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The New Rules Project features several programs and initiatives, including: The Hometown Advantage, Telecommunications as Commons Initiative, Biofuels and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles, and Climate Neutral Bonding.… Read More
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) proposes a set of new rules that builds community by supporting humanly scaled politics and economics. The rules call for:
NewRules.org discusses the importance of rules and catalogs the best. We make the rules and the rules make us.… Read More
The Packers and Stockyards Act passed in 1921 to maintain competition in the livestock industry.
TheAct contains provisions banning price discrimination, the manipulation of prices, weight manipulation of livestock or carcasses, manipulation of carcass grades, commercial bribery, and misrepresentation of source, condition, or quality of livestock, in addition to other unfair and deceptive practices. The importance of the law has increased as concentration in the livestock industry continues to grow dramatically.
In 1996, the six states of New England (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts) were authorized by Congress to form the Northeast Dairy Compact.
Corporate owned farms tend to be large-scale operations that produce food for consumers who are widely dispersed geographically. They are also operations whose profits are more likely to end up in corporate headquarters than back in the local economy. And when corporate farming expands, those who farm the land become tenants rather than independent producers.… Read More
Increasingly, a small handful of corporations control inputs, credit, elevators, processing facilities, and markets necessary to grow and distribute agricultural products. Since the last half of the 19th century, farmer owned cooperatives have provided farmers a stronger presence in the marketplace and greater bargaining power to control the costs of inputs and the value of outputs. These new forms of agricultural cooperatives are commonly referred to as "value-added coops" or "new generation coops." In 1994, 2,200 marketing coops sold 31 percent of all U.S. farm commodities and 29 percent of the nation’s farm supplies.… Read More
How much energy could be generated by states tapping into internal renewable resources? This November 2008 report by David Morris and John Farrell presents preliminary data that suggests that at least half of the fifty states could meet all their internal energy needs from renewable energy generated inside their borders, and the vast majority could meet a significant percentage.
This August 2008 report by David Morris and John Farrell was sponsored by the Ford Foundation. The next 20 years could generate as much as $1 trillion in new renewable energy investment in rural America. The report is a policy roadmap for states and the federal government that would redesignpolicies to encourage a highly decentralized and dispersed renewable energy industry that is significantly locally owned. Doing so would multiply the number of rural areas that benefit from burgeoning renewable energy industries, and would create a sustainable asset whose wealth and revenue will largely remain in revived local communities and regions.
When Local Became the New Organic By David Morris, originally published in Minnesota Law and Politics, August 2008 We can pinpoint with some precision the date the local food movement came of age: Dec. 15, 1997. That day the United States Department of Agriculture finally issued the organic standards that Congress had said it required back … Read More
