush administration's free-trade agenda, the Star Tribune reports. The sugar beet industry generates 30,000 jobs and $1.7 billion of economic activity in Minnesota. Under CAFTA, "most of the towns here are just going to dry up and blow away," said Steve Williams, a Fisher MN sugar beet farmer who spent the last week lobbying in Washington.

 Trade Bits - Fair Trade Now:
Iraqi Profits
U.S. government plans for agriculture in Iraq are to create "a new market opportunity for American agribusiness" including privatizing state-run food companies, phasing out farm subsidies, boosting food prices and, possibly, introducing genetically altered seeds, "all moves that dovetail with an overall neoliberal strategy to open up and deregulate Iraq's markets," says an article in In These Times (3/14). A $100 million agricultural "reconstruction" project undertaken by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) aims to get the Iraqi government out of food production. "The idea is to make this completely a free market," says Doug Pool with the USAID's office of Iraq Reconstruction. Critics of American agribusiness warn that this confluence of privatization policies, GMO-friendly patent protections and U.S. exports "could further destabilize war-ravaged Iraqi farmers while producing few benefits for their American counterparts," In These Times says. Foisting Iraqi growers into a privatized free market will "destroy" small family farms there, just as similar policies have done in the United States, says George Naylor of the National Family Farm Coalition.

 Jerry Ward - Edmonton Sun:
Ranchers Must Sue Alone
The Alberta government says it does not agree with a group of Canadian cattle producers who have launched a lawsuit against the U.S. seeking damages of up to $1 billion over the trade ban on cattle. Agriculture Minister Doug Horner says he wants to work with Washington to reopen the border - not sue them...

 Beauregard Daily News - DeRidder, LA:
0dom Leads Agriculture Leaders Against CAFTA
Louisiana Commissioner of Agriculture and Forestry Bob Odom recently returned from Washington, D.C., where he spearheaded an effort to demonstrate to Congress a unified front by agriculture leaders against the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). "What so many people don't realize about CAFTA is that even though there are some small gains for farmers or particular crops, the losses we will incur by allowing certain imports could destroy other agriculture industries. You have to weigh the good and the bad and in this situation, the bad is like a truckload and the good is a bucket."

 Associated Press:
Farmers Lobby Against CAFTA
Sugar beet farmers have traded in their field clothes for suits and ties this winter to lobby in Washington against the Central American Free Trade Agreement. It appears to be working...

 CBC News:
Cattlemen Launch $300M Trade Claim Against U.S.
Canadian cattle ranchers are claiming trade damages from the U.S. government of more than $300 million. The Canadian Cattlemen for Fair Trade, a group representing beef producers who have lost money because of BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy), say the U.S. government is discriminating against Canadian ranchers by keeping the border closed to live cattle...

 Southwest Nebraska News:
Do We Hafta Have CAFTA?
"CAFTA resembles failed trade policies of the past that further encourage a 'race to the bottom' for producer prices," National Farmers Union President Dave Frederickson said. "This agreement also fails to address major issues that distort fair trade such as labor, environmental regulations and currency."