Climate Food and Agriculture

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 […]

NYT on the surge in E. coli outbreaks

"There’s shit in the meat," declared a harried fast-food exec in the Richard Linklater / Eric Schlosser film Fast Food Nation. Well, yes, there is — and more this year than in past years, judging from the number of recalls of beef tainted with the deadly E. coli strain 0157. In an article in yesterday’s […]

What a fossil-fuel free agriculture might look like

At some point in the future, humanity will have to produce its food without the help of fossil fuels and without destroying the soil. In a well-researched and succinct new essay, "What will we eat as the oil runs out?", Richard Heinberg analyzes the main problems with the global agricultural system, and proposes a solution: a global organic food system.

Heinberg lays out four major dilemmas of the current system:

The direct impacts on agriculture of higher oil prices: increased costs for tractor fuel, agricultural chemicals, and the transport of farm inputs and outputs ... the increased demand for biofuels ... the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events caused by fuel-based greenhouse gas emissions...[and] the degradation or loss of basic natural resources (principally, topsoil and fresh water supplies) as a result of high rates, and unsustainable methods, of production stimulated by decades of cheap energy.

He then goes into more detail concerning these four horsemen of the agricultural apocalypse, and shows how, even now, these crises are leading to a decrease in global food production.

Later in this post I will propose a thought experiment solution, based on Heinberg's solution of a fossil fuel-free agriculture:

An EPA-approved pesticide is worse than the one it’s replacing

“The soil is, as a matter of fact, full of live organisms. It is essential to conceive of it as something pulsating with life, not as a dead or inert mass.” — Albert Howard, The Soil and Health, 1947 Strawberry fields poisoned forever? Photo: iStockphoto In October, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency granted temporary approval […]

The neverending debate on corn ethanol continues

This is my response to Brooke Coleman's response to, uh, this response ...

Welcome back, Brooke.

I do think ethanol is better than oil ...

Hundreds of millions of Americans do not "think" that the theory of evolution is valid. What you or I want to believe is largely irrelevant. The arguments we bring to the table to back up what we "think" is what matters. The following graphic is an attempt to explain a concept called leakage -- the fatal flaw in any attempt to divert food crops to gas tanks:

Pop in to visit Biofuel Bob while you're at it.

Use of distiller grains in livestock rations has exploded

Yesterday, I posted about how feeding cattle distillers grains — the leftover from the corn-based ethanol process — seems to raise the incidence of E. coli 0157. I was a bit vague on precisely how much of the stuff was making it into the livestock-feed supply. Thanks to the indefatigable Ray Wallace, I now know. […]

In the clash over school lunches, who’s watching out for the kids?

The following is a guest essay by Kate Adamick, a New York-based consultant and lecturer on matters relating to school food reform and an advisor to the Orfalea Fund in Santa Barbara, Calif.; and Ann Cooper, the “Renegade Lunch Lady” and director of nutrition services for the Berkeley Unified School District. —– A friend of […]

Saddening video report on Indonesian palm oil plantations

Here is a short, painful four-minute news report about palm oil plantations -- watch it and weep:

Feeding ethanol waste to cows

Perhaps the most persistent debate around corn ethanol involves its “net energy balance” — that is, whether it consumes more energy in production than it delivers as a fuel. Even the studies that credit the fuel with a robust energy balance, like this one from the USDA, acknowledge that it’s pretty much a wash unless […]