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A group of prominent foodies—including Wendell Berry, Michael Pollan and Mario Batali (pictured from left to right)—sent an open letter to Congress. The letter asked politicians to utilize extra money (saved from cuts made to direct farm payments in the upcoming 2012 Farm Bill) to go towards environmental conservation and food stamp programs. They also want to use the savings from the budget to promote local and alternatively-grown foods. Story via the Daily Yonder.

Photos by On Faith/Flickr, Sage Ross/Wikipedia and Lance Cheung/USDA

Michelle Obama recently released a book about healthy living and creating the White House vegetable garden. The book is entitled American Grown. Hear an NPR interview with the First Lady here. Also, you can read about the Obama’s mealtime rules here.

Photo by USDA/Flickr

NPR’s food blog, The Salt, recently featured an interesting story on soybean production in America. The crop is the second most harvested in the nation next to corn.

The EPA reports that “approximately 2.8 billion bushels of soybeans were harvested from almost 73 million acres of cropland in the U.S. in 2000. This acreage is roughly equivalent to that of corn grown for grain.”

Photo by Kevin Dooley/Flickr

The USDA has put out a list of proposed office closures. Read Agri-Pulse’s report on the closures here. Affected are 125 Farm Service Administration offices across the country.

Photo by Tim McCabe, USDA/NRCS

The U.S. Senate has voted to move forward and debate the proposed 2012 Farm Bill. The bill would eliminate direct subsidy payments to farmers and instead replace them with crop insurance programs. Also proposed are cuts to food stamps. There is sure to be heated debate and many revisions before the bill becomes law.

Photo by vxia/Flickr