Down on The Farm – (the farm bill mess)

Agricultural policy is not sexy. You probably don’t know the intricacies of “loan deficiency payments” or “base acreage,” and you probably don’t care. This was once an agrarian nation, but now there’s a less than 1% chance that you’re a farmer, and if you are, you’re probably part time; the average farm family gets 82% of its income from nonfarm sources. We’re not a people of the soil anymore, and for most of us, our eyes glaze over when we see farm statistics like the ones in that last sentence.

But farms still cover most of our land, consume most of our water and produce most of our food. If you eat, drink or pay taxes–or care about the economy, the environment or our global reputation–U.S. agricultural policy is a big deal.

It’s also a horrible deal. It redistributes our taxes to millionaire farmers as well as to millionaire “farmers” like David Letterman, David Rockefeller and the owners of the Utah Jazz. It contributes to our obesity and illegal-immigration epidemics and to our water and energy shortages. It helps degrade rivers, deplete aquifers, eliminate grasslands, concentrate food-processing conglomerates and inundate our fast-food nation with high-fructose corn syrup. Our farm policy is supposed to save small farmers and small towns. Instead it fuels the expansion of industrial megafarms and the depopulation of rural America. It hurts Third World farmers, violates international trade deals and paralyzes our efforts to open foreign markets to the nonagricultural goods and services that make up the remaining 99% of our economy.”*

• Mexican doctors pointed to parents as the reason Mexico leads the world in child obesity, a problem made worse in this country by the lack of sports training.
• The purchasing power of Hispanics is growing at a rate nearly 3 times as fast as that of the general population in Arizona and nationwide, said an Arizona State University business expert who has studied the market for 14 years.
• Latino population growth adds to House seats – 6 states expected to gain congressional slots due to surge in Hispanic numbers
• Experts warned on Tuesday that the rise in health problems due to obesity among Mexican children, which is considered to be an epidemic, threatens “for the first time” to reduce life expectancy rates in the country.
• Trend Toward Smaller Families in Latin America – The number of people per household in Latin America will fall by 18 percent by 2020, according to a study released in this capital Tuesday by consulting firm Euromonitor International.
• Latinos make up a combined 77% of the population growth in the eleven states projected to lose a House seat – would have fared worse had Latinos not moved there in record numbers
• After the 2010 Census, new Members of Congress in states like Georgia and South Carolina as well as Arizona and Texas will owe their positions, in part, to the expanding Latino population.
• ASU, ALRE release major study on Arizona’s Latino population – (direct link to report & powerpoint)
• Members of a Guatemalan family living in Marin County are now separated by thousands of miles after immigration officials deported the parents of three children overnight. – California
• Mexico’s family-friendly hot spots – Consider heading to locales in Nayarit and Oaxaca, where surf, sun and inexpensive attractions have been a hit for one family of four.
• Hispanic population growing in Eau Claire, Wisconsin
• Like California’s 30 years ago, Oregon’s growing Latino population is reaching a tipping point: A critical mass of Latino professionals is starting to organize and influence state and local politics. – dubbed Latino Agenda for Action
• APA Poll Finds Stress Having an Impact on Families, Hispanics
• The Prevention Research Center (PRC) in St. Louis is launching a multinational research project focused on preventing the leading causes of death in Hispanics in the United States and Latin America. – will conduct a four-year, $2.8 million effort to apply and adapt evidence-based strategies for preventing heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity in the United States, Mexico and Brazil
• Latinos need more than lip service – Families are being torn apart by America’s broken immigration system. President Obama needs to show leadership and fix it – (the view from England)
• The Economic Benefits of Immigration to Louisiana
• Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has appointed three people to the state’s Latino Family Commission – has never met since it was established in 2007 (?)
• Hispanic culture becomes part of Western North Carolina landscape
• Country of Origin Profiles: Browse detailed demographic and economic profiles of Hispanics in the United States by their countries of origin.
• Hispanics Increasingly Leaving Established U.S. Gateway Communities – new research by the University of New Hampshire