agriculture
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The 12 (annotated) principles for a healthy food and agriculture system
Being based in Northern California, I am lucky to be located at the epicenter of the sustainable agriculture and Slow Food movements in the U.S.; it means very tasty cuisine all year round. I was intrigued by the recent 12 principles for a healthy food and agricultural system disseminated by some of the luminaries in […]
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The party scene is all about the energy debate tonight
The party circuit tonight is oddly exemplary of the energy debate in the country right now. The Minnesota Agri-Growth Council is hosing “AgNite,” where you can be sure that there will be some lively discussion about the ethanol issue. That starts at 8 p.m., and it’s supposedly the hot ticket tonight. Starting at 9 p.m. […]
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Wendell Berry’s statement of facts
Poet, essayist, novelist and “local-ist” Wendell Berry kicked off the final panel of the Slow Food Nation “Food for Thought” series on Saturday by reading a short statement describing the current food crisis. For too long, humans have been spared, mainly by the cheapness of the fossil fuels, from the universal necessity of local adaptation. […]
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Slow foodies unveil declaration of sustainability
Copies of the Slow Food Declaration at San Francisco City Hall. Some of the leading voices in the movement for a sustainable agriculture system stood together Thursday to unveil the “Declaration for Healthy Food and Agriculture,” a 12-point set of principles for reorienting American food away from corporate farms and long-haul delivery to local producers […]
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Long live ‘do-nothing farming’
I was aiming at a pleasant, natural way of farming which results in making the work easier instead of harder. "How about not doing this?" "How about not doing that?" — that was my way of thinking. I ultimately reached the conclusion that there was no need to plow, no need to apply fertilizer, no […]
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Can sustainable farming provide a sustainable living?
In “Dispatches from the Fields,” Ariane Lotti and Stephanie Ogburn, who are working on small farms in Iowa and Colorado this season, share their thoughts on producing real food in the midst of America’s agro-industrial landscape. —– Should small-scale farmers who grow organically and sell locally or regionally be able to make a middle-class living […]
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U.S. foreign policy: GMO all the way
About a week ago, The New York Times ran a brief interview with Nina V. Federoff, official “science and technology adviser” to the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Not surprisingly, Condoleeza Rice’s science czar has a special place in her heart for genetically modified organisms. In the Times interview, Federoff defends […]
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Notes on a recent trip to Mexico
In Mexico, a milpa is a garden patch, usually kept by several families, to grow a substantial portion of a year’s sustenance. Milpas are typically dominated by corn — first domesticated in present-day Mexico thousands of years ago — but also contain stunning agricultural and nutritional diversity. In addition to corn for tortillas, traditional milpas […]
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We waste a lot of food and a lot of water, says report
The world grows more than enough food to sustain the global population, but half of that food is wasted — and thus half of the water used in food production is wasted as well, says a new report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, International Water Management Institute, and Stockholm Water Management Institute. […]
