Climate Food and Agriculture

The E. coli outbreak’s continuing negative effect on wildlife

Farming is often seen as in conflict with wildlife, but it needn't be. The Wild Farm Alliance is a grassroots group that's trying to chart a new direction. They don't just talk about how agriculture can coexist with cougars and wolves, though. It's also about the little guys -- the birds and rodents that live in the wild margins between fields.

That's why the USDA's proposed Leafy Green Marketing Agreement (a national version of the California program of the same name, which came about after last year's E. coli outbreak) has them riled, and rightly so.

The ethanol boom could trigger a ‘tipping point’ in the Gulf

Days after Congress voted to ramp up the government mandate for corn ethanol, bringing it to fully three times current production levels within a decade, we get bracing news from the Gulf of Mexico. Here is the AP: The nation’s corn crop is fertilized with millions of pounds of nitrogen-based fertilizer. And when that nitrogen […]

China drafting rules for humane slaughter of livestock

Under pressure from international animal-rights advocates and food-safety organizations, China has announced it’s drafting rules for the “humane” treatment and slaughter of livestock. The proposal recommends stunning animals before slaughter, ensuring as little time as possible passes between stunning and killing, making sure unloading platforms are at heights where pigs won’t injure themselves when offloading, […]

Why bees and pigs are not machines

In yesterday's New York Times Magazine, Michael Pollan writes, "Two stories in the news this year, stories that on their faces would seem to have nothing to do with each other let alone with agriculture, may point to an imminent breakdown in the way we're growing food today."

Can you guess what they are?

Answer here.

An unbiased, factual report on biofuels: How rare is that?

The Worldwatch Institute has produced an interesting summary of what's happening in the world of grain supplies.

They also just published a book called Biofuels for Transport. Along with all of the positive potential for biofuels, I'm sure it also discusses the "potential" problems with "first generation" biofuels.

These are some of the latest buzzwords being used to support industrial agrofuels. The word "potential" suggests that there are not yet any actual problems. The words "first generation" suggest that all of these "potential" problems will fail to materialize thanks to the timely arrival of "second generation" fuels.

The reality, of course, is that these fuels (i.e., industrially grown food monocrops) are already wreaking all kinds of havoc and are likely to remain the only commercially viable biofuels for the foreseeable future (i.e., forever).

Wild salmon and coral both in trouble, say studies

Infestations of sea lice (ew) in salmon farms off the west coast of Canada are threatening local wild salmon populations — to the extent that the wild fish could be extinct within four years, says a new study published in Science. While the researchers focused on fish populations off the coast of British Columbia, they […]

Cruelty to hogs, and wretched meatpacking conditions

As the Senate debates the farm bill, which contains an entire title that would limit the power of the industrial-meat giants, you might think the industry would be on its best behavior, trying to act mellow while its lobbyists sort things out on the Hill. And yet the industry is currently churning out outrages as […]

And other revelations from the latest big-media expose of local food

About a year ago, The Economist ran a big article purporting to show that eating locally is actually worse for the environment than typical supermarket fare. I debunked the article here. About six months later, the NYT op-ed page ran a piece making similar arguments. And I responded again. In both of these pieces, the […]

More on feedlots and distillers grains

Last week, I wrote about how feeding cows waste from the ethanol process, known as distillers grains, seems to increase incidence of the deadly pathogen E. coli 0157:H7. I added that — coincidentally or not — a recent spike in recalls of E. coli 0157:H7-tainted hamburger meat has coincided with a surge in distillers grains […]

U.S. government wants to boost fish-farming industry

Eighty percent of American fish dishes are imported, and the federal government is eager to get the U.S. seafood market on equal footing (finning?) by kicking off industrial-scale fish farming in the Gulf of Mexico. Under regulations to be considered next month, fish born in laboratories would be transported to gigantic underwater cages capable of […]