Rural America
A Missouri Rural Crisis Center Website
Rural America is an In Motion Magazine section and a web site of the Missouri Rural Crisis Center edited by Rhonda Perry and Roger Allison. The Missouri Rural Crisis Center is a statewide organization of 5,500 farm and rural families with thirteen chapters around the state of Missouri. Also visit this MRCC site.
- Rural America: Current (see below)
- Rural America: 1995-2021
Got Imported Meat? Farmers and consumers demand the right to know
by Rhonda Perry
Columbia, Missouri
Posted June 23, 2024
Congress should stop hiding behind the unelected, bureaucratic, pro-corporate World Trade Organization (WTO) and restore Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) for meat in the 2024 Farm Bill. The U.S. House of Representatives released their draft of the Farm Bill, the Senate distributed their Farm Bill frameworks, and neither includes mandatory COOL for meat. COOL should absolutely be included in the Farm Bill. If you’re a farmer, consumer, and/or taxpayer, here’s why it matters. COOL is tremendously popular with consumers and producers alike. … … (read article)
Howard County, Missouri. Photo by Nic Paget-Clarke.
Beef Industry Meatpackers Using Smoke and Mirror Tricks to Control Market Price
by Darvin Bentlage
Barton County, Missouri
Posted June 6, 2024
In 2022, the United States imported 3.4 billion pounds of boxed beef and 1.6 million live cattle. Through August 2023, the U.S. imported 20% more beef than we exported. In the United States, meatpackers and traders can take imported beef and repackage it with a label that reads “Product of the United States.” Now do I have your attention? … (read article)
Howard County, Missouri. Photo by Nic Paget-Clarke.
The 2023 Farm Bill Needs to Benefit Missourians Who Grow Our Food, Not Corporations
by Darvin Bentlage
Barton County, Missouri
Posted August 13, 2023
Land is changing hands, and large chunks are going to absentee investors, from billionaires and professional athletes to Wall Street bankers and foreign corporations. To stop this trend, we need policies and structural reform that allow for farmers to get paid a fair price and living wage from the market — in other words, from multinational corporations that currently benefit from cheap commodities and taxpayer subsidies. … (read article)
Howard County, Missouri. Photo by Nic Paget-Clarke.
Feature article
Merger of Sanderson Farms and Cargill is a Bad Deal for Farmers and Consumers
by Tim Gibbons
Columbia, Missouri
Posted September 27, 2022
Why conspire with your competitors when you can just merge?
Over the last two years, giant corporate meat companies have been settling lawsuits to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars … (read article)
Industrial poultry. Photo by branex.
Feature article
Missourians Need to Make Their Voices Heard About the Future of the Farm and Food System
by Tim Gibbons
Columbia, Missouri
Posted July 4, 2021
Missouri Rural Crisis Center recently sent in comments to the Biden Administration and USDA in response to their request for comments to “improve and reimagine the supply chains for the production, processing and distribution of agricultural commodities and food products.”
Now is the time to move forward with policies that create a fairer, and more resilient and sustainable food system. … (read article)
“Solving climate change is the existential challenge of our generation and a family-farm centered system, with more farmers on the land raising animals on pasture is best suited to revitalize rural communities, produce a healthy and sustainable food supply and respond to the climate crisis.” Photo by Nic Paget-Clarke.