agriculture

For some farmers, distant markets offer the best prices

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.

I don't know how many different farmers markets readers have the opportunity to attend within one area. As a consumer, it seems reasonable to pick one and stick with it. But as a farmer, it's a good idea to sell at multiple markets; it offers the opportunity to sell products at different times during the week as produce becomes available and also increases sales, since the farmer can reach that many more customers at each market.

Here in southwest Colorado, the farmer for whom I work attends no fewer than four markets per week. Two of them are fewer than 10 miles from the farm, and the other two are much further afield, requiring drives of 45 and 75 miles to reach. Interestingly, the market that is farthest away is also the most lucrative, and this got me thinking about farm location versus consumer location, a dynamic that makes the buy-local trend a little challenging.

The bees

(thanks LL!)

The toll of agriculture and hundred-year rains on Wisconsin’s farmland

We are, for better or worse, part of the land we live on. We can choose to extract as much as possible from the earth around us, the "Manifest Destiny" (or nature's in my way) line of thinking. Or we can take as little as necessary and leave as small a trace as possible, the "Seventh Generation" concept of the Native American peoples. If farming well were easy and profitable, everyone would be doing it. Farming is never easy, no matter how you go about it, but at least when we farm with nature it's not a 24/7 battle.

As the ground shifts under their feet, food giants experiment with new strategies

When you smile, the food world smiles with you … maybe. Photo: Original by heatkernel For more than a generation, the major corporations that process and sell the vast bulk of our food have had it pretty easy. They’ve had access to cheap energy to ship food over globe-spanning distances and run giant food-processing plants; […]

Drought grips Iraq, threatening crops and water supplies

On top of Iraq’s myriad other problems, drought has hit the country hard recently, impacting crops and water supplies in many regions. Rainfall this winter was about 40 percent lower than usual in Iraq and Turkey, and as a result, the Tigris River near Baghdad is at its lowest level since 2001. In the country’s […]

Conservation land in flood zone opened to grazing

Livestock grazing will be allowed on thousands of acres of Midwest land that had been set aside for conservation, Department of Agriculture Secretary Ed Schaeffer announced this week. Under the federal Conservation Reserve Program, landowners are paid to let their acreage just chill out and be wildlife habitat. But after the region’s recent spate of […]

Atlantic Salmon restoration efforts face grim realities

Stocks of wild salmon in the North Pacific are in trouble. That's news.

What isn't news is that the spring has passed us by in Massachusetts again without returning more than a handful of wild Atlantic Salmon. The river closest to me, the Connecticut, saw just 132 salmon return, nearly all of which were captured at either of two dams and whisked away by biologists working for the Connecticut River Atlantic Salmon Restoration program. The fish are bred at hatcheries so next spring the young can be released back into the river, hopefully to grow, go to sea, and return (others were tagged and released upstream of the dams to breed naturally this fall). But is it worth the effort?

What people cling to when the going gets tough

Things are getting rough here in the land of cheap food. Corn and soy — building blocks of the industrial-food system — are trading at or near all-time highs. And that’s rippling through the food chain, from feedlots and food factories to the supermarket shelf. Here’s the latest: [B]y next year, the price of a […]

When will the conscientious burrito giant pay up for less exploitative tomatoes?

Tomato pickers in Florida: To earn $50, fill and carry 125 buckets. Photo: Coalition of Immokalee Workers. Chipotle Grill has received a lot of good press over its efforts to support local food systems in the areas where it operates. Even I’ve gotten into the act. In a post back in March, I reported on […]