Climate Food and Agriculture
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We waste a lot of food and a lot of water, says report
The world grows more than enough food to sustain the global population, but half of that food is wasted — and thus half of the water used in food production is wasted as well, says a new report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, International Water Management Institute, and Stockholm Water Management Institute. […]
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Starting today the FDA will allow producers to use irradiation on lettuce and spinach
The better part of this summer seemed to be dotted with stories of continued salmonella and E. coli outbreaks. First, the FDA thought the problem was with tomatoes; but, it turns out peppers were the culprits that caused more than 1,400 people in 43 states to become sick with salmonella Saintpaul. This marks yet another […]
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Putting cow hormones into fish food makes them balloon
Update [2008-8-22 13:20:9 by Tom Philpott]:I was alerted to the rBGH-tilapia news item by this blurb in the Organic Consumers Association news feed on Aug. 19. But when you click on the link provided by OCA, you’re taken to a source dated 2003. Unlike reader Mr. Mean, who (very cordially) comments below, I sloppily didn’t […]
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Now that farmers have gotten big or gotten out, it’s up to alternative farmers
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. —– Since the early 1970s, if not before, U.S. farm policy has hinged on the mantra, “get big or […]
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Indonesian province puts moratorium on rainforest destruction
I just started as Greenpeace’s media director, in part because I wanted to help Greenpeace save the world’s rainforests, a topic I’ve written a lot about at Grist and elsewhere. Within a week of starting the job, I knew I’d made a good decision when I got this news release from our Southeast Asian office: […]
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Australia continues to deal with epic drought
Longstanding drought has wreaked havoc across Australia, drying up lakes into shallow, acidic puddles and threatening drinking-water supplies. Unable to coax rain from the sky, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has fast-tracked a plan to buy back water entitlements from the heaviest irrigators in the Murray-Darling basin, an agricultural stronghold which produces all of the country’s […]
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Prince Charles sparked controversy when he expressed doubt in GM crops
The British royal family is no stranger to controversy and media attention, but Prince Charles caused a new kind of worldwide media flurry on Tuesday when he sat down for an exclusive interview with the Telegraph (U.K.). This time around, though, it seems unlikely the media story will be covered by the British tabloids since […]
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Amid collapsing fisheries and factory-farmed salmon, how to choose sustainable seafood
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. Hello Grist, The food worry that keeps me up at night is how best to buy fish. Should I buy “wild caught,” with […]
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The food system as ‘largest quasi-public utility in the world’
Apropos of the recent debate on Gristmill sparked by James Galbraith’s polemic on free markets, I got to thinking about something I recently read in Paul Roberts’ book The End of Food (which I reviewed here): [D]uring the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Congress created a vast system of of support for food production: a […]
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Urban gardening for the rest of us
Photo: lucy and her dent via FlickrAbout a quarter of the U.S. population lives in apartments or condos, according to the 2000 census [PDF], and most Americans will live in one or the other at some point in their lives. But apartment dwellers don’t have to miss out on the joys of growing their […]
