Climate Food and Agriculture
All Stories
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Old breeds, new ideas are helping small farms
I just returned from a 10 day photo assignment covering the efforts of Heifer Project — Poland to return heritage/locally-adapted breeds of chickens, geese, cattle, and pigs to small farmers struggling to keep a foothold in this changing country. These breeds in many cases are already making a difference. One of these, the Polish Red […]
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NYT Magazine features Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Maverick Farms, Anna Lappé, and more
You know the Sunday New York Times Magazine issue I blogged about a few days ago, the "food issue" featuring a major essay by Michael Pollan? It also highlighted the farm I help run, Maverick Farms, in a section on "food fighters." We’re extremely flattered and delighted to be included in the same list as […]
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Most ubiquitous fish in American diet 50 percent below last year’s levels
Here’s a guest post from Jennifer Jacquet of the Sea Around Us project at the University of British Columbia, and blogger-in-chief of the Shifting Baselines Blog. —– Ask a scientist to give a good example of a well-managed fishery, and they often will cite the Alaska pollock fishery. But John Hocevar of Greenpeace-USA prefers to […]
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With little oversight, BP, Chevron, ADM, and Cargill cook up next-gen biofuels
Synthetic biologists, a brave new breed of science entrepreneurs who engineer life-forms from scratch, are holding their largest-ever global gathering in Hong Kong this week, known as “Synthetic Biology 4.0.” Although most people have never heard of synthetic biology, it’s moving full speed ahead fueled by giant agribusiness, energy and chemical corporations with little debate […]
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Michael Pollan lays out a national food agenda
Food policy hasn’t exactly been a hot-button issue in the presidential election. And it’s not going to be. We’re sure to hear more about a vague acquaintance of Barack Obama, or a bush-league politician’s fantasy-world twaddle about energy independence, than farm subsidies or school-lunch policy. Knowing that full well, Michael Pollan has published a serious […]
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Is organic pet food worth the trouble?
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 Grist, I eat organic food; should my dog? What’s the deal with organic dog food and what’s the problem with conventional […]
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While global markets crater, a Vermont town unites around food
The effort to revive global credit markets has devolved into farce. Every day, U.S. authorities announce some earth-shaking new measure — a $700 billion bailout, the Fed’s extraordinary move into the commercial-paper business, a coordinated global set of rate cuts — and every day, investors continue acting as tweaky as meth heads when the dope […]
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Big ag, little ag, and government support
In “Dispatches from the Fields,” Ariane Lotti and Stephanie Ogburn, who are working on small farms in Iowa and Colorado this season, share their thoughts on producing real food in the midst of America’s agro-industrial landscape. —– In the past few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to attend a couple of events here in southwestern […]
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The pet-food industry takes a serious look at distillers grains
Should the mush left over after the ethanol process — known as distillers grains — be fed to farm animals? There’s been little real debate around that question, even though a) heavy use of distillers grains as cow feed has been linked to deadly E. Coli 0157H7 outbreaks; and b), the mush has been shown […]
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If you can’t stand the smell, tough luck
Duplin County, N.C. stinks. And no wonder. Its human population is just under 50,000 people, but it is also home to 2.2 million [PDF] of North Carolina’s 10 million hogs [PDF]. Last week, I went on a bus tour of Duplin County as a part of the Politics of Food Conference to see how confined […]
