Climate Food and Agriculture
All Stories
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Apples with a sense of place
One lovely evening a couple of weeks ago, I watched the documentary Food Fight in an outdoor theater in my downtown. The documentary focuses on how the 1960s counterculture — specifically the Berkeley crew of which Alice Waters was a member — led to the current sustainable agriculture boom. The documentary champions the sensual pleasures […]
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Minnesota food system study — building trust is good business
I just published a new study of the Minnesota food system. The main take-home message is that building trust is good for business. Close relationships with suppliers and customers are exactly what allow food firms to respond to changing conditions. The report, “Mapping the Minnesota Food Industry,” was commissioned by Blue Cross and Blue Shield […]
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Pollan shoots down organic myths at Grist event
Michael Pollan (left) and Tom Philpott talk food.Celebrated food and ag author Michael Pollan debunked some myths about organic agriculture Tuesday night at a Grist event in San Francisco, in a conversation with Grist food writer Tom Philpott and the audience. In response to a question about whether we can really feed the world without […]
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The chemical treadmill breaks down and the superweeds did it
Tom Philpott has been tracking the rise of so-called “superweeds” — i.e. herbicide-resistant weeds — for a while now. He’s talked about the chemical treadmill — “the situation wherein weeds and other pests develop resistance to poisons, demanding ever higher doses of old poisons and constant development of novel ones.” Due in part to its […]
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Gulf dead zone fix falls flat
It’s good to see a big Midwest “land grant” agricultural program that’s concerned about the Gulf Dead Zone, and upper Midwest farms’ large contribution to it. But this release about a study underway at Iowa State University aiming to reduce nitrogen entering the Mississippi River from farm fields falls flat when you realize it’s just […]
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Thoughts on irradiated food
In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night. Dear Lou, Is food irradiation good enough that we could theoretically go back to having rare hamburgers, soft-boiled eggs and unpasteurized milk? I […]
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Is privatization the answer to the school lunch mess?
Professional bloggers operate under pressure to produce a high volume of provocative posts. And there’s also the rule (often honored in the breach) that brevity is best–no one wants to slog through a tome on a computer screen. Thus we sometimes propound our opinions without taking time to tease out (or think through) nuances. Luckily, […]
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Why are (some) farmers afraid of Michael Pollan?
Author Michael Pollan is no stranger to controversy. He has broadened the discussion of what we eat, where and how it is grown, big vs. small, organic farming vs. conventional. When he speaks some in the audience will love him, some will not. Advocates of large scale agriculture see Pollan as the enemy, they believe […]
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Two takes on school lunches, plus other tasty morsels from around the web
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. • In today’s New York Times, Kim Severson’s got a wonderful report on one New York City school cafeteria’s quest to cook as much as possible from scratch. The piece has […]
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Under the Clinton Global Initiative, Growing Power takes its grassroots-agriculture model to Africa
Will Allen: Growing power–and gaining influence in development circles, too. At the Clinton Global Initiative wrap-up on Friday, ex-President Clinton made waves in the sustainable-ag world by declaring Will Allen of Milwaukee/Chicago-based based Growing Power his “hero.” The real news was buried in the press release, though. Toward the bottom of a listing of verbal “commitments” […]
