Food and Agriculture

How commodity grain farmers have sown the seeds of their demise

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. —– A field of dried soybeans ready to be combined. Although “that time of year” in corn and soybean […]

Ariane Lotti Food

The Environment Report naively pushes Monsanto-related study praising rBGH

I don’t know much about Environment Report, a non-profit producer of radio reports about, uh, the environment. But I can’t say I’m impressed by its recent piece on recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), the genetically modified "feed enhancer" for dairy cows that Monsanto recently sold to Eli Lilly. In it (transcript here), reporter Shawn Allee […]

Tom Philpott Food

Greenwashing our vegetable modifiers

A few weeks ago, I was having dinner at a renowned restaurant in San Francisco, when I noticed something a bit troubling on the menu. According to the description, the “Heirloom Tomato Salad” was made with a mix of Sweet 100 and Sungold tomatoes — both of which are hybrid varieties. OK, big deal, they […]

Laura Hess Food

Amazon deforestation soars, Brazil blames its own land-reform agency

The 100 individuals or companies most responsible for Amazon deforestation since 2005 were listed Monday by Brazilian Environment Minister Carlos Minc, and Brazil’s own land-reform agency took the top spot. The Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform was said to be culpable for the deforestation of 850 square miles of Amazon rainforest in the last […]

Grist staff Food

Visiting the Victory Garden outside San Francisco City Hall

This is a guest post from my travel partner, Todd Dwyer, head blogger for Dell’s ReGeneration.org, where the piece originally appeared. —– Sarah and I have been having a blast so far learning about what people are doing right now to save the planet. Not only have we been treated to the new ways […]

Sarah van Schagen Food

Will chocolate replace coffee as the foodie’s bean of obsession?

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: So what’s the deal with this “bean to bar” thing I hear about with chocolate? People are calling chocolate the […]

Lou Bendrick Food

Why factory farming must be stopped

This is sobering: single concentrated animal feedlots that create more waste than a large U.S. city. There is only one word for this: insane. If you’re going to eat meat, don’t support industrial meat operations.

Jason D Scorse Food

Gates Foundation wants to boost local agriculture in developing nations

Local agriculture in developing nations will get a boost under an initiative unveiled Wednesday by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and United Nations World Food Program. Under the Purchase for Progress initiative, the WFP will supplement food aid with surplus crops bought at competitive prices from poor farmers. WFP currently purchases 80 percent of […]

Grist staff Food

A visit to Alemany Farm in San Francisco

I drove right past Alemany Farm three times before I finally found it. That’s because I wasn’t looking up. The mostly volunteer venture that grows organic food (and green jobs) for low-income communities is located on a hillside, the rows and rows of green leafy goodness like rungs on a ladder leading skyward. Once I […]