crop insurance
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Crop Insurance: Let the New Generation of Farmers In
By Jim VanDerPol The Land Stewardship Project recently published a three-part expose of the federal crop insurance program. The white papers are titled: “Crop Insurance-the Corporate Connection,” “Crop Insurance Ensures the Big…
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Crop Insurance: Good Enough for Monsanto-Good Enough for Sustainable Ag
From the fact-is-stranger-than-fiction department: In 2007, Monsanto talked the USDA’s Risk Management Agency into giving farmers a discount on crop insurance premiums if they planted the company’s triple-stacked GMO corn. Reportedly, some…
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Cover Crops: Insuring Against Disaster
Thanks to the recently passed 2014 Farm Bill, federally subsidized crop insurance is an even bigger player in determining what the landscape looks like. That’s troubling, considering that in recent years that…
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Nitrogen Pollution’s Farm Policy Roots
By Adam Warthesen, Land Stewardship Project Talk about ignoring the elephant in the room. When Minnesota environmental officials announced the results of a new major nitrogen pollution study on Thursday, they were…
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Is That a Trophy Hunter Knockin’ at Your Door?
What with farmland changing hands at price levels that would make a Beverly Hills realtor blanch, one could be forgiven for jumping to an obvious conclusion: Farm Country is flush with cash…
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The (Growing) High Price of an Unreformed Crop Insurance Program
By Adam Warthesen, Land Stewardship Project Just when you think the facts and figures around federal subsidized crop insurance can’t get any more outlandish, new numbers emerge exposing the out-of-control spending and…
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Senate Listens to Public & Makes Crop Insurance More Accountable to the Environment
The U.S. Senate passed its version of the 2012 Farm Bill this week. While it’s far from perfect, specific amendments related to conservation and accountability that were passed during the floor vote…
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Rolling Our Land To Death
I sat in a farmhouse one afternoon last month as a hot wind lifted rich topsoil from surrounding fields. On the drive in, I’d noticed a surprising amount of rill erosion on…
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As Senate Farm Bill Heads to Vote Next Week, Now’s the Time to Reform Crop Insurance
By Adam Warthesen, Land Stewardship Project— Well, this is it. The Senate Ag Committee’s version of the 2012 Farm Bill is up for a floor vote the week of June 4, and…
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Senate Farm Bill Falls Short on Conservation, Family Farm Ag
By Adam Warthesen, Land Stewardship Project On April 26, the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee passed its version of the 2012 Farm Bill by a vote of 16 to 5. The bill, which…