Articles by Tom Philpott
Tom Philpott was previously Grist's food writer. He now writes for Mother Jones.
All Articles
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What should I ask — or tell — the (organic-cotton) suits at a fancy Colorado confab this week?
Later this week, I’ll be reporting from the Organic Summit in Boulder. Judging from the attendees list on the homepage, the summit brings together the shakers and movers behind what Michael Pollan has called “industrial organic” — the large-scale producers and processors that stock the shelves at Whole Foods and the organic sections at Wal-Mart, […]
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Now’s the time for scapes and green garlic
Food headlines hardly bring comfort these days: tales of lost harvests, hunger riots, agrichemical runoff, tainted pork and tomatoes. A society’s foodways surely reveal something about its quality of life. From studying the industrial-food system, as I do, it’s easy to conclude that we live in a brutal culture: content to destroy the ecosystem, exploit […]
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Midwest woes a boon to fertilizer companies
The recent Midwestern floods have caused all manner of misery: Burst levies, lost homes, ruined crops, higher food prices, a gusher of agrichemicals and god know what else flowing into streams. One way to soothe the sting is to own shares in giant fertilizer companies like Potash Corp. of Saskatewan and Mosaic. These companies have […]
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Why are sperm counts so low in the show-me state?
Surrounded by agriculture powerhouses Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, and Illinois, Missouri sits at the southern edge of the heartland. Are the region’s titanic annual lashings of agrichemicals — synthetic and mined fertilizers, as well as poisons designed to kill bugs, weeds, and mold — leaching into drinking water and doing creepy things to the state’s citizens? […]
