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agriculture

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    Don’t jump to conclusions on swine flu and pork production

    Editor’s Note: Tom Philpott’s April 28 piece on the swine flu pandemic, which raised the question of whether there is a link between the virus’ emergence in Mexico and the presence nearby of factory-scale pork farms, sparked a vigorous debate on the Society for Environmental Journalists listserv. Merritt Clifton was one of several writers to […]

    Merritt Clifton Food

  • Symptom: swine flu. Diagnosis: industrial agriculture?

    Several days after news broke of a possible link between Mexico-based hog CAFOs and the rapid spread of a novel swine-flu strain, what have we learned? • Clarifying details about respiratory ailments in the Perote area of Vera Cruz State — where U.S. pork behemoth Smithfield Foods raises nearly a million hogs a year in […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • Corn ethanol approaches a moment of truth

    Courtesy Randy Wick via Flickr [UPDATED 4/24] As expected, California’s Air Resources Board passed the LCFS with the indirect land use component intact. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the actual model to be used in the calculation (including to what extent gasoline will incur an indirect land use penalty) won’t be […]

    Tom Laskawy Climate & Energy

  • A multicolored good food movement

    Photo courtesy of M J M, via FlickrAs the good food movement matures, its members have begun discussing its inclusiveness. This week, at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s ninth Food and Society Conference, speaker after speaker touched upon the topic of race and access to good food.  “Who is at the table?” asked Anim Steel, Director […]

    Stephanie Ogburn Food

  • Biotech’s history of overpromising and underdelivering may be catching up with it

    GMOs: false promise?km6xoTom Philpott’s post on USDA chief Tom Vilsack’s comments regarding biotech deserves a bit more attention. Vilsack was speaking at the first ever meeting of the Group of Eight agricultural ministers. I guess we have to consider it progress that the top ag officials from the eight largest industrialized nations finally decided it […]

    Tom Laskawy Politics

  • Every job can be green, part three

    This is the third and last installment of my chapter, “Green jobs in a sustainable economy,”, published recently in the book “Mandate for Change”.  You can read part one and part two, in which I discuss the first six out of eight ways in which to create an environmentally sustainable economy. Seventh, the global agricultural […]

    Jon Rynn Technology

  • Vilsack names former head of Iowa’s Health and Human Services as new USDA nutrition chief

    Phil Brasher at the Des Moines Register is reporting that USDA chief Tom Vilsack has named Kevin Concannon the new Undersecretary of the Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, i.e. the head of the federal food and nutrition programs — which include food stamps and the national school lunch program. Concannon ran Iowa’s Department of Health […]

    Tom Laskawy Politics

  • Pare down the pesticides

    Tip #7: Be a picky eater. Pare down the pesticides in your diet (without cutting too far into your food budget) by focusing your organic purchases on the “dirty dozen” fruits and veggies that tend to be chem-laden to the core. Buying local and organic as often as possible is a good way to help […]

    Grist staff Culture

  • Stop the environmental subsidy for factory farms

      North Catolina hog-waste lagoon: Smells like CAFO spiritDefMoIn one of the most deliciously perverse (not to say Orwellian) twists in our deliciously perverse (not to say Orwellian) system that is US agricultural policy, the prime beneficiaries of one of the USDA’s main environmental programs are beef, pork, and poultry factory farms. This money, of […]

    Tom Laskawy Food