Climate Food and Agriculture
All Stories
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New research: synthetic nitrogen destroys soil carbon, undermines soil health
Just precisely what does all of that nitrogen ferilizer do to the soil?“Fertilizer is good for the father and bad for the sons.”–Dutch saying For all of its ecological baggage, synthetic nitrogen does one good deed for the environment: it helps build carbon in soil. At least, that’s what scientists have assumed for decades. If […]
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Katie Couric chews the food-system fat
In “Chewing the Scenery,” we round up interesting food-related video from around the Web. ——— Obesity, it seems, is the popular frame for looking critically of the food system: it’s the respectable pathway through which public figures can criticize industrial food. I wish there were another one. While the expansion of the American waistline is […]
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More biofuel waste for cows, plus a California beef packer pulls a Toyota
What the hell are you feeding us?In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. ————- Agricultural societies, I imagine, have always fed waste products to livestock. On diversified farms, pigs and chickens get lots of kitchen scraps and “culls”–produce that can’t be sold. And it’s worthwhile to keep […]
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Still another critic of real food – this time in the NYT
In Sunday’s New York Times, Damon Darlin has now weighed into a debate which I am suddenly making a career of noticing, that of publicly lambasting locavores. Normally a tech writer (and perhaps better suited to it), Darlin has wheeled out some of the same tired points that others have recently, making them officially clichéd. […]
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Me, babbling on the radio about ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’
You read the first post; then you read the second post. But admit it: you still haven’t heard enough about why I think you should see Fantastic Mr. Fox, and why the esteemed ladies and gentlemen of the academy were putzes for stiffing it on a best picture nomination. So now you will listen to […]
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Can Michelle Obama make the math work for better school food?
Launching her anti-obesity campaign — “Let’s Move” — last week, First Lady Michelle Obama vowed to add 1 million kids to the 31 million already being served daily by federal reimbursable meal programs while cutting back on the foods kids like most — refined grains, potatoes, sugar, salt — and adding things kids like least — vegetables and […]
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USDA releases strict new pasture rules for organic dairy
In October 2008, the USDA proposed changes to the standards that govern organic dairy farming. Before, organic certification required farmers to give their cows “access to pasture,” which some large dairies chose to interpret, well, rather loosely. How now, organic cow? On Friday, the agency released its final rules on the matter. Pasture standards for […]
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A treat for your Valentine: grass-fed steak in red-wine sauce
In Tom’s Kitchen, Grist’s food editor discusses some of the quick-and-easy things he gets up to in, well, his kitchen. ———- In my kitchen, beef is a precious ingredient. After years of writing the Meat Wagon column, the only beef I’m interested is of the grass-fed variety–preferably from cows raised on a nearby pasture. In […]
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Data highlights on the global food supply
World agriculture today faces pressure from many sources. On the production side, the amount of unused arable land worldwide has dwindled. Overworked soils are becoming eroded and degraded, and overpumped aquifers are being depleted. Meanwhile, as the global population grows and increasing biofuel production converts grain into fuel for cars, demand for food continues to […]
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Our other addiction: the tricky geopolitics of nitrogen fertilizer
Your food doesn’t come from here, but it starts here: an ammonia factory. We burn through more of it per capita than any other country; and our appetite for it can only be sated with massive imports. No, not oil — I’m talking about nitrogen fertilizer. With only 5 percent of the world population, the […]
