Climate Food and Agriculture
All Stories
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Stephen Colbert’s going on a hot, sweaty field trip
A few weeks ago, to inspire realistic discussion of immigration reform, the United Farm Workers launched a tongue-in-cheek campaign called Take Our Jobs — a website where American citizens can sign up for work in the field. Experienced farm workers were standing by to train legal residents and place them on farms in California, Florida, […]
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Oil found in Gulf food chain, salmon nastiness, Mexico woes, U.N. lauds sustainable ag
When my info-larder gets too packed, it’s time to serve up some choice nuggets from around the Web. Get’em while they’re hot.BP oil infiltrates the Gulf’s food chain The inevitable has happened. From a McLatchy article: University scientists have spotted the first indications oil is entering the Gulf seafood chain — in crab larvae — […]
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Brooklyn’s Eagle Street is poster child for urban farming
January 2011 update: Many of the photos have been removed from this series so they can be published in a Breaking Through Concrete book, forthcoming this year from UC Press. Karen Turner, 25, wants to farm 100 acres in Texas. Her family has lived on 10 acres in San Antonio since she was a child. […]
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Latest podcast: How cancer-causing methyl iodide snuck past the EPA and onto farm fields
In the waning days of the Bush Administration, the EPA executed what will likely go down as the single most egregious decision in its less-than-stellar history: Ignoring strong warnings from independent scientists, it approved use of a pesticide so carcinogenic that scientists had previously used it to induce cancer in tissue samples. The chemical, a […]
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Organic farmers better at pest control, study says
Such large-scale pesticide application may actually reduce yields, a new study finds.Dovetailing nicely with Grist contributor and would-be farmer Steph Larsen’s account of her battle with the hated corn borer, a new study from Washington State University suggests organic growing techniques offer better pest control and larger plants. But first, let’s be clear: The debate […]
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Battling the bugs — and the temptation to use chemical WMDs
Going off to war against the weed-lurking worms. (Steph Larsen) I’m at war with the common stalk borer. As much as I believe in sustainability and chemical-free agriculture in theory, I’ve never been more tempted to use insecticides as I am right now. For years, the signature for my email has been a quote from […]
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Saving a community garden in D.C.
I never thought I’d be involved in a fight to save a city park, but here I am. The Marines are progressing with plans to move and expand their facility in Washington, D.C. They are looking at one option of taking over Virginia Avenue Park where I happen to participate in a community garden. A […]
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DC’s Common Good City Farm: ‘Museum farm’ or real deal?
Neighbors used to avoid this area in the LeDroit Park neighborhood of Washington, DC, the site of an abandoned school, before Common Good City Farm grew there.(Photos ©Michael Hanson) “You got any more arugula?” A middle-aged man has just walked up to the street side of the chain-link fence. He peers through the gaps in […]
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Mapping the farm with my ears
(Steph Larsen photos)Ever since taking a cartography class in graduate school, I’ve had a penchant for maps. Full of information, they elegantly highlight places and ideas that we may have missed otherwise. As a visual person, I can appreciate the splashes of color and clean designs. But not all maps are visual. We can create […]
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Farmworkers dare Americans to ‘Take Our Jobs!’
Job opportunities for agricultural workers occupations should be abundant because large numbers of workers leave these jobs due to their low wages and physical demands. -Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 Edition Tired of being vilified as stealing jobs from unemployed American citizens, and hoping to spark realistic discussion of immigration reform, United […]
