Food and Agriculture

How some Iowa farmers keep the land fertile, while others salt the earth

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has a new study out about the sexiest subject ever — soil erosion! Wait, don't go, this is important: Topsoil takes forever to make, so as it washes off of fields, it's literally taking our ability to feed ourselves with it. Previously, scientists had estimated that Iowa fields were losing […]

Christopher Mims Agriculture

Hungry kids and the environment hit hard by USDA budget cuts

Hungry kids may be getting less cheddar.The House Appropriations Committee has released a detailed list of budget cuts as part of the deal to avoid a government shutdown, and it looks like agriculture and food programs are getting hit pretty hard. The USDA budget will be cut by $2.6 billion, down from the $108 billion […]

Tom Laskawy Food

Coming soon, to a city near you: open-source agriculture

Sharing the bounty of knowledge.Most people attempting to build a viable urban agriculture business are acutely aware of the enormously challenging and time-consuming process of navigating zoning regulations. Having worked in this sector, I can personally testify that the process is tedious and time-sucking. Over the past couple of years, a number of cities such as […]

Danielle Gould Agriculture

Big Ag demands right to pollute California’s Central Valley

A Central Valley field.Photo: calwestThe Los Angeles Times details a brewing skirmish over agricultural runoff being fought in California’s Central Valley. At issue are proposed regulations that would for the first time force farmers to address fertilizer and pesticide runoff from their fields. A group of environmental organizations is pushing for the regulations, as the […]

Tom Laskawy Agriculture

Shark fin soup and sautéed kitten: the cultural politics of cuisine

Enjoy your dinner meow.Kitten photo: Art SiegelWhat garnishes a kitten best? One of the corners in the long-standing battles between cultural relativists and absolutists is the question of food consumption, or what the Princeton sociologist Michaela DeSoucey speaks of as “gullet politics.” Sometimes it is the smallest moments that serve to clarify debates that elsewhere […]

Gary Alan Fine Food

Jamie Oliver has really pissed off Los Angeles

The Daily Show – Jamie Oliver Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook Hey look, Jamie Oliver can talk about improving school lunches for five whole minutes without saying something douchey about fat people! Keep it up, Jamie, because your campaign to increase the real-food content in school lunch […]

Jess Zimmerman Food

Disappearing American bats are worth up to $53 billion

Bats eat a lot of bugs. Here are some living under a bridge in Austin, Texas that eat millions of pounds of pests every season. What happens if those bats are wiped out in a few years — as it looks like they could be — by a combination of wind turbines and a fungal […]

Christopher Mims Agriculture

Should some pesticides be banned to protect bees? A USDA scientist dances around the question

Photo: Maury McCownAs I reported in January, the USDA’s top bee researcher, Jeffrey Pettis, has publicly revealed that he has completed research showing that Bayer’s blockbuster neonicotinoid pesticides, used on million of acres of crops across the country, harm honeybees even at extremely low doses. The revelation was significant because a growing number of U.S. […]

Tom Philpott Agriculture

Monsanto cash helped fund bill to stifle whistleblowers in Iowa

Monsanto: See no evil, speak no evil in Iowa’s factory farms.Speaking of Monsanto, it turns out they are playing a role in Iowa’s proposed anti-whistleblower bill — a bill focused primarily on agriculture. Should the bill pass, it will become illegal to produce undercover videos at various types of agricultural facilities (as well as to get a […]