Climate Food and Agriculture

San Joaquin Phoenix

Dead San Joaquin River will be revived More than 60 miles of California’s dead, sandy San Joaquin River may yet run with water and salmon again, as enviros and farmers have settled an 18-year legal battle over the river’s fate. Based on a new 20-year, $250-to-$800 million restoration plan, agricultural water diversion from the river […]

The activists among us should remember that there’s plenty to do together

I hope everyone's been following the discussion on animal rights and environmentalism. I continue to be impressed with the decency and thoughtfulness of the community that's gathered here.

Frogfish said most of what needed to be said. The unit of analysis for conservationism is population; for animal rights it is the individual. If you ask me, animal rights is morally bankrupt in the absence of environmentalism -- not the other way around.

But we should all remember: parsing the logical and ethical differences is a matter for thinkers. For doers, for activists, the job is to get things done. That means rallying people around the things they agree on, not emphasizing those that divide them.

A brazen move from an agency shot through with industry players.

Cows that feed solely on pasture perform a valuable service: they transform what's inedible to us -- grass -- into a rich source of protein and other nutrients. And when such cows are raised in moderate numbers, they can actually improve the health and biodiversity of grasslands. Moreover, cows evolved to eat grass, so the pasture model is clearly the most animal-friendly way to create beef.

To me, the grass-fed concept exemplifies responsible agrarianism: it's energy efficient (it relies on no vast, petroleum-guzzling corn fields), it enhances rather than degrades the ecosystems it relies on, and it forces us to eat mindfully and in season.

If we insisted on raising all of our beef on ample pasture, every American would be able to savor the privilege of eating beef only, say, every couple of weeks -- and less during the grazing season, when cows are fattening up.

Which sounds about right to me.

Leave it to the USDA -- that hothouse of food-industry flackery -- to attempt to screw it all up.

It’s time to get serious about reforming school lunches

Playground bullies aren’t the only ones shaking down kids for their milk money. Despite lots of recent fuss about the poor quality of school-cafeteria fare — and mounting evidence of widespread diet-related maladies among kids — corporate interests are still lining up for their cut of the cash the federal government and families spend on […]

Check out the trailer for the biggest food politics movie, well, ever

Eric Schlosser is serious about raising maximum hell with the fast-food industry. He's got a new book aimed at deprogramming kids from their burger, fries, and a Coke fetish (reviewed here).

And now he's somehow managed to get a big-studio fictional movie made based on his classic book Fast Food Nation. Check out the trailer:

Could small farms provide fresh food year-round, even in northern climes?

Is the sustainable-agriculture movement essentially Luddite? It’s a common charge — and a fair enough question. The Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug, perhaps industrial agriculture’s greatest living apologist, deplores at every opportunity the organic movement’s supposedly technophobic ways. Addressing a graduating class a few years ago at Texas A&M — that factory for future big-ag farmers […]

Like Blight on Rice

U.S. commercial rice crop contaminated with GM strain The U.S. government admitted last week that its commercial supply of long-grain rice has been contaminated by an illegal, untested, genetically modified strain with the warm-and-fuzzy name of LLRICE 601. The European Union, the biggest importer of U.S. long-grain rice, may decide to delay or ban imports; […]

Do the Hempty Hemp

Hemp farming could be legalized in California Farmers could legally grow industrial hemp under a bill approved by the state Senate of, obviously, California. But isn’t hemp, like, totally marijuana? Didn’t Nancy Reagan warn us about this? No, no, says (Republican!) state Sen. Tom McClintock, in the best analogy we’ve ever heard: Hemp “bears no […]

I’d like to buy the world a Coke … er, maybe not

The Times reports:

INDIA'S highest court yesterday demanded that Coca-Cola should reveal its secret formula for the first time in 120 years.

Why?

While demand for frozen food booms, processing plants head to China and Mexico

Farmers markets may be fashionable, but the U.S. appetite for convenience food remains insatiable. "Retail sales of frozen foods in the U.S. in 2005 reached a record $29 billion, up from nearly $26 billion in 2001," declares a news report.

Meanwhile, the U.S. food-processing giants are shuttering domestic plants and heading to Mexico and China, where labor and produce costs are cheaper than California's central coast, once the U.S. frozen food capital.

In an age of broad energy and climate uncertainty, market forces are conspiring to make our food system ever more energy intensive. How can this be? How can it make economic sense to not only haul food from China and Mexico, but to keep its temperature below the freezing point throughout the process?