Posts Tagged: Public Policy

Farm Bill Hackathon Graphics Power Point File Farm Bill Hackathon Graphics PDF File

Occupy your mind with a new idea about how to solve the really big problems in Washington, DC and around the world. Money is moving in the wrong direction. Big piles of money are now a person with civil rights and a vote. That’s because it’s easier to print money than it is to rally [...]

(This version is 300-words shorter and more focused on public policy than the original post.) My $4,500 Kidney Stone (Or, a case against health insurance mandates and for a community-based single-payer health care system)  By Billie Best, Published in Berkshire Trade & Commerce, November 2011 (download PDF file)   I woke up at 4:00 one morning in late [...]

It’s not often my cows and global corporations cry together, but then it’s weaning time. Seis has been fed by her mother, Cinco, for so long, she has no idea what it’s like to go out and get food for herself every day, and by the sound of her voice, I’d say she thinks it’s [...]

I woke up at 4:00 in the morning on August 24th feeling like I had been hit in the gut with a baseball bat. I assumed it was an evil bladder infection, so I chugged a pint of water. Within a few minutes I threw up the water. It definitely was not a bladder infection. [...]

Here on the farm we’ve been looking for Earth Day inspiration and we found it in Texas where Governor Rick Perry yesterday proclaimed three “Days of Prayer for Rain in Texas” as a way to mitigate climate change. I guess if you’re going to kick a problem upstairs, you might as well kick it all [...]

Really? Is that a burger you’re eating? Burger is a beautiful thing if you know where it comes from. I hope you know the cow your burger came from, or the farm, or the values of the brand that made it. Otherwise you are very likely eating Canadian slaughterhouse floor sweepings mashed into cows born [...]

Although we may pretend at times we live in the 19th Century, my farm and I live in the modern world, and geopolitics directly impact our income and expenses. Each day I follow the news on the radio and the Internet. Then I have long periods of unplugged time when I can reflect on what [...]

I just finished reading the Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, as part of my continuing education about the history of food and agriculture. I wasn’t at all prepared for the ending. I like resolution. Toward the last few chapters of the book I was holding the paperback in my hands, a very thick slice [...]

As you approach the supermarket’s automatic doors you walk onto a conveyer belt where your retina is scanned, your bone structure is measured, and your weight flashes on a flat screen in big red numbers before the glass doors open to let you inside to do your shopping. As you place your hands on the [...]