Climate Food and Agriculture

Organic bourbon

The New York Times says that bourbon is having its day in the sun, with small-batch, high-end distillers popping up all over the place. They’re shooting for the young connoisseur crowd, the same folks buying specialty cheeses, specialty breads, specialty coffee, specialty chocolates, etc. You know what would really attract that hip young crowd? An […]

Genetically modified sugar beets expected to be in widespread use in U.S. soon

The U.S. sweetener industry may soon have a new sugar daddy as it gears up for the widespread rollout of genetically modified sugar beets. GM sugar beets have been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture since 2005, but resistance from end-users such as chocolatiers Hershey’s and Mars had disrupted their widespread use. But now […]

Food prices going up, along with everything else

From an article in the Telegraph by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Hat tip to Gristmill reader KO):

What has abruptly changed is the twin revolution of biofuel politics and Asia's switch to an animal-protein diet. Together, they have shattered the fragile equilibrium.

Investors who want to take advantage of agflation must tread with care, both for moral reasons and questions of timing.

Riiiight ... moral reasons.

The way I see it, you can go the PETA route and call the closest thing the environmental movement has to a hero (Nobel Laureate Al Gore) a hypocrite for eating meat, replete with a bulbous-nosed, pot-bellied caricature, or you can admonish your politicians to stop supporting biofuels. I suppose you could do both. I'm concentrating my firepower on the biofuel side of the equation.

Industrial agrofuels are still in their infancy. They have to be stopped now, before it's too late. As consumers, voters, and peaceful protesters, we have a measure of power. Let's start using it. Find an effective way to convince humanity to eat fewer animal products and I'll support that effort also.

More quotes from the article under the fold:

Europe may ban two types of genetically modified corn

Europe may end up sans two types of genetically modified corn, as E.U. environment officials have proposed a ban on the seeds. Officials say the GM corn, made by powerful biotech companies DuPont Pioneer, Dow Agrosciences, and Syngenta, could harm wildlife and disrupt food chains. E.U. Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said the genetically modified corn […]

The NYT gets its hands dirty

In Italy and France, people don’t love small farms just for the delicious food they produce. They also prize them for their looks — small-scale diversified agriculture is pleasing to the senses. So city dwellers often head out to the country on the weekend and hang out on farms, and support them with their tourist […]

Have an organic, free-range, local Thanksgiving

If you’ve waited ’til the last minute to buy ingredients for your Thanksgiving feast, allow us to suggest that you seek out turkeys of the organic, grass-fed, free-range, local, and/or heritage variety. Because no one’s thankful for pesticides in their gristle (or for butylated hydroxytoluene, for that matter). Apples, celery, and potatoes are all high […]

Practice of composting animals raises red flags for greens

A growing number of states are allowing farmers to bury their deceased horses, cattle, and chickens and allow the remains to decay into compost. Environmentalists are leery of the practice, concerned that livestock pumped up with antibiotics and growth hormones might leach chemicals into groundwater as they decompose. Growth hormones in the water, growth hormones […]

A recipe for no-boil pumpkin lasagna

For most of my adult life I’ve been anti-lasagna. It’s not that I refuse to eat it. Quite the reverse! I love to eat lasagna. I just refused to make it. The idea of boiling giant, unwieldy sheets of pasta always got on my nerves. It didn’t seem worth it, no matter how delicious the […]

McSweeney’s satirizes the quest for eco-eats

“Understanding food labels you might encounter at Whole Foods”: Natural: Pretty much everything is natural, including this sentence. What makes it natural? The fact that it has the word “natural.” Conventional: Conventional says, “I love the system,” and we’re not even sure why you’re shopping here. You don’t want paper or plastic — you have […]

Another study shows organic ag outpacing conventional

Apologists for industrial food production often level what they see as a devastating charge against organic agriculture: that it could never "feed the world.&quot The claim goes like this: industrial ag produces higher yields, and as global population grows, we’re going to have to squeeze as much food as possible out of the earth, by […]