agriculture
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How to change USDA with sustainable agriculture allies
In a recent post, I discussed likely candidates for secretary of agriculture in the Obama administration and encouraged you to voice your support or dislike of the names being floated to Obama’s transition team. You can have an impact: in large numbers, voices of the people are very powerful. Please continue to make your opinions […]
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‘Second generation’ or not, biofuels contribute to Peak Soil
The Seattle Times has another story peddling the fantasy that there are "second generation biofuels" that magically appear without use of energy, land, or water (not to mention subsidies). The most revealing comment in the piece pushes that idea that biologic systems generate "waste," and that "waste" is a huge resource that’s going unused. Apparently […]
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Vilsack out; Peterson and Herseth Sandlin square off
Until very recently, speculation around who would take the top spot at Obama’s USDA centered on former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, a champion of both genetically modified seed technology and farm-subsidy reform. But now Vilsack’s out of the running, the Des Moines Register reports. Evidently, a petition from the Organic Consumers Association helped sink his […]
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Food sovereignty needs to be the center of renewed negotiations
With each new event or international conference in 2008’s saga of economic and food crises, there are calls to complete the long-running Doha Round of World Trade Organization negotiations. The international players all act as if achieving a Doha agreement, seemingly any agreement, will help solve one or more aspects of these crises. The latest […]
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New research demonstrates that higher infant mortality rates surround CAFOs
Thanks to Proposition 2, Californians will soon phase out some of the most egregious confining animal conditions. However the rest of the country continues to utilize concentrated animal feeding operations for the production of meat, poultry and dairy products. CAFOs are industrial facilities that are designed to produce the most amount of meat in the […]
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Competing offer for U.S. Sugar complicates Everglades restoration plan
Florida’s intent buy out a giant sugar operation in a move to restore the Everglades is being complicated by a competing offer from the Lawrence Group, a Tennessee farming company. sources:
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The dirt on biodynamic and ‘authentic’ wines
In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night. Dear Checkout Line, What the hell is biodynamic wine and does it taste any better than regular wine? JeffColorado Dear Colorado Jeff, […]
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Monsanto’s man in the Clinton admin joins the transition team, and more
Update [2008-11-20 5:47:7 by Tom Philpott]: Correction: Jill Richardson of La Vida Locavore pointed me to an error in the original post. About former Monsanto vice-president and FDA official Michael R. Taylor, I had written that “He was particularly useful in the effort to prevent abstaining dairies from advertising their milk as rBGH-free.” Not so, […]
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Two studies point to ecosystem damage from factory-style farming
How does chemical-intensive, concentrated agriculture affect surrounding ecosystems — and ones that lie downstream from large operations? Seems like a key question, given that upwards of 95 percent of our food comes from such agricultural methods. Yet there has been surprisingly little study of it. For example, when the meat industry started to rapidly consolidate […]
