Tag Archives: agriculture
Documents Show Financial Entanglements Between Trump’s USDA Pick and Agribusiness
Mindy Brashears, a Texas Tech animal scientist nominated by Trump to lead the food safety arm of the USDA, is deeply embedded in the agribusiness industry.
Trump’s nominee to head the food safety division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is deeply entangled with agribusiness. According to ethics documents ob...Read More
Texas Farmers are Fed Up With Trump’s Trade War, but Most Stop Short of Blaming Him
The state’s dominant ag products, valued at $18 billion, are in the crosshairs of retaliatory tariffs. Still, most farmers here are hesitant to criticize Trump.
Russell Boening, a Texas farmer and rancher who’s also president of the Texas Farm Bureau, is starting to feel the effects of escalating trade conflicts betwe...Read More
Texas Congressmen Plow Billions into Agribusiness While Proposing to Cut Food Stamps
Mike Conaway and Jodey Arrington are pushing for stricter work requirements for food stamp recipients while helping big commodity farmers rake in billions in government cheese.
The Republican congressmen charged with writing the nation’s Farm Bill like to jabber about how people on food stamps need to get back to work. But those same...Read More
Trump’s Trade Disputes with NAFTA Partners Imperil Texas Ag Exports
The president has levied tariffs on aluminum and steel from Canada and Mexico, and they’ve responded in kind. Texas farmers and ranchers worry the dust-up could endanger ag exports to the NAFTA partners.
Update: The Mexican government officially struck back at the United States on Tuesday afternoon by imposing 20 percent duties on imports of certain American po...Read More
Drinking the Kool-Aid at the Garden of Eden
Searching for community at a North Texas “ecovillage.”
Searching for community at a North Texas “ecovillage.”...Read More
New Estimate Puts Harvey Agriculture Losses at $200 Million, One-Tenth of Irma
The figure is only one-fifth of Hurricane Ike’s $1 billion agriculture losses and one-tenth of Irma’s.
Hurricane Harvey caused an estimated $200 million in agricultural losses as it flooded farm fields and washed cattle from ranches, according to a Texas A&M ...Read More
Immigrant Workers in Texas Could Fill Farm Vacancies, but They’re Trapped in the Valley
Immigration checkpoints are keeping undocumented immigrants in South Texas while farmers in other parts of the state are desperate for labor.
For the last two years, Bernie Thiel has watched yellow squash rot in his farm fields outside of Lubbock. The crops weren’t diseased, and they weren’t ravag...Read More
Reports of Livestock Deaths, Other Ag Losses Trickle in After Harvey
The Texas Animal Health Commission and USDA, however, are mum on an estimated death toll.
At the peak of Harvey’s flooding in southeast Texas, Chambers County rancher Richie Devillier couldn’t distinguish between the westbound lane of Interstate ...Read More
Introducing the Texas Observer’s Rural Reporting Project
Texas has the biggest rural population in the nation, yet many journalists treat much of the state as flyover country.
Trump’s election taught the nation many painful lessons. Among them: the traditional divide between town and country has become a chasm. People in blue, urban...Read More