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Digging deeper into that NYT Room for Debate on farm-animal cruelty
A horrific scene from a Humane Society undercover video.Photo: Humane Society of the United StatesI was privileged this week to participate in a New York Times Room for Debate discussion on the government’s vs. consumer’s role in “Preventing Cruelty on the Farm,” inspired by the paper’s coverage of the spate of ag-gag laws pending in […]
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High, dry, and up against a wall: Why water and food justice are key to ending border conflicts
Not-so-great wall: Palestinian farmers say the real problem is the way water flows beneath this brutalist structure.Photos: Gary NabhanFor someone who lives within 12 miles of the infamous wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, it was an odd feeling to travel along the wall between Palestine and Israel last week just as Osama bin Laden’s death […]
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Too chicken: Why and how to raise chickens in the city
No matter how broke you are, chickens can help you keep some dignity about you.Photo: Stu MayhewWhen last we fetched up, babydolls, Broke-Ass was waxing pedantic about the primacy of stocking the pantry as nutritiously and cheaply as possible. One alert soul commented: “Where are the eggs? Nature’s most perfect food with as many ways […]
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Critical List: Oil industry clinging to subsidies, Monsanto continues world takeover
Oil industry leaders will testify before Congress today. Their message: Cutting oil subsidies is discrimination! Expand oil and gas production, instead, because that’s somehow good for everybody. And, anyway, oil companies pay more than enough taxes, if you ask the oil companies. If you ask anyone else, they pay a lower rate than the average […]
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Factory farms the only way to ‘feed the world’? Not so, argues Science paper
To “feed the world” by 2050, we’ll need a massive, global ramp-up of industrial-scale, corporate-led agriculture. At least that’s the conventional wisdom. Even progressive journalists trumpet the idea (see here, here, and here, plus my ripostes here and here). The public-radio show Marketplace reported it as fact last week, earning a knuckle rap from Tom […]
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Jack in the Box surprise: How E. coli became a household word
Double your trouble.Photo: theimpulsivebuyFor most of us working in food policy, it’s hard to remember a time when food outbreaks of bugs like E. coli didn’t happen pretty much weekly. But reading the new book Poisoned by Jeff Benedict made me realize that bacteria-contaminated hamburgers are a relatively recent phenomenon. It’s a striking reminder of […]
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Bounty hunting: an inside look at a successful farmers market operation [VIDEO]
Last spring, I had the pleasure of following the farm-to-market process with one of the “successful” upstart organic farms in Minnesota. Laura and Adam from Loon Organics let me film and work through their Friday-Saturday operation. I had been idealizing the idea of starting a farm: seeing the beautiful produce stacked up at the market made me […]
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Real-life Farmville kills the same amount of time, actually does some good
We knew things were going to get weird once we found out there was a real-world Angry Bird. Now a farm in England is turning itself into live-action Farmville. For a £30 ($49) annual fee, members of MyFarm will get to weigh in on every decision made at Wimpole Estate Farm in Cambridgeshire. They'll vote […]
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Water shortages threaten food future in the Middle East
A water tower in Al-Muzahimiyah, Saudi Arabia.Photo: Andrew A. ShenoudaThis piece originally appeared in The Guardian. Long after the political uprisings in the Middle East have subsided, many underlying challenges that are not now in the news will remain. Prominent among these are rapid population growth, spreading water shortages, and ever growing food insecurity. In […]
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I’ve seen the future and I can’t afford it: Marketplace’s botched ‘feed the world’ story
Let’s have a real debate about organic vs. conventional agriculture.Photo: Bio BrothersIn a recent report entitled “The Non-Organic Future,” public radio’s Marketplace program considered the challenge to agriculture of feeding a world population estimated to reach 9 billion by 2050. It was, to be frank, a terrible piece of journalism. Short, virtually fact-free, and weakly […]
