Educational Issues Part I: Homeschooling

One of my granddaughters is graduating from high school next weekend, she won’t be 17 until a week later. Yes, she’s extremely smart and plans to be a surgeon, has already been accepted to an excellent school with most of her costs covered by scholarships. The two eldest grandsons will be starting their final year in college this coming fall, though of course no one knows in this economy if there will actually be jobs for them when they graduate.

As the world and national situations get continually worse and worse, the subject of education and its value in whatever kind of society we all end up with when the chaos of massive changes is finally over is a pressing consideration for a great many parents, not just dedicated homesteaders who are at the leading edge of change. As the reactionary forces embodied by right-wing Republicans in state governments and in D.C. seek constantly to destroy the system of public education, parents are often left to wonder if the kids are learning anything at all that might help them do well in life.

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Filed under Activities, Alternatives, Community, Cooperatives, Education, Family, Future Planning, Homestead, Schools | Comment (1)

Farm Bill Up for Vote (and Veto)

What’s In It: Good and Bad

Here we are nearly halfway through 2008, and the 2007 farm bill is slowly but surely making its way through House and Senate disagreements on its way to the chamber floors for vote this week or next. The final compromise, USDA chair Ed Schafer bluntly informs us, will be vetoed by President Bush.

If farm legislation doesn’t directly affect many of us rural and semi-rural homesteaders, it’s a sure bet that it will affect our neighbors who do farm on a commercial scale. Thus it’s something we should be paying attention to. According to lawmakers nearly 3/4 of the spending in this bill over the next decade will be for feeding the needy. Another 16% goes toward commodities, crop insurance and disaster relief. Increasing nutrition spending (feeding the hungry) 8+% over the previous farm bill is reasonable given the worsening food crisis both in America and world wide.

This farm bill addresses biofuels diversion of food crops (like soy and corn) by providing more than a billion dollars to expand alternate use of biomass (like switchgrass and algae) and crop by-products (cornstalks, wheat straw, etc.) rather than diverting the grain itself. It also tightens payment limits, eliminating the “three-entity rule” that the previous bill contained as justification to funneling most ag payments to huge agribusiness concerns rather than smaller farm cooperatives or family farms. It limits subsidies to anyone making more than $500,000 in non-farm adjusted gross income [AGI] per year, and entirely ending direct payments to anyone with an AGI of more than $750,000 from any source. This will effectively put Big Agribusiness in the business of actually doing business instead of simply sucking up free corporate welfare as smaller family farms disappear.
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Filed under Cash Crops, Community, Farm Policy, Food Production, Future Planning, Homestead, Nutritition, Rural Development, Schools | Comment (0)