Climate Food and Agriculture
All Stories
-
OMG, it’s DIY GMOs
I learned of a newly popular hobby for the masses thanks to a recent edition of Food Chain Radio podcast: amateur gene tinkerers. It’s such an obvious plot for a Michael Crichton book, featuring an innocent experiment wiping the planet’s motherboard. Why let corporations and academics in their ivory towers have all the fun? Just […]
-
Swine-flu outbreak could be linked to Smithfield factory farms
One flu east, one flu westThe outbreak of a new flu strain — a nasty mash-up of swine, avian, and human viruses — has infected 1,000 people in Mexico and the U.S., killing 68. The World Health Organization warned Saturday that the outbreak could reach global pandemic levels. Is Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork […]
-
Corn ethanol approaches a moment of truth
Courtesy Randy Wick via Flickr [UPDATED 4/24] As expected, California’s Air Resources Board passed the LCFS with the indirect land use component intact. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the actual model to be used in the calculation (including to what extent gasoline will incur an indirect land use penalty) won’t be […]
-
From a zingy spring herb, a soup for sipping on the porch
Leaves of sassbeckyannisonGardeners and gastronomes fawn over sorrel — and almost everyone else ignores it. That’s a shame. An early-spring green with brash lemony flavor that comes from an abundance of oxalic acid, sorrel is a powerful addition to soups and sauces, and tasty in salads when picked young. The herb is classified in the […]
-
A multicolored good food movement
Photo courtesy of M J M, via FlickrAs the good food movement matures, its members have begun discussing its inclusiveness. This week, at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s ninth Food and Society Conference, speaker after speaker touched upon the topic of race and access to good food. “Who is at the table?” asked Anim Steel, Director […]
-
Stop the environmental subsidy for factory farms
North Catolina hog-waste lagoon: Smells like CAFO spiritDefMoIn one of the most deliciously perverse (not to say Orwellian) twists in our deliciously perverse (not to say Orwellian) system that is US agricultural policy, the prime beneficiaries of one of the USDA’s main environmental programs are beef, pork, and poultry factory farms. This money, of […]
-
Earth Day reflections on food as an environmental issue
Courtesy Stewart via Flickr Michael Pollan ended The Omnivore’s Dilemma with this line: “we eat by the grace of nature, not of industry, and what we’re eating is never anything more or less than the body of the world.” Sustenance, it seems to me, has always been humanity’s most persistent and direct link to the […]
-
NPR: Industrial ag in India on the verge of collapse
Field of screamsIn a glowing Atlantic profile back in 1997, Greg Easterbrook declared Norman Borlaug the “Forgotten Benefactor of Humanity.” Borlaug is the intellectual father of what became known as the “Green Revolution,” the concerted effort by the U.S. government, leading foundations, and large agribusinesses in the 1960s and ’70s to deliver the gift of […]
-
The Fishery That's Too Big to Fail
This is a guest post by John Hocevar and Jeremy Jackson. Jeremy Jackson is the William E. and Mary B. Ritter Professor of Oceanography at the Scripps Institution. John Hocevar is a marine biologist and the director of Greenpeace’s oceans campaign. If you like seafood, you’ve probably eaten Alaska pollock, the tender white fish used […]
-
Report: Mediterranean bluefin tuna on verge of collapse
Bye-bye, big fishPhoto: Tom PuchnerOh-oh. From The Times of London: The fishing season opens today in the Mediterranean spawning grounds of the “king of sushi” — the bluefin tuna — with a grim warning that current catch rates mean it will die out in as little as three years. In my recent exchange with the […]
