GOP senators warn of dangers of government intervention in agriculture The Iowa Independent By Lynda Waddington ANKENY, Iowa -- Whether they realized it or not, the roughly 250 family farmers, workers and consumers gathered Thursday night fired off their own point-by-point response to a letter from two Republican Senators that urged the U.S. departments of agriculture and justice to maintain the existing status quo in the agriculture industry. The often rambunctious townhall event was organized by a coalition of groups concerned that everyday people do not have adequate opportunity to express their opinions on the agricultural industry at a joint U.S. Department of Justice and USDA antitrust workshop on Friday. And it had one overarching message: "Bust up big ag."

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Regulators Offer Competitors, Farmers and Activists a Platform to Gripe About Crop Biotech Giant Wall Street Journal By Scott Kilman Crop biotechnology giant Monsanto Co. has the most at stake in the first of an unprecedented series of public meetings that the antitrust wing of the Justice Department is holding across the Farm Belt. In January, the Justice Department launched a formal antitrust investigation of the St. Louis company's handling of the most widely planted genetically modified crop in the U.S., a herbicide-immune soybean. Now, Justice's tight-lipped antitrust division is taking the unusual step of inviting competitors, farmers, politicians and activists to air any gripes about Monsanto -- and to suggest ways to limit the company's reach before a high-profile audience.

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Examiner.com Seattle Pet Laws Examiner: Jean-Pierre Ruiz In testimony before the US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Dr. Dean Wyatt testified as to how the agency supports unhealthy practices at the national slaughterhouses and endangers the nation's meat food supply. Dr. Wyatt, a public health supervisory veterinarian with the USDA's Food and Safety Inspection Services ("FSIS"; www.fsis.usda.gov/), testified to numerous instances where FSIS executives overruled his and other inspectors' citations of slaughterhouses' abuses endangering the safety of the nation's meat supply. For example, Dr. Wyatt recounted such abuses and acts of cruelty as:

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Wall Street Journal By Lauren Etter ARROW ROCK, Mo. -- This tiny historic town has emerged as a battleground over rules that agricultural groups say have hog-tied big pig farms. In 2007, residents of the town of 79 filed a lawsuit to stop a farmer who wanted to build a farm with 4,800 pigs on the outskirts of town. They not only won the case but a ruling that appeared to keep any future applicants at least two miles away from town. "We were elated," said Julie Fisher, a landowner in Arrow Rock. Then, last year, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster appealed the decision in state court, vowing to roll back a thicket of local obstacles to big farms that largely began in "The Show Me State" and rippled across the Farm Belt in recent years.

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News of the North . net MADISON – Gov. Jim Doyle announced that Wisconsin is second in the nation in the number of organic farms, according to numbers released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural (USDA) Statistics Service. "Farming is the heritage and the future of Wisconsin, and we've worked hard to strengthen and diversify agriculture across the state," Doyle said. "Organic farming is one of the areas that Wisconsin is leading the way, and I am proud to support these efforts." According to the USDA's survey, Wisconsin has 1,222 organic farms, the second highest in the nation, behind California.

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