agriculture

I’m lovin’ it!

Okay, sorry I put that song in your head.

This NYT story is interesting: Apparently McDonald's entrance into the fresh fruit and veggie market -- driven by pressure to offer healthier options, salads and such -- has made it, almost overnight, one of the biggest players in the $80 billion American produce industry.

Two bits from the story, one funny, one significant:

Spoiling organic milk?

The Wisconsin-based Cornucopia Institute has just filed a complaint with the USDA against two dairy farms in Idaho and California. It alleges that massive factory farms are labeling their products organic even though their thousands of cows are not pasture-fed, as required by USDA guidelines. Last month the institute -- which is devoted to "the fight for economic justice for the family-scale farming community" (and also taking pictures out the car window) -- filed a complaint against a similar operation in Colorado. This led the USDA to start ruminating on what "access to pasture" really means, anyway.

While the folks at Cornucopia are doing their best to help the little guys get herd -- er, heard -- larger-scale farmers say they're doing right by cows and consumers. "Our reason for doing it is we'd like to see agriculture change," Mark Retzloff, who runs the Colorado farm, told the Chicago Tribune. "If we're really going to change agriculture, we have to do it on all scales."

Make all U.S. farming organic?

The Land Institute runs a program call the Prairie Writer's Circle, which brings together writers who cover sustainability issues in agriculture (and related issues). They distribute their op-eds free of charge. We get them frequently, and I always like them, but we rarely have the space or resources to get them up on the site.

However! Thanks the magic of blogitude, I shall start running the ones I like here. To kick it off, here's an essay about how all -- that's right, all -- farming in the U.S. should go organic within 10 years.

Local food

Here's a great AP story about colleges buying more food from local farmers. Students love it because it tastes better. School officials love it because it adds to the "quality of life" that attracts applicants. Cafeteria workers love it because they get to cook and prepare food again instead of just ripping open packages. Farmers with small- and medium-sized farms love it because it helps them stay above water. And environmentalists love it because it encourages the organic food industry and results in fewer miles of polluting transportation of food.

Consider what's holding this back from spreading and becoming common practice, not only for schools and other institutions but for the average consumer. It is not desire, I suspect -- even the totally eco-unconscious prefer better-tasting food. What's lacking is technology: The ability to closely track exactly what farmer has what and when, what consumer wants it and when, where they both are, and the most efficient way for them to connect. This kind of technology is being developed in bits and pieces all around us.

Enviros can help by publicizing and celebrating trends like this.

Bush’s pick to head the USDA is a big ethanol booster

At a White House ceremony last week announcing the nomination of Nebraska Gov. Mike Johanns (R) to succeed Ann Veneman as agriculture secretary, President Bush called his pick “a strong proponent of alternative energy sources, such as ethanol and biodiesel,” later adding that “in a new term, we’ll continue policies that are pro-growth, pro-jobs, and […]

Separating the Wheat From the Chaff

Monsanto Abandons Plans for GM Wheat With little fanfare, biotech-food giant Monsanto announced yesterday that it would abandon plans to introduce genetically modified wheat to the market. Anti-GM activists, who have fought Monsanto’s plans for some five years, celebrated the announcement as a major victory. However, the impetus for the shift was likely not the […]

How to find cleaner, greener beef and fix our broken food-safety system

In December, the vision of a “downer” cow stricken with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) caused indigestion in more than a few Americans, especially those who’d eaten beef in one of the six Western states in which the “mad” cow’s meat might have been sold. The potential hazards of this disease have been apparent since Britain’s […]

A new consumer revolution could change the way we label food

There’s a tongue-in-cheek ad campaign going on in New York City right now regarding smoking in public places. The ads feature slogans like, “If they ban smoking in airports, people will never fly again,” and “If they ban smoking in bathrooms, people will never gossip again.” I thought of this campaign when I stumbled across […]

Umbra on Roundup

Dear Umbra, I have a large, organic (hopefully) vegetable garden. However, I occasionally use Roundup around the edges to keep invasive grasses from creeping in. Now, I have been given to understand that Roundup is relatively safe and breaks down almost immediately. What are your thoughts on this subject? I totally trust your judgment. BetsyMichigan […]