agriculture
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Gates Foundation ignores reality, hypes latest GMO ‘vaporware’ instead
Another day, another misguided announcement from the Bill Gates Foundation. This time, it’s hyping a new GMO press release project from DuPont’s biotechnology arm, Pioneer Hi-Bred (via the Des Moines Register): Pioneer Hi-Bred is joining with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help scientists in Africa develop genetically engineered corn varieties that would allow […]
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Veggies not challenging enough? Try home ‘aquaponic’ gardening
Last year, thanks in large part to the White House kitchen garden, the country saw a resurgence in interest in backyard gardening. But this being America, where one-upsmanship sometimes seems like a national pastime, the vanguard has apparently moved on … to “aquaponics.” The New York Times illustrates what makes this “breeding edge” of backyard […]
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Pom-Pom club: Just how ‘Wonderful’ are pomegranates?
In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. ————— Dear Checkout Line, For months now, I can’t seem to walk through my local natural-food market without smacking into a vast display of pomegranates — and I usually put one in my […]
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Data highlights on the global food supply
World agriculture today faces pressure from many sources. On the production side, the amount of unused arable land worldwide has dwindled. Overworked soils are becoming eroded and degraded, and overpumped aquifers are being depleted. Meanwhile, as the global population grows and increasing biofuel production converts grain into fuel for cars, demand for food continues to […]
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CBS Evening News report on antibiotics in livestock, part 2
Catch the preview and part 1. In “Chewing the Scenery,” we round up interesting food-related video from around the Web. —————- And now for the big finale. CBS News’ Katie Couric concludes her look at the use of antibiotics in livestock with an examination of the “Danish experiment” — with which Grist readers are no […]
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How our food system is destroying the nation’s most important fishery
To understand our impact on nature, there is truth in the saying, “everything is connected.” Few situations illustrate this concept as dramatically as the agricultural wastes from the Midwest that contribute so seriously to the aquatic dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Human activities and natural phenomena occurring on land masses combine to impact […]
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CBS Evening News report on antibiotics in livestock, part 1
Update: Catch the preview and part 2 here. Here is part 1 of the Katie Couric’s CBS Evening News report on antibiotic use in livestock. She pulled no punches. This first segment focused on poultry processing facilities in Batesville, Ark. and drug-resistant MRSA. As in the preview, Couric explicitly discussed the possibility of transmitting disease […]
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Did Jamie Oliver meet his match in ‘America’s Fattest City’?
When last we saw British superstar chef-turned-food-system-reformer Jamie Oliver, he was in the midst of teaching “the fattest city in America” how to cook. How did it go? Well, thanks to the miracle that is reality television, we’ll find out one episode at a time. The series — Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution — doesn’t premiere […]
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Scientists demand meeting to talk climate with head of American Farm Bureau
It’s not just mountaintop removal mining that’s making activists of scientists. Now a group of 40 climate scientists backed by the Union of Concerned Scientists has written a letter demanding a meeting with American Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman to discuss his group’s continued endorsement of climate denial and refusal to acknowledge the reality of […]
