Climate Agriculture
All Stories
-
Detroit farm school for teen moms has been saved
Catherine Ferguson Academy, the awesome urban farm high school for pregnant and parenting teens, has risen from the ashes. Michigan's emergency financial manager decided last week to shutter the school, which has a 90 percent graduation rate. But it's been rescued by a company called Evans Solutions and will continue as a charter school, which will be open to all Detroit public school students.
-
Hey, Vilsack: Big Ag won't feed the world or make jobs
USDA secretary Tom Vilsack supports global Big Ag despite job loss, environmental dangers, threat to sustainable global farming.
-
The ‘Dirty Dozen’: Which fruits and vegetables have the most pesticides?
The Environmental Working Group has released an updated list of the Dirty Dozen, the fruits and vegetables with the worst pesticide levels. Drumroll please: Apples Celery Strawberries Peaches Spinach Nectarines (imported) Grapes (imported) Sweet bell peppers Potatoes Blueberries (domestic) Lettuce Kale/collard greens If you can, it's worth shelling out a little extra for the organic […]
-
A fight over the future of farming: U.N. ag group vs. Big Ag
Small-ag mindset vs. Big Ag muscle.“The present paradigm of intensive crop production cannot meet the challenges of the new millennium,” says a new report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). In other words: Big Ag, step aside. It’s not as if the world is being fed particularly well at the moment — […]
-
Cheap food: Not what’s for dinner anymore?
Cheap food might go the way of cheap gas.Photo: Eddie SCross-posted from Mother Jones. Remember when gas was a dollar a gallon? The era of the fast-food “dollar menu” may be going the same way. Cheap food has been with us for a while. After World War II, global grain prices fell steadily for decades. […]
-
Which crop is the biggest water hog? (Warning: You’re not gonna like the answer.)
Agriculture is thirsty work. Growing and processing food takes a ton of water, and it's only going to get worse as the world warms. So which crop has the biggest water footprint? (That's defined, by the way, as the volume of fresh water used to make the product, across all steps of production.) You're not […]
-
FDA admits supermarket chickens test positive for arsenic
Why is Big Ag playing chicken with our health?Back in March, Tom Philpott wrote about the “insane” practice of feeding factory-farmed chickens arsenic: The idea is that it makes them grow faster — fast growth being the supreme goal of factory animal farming — and helps control a common intestinal disease called coccidiosis. The industry […]
-
Amazing urban farm school for teen moms will be shut down
[vodpod id=Groupvideo.10775052&w=425&h=350&fv=launch%3D43319691%26amp%3Bwidth%3D400%26amp%3Bheight%3D320] Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Hey, do you like education? Do you like keeping teen moms from dropping out of school? Do you like teaching kids about sustainable food and farming? Well, screw you, says the Michigan state government. Catherine Ferguson Academy, the amazing but embattled […]
-
Genetically engineered salmon’s fishy promises
Cross-posted from Gilt Taste. For those who follow the theater of food politics, particularly the underwater portion of the drama, AquaBounty’s AquAdvantage genetically engineered salmon has played something of leading role for two decades, dating back to the 1990s when the fish was first conceived. The AquAdvantage salmon, in case you haven’t heard about it, […]
-
Think the German E. coli outbreak couldn’t happen here? Think again
An outbreak of a toxic, possibly novel, strain of E. coli known as O104:H4 continues to rage in Germany. At last count, more than 1,800 people have been infected and 19 have died — and unusually, young women rather than children or the elderly have been hit the hardest. So far, the outbreak seems confined […]