agriculture
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![The pink bollworm: the bug that ate Monsanto’s Bt franchise?]()
![The pink bollworm: the bug that ate Monsanto’s Bt franchise?]()
First came superweeds; now come the superbugs!
The current crop of superweeds plaguing farmers who rely on Monsanto’s RoundUp pesticide represents by now a well documented crisis. But watch out, world! Here come the superbugs. That’s right, Monsanto’s other flagship product, its “Bt” line of genetically modified seeds which emit their own pesticide in the form of a naturally occurring toxin, is now under […]
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Some tasty viewing for the first Monday of spring
In “Chewing the Scenery,” we round up interesting food-related video from around the Web. ——- Here’s a smorgasbord of videos to get your week started right. • After a brutal winter, spring has finally arrived, at least officially (it remains stubbornly cold and wet up here in the N.C. mountains). Let’s start with an earnest […]
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Forests and agriculture essential to success of climate legislation
Within the next few days, Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman are going to unveil energy and climate legislation. If this legislation is to have any chance at either environmental, economic, or political success, they must avoid the "energy-only" approach that would entirely exclude forests and farms from participation in a solution -- but that has recently gained some traction.
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Farm lobby’s lawyer appointed as Ag Committee’s counsel
Here’s object lesson No. 452 in the ongoing corrosive handover of government power to corporate interests. And no, I don’t think I’m exaggerating. Over at Mother Jones, Kate Sheppard details the high-speed revolving door permanently located between the offices of Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and several top energy lobbying […]
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Are GMOs the ‘financial innovations’ of agriculture?
(Photoillustration by Grist)Financial blogger Felix Salmon has an essay in Foreign Policy called “How Locavores Can Save the World” — expanded, by the way, from a wonderful blog post he wrote after attending a panel discussion on world hunger at the Davos World Economic Forum in the company of Blue Hill Farm’s Dan Barber. Salmon […]
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Maybe locavores can save the world after all
Financial blogger Felix Salmon has an essay in Foreign Policy called “How Locavores Can Stop World Hunger.” Salmon normally focuses on issues involving economic crises, monetary policy, complex derivatives, macro-economics and governmental oversight of financial markets — but here is talking monocultures, sustainable agriculture and GMOs. Tom Philpott has opined on the similarities between financial […]
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Tracking down the public-health implications of nitrogen pollution
Picture a hot summer day in California farm country, say 112 degrees. In the tiny community of Tooleville, surrounded by olive trees and orange groves, there’s one thing you won’t see here that you’d see almost anywhere else in the sunny state — kids splashing in backyard pools. “People don’t let their kids swim in […]
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For first time, GM soybeans may be losing favor among farmers
A soybean field in summer. Farmers are getting fed up with Monsanto’s soy seed monopoly. UPDATE: This report refers not to the current year but to the 2009 crop year, which according to the USDA did see a slight drop in US GMO soybean plantings, as predicted. New estimates on the 2010 crop year should […]
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New research: synthetic nitrogen destroys soil carbon, undermines soil health
Just precisely what does all of that nitrogen ferilizer do to the soil?“Fertilizer is good for the father and bad for the sons.”–Dutch saying For all of its ecological baggage, synthetic nitrogen does one good deed for the environment: it helps build carbon in soil. At least, that’s what scientists have assumed for decades. If […]
