Texas Organic  Label     part 1

Texas Organic Label part 1

Texas has Bragging Rights to the First Organic Label in the United States Yep!   Texas!  Who would have thunk it.  Texas!  First in the nation! Wait a minute!!.  What??  The first?  Yes…dear readers.  Texas has bragging rights!  Yet you won’t hear the current Agriculture Commissioner ever mention it, nor will you hear it from any of the Ag. Commissioners […]

SARAH VOGEL  THE FARMER’S LAWYER

SARAH VOGEL THE FARMER’S LAWYER

x SINGLE MOM LAWYER TAKES DOWN THE USDA The midwest farm sector in the 1980s experienced the worst crisis since the Great Depression.  Some of downturn was due to bad weather and some of it was general economic conditions.  Most of the destruction was caused by Ronald Reagan and his free-market presidency.  Reagan’s minions deliberately dismantled the agricultural financial support […]

Exploring Space City!

Exploring Space City!

Space City! was an underground newspaper published in Houston from the summer of 1969 to the summer of 1972.  The New Journalism Project has selected a wildly eclectic collection of articles, adorned it with the wildly creative art and cartoons that decorated those articles, and published it a beautiful book that is perfect for Christmas presents for everyone on the […]

Turkey Day Economics

The news from the Farm Bureau is that cost of Thanksgiving dinner is up 14% to a whopping $53.31.  Of course that $53 is enough turkey and sweet potatoes and pie to feed 10 people.  So… about $5 a plate.  I personally have never paid that much for a latte, but I know people who have.  So, it’s a pretty […]

Pesticides and the Right to Know

August 5th 1982, farmworker Sacharias Ruiz awoke at dawn in Bryan, Texas.  He would not live to see the sun set.  Mr. Ruiz’s job that day was to spray Dinitro-3, a highly toxic pesticide, on cotton plants in Bryan, Texas. The pesticide canister had a leak, just a small leak, but, nonetheless, a fatal leak.  Soon, Mr. Ruiz was too […]

Sarah and the Two Jims

Sarah and the Two Jims

The 1980s were hard times for agriculture, the worst hard times since the Great Depression. When you look at the raw data, it is truly staggering.  Real U.S. net farm income fell over 40% from the  early 1970s to early 1980s.  Well over a quarter of a million farms were lost in the 1980s. Those lost farms were overwhelmingly family […]

VOICE LESSONS

VOICE LESSONS

PHIT is proud to announce the publication of Voice Lessons, a major memoir of one of Austin’s own legendary activists.  Alice Embree is indeed a Texas legend.  When I arrived in Austin in the mid-1970s, tall Texas tales were already being told of her free speech battles with Frank Erwin, the rather misogynist chairman of the UT Board of Regents.  […]

Pesticides are Hell on Bugs and Not Much Better on People

Pesticides are Hell on Bugs and Not Much Better on People

People’s History in Texas is in the middle of a in-depth project collecting oral history and archives on the Jim Hightower tenure as Commissioner of Texas Department of Agriculture from 1983-1991.  In those eight years, an amazing legacy of support for family farmers and sustainable rural agriculture was implemented.  That legacy of positive programs is still making its impact on […]

Wine, Texas, and the Camelot Project

Wine, Texas, and the Camelot Project

The Jim Hightower Department of Agriculture (1983-1991) operated like the Knights of the Round Table. He attracted men and women who were willing to fight the good fight and sent them out into the field to Do Good things for the small farmers, the consumers, the farmworkers and the environment. One group, working through the marketing department, offered valiant services […]

Farmer’s Markets in Texas

Farmer’s Markets in Texas

Farmer’s Markets!!   Don’t we all just love going down to our local farmer’s market and getting our sprouts and local eggs and home-grown tomatoes?  These days it is so easy, and, well…normal.  Farmer’s Markets are ubiquitous, an essential cog in the “know what you eat” movement.”  Buy local, talk to the people who grow your food, pay attention to […]