Climate Food and Agriculture
All Stories
-
Demolishing density in Detroit
Photo: Fast Company So it’s come to this: Unable to provide basic services for all of his constituents, Detroit mayor Dave Bing is drafting plans starve his city down to a manageable size. Using proprietary data and a survey released by Data Driven Detroit, Bing and his staff will pick “winners and losers” amongst the […]
-
Getting back to our green roots with potlikker soup
Collard greens, pork stock, and corn dumplings soak in the rich broth of history. (Photos by April McGreger) Recently I was one of more than 1,000 Southern farmers, chefs, and co-producers attending the Georgia Organics Conference in Athens, Ga. The theme of the conference was “Reclaiming Agriculture,” with the spotlight on “culture.” The keynote speaker, […]
-
The N of an era: America’s nitrogen dilemma — and what we can do about it
There are three things on which the mighty engine of U.S. agriculture depends: water, fuel, and synthetic nitrogen. Like water, nitrogen is elemental to life. It’s the essential building block of the plants we eat. Farmers remove it from the soil when they harvest the year’s crop, and they must replenish it for the following […]
-
Tracking down the public-health implications of nitrogen pollution
Picture a hot summer day in California farm country, say 112 degrees. In the tiny community of Tooleville, surrounded by olive trees and orange groves, there’s one thing you won’t see here that you’d see almost anywhere else in the sunny state — kids splashing in backyard pools. “People don’t let their kids swim in […]
-
Pig Business: Who owns your food owns you
Ever feel like you were playing checkers and the other guy was playing chess? That’s the impression I get when watching many of the recent spate of food documentaries. Activists announce that this or that is wrong with the food system; on the rare occasion when something appears to be getting done about it, the […]
-
Food as America’s newest religion
Meanwhile the eleven disciples set out for Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had arranged to meet them. When they saw him they fell down before him, though some hesitated. Jesus came up and spoke to them. He said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples […]
-
Chef Jamie Oliver takes on the American school lunchroom in his new show
In “Chewing the Scenery,” we round up interesting food-related video from around the Web. _________ Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s new show Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution takes him to Huntington, West Virginia, “the fattest city in America.” Oliver’s goal: nothing more than to remake residents’ attitude towards food. And it looks like he’s got his hands […]
-
For first time, GM soybeans may be losing favor among farmers
A soybean field in summer. Farmers are getting fed up with Monsanto’s soy seed monopoly. UPDATE: This report refers not to the current year but to the 2009 crop year, which according to the USDA did see a slight drop in US GMO soybean plantings, as predicted. New estimates on the 2010 crop year should […]
-
Are you a farmer at heart? Start a ‘Crop Mob’
Carbon sequestration: Crop Mob stalwarts Rob Jones, left, and Chris Rumbley create a hügelkultur bed at “the Bog” co-housing community in Carrboro, N.C., summer 2009. Photo: Tom PhilpottA growing number of young people are finishing college and resisting the pressure to plunk down in a cube behind a computer. Others skip college altogether–given the spiraling […]
-
Smithfield tries to weave a silk purse from a sow’s ear
“Just this week I promoted somebody–and I can’t even believe I’m saying this word here, folks–to a chief sustainability officer.”—Larry Pope, CEO of Smithfield Foods, speaking before the North Carolina Agribusiness Council. Smithfield’s environmental record was nicely documented in the classic 2006 Rolling Stone article “Boss Hog.”
