agriculture
-
Pork Politics
“Campaign reform” is much too polite a phrase. “Ending corruption” is more like it. I could — and maybe I will — write a column a week from now till next fall’s election counting the ways campaign contributions corrupt our government, destroy our public assets, and rob taxpayers. Today’s example is industrial hog farming. This […]
-
Hogwatch
10 million hogs live in North Carolina’s coastal region 8 million humans live in North Carolina 92 percent of North Carolina’s hogs are raised on factory farms with at least 2,000 hogs 1 hog generates as much waste as 3 people 2.5 tons of hog feces and urine are produced in North Carolina per citizen […]
-
Don't Smell the Flowers
The more the agribusiness folks mess about with transplanted genes and toxic chemicals and irradiation, the better the market for local, fresh, organic, un-messed-about-with foods. When it comes to things we’re going to put into our mouths, things that are literally going to become us, we consumers are cautious, and rightly so. But what about […]
-
Children of the Corn
News about genetically engineered crops breaks so fast that it’s hard to keep up. For those who look upon biotech foods with suspicion, much of the latest news is surprisingly good. The companies who splice strange genes into our corn and potatoes and soybeans are pushing their products so recklessly that they are alarming not […]
-
A former stock trader learns how to really pick 'em
It’s an overcast day outside of Stoughton, Wis., the village that claims to have invented the “kaffee break.” But a warm cup of java seems far, far away from Pleasant Hill Market Garden, where farmer Rob Baratz fights off the early morning, chilled wind with gritted teeth and a hand-rolled cigarette. Baratz, up on the […]
-
Sweet Georgie green?
Dubya. Texas Gov. George W. Bush may not be about to sit down and pen a sequel to Al Gore‘s environmental manifesto Earth in the Balance, but he has done something several other GOP presidential candidates appear reluctant to do: acknowledge the existence of global warming. On May 12, Bush told a news conference in […]
-
Don't let a chance to save the butterfly flutter by
A couple of weeks ago, while the federal government was removing peregrine falcons from the list of endangered species, I was out watching the first monarch butterflies migrate through the desert on their way to Mexico. I saw both the migratory monarchs and their homebody cousins, the butterflies known as Queens, hovering around the lovely […]
-
![]()
![]()
Grazing saddles the West with a heck of a problem
The drunk who said it was right. Denial is not a river in Egypt. But it may be a river in New Mexico. Or Arizona. Or Nevada or Utah. Maybe Montana. The river is 20 feet wider than it was, say, in 1840. The only cottonwood on its banks is just about that old, magnificent […]
-
Two Mindsets, Two Visions of Sustainable Agriculture
“I guess you must be in favor of pesticides,” concluded a Monsanto public relations guy, after I objected to his company’s genetically engineered potato. “I guess it’s okay with you if people starve,” said a botanist I deeply respect, with whom I have carried out a fervent argument about genetic engineering. Accusations like these astonish […]
