The Cost of Wildfires… and Insurance… to California Farmers
Farmers in California are having a hard time getting fire insurance for their farm structures and equipment. Insurance companies are dropping coverage on existing farm customers and choosing not to insure new operations. Even where farmers can get insurance, it is double or triple the cost of what it previously was. About 500 farms in […]
Reckoning with Discrimination on the Farm through Overhauling Overtime Laws
On May 11th, Washington state got a new overtime law. It followed a windy, twisty path to the governor’s desk. The story started with a court case about dairy workers and overtime. Then the narrative transitioned from the judicial arena to the legislative one, as the Farm Bureau sponsored a bill to limit back wages […]
Food Freedom Unleashed in Montana
On April 30th, Montana’s governor signed a bill into law that makes Montana one of the easiest states in which to sell a wide range of direct-to-consumer local food products produced in a home kitchen. This can be good news in the era of COVID, when we’re seeing traditional food service work shut down just […]
CFAP 2 is back!
The Coronavirus Food Assistance Program provides direct payments to farmers who have been affected by the pandemic. It was mainly geared to commodity-based operations but last fall its new and improved version was unveiled and its new form was a better fit for small, diversified operations. That ended in December but alas, it is now […]
Improving soil health and the landlord-tenant relationship
It seems to be common knowledge now that soil health is a key part of the climate change solution. But, even if ever farmer who owns their farmland adopts all the best cover cropping and no till farming methods out there, that only takes care of 60% of the farmland in the United States. The […]
Comments needed on climate-smart agriculture
Way back in January, President Biden issued the executive order on “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad.” Included in this order was a directive to USDA to collect stakeholder input for the purpose of creating a climate-smart agriculture and forestry plan. USDA is dutifully following through and is now asking for your help. […]
Washington state is on the cusp of mandating overtime pay for farmworkers
Washington state is just days away from having a historic law on its books. It’s already passed the Senate and the House, and is on its way to the governor’s desk for signing, which is very likely to happen, rumor has it. What’s this historic new law? Farmworker overtime pay. If it passes, the law […]
With the PPP deadline pushed out ’til May, there’s more time to help your farm business!
The deadline for submitting your PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) loan application was supposed to be March 31. But, on the heels of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Act of 2021, the House passed the PPP Extension Act of 2021 on March 16th and it is expected to also pass in the Senate. COVID relief is […]
Gleaning can feed your community, and it’s even legal!
It feels like we’re back to the early days of the Sprout, last spring, when all of our articles were about COVID this and coronavirus that…Well, let’s talk about something else, shall we? How about gleaning! What? What the heck is that? According to the Slow Movement website, gleaning is “the collection of crops either […]
The ARP’s new Child Tax Credit spells relief for American farm families
The American Rescue Plan of 2021 has another major surprise squeezed into its 242 pages of text. Not only does the new COVID relief package take a big step to lift farmers of color out of economic despair, it takes another big step to lift children out of the vicious cycle of poverty – four […]