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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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!! 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 […]