Tag: farms

There Are No Ag ‘Jobs Americans Won’t Do’ If They Earn A Living Wage

henever Republicans talk about immigration enforcement, amnesty supporters chant the same tired line: What about picking crops? What about meat processing? Those are necessary jobs that Americans simply refuse to do.

That argument was used to justify dozens of House Republicans’ latest mass amnesty effort. Their proposal would give illegal alien agriculture workers a pathway to legal status through the H-2A program, even though they have broken multiple laws by being in the United States illegally and getting a job without a work permit. Their employer has also violated the law by hiring these illegals.

The bill — which covers everything from harvesting crops, to raising livestock, to processing agricultural products — is a workaround to avoid Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from standing in the way of low-cost labor for agriculture operations.

“With the border now secure, it is time to address these shortcomings and provide fair and legal pathways for all of agriculture to obtain workers when they are unable to find U.S. citizens willing to perform these noble but arduous tasks,” a letter from bill author Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, states.

This trope has been pushed for a long time. President George W. Bush parroted it in 2006, stating, “There are people in our country doing work that Americans will not do, and those people ought to be given a chance to have a tamper-proof card that enables them to work in our country legally.”

Democrats do it too, always taking the opportunity to signal some kind of American fragility for not wanting to do “backbreaking” work. They also want to import as many illegals into the country as possible, by any means necessary.

The reality is that these companies, and the lobbies that support them like the Farm Bureau, are only interested in a consistent flow of foreign illegal labor because this allows them to pay subsistence wages. They know, in other words, that Americans expect more from employers because they want to be able to have a family and raise children in their own country, and subsistence wages kill that possibility.

“At the same time as compensation deteriorated dramatically, the share of meatpackers who are immigrants has increased enormously… [A]ny suggestion that native-born Americans are not interested in this type of work cannot be taken seriously given the huge decline in average hourly wages for these jobs,” a journalist and Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) researcher wrote in a 2009 report. “[T]here is no question that the jobs paid a great deal more a generation ago when the vast majority of workers were native-born. There is also no question that as the foreign born share of this workforce has increased, wages have fallen significantly. The desirability of any job is heavily dependent on compensation.”

For illegal aliens, low wages are sufficient. They often live on the farms where they work, and a large portion of their earnings go back to their home countries as remittances (which are barely taxed), and go a lot further because of the lower cost of living. They also are willing to put many more people in a rental property than Americans will, in worse living conditions.

Some “American” farms are actually owned by foreign companies, or are forced to contract with them because of the pseudo-monopoly that exists in much of the agriculture industry.

The Trump administration has highlighted that the “big four” beef production companies currently control 85 percent of the market, noting that two of them are foreign. They act as a “cartel” and “mounting evidence shows this monopoly power has slashed payments to ranchers, reduced herd sizes, driven up consumer prices, and threatened America’s food supply chain.”

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Jenks: GOP H-2A Amnesty Bill Would Create ‘Serf Class’ in Rural America

Fifty GOP representatives are pushing an amnesty bill that will replace many Americans and rip the economic guts from their rural districts, says Rosemary Jenks, founder of the Immigration Accountability Project.

“This is about replacing entire segments of American [agriculture] with foreign serf labor,” she told Breitbart News as she described the draft bill.

The bill “would take a lot of jobs from the districts,” said Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project. The rural districts “would look like a country that’s not America … like a country from where the massive waves of migrants came,” he said. 

The bill is titled “Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act of 2026.” The author is Rep. Glen Thompson (R-PA), and he has 50 co-sponsors, including four Democrats. The bill has support from a broad range of agriculture industry groups. 

The bill would amnesty the existing population of illegal migrants by letting them transfer into a year-round expansion of the uncapped, seasonal H-2A visa-worker program.

The bill would flood cheap H-2A migrants into many additional jobs — and so force young Americans out of the rural districts, said Jenks. “Americans living in those areas … are going to have to leave — they’re not going to have any choice,” said Jenks. 

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De facto amnesty: Nearly 50 House Republicans push bill letting illegal-alien farm workers off the hook

A group of nearly 50 House Republicans is pushing legislation that would grant de facto amnesty to illegal alien farm workers who were unlawfully present in the United States as of May 31, 2026.

A de facto amnesty means people who broke the law are effectively allowed to stay or avoid punishment, even though the government has not officially declared an amnesty.

U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, introduced H.R. 9535, the “Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act of 2026,” on June 30.

There are 53 total cosponsors: 49 Republicans and 4 Democrats, and it is currently sitting in the House Judiciary Committee.

Democrat Cosponsors (4)

  • Donald G. Davis (NC-1)
  • Vicente Gonzalez (TX-34)
  • Maggie Goodlander (NH-2)
  • Josh Riley (NY-19)

Republican Cosponsors (49)

  • Rick W. Allen (GA-12)
  • Don Bacon (NE-2)
  • James R. Baird (IN-4)
  • Cliff Bentz (OR-2)
  • Mike Bost (IL-12)
  • Monica De La Cruz (TX-15)
  • Troy Downing (MT-2)
  • Chuck Edwards (NC-11)
  • Gabe Evans (CO-8)
  • Julie Fedorchak (ND-At Large)
  • Randy Feenstra (IA-4)
  • Brad Finstad (MN-1)
  • Michelle Fischbach (MN-7)
  • Charles J. “Chuck” Fleischmann (TN-3)
  • Mike Flood (NE-1)
  • Brett Guthrie (KY-2)
  • Bill Huizenga (MI-4)
  • Brian Jack (GA-3)
  • Mike Kelly (PA-16)
  • Trent Kelly (MS-1)
  • David Kustoff (TN-8)
  • Darin LaHood (IL-16)
  • Nicholas A. Langworthy (NY-23)
  • Laurel M. Lee (FL-15)
  • Celeste Maloy (UT-2)
  • Michael T. McCaul (TX-10)
  • Mark B. Messmer (IN-8)
  • Daniel Meuser (PA-9)
  • Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-1)
  • John R. Moolenaar (MI-2)
  • Tim Moore (NC-14)
  • Dan Newhouse (WA-4)
  • Mike D. Rogers (AL-3)
  • David Rouzer (NC-7)
  • Maria Elvira Salazar (FL-27)
  • Austin Scott (GA-8)
  • Pete Sessions (TX-17)
  • Michael K. Simpson (ID-2)
  • Lloyd Smucker (PA-11)
  • David J. Taylor (OH-2)
  • Claudia Tenney (NY-24)
  • David G. Valadao (CA-22)
  • Jefferson Van Drew (NJ-2)
  • Derrick Van Orden (WI-3)
  • Joe Wilson (SC-2)
  • Robert J. Wittman (VA-1)
  • Ryan K. Zinke (MT-1)

The most controversial section would allow illegal aliens already living in the United States to obtain H-2A agricultural worker status by waiving multiple grounds of inadmissibility and deportability.

Specifically, the bill provides waivers for certain immigration violations committed before an alien receives H-2A status, provided they otherwise qualify.

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US-Israeli Bombing Has Harmed Iran’s Wildlife, Farms, and Water Supply

ust a few days before Tehran and Washington signed a now-defunct ceasefire agreement, local media in Iran reported that 25 goitered gazelles were killed in U.S. airstrikes on Kharg Island in the northern Persian Gulf. The small coral island is a key terminal for Iran’s oil exports and its unique wildlife includes white-headed seagulls, hawksbill sea turtles, and ospreys. It also hosts the ruins of a Dutch fort built in 1753. On multiple occasions, U.S. President Donald Trump has brandished the possibility of invading the island of 8,000 people.

The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran opened with the most intensive bombing campaign in modern history. Some 23,800 airstrikes were carried out in a span of 39 days, and one of its most consequential impacts was the environmental damage inflicted on Iran’s ecosystems. A June 17 memorandum of understanding halted the hostilities, but Trump notified Congress last week that he was resuming military action. Bombings are becoming a new norm, damaging Iran’s land, air, and water.

From toxic acid rain blanketing the Tehran metro area after Israel bombed the Iranian capital’s oil depots on March 7, to the emission of a substantial volume of greenhouse gases in the early phases of the campaign, the war has caused serious environmental degradation in a country reeling from a range of climate-related crises, water stress, and air quality issues. While international media have failed to consistently cover the negative environmental impacts of the war, environmental nonprofits, academic institutions, and climate advocates have documented extensive damage, only a portion of which has been understood to date.

According to a study by the Climate and Community Institute, 5 million metric tonnes of greenhouse gases were emitted due to the attacks on Iran in first 14 days of the war, which the nonprofit estimated exceeded Iceland’s carbon pollution over an entire year.

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American Farmers Shouldn’t Need Permission from the US Army to Grow Crops

For nearly a decade, California farmer Jack LaPant was the target of an investigation and prosecution by the United States Army, who alleged that LaPant violated the Clean Water Act by growing a wheat crop to feed his cattle. Earlier this year, LaPant was able to settle the case to get the Army out of his hair, but the settlement required him to give the Army more than $1 million in money and land value. This, despite the fact that the government never proved a single allegation in court.

Most of us today take for granted that we’ll be able to get the food we want when we go to the grocery store or our favorite restaurant. But the reality is that a safe, plentiful, and affordable food supply depends on people like Jack LaPant—a fact we should never forget.

Fewer Americans make their living in agriculture these days, which means more workers can devote their time and energy to other productive pursuits.

Modern farming produces substantial food surplus, which is an essential condition for an economy to diversify and grow. Less than 2 percent of the American population is now engaged in producing the food that nourishes the rest of us, thanks in large part to mechanization, technological advances, improved land and crop management practices, and other welcome innovations.

But let’s be clear: despite those advances, farming is still demanding, difficult work, and we should be thankful for those who make it their mission to feed the rest of us. Further, it is no coincidence that free economies produce the greatest food surplus. Centrally planned economies tend to produce famine. It is necessary that those few who do farm have their property and economic rights protected. If they aren’t safeguarded, we will all pay the price alongside them.

Jack LaPant decided 45 years ago to leave his steady power company job and take up farming. Since LaPant had no personal or family background in agriculture, this was an unusual career move, to say the least.

He moved his family from Oakland to a remote valley in the Sierras and learned to work the land. Over the decades, he built a living for himself and his children, while contributing to the food supply that sustains the rest of us. Then he found himself at odds with the US government.

The concern in LaPant’s case goes beyond the effects on the farm operations themselves. Heavy-handed and ruinous regulation at the hands of our nation’s military is a threat to the food surplus that we depend upon as part of the foundation of our modern life.

Remember that more than 98 percent of us have the freedom to do whatever our talents and opportunities allow because of the less than 2 percent of Americans who produce the food that the rest of us need. That imbalance marks a radical difference from the rest of the world—globally, about 60 percent of the population is dedicated to farming. In many less-developed countries, that’s not because farming is the path people choose—it’s because they have no choice at all if they don’t want to starve.

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Seeds of Surveillance: The Track and Trace Playbook

QR codes are usually associated with convenience. In the Seed Act 2026, they become something else entirely: extending traceability to what is grown before it enters the supply chain, changing who has control over our food.

The Seed Act 2026 is presented by the Union Government of India as a necessary modernisation measure to curb the circulation of fake or substandard seeds.

The stated aim is the rollout of a new nationwide traceability system that mandates QR codes on all seed packets, compulsory registration for all commercial seed entities and significantly heightened penalties—up to ₹30 lakh (€27,000+ euros) and three years’ imprisonment—for seed fraud.

The government has consistently maintained that the Seed Act 2026 is designed to regulate only the commercial seed trade and will not interfere with the long-standing rights of farmers to save, sow, exchange or share seeds within their communities.

Officials emphasise that these traditional, non-branded and community-based practices remain a vital part of India’s agricultural heritage and are explicitly exempt from the registration and digital traceability requirements imposed on commercial entities.

While the government maintains that the Act will rebuild farmer trust, streamline quality control and strictly protect the traditional rights of farmers to save, share and exchange seeds, critics like the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (an umbrella coalition of 400+ farmers’ unions) view these reforms as a well-worn corporate strategy of enclosure that eradicates seed and food sovereignty.

Critics argue that these government assurances are insufficient and potentially misleading. They contend that by failing to explicitly define and protect community seed systems as a distinct sector, the Act leaves them vulnerable to administrative overreach.

Farmer organisations worry that without clear, ironclad legal safeguards, the pressure to comply with registration and branding requirements—especially for small-scale seed producers who may use simple packaging—will effectively force them to adopt the same burdensome and costly standards as large corporations, gradually pushing decentralised, village-level systems towards extinction.

Even with an informal exemption, the pressure to meet the ‘certified’ market standard could make traditional seed sharing increasingly risky. Critics argue that the rigid requirements for ‘certified, stable and uniform’ seeds will effectively criminalise or marginalise indigenous, locally adapted varieties, creating a dependency loop that forces farmers to rely on high-cost, proprietary inputs from large agribusinesses.

This would, in effect, mirror the pattern of corporate capture and loss of food sovereignty observed in other countries across the world.

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CFIA still restricting ostrich farmers seven months after destroying healthy flock

Just days after supporters gathered at Universal Ostrich Farms to help clean up the aftermath of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s controversial $7-million ostrich cull, the family says it is once again facing government overreach.

Despite the agency’s controversial destruction of the avian flu-recovered flock in November 2025, the family says it is still being prevented from effectively cleaning up the former kill-pen site. The scene of the cull left behind by the state includes large piles of hay, including some blood-soaked bales and ammunition that the family says can pose a combustion risk to the community.

“They left us with no income. They left us with no means to be able to do anything… We decided we can’t wait anymore, and we decided to take this on our own,” farm co-owner Karen Espersen told Rebel News when I interviewed her about this latest challenge.

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Flesh-Eating Screwworm Outbreak Threatens Texas Cattle Industry as Critical Sterile Fly Facility Faces Multi-Year Delay

A dangerous New World screwworm outbreak has been confirmed in Texas livestock for the first time in decades, raising serious concerns for the already struggling cattle industry, while an important domestic sterile fly production facility remains years away from full operation.

The Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service confirmed the first case in early June in a calf in Zavala County, Texas.

Additional cases have since been detected in cattle and a goat in Texas, and in a dog in New Mexico.

“This is believed to be an isolated case; however, because the dog’s recent travel and exposure history remain unknown, USDA and state partners have initiated inspection of additional animals in the dog’s home and increased outreach in the area while continuing to investigate the animal’s movement history,” the USDA said in an announcement.

The parasite, whose larvae burrow into the flesh of warm-blooded animals and feed on living tissue, poses a major threat to livestock, wildlife, and potentially pets.

While no human cases have been reported in the current outbreak, the screwworm can infest people in rare instances.

The U.S. cattle industry herd is already at its lowest level in 75 years due to droughts, high feed costs, and other factors.

The added expense of increased monitoring, quarantine measures, and treatment for infected animals is expected to further strain operations and could push beef prices higher for consumers.

According to a wire from Nerve News, “The most effective method to combat screwworm involves breeding sterile flies to disrupt the parasite’s reproductive cycle. However, a facility under construction at Moore Air Base in Texas will not begin producing sterile flies until November 2027, with full capacity not expected for several years. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins acknowledged the delay, stating that the US will not be able to eradicate the parasite until the facility reaches full production, but expressed optimism about containment efforts.”

“We’re not going to be able to eradicate it until we’ve got the couple hundred million more flies coming in, but we will be able to contain it,” Rollins said.

Once complete, the facility is expected to breed up to 300 million sterile flies per week.

In an effort to contain the outbreak, quarantines have been placed in multiple Texas counties, and surveillance efforts have been expanded.

USDA APHIS has begun releasing sterile flies in affected areas using existing inventory from Panama and Mexico.

Canada has implemented temporary restrictions on certain livestock imports from Texas as a precaution.

The USDA urged, “While not common in people, if you notice a suspicious lesion on your body or suspect you may have contracted screwworm, seek immediate medical attention.”

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300 Studies Link This Neurotoxic Pesticide to Multi-Organ Damage, Chronic Disease

For decades, regulators viewed chlorpyrifos — a pesticide widely used in the U.S. and around the world — primarily as a neurotoxin that disrupts signaling in the brain and nervous system.

But as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reconsiders whether to continue to allow its use on foods like apples and soybeans, a new review indicates other insidious harms.

Published in April in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, the review synthesizes findings from nearly 300 studies worldwide published up to this year. These include laboratory experiments, animal studies, epidemiological research, regulatory documents and risk assessments.

Growing evidence suggests chlorpyrifos may damage the brain, hormones, liver, gut microbiome, muscles, reproductive organs and bones. Studies also link the pesticide to DNA damage and lasting changes in gene activity that may increase the risk of chronic disease.

Together, the findings portray chlorpyrifos as what the reviewers call a “multi-system toxicant” that poses a more significant threat to public health than previously understood.

It suggests the pesticide acts on the body in ways far beyond disrupted nerve signaling or obvious poisoning. Pregnancy and early childhood are especially sensitive periods for chemical exposure.

“What has genuinely evolved over time is our understanding that chlorpyrifos causes harm in ways that go beyond its effects on the nervous system including damage to DNA, changes in how genes are switched on or off, interference with hormones, and disruption of the healthy bacteria that live in the gut,” said Dana Boyd Barr, Ph.D., a professor at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and past president of the International Society of Exposure Science.

The authors warn that current regulatory systems may not fully capture the complexity of chlorpyrifos’ dangers to the body. Many occur at levels too low to be detected by current safety testing, which looks for the disruption of an enzyme involved in nerve cell communication.

The review links chlorpyrifos exposure to:

  • Biological changes associated with inflammation, chronic disease and cancer.
  • Brain and nervous system damage, including lower IQ and developmental harms in children, neurodegenerative disease, and disrupted cell growth, survival and communication.
  • DNA damage and altered gene regulation that hinders normal cell repair and changes how genes are switched on and off during development (epigenetics).
  • Hormone disruption involving thyroid, estrogen and testosterone pathways.
  • Liver injury, gut bacteria disruption and metabolic dysfunction are linked to obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
  • Reproductive, muscular and skeletal harm, including reduced sperm quality and bone loss.

Industry pushback despite reported harms

The review comes as the EPA reassesses whether the pesticide’s remaining uses meet the statutory standard of “no unreasonable adverse effects.” The action follows years of official stalling, prior bans, policy reversals and legal challenges.

Meanwhile, agrichemical companies are lobbying federal and state lawmakers to shield pesticide manufacturers, including Bayer and its subsidiary Monsanto, from some lawsuits involving Roundup weedkiller. The suits allege their products cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma, among other cancers.

In February 2020, Corteva Agriscience — then the world’s largest producer of chlorpyrifos — announced it would stop production, citing declining demand.

But existing stocks continued to be used. The chemical remains approved for several major crops in the U.S., including apples, strawberries, soybeans, citrus, wheat and peaches.

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We Are 6 Months From Global Food Shortages Because Farmers Are Facing A Quadruple Whammy Crisis

We have never faced anything quite like this. Diesel fuel and fertilizer have become far more expensive as a result of the conflict in the Middle East, and extreme weather is playing havoc with crops all over the planet. Here in the United States, we just experienced the driest first three months of a year in recorded history. No, that isn’t an exaggeration. Now a “Super El Niño” is coming, and that means that drought conditions are going to get even worse in many areas of the world. The “Super El Niño” of 1877-1878 resulted in widespread droughts that killed more than 50 million people, and now we are being warned that the upcoming “Super El Niño” could be even worse. Our farmers have never faced a “perfect storm” of this magnitude, and global food production is going to be way down in the months ahead.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization is publicly warning that a severe global food crisis could strike about 6 months from now if something really dramatic does not happen…

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz could trigger a severe global food price crisis within six to 12 months unless governments act quickly, the Food and Agriculture Organization warned Wednesday.

Decisions now by farmers and governments on fertilizer use, imports, financing and crop choices will determine whether food prices spike later this year or in early 2027, the agency said.

I don’t know what national governments around the world are supposed to do.

They can’t create fertilizer out of thin air.

Thanks to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran, millions of farmers all over the northern hemisphere didn’t get the fertilizer that they needed for the spring planting season.

UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo is telling us that as a result “many places in the world will have problems of food shortage” once harvest season arrives…

Food shortages are expected to hit many parts of the world from September or October following a fertilizer production plunge, the U.N. Development Program’s head said on Monday.

“In September, (or) October, many places in the world will have problems of food shortage,” as agricultural production is expected to be much lower following the fertilizer production slump resulting from high oil prices amid Middle East conflicts, UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo said in an interview in Tokyo.

Even if fertilizer is available, many farmers simply cannot afford it.

In fact, one recent survey discovered that 70 percent of U.S. farmers could not afford to buy all of the fertilizer that they needed for the spring planting season because it has become so expensive.

Meanwhile, diesel has become painfully expensive as well.

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