Climate Food and Agriculture

Link dump

Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has an article in The NYT, "The Rich Get Hungrier," which is a good short summary of various causes of higher food prices and increased world hunger, and why they are related even though not the same thing.

When will the American public get snobby already?

Sigh. The long weekend is over and it’s time to work again. I don’t really feel like it, though, so let me tell you a story. For reasons too boring to get into, yesterday I ended up in a grocery store — a QFC, part of Kroger’s empire — for a few things. I haven’t […]

USDA defends America’s fuel supply

Much of what Vinod Khosla had to say in his latest post, and my responses to that post here, have been covered in previous posts. So, if some of this sounds eerily familiar, now you know why.

Admittedly, I have an advantage in this debate because he can't respond directly to my arguments. Remember the West Wing episode where the Josh Lyman character makes the mistake of responding to a blogger?

On the other hand, I'm not an independent blogger with my own website. Thus, the fine line between courage and stupidity. May I offer an apology to Grist for my stupidity and my thanks for allowing me to express it.

Khosla begins his defense reiterating the following belief:

In fact, I strongly believe any nascent technology that cannot exist without subsidies beyond an introductory period will not gain market penetration and is not worth supporting ...

Climate change doing a number on U.S. West, says USDA report

Climate change is having “profound impacts” on the U.S. West and will continue to do so in coming decades, says a new report spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Titled “The Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture, Land Resources, Water Resources, and Biodiversity,” the report focuses on Western rangelands, arid lands, forests, and fisheries. […]

The best thing I’ve had all month

Odwalla strawberry lemonade. Mmm …

The agency cravenly stops measuring the poisons used in U.S. farming

The USDA’s “Agricultural Chemical Use Database” is a wonderful thing. With a few clicks, consumers, researchers, and anyone else kind find all manner of information on pesticides, broken down by crop and by state. As an agriculture writer, I have an interest in industrial corn, by far our biggest crop. With a simple search, I […]

Are ‘organic pesticides’ the way forward for organic agriculture?

How are proponents of regenerative agriculture supposed to respond to news like this? Green pesticide and herbicide developer Marrone Organic Innovations is nearly done raising $7 million in a second round of funding, CEO Pamela Marrone said Wednesday. Wow, somebody’s investing in organic agriculture — millions, no less. That’s news. But does it have to […]

The USDA’s new ban won’t keep sick cows out of the food supply

Months after the downer-cow scandal of last winter, USDA chief Ed Schafer announced plans to ban all downer cows from the food supply. The rule involves cows that get sick after an initial inspection by veterinarians before slaughter. Under old rules, such cows could be reinspected by vets and then cleared for slaughter if the […]

It does not save carbon and is not a carbon offset

The list of very knowledgeable folk who still are pushing no-till farming as a greenhouse-gas mitigation strategy -- even though science passed them by a while ago -- includes:

• Sen. John McCain
• Princeton University* [PDF]
• The Chicago Climate Exchange [PDF]
• The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions [PDF]

I buried the science in the McCain post, but it deserves higher visibility. As a major review article [PDF] from Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, "Tillage and soil carbon sequestration -- What do we really know?" concluded:

Wall Street Journal editorial mischaracterizes both my position and biofuels

To my surprise, on Tuesday I found myself cited by the Wall Street Journal as a strong advocate of subsidies for food-based ethanol, and as a recipient of "federal dole" who ought to "take a vow of embarrassed silence." While I appreciate the Journal's foray into fiction writing (and I'd love to discuss my status on the dole with my accountant, who recently filed my taxes), I would like to clarify a few facts and offer a more rounded view of biofuels and ethanol in general.

A few facts: