Ms. Huerta, a champion for workers and Latinos, revealed this year that she had been sexually assaulted by Cesar Chavez. But some women said she rebuffed their own complaints about abuse within the movement.
Dolores Huerta, seen in a 1988 rally, was remembered Wednesday in California as a transformative leader who won rights for Latinos, farm workers and women.
Farmers say they are turning prime agricultural land over to solar panels to survive Labour's tax onslaught because the Net Zero installations pay 10 times as much as food production, which is now often loss-making.
Ministers want to speed up and simplify the payment of farming subsidies by taking control of the EU’s multi-billion euro farming payment schemes, under a deal reached late on Monday night (26 October).
The agreement at a meeting of EU agriculture ministers in Brussels finalises the negotiating position of EU governments on the future of the bloc’s Common Agricultural Policy in its next seven-year budget.
The ‘negotiating box’ prepared by the Irish EU council presidency earlier this month for the 2028-34 multi-annual financial framework spared agricultural subsidies provided by the common agricultural policy from cuts worth a total of €141bn but proposed three-percent cuts, worth €24.6bn, to funding for National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPP), which are intended to streamline the distribution of EU cash to governments for a variety of different policies including agriculture and fisheries.
The idea behind the NRPPs is to set up one single fund to provide support for farmers.
Each EU country would be expected to develop a single comprehensive plan outlining the reforms and investments it intends to implement from 2028 to 2034 and how it plans to use EU funds.
EU governments agreed on Monday that this planning process should be designed to give them far greater autonomy. They say that the recommendations the commission makes to member states regarding the design of support programs should not be binding.
The new system is set to prioritise ‘active farmers’, which sets a threshold of a minimum level of agricultural activity for farmers, as well as young farmers and small farmers.
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This year’s olive harvest in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is the most violent in years, as settlers have attacked farmers and besieged homes, drawing condemnation from U.S. officials and others.
Palestinians harvesting olives last week in Khirbet Abu Falah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli settlers attacked a group of Palestinians there last week, injuring several people, including an American journalist.
Deep in cattle country, voter sentiments in an evangelical stronghold help explain why the country’s leftist president is the underdog in Sunday’s election.
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it would "make $8 billion available for one-time payments to American farmers this harvest season to provide relief during temporary market disruptions and increased input costs."
Using a formula derived from the USDA's production, yield, and price estimates, the Harvest Fuel Relief program will "provide simple, proportional support to producers." It will only cover a "portion of modeled losses during the 2026 crop year." The Farm Service Agency—an office within the USDA that administers credit and loan programs—will administer the $8 billion in one-time payments using funds from the Commodity Credit Corporation, a federal entity authorized to draw up to $30 billion from the U.S. Treasury to fund agricultural initiatives. Payment rates won't be released until November, and the USDA's notice leaves open the possibility of additional payments for "non-Title I commodities, including specialty crop growers and fishermen."
A fiscally questionable decision, the program comes at a time when farmers are feeling a significant price pinch. The dyed diesel American farmers and ranchers use is exempt from state and federal highway taxes, but that has done little to offset skyrocketing fuel prices. In September, the American Farm Bureau Federation projected that fuel expenses would reach $22 billion this year, up 29 percent from 2025. The Farm Bureau estimates that total production expenses will reach nearly $500 billion in 2026. According to its own predictions, the USDA doesn't expect the situation to improve anytime soon.
In its latest Commodity Costs and Returns report, released in June, the USDA projects farmers and ranchers will face record production costs in 2027—higher than during the COVID-19 supply chain disruptions—driven by higher prices for necessary inputs such as fuel, fertilizer, seeds, machinery, and labor.
While the USDA has blamed "temporary market disruptions" for these cost hikes, the blame more accurately falls to President Donald Trump, thanks to his illegal war in Iran. As of Tuesday, Trump's war—and the subsequent shocks it has caused to the global diesel supply—have pushed the national average price in the U.S. up $2.70 per gallon from a year ago, a 74.6 percent increase, according to AAA data.
Unfortunately, the war in Iran is just one of several Trump administration policies making life more expensive for everyone, including the nation's farmers and ranchers. Tariffs on imported fertilizer, which began in 2020 during the first Trump administration, have made it difficult for American farmers to afford what they need. By the Farm Bureau's estimates, fertilizer costs for 2026 are projected to reach a record $40 billion, up 15 percent from the previous year.
The $8 billion program is part of a windfall of taxpayer money the Trump administration has sent to farmers as relief for harms caused by the president's actions. Last December, the USDA sent $11 billion in one-time bridge payments to more than half a million farmers nationwide. Earlier this month, the USDA announced it would provide a record $13.8 billion in gross payments to agricultural producers to cover revenue losses.
In a speech in Kansas touting the program, Trump claimed that the state's residents would see a "plunge" in prices once the war ends. That's likely an exaggeration, given the host of questionable economic policies he seems hell-bent on implementing.
Still, that shouldn't discredit the president's suggestion. Ending the war would benefit farmers, ranchers, and consumers, without doling out billions in another government bailout for a favored industry.
In 2022, I helped push through the international agreement to protect biodiversity. Wars and economic pressures can make nature seem like a ‘nice-to-have’. But it is a critical asset, and Cop17 must deliver real action
When I was five, property developers came to cut down the woods behind my home in La Tuque, Quebec. My mother encouraged me to climb one of the trees in protest, then told the developers, straight-faced, that there was nothing she could do when they asked her to get me down. A few days later, the tree was cut down anyway.
I thought about that tree in the early hours of a freezing Montreal morning in December 2022, as the gavel came down on a global agreement between nearly 200 countries to halt and reverse the loss of nature by 2030. I thought about how important nature is for our health, our food security and our economies, but also how much passion there is around protecting it, and how it has the power to inspire people all around the world.
Spar pilot scheme will test whether heirloom fruit can thrive in today’s commercial and environmental conditions
Only about 10 of the 2,000 types of apples growing in Austria can be found in supermarkets among the polished, pristine fruit usually on display – a sad ratio according to fans of historic varieties being primed for a comeback.
One of the country’s biggest retail chains has embarked on a pilot rollout of unusual and long-forgotten apples enjoyed in previous centuries, riding an international trend of reviving heirloom fruit and vegetables.
NFU analysis of official data shows falls in exports to UK’s largest trading partner since 2019 include 70% for sugar and 74% for egg products
Exports of British food and drink to the EU have collapsed by more than a third since Brexit with eggs, chicken and potato producers badly hit, new figures show.
Analysis by the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) of HMRC data shows a sharp fall in exports in the year to July compared with the same period in 2019, with sugar dropping the most, down 70%.
Jeremy Clarkson has said there is no reason to set up a business in Andy Burnham’s Britain as he made a surprise appearance at the Conservative Party conference.
As the European Commission considers its final response to the Fur Free Europe European Citizens’ Initiative, The Lancet Regional Health – Europe has published a commentary by leading zoonotic disease experts and academics warning that fur farming poses a preventable public health threat. The authors argue that if the Commission is serious about One Health – the principle that the health of people, animals and wider environment are interconnected – it must propose a ban on fur farming rather than welfare standards.
Lead author Dr Joanna Swabe, senior director of public affairs atHumane World for Animals Europe, says: “Fur farming is an unnecessary and preventable public health threat. The EU cannot claim to champion One Health while allowing a declining fur industry to continue cruelly breeding susceptible species, such as mink, foxes and raccoon dogs, in intensive conditions where dangerous viruses can spread, adapt and potentially spill over to people. Surveillance and spurious welfare tweaks will not remove that risk. The Commission must act decisively and ban fur farming.”
Dr Neil Vora, director of Preventing Pandemics at the Source Coalition, adds: "Caging wild species, like mink, is dangerous to our health. These animals are like viral sponges under these awful conditions: They can contract respiratory viruses from us, incubate them, then pass them back to us in mutated form. It does not make sense to take wild species and confine them in small cages for their entire lives, only to be gassed or electrocuted, solely to produce fur for fashion. Aside from the animal abuse, the risk to our health is too great. It’s long past time to phase this industry out. The EU should ban fur farming, as many of its citizens want, and show the world what true prevention looks like."
The European Commission was due to respond to the Fur Free Europe ECI by the end of March 2026, but its decision has been delayed by apparent disagreement within the College (the EU’s executive leadership body) over whether to ban fur farming or introduce welfare standards. A document leakedto the media in March suggested the Commission was leaning towards standards. This came despite anunequivocal EFSA opinion by independent EU science agency, the European Food Safety Authority, that the most serious welfare problems for mink, foxes, raccoon dogs and chinchillas cannot be prevented or substantially mitigated in the cage systems used for fur farming.
The Lancet piece argues that the EU’s commitment to One Health is undermined by its hesitation to ban fur farming, despite clear zoonotic disease risks and strong public support for action. It highlights how fur farms create ideal conditions for pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2 and H5N1 to spread, adapt and potentially spill over to humans, with past outbreaks in the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland and Spain demonstrating the danger. The authors note that the fur industry is in steep economic decline, imposes wider public health and environmental costs, and cannot resolve its core welfare or disease risks through minimum standards. They conclude that an EU ban on fur farming would be a practical, preventive One Health measure and a clear example of upstream pandemic prevention.
The Lancet commentary entitled If the EU is serious about One Health, it must ban fur farmingwas co-authored by Dr. Joanna Swabe (Humane World for Animals), Prof. dr. Chris Walzer (University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna/WCS), Dr. Benjamin Roche (MIVEGEC, Université Montpellier/ Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)), Prof. dr. Arnaud Fontanet (Institut Pasteur, Université Paris-Cité), Prof. dr. Thijs Kuiken (Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam), Dr. Manon Lounnas ((MIVEGEC, Université Montpellier), Prof. dr. Andrea S. Winkler (Technical University of Munich, Germany/University of Oslo), Prof. dr. Sarah Cleaveland (University of Glasgow), Prof. dr. Dirk U. Pfeiffer (Royal Veterinary College, London/ City University of Hong Kong), Prof. dr. Latiffah Hassan (University of Missouri), Prof. dr. Raina K. Plowright (College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University), Dr. Neil M. Vora (Preventing Pandemics at the Source Coalition).
Together, we tackle the root causes of animal cruelty and suffering to create permanent change. With millions o supporters and work happening in over 50 countries, Humane World for Animals—formerly called Humane Society International—addresses the most deeply entrenched forms of animal cruelty and suffering. As the leading voice in the animal protection space, we work to end the cruelest practices, care for animals in crisis and build a stronger animal protection movement. Driving toward the greatest global impact, we aim to achieve the vision behind our name: a more humane world. humaneworld.org
Before I read this piece, all I knew about tomatoes was that homegrown tastes infinitely better than store-bought. For Offrange, Mitch Hagney educated me on how tomatoes ripen naturally and unnaturally, and how Big Tomato forces the issue in huge warehouses by pumping in ethylene gas. It might just inspire you to grow your own.
Tomatoes are climacteric fruits, like bananas, avocados, and mangos, which means they can be harvested unripe and complete the process later. Ethylene sends the hormonal signal to ripen. When that process happens naturally, cells near its seeds start producing the gas and it diffuses outward through the fruit. Each cell the gas reaches begins its own production, and the cascade softens the flesh and the tomato turns red from the inside out. That allows the fruit to be picked much greener, shipped far, and then ripened when they’re close to their eater.
To do it artificially isn’t complicated, but it is expensive. Ethylene floods the room at carefully calibrated amounts, and the operator compresses what might take weeks into five days. Sensors log temperature, humidity, and gas concentrations around the clock. The tomato turns red from the outside in.
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