Climate Food and Agriculture

Umbra on composting

Dear Umbra, Can you tell me what is the best and most effective composter for a small urban backyard? JoeBaltimore, Md. Dearest Joe, Sort of. It’s ultimately a very personal choice, and one that depends on what you will try to compost and the amount of time you are willing to spend helping the compost […]

Holy Frijoles!

Burgeoning soybean market transforming South American environment The global market for soybeans is exploding, largely driven by massive demand from China, and the resulting modern-day agricultural gold rush is transforming the landscape in South America. Farmers are chopping down rainforests, colonizing savannahs, damming rivers, and digging canals, all in an effort to get more land […]

Umbra on odd fruit

Dear Umbra, Yesterday in the grocery store I saw a “golden kiwi.” Is there really such a thing? It was over twice the size of a regular kiwi and the familiar fuzz was not there. It was almost as smooth as a nectarine. When I inquired of the produce representative, she told me that it […]

Ay-Yay-Yayurvedic

Imported herbal remedies found to contain lead and other nasties Ayurvedic herbal supplements imported from South Asia may contain lead, mercury, and arsenic, sometimes at levels high enough to cause serious health problems, including vomiting, convulsions, and seizures. A new report in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 20 percent of the […]

Sweet ‘n’ Low-Down

Sugar is causing environmental catastrophes A high-sugar diet is slowly fattening and sickening American people, but we’re getting off easy. Turns out the sweet stuff is outright killing endangered Florida panthers, not to mention the ecosystem in which they live. Almost 700,000 acres of the Florida Everglades have been drained to create the Everglades Agricultural […]

Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Poison Spray

Afghan poppy fields mysteriously sprayed with chemicals Recently, planes have been flying over the poppy fields of Afghan farmers, spraying them — along with houses, orchards, and perhaps even families — with toxic chemicals apparently intended to kill poppy crops and keep them from being converted to heroin. Afghan President Hamid Karzai expressed shock at […]

Patricia Lovera, food safety crusader, answers questions

Patricia Lovera With what environmental organization are you affiliated? I am deputy director of the Energy and Environment Program at Public Citizen. We have campaigns on energy (fighting nuclear power and electricity deregulation), against the privatization of our water supplies, and on food safety (fighting food irradiation and other methods of industrialized food production that […]

All the Same Toxicity, Now With 90 Percent Ubiquity!

Rocket-fuel chemical taints lettuce and milk throughout the U.S. Here’s some unsettling food news: Perchlorate, an explosive component of rocket fuel, was found in about 90 percent of lettuce samples and 97 percent of milk samples from around the U.S. tested by the Food and Drug Administration. Health officials said the levels of contamination found […]

Paulding Gray

Mega-farms in Ohio offer stench but little else to communities The Plain Dealer examines the effects of eight giant hog farms built in Paulding County, Ohio, since 1994 and five mega-dairies since 2000, and comes away with a grim cautionary tale. A number of local families have fled from their homes, some unable to live […]

Organic is becoming popular … the horror!

An article in CorpWatch adeptly summarizes what strikes me as a classic dilemma facing enviro(nmentalist)s: Organic food is becoming more popular and the organic food industry is growing.  As it grows, large corporations are taking an interest, buying small organic companies, and attempting to supersize organic farming operations. By some estimates the percentage of organic food sold by organic markets has fallen from over 60 percent to just over 30 percent -- the rest taken up by Wal-Marty type stores (and a miniscule percentage by farmers' markets, food-buying clubs, and the like). Organic is going corporate.

Reactions, as you would expect, are split.