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Farmers and Ranchers blog
When the Bracero Program Ended, California Built a Tomato Harvester Growers warned of ruin when Congress ended the Bracero program in 1964, and instead California's tomato industry mechanized and grew. Right to Repair Splits Conservatives Between the Farmer and the Contract Conservatives disagree over farm-equipment right-to-repair laws, and the cleanest answer may be to repeal one federal rule rather than add a new mandate. The sugar program makes every family pay more so a few growers earn more Federal loans, marketing allotments and import quotas prop up U.S. sugar prices. Who gains, who pays, and why the food-security defense does not hold. The Homestead Act of 1862 and the American Habit of Earning Your Own Ground The Homestead Act offered 160 acres to anyone who would live on the land and work it for five years, and made ownership through labor an American creed. The 1986 Law's Real Failure Was the Fake Document Industry It Created IRCA is remembered for amnesty, but its enforcement half failed on a good-faith document rule and its farm program drew fraud. Verification decides enforcement. Cattle Eat Grass, Grass Feeds Fires, and That Makes Grazing a Wildfire Policy Well-managed grazing removes the fine fuels that carry range fires, so cutting it on public land can worsen Western wildfires. Here is the case and its limits. Farmers Saved the Soil After the Dust Bowl, Long Before Earth Day Existed After Black Sunday in 1935, farmers and local conservation districts rebuilt the soil from the ground up. It is a model of stewardship that predates Earth Day. Keep the Farm a Farm With a Conservation Easement, Step by Step A conservation easement lets a family keep working its land while selling or donating the right to develop it. The steps, from choosing rights to the IRS rules. Why the Endangered Species Act Punishes the Landowner Who Helps a Bird The Endangered Species Act makes habitat a legal liability, so owners have a reason to clear it early. The record says the incentive is the problem. Seven States, One River and the 1922 Compact That Promised Too Much Water The 1922 Colorado River Compact divided water that was not there. Here is how it happened, what a century of lawsuits followed, and why markets beat allocation. Ranchers on the Line and the Property Rights Fight at the Southern Border Border families bear the cost of a porous line, yet barriers can mean taking their land. Conservatives owe them an answer that honors security and property. Lincoln, Justin Morrill and the Land Grant That Built the State University The Morrill Act of 1862 funded colleges of farming and the mechanic arts with federal land, not federal management, and it still asks what a university is for. Does the Commerce Clause Reach a Red Wolf That Never Leaves the County The Endangered Species Act reaches animals that never cross a state line on a broad reading of the Commerce Clause. The court fights show why limits matter. The death tax, the family farm and the case for ending a tax on dying The estate tax raises a sliver of federal revenue while families spend heavily on lawyers and planning to avoid it, and it taxes money already taxed once. Locke Said Property Begins the Moment Your Labor Mixes With the Earth Chapter V of Locke's Second Treatise roots property in the ownership of your own labor, which makes taking property an attack on the person.