Climate Food and Agriculture
All Stories
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Anti-EPA House votes to let agribusiness dump pesticides in our water
Cross-posted from Wonk Room. The Tea Party Congress doesn’t just hate EPA rules that protect against industry destroying our country with greenhouse-gas pollution, mercury, coal ash, and mountaintop removal. By a veto-proof margin, the U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday to prohibit Clean Water Act limits on pesticide pollution of lakes, streams, and rivers. Lobbyists […]
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Medium is beautiful: why we need more mid-sized farms
Let’s fill meat counters with ethical, sustainable cuts.Photo: Anthony AlbrightRecently, I have made the argument in a couple of different articles (here and here) that in order to make local-regional meat broadly affordable and accessible, we should make a shift from the direct markets (farmers markets, CSAs, on-farm sales) to the existing indirect, arms length […]
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Farmers in U.S. running out of land
Despite planting record amounts of corn and soybeans this year, U.S. farmers are sitting on unexpectedly small stockpiles of both crops. Meanwhile, the demand for corn is crowding out use of land for other crops, including cotton. The USDA reports underscored that U.S. farmers are reaching the limits of arable land in the world's biggest […]
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When locally sourced food isn’t available, the tough grow it anyway
Ruben and Kristin Hernandez are bakers in Baltimore, Maryland, who wanted to use locally-sourced wheat in their bread. Only problem is, no one grows the required “hard” wheat in Maryland, because the relatively humid climate leads to disease. (Hard wheats are rich in gluten, the protein that gives bread its elasticity and structure.) Ruben briefly […]
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Spelt linked to cancer & other health problems, even as Big Ag muscles in on market [APRIL FOOLS]
Spelt is the ultimate health food, right? Not so fast. New research links it to spleen and kidney cancers. Meanwhile, Monsanto is trying to approve Roundup Ready seeds.
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Reversing roles, farmers sue Monsanto over GMO seeds
Genetically modified seed giant Monsanto is notorious for suing farmers [PDF] in defense of its patent claims. But now, a group of dozens of organic farmers and food activists have, with the help of the not-for-profit law center The Public Patent Foundation, sued Monsanto in a case that could forever alter the way genetically modified […]
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U.K. guv takes threat of bee-killing pesticides seriously. Why doesn’t the U.S.?
Remember neonicotinoids? They’re the widely used class of pesticides that an increasing body of evidence — including from USDA researchers — implicates in the collapse of honeybee populations. Neonicotinoids are marketed by the agrichemical giant Bayer, which reels in about $800 million in sales from them each year. Germany (Bayer’s home country), France, and Slovenia […]
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Morel of the story: it’s spring! [VIDEO]
It’s that time of the year. We’ve eaten too many root vegetables, spent many hours pent-up indoors, and too much time outside bundled up like the Michelin man. The first green things that come out of the ground are like a mirage at the end of the long winter. Initially, there are ramps, daylilies, and […]
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While the rich get richer, the rest of us pay more for less at the supermarket
The New York Times reports that food companies are embarked on a “stealth” strategy to hike prices by significantly shrinking packages without changing the price. For example, canned vegetables are down to thirteen from sixteen ounces (one shopper observed that she found an eleven ounce can of corn recently). Sugar is now sometimes sold in […]
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I’m coming out — as a farmer
Steph Larsen down on the farm. Or not?Last spring, our sheep had six lambs. Now five of them have taken a one-way trip to the meat locker, bound for not only our freezer but those of five other families, too. The chickens are laying eggs moderately well, and we might actually be turning a small […]
