Andy Vance

It’s happened before: Farm Bills are supposed to be done every five years, but sometimes they take an extra year to get across the goalline. The current Farm Bill – the 2008 edition, that is – was originally scheduled to be the 2007 Farm Bill. For a variety of reasons, including a veto threat that [...]

My colleagues at Feedstuffs shared the first available commercial data on hen performance and egg production in an enriched colony housing system in a report released on the publication’s website earlier today. The colony system, negotiated as the solution to differences of opinion between United Egg Producers and Wayne Pacelle’s Humane Society of the United [...]

As part of my new relationship with Feedstuffs and Feedstuffs Foodlink, I produce a weekly podcast. Each week The Angle, at Feedstuffs.com, will tackle some of the key issues facing agriculture from my perspective. This week marks the first edition of the program, and I chose a doozy of a topic: The Pigford Case. Listen to [...]

I spent the better part of the day yesterday writing my final paper for Communications 607 at The Ohio State University, a required class for my major dealing with communications law, theory, and policy. For my final project I researched, evaluated, and analyzed five scholarly articles regarding the Fairness Doctrine. This document traces the relevant [...]

Simultaneously heralded and and decried as the largest food safety overhaul in seven decades, the Food Safety Modernization Act (SB 510) faces an uncertain future today. Trumpeted by Senate Democrats, the White House, and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack yesterday as a major Lame Duck accomplishment, the bill ran afoul of House Democrats today for [...]