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agriculture

  • ‘Downergate’ reveals gaps in mad-cow testing and trouble in school-lunch sourcing

    In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. Remember those “downer” cows that got forced through the kill line and into the food supply in California’s Westland/Hallmark beef-packing plant — the ones caught on tape by the Humane Society of the United States? Rest assured, friends — that […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • Farmers and processors organize against genetic contamination

    Here in the United States, upwards of 70 percent of corn and 90 percent of soy are genetically modified. Given that corn and soy end up in just about everything — livestock rations (and thus meat, milk, and eggs), nearly all processed foods, and even our gas tanks, avoiding genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is tricky. […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • Conventional milk contains toxics, says the USDA

    The Organic Center acts as a kind of shadow USDA, digesting the latest peer-reviewed research on organic food, translating it into English, and issuing summary reports. Consumers won’t want to miss the center’s newest one on pesticide residues [PDF]. It contains one of those handy guides on which conventional fruits and veggies convey the most […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • A post-petroleum American dream

    "This craziness is not sustainable," concludes The New York Times op-ed columnist Bob Herbert, and he's talking about the economy, not the environment. He continues:

    Without an educated and empowered work force, without sustained investment in the infrastructure and technologies that foster long-term employment, and without a system of taxation that can actually pay for the services provided by government, the American dream as we know it will expire.

    And without petroleum. Oil is shooting over $100 per barrel, caused ultimately by a looming decline in global supply, and exacerbated by rising demand in China and India, foolish policies such as the occupation of Iraq, and repressive regimes such as in Nigeria. And if we are serious about reducing carbon emissions to near zero in order to avert climate catastrophe, we must scale back our use of petroleum to near zero.

    While we're learning to live without petroleum, we need to rebuild the workforce, infrastructure, technologies, and tax system, as Herbert suggests. I will argue in this post that we can accomplish all of these goals by replacing internal combustion engines with electric motors, using other energy sources for other petroleum uses, and perhaps most importantly, by changing the arrangement of the buildings, production, and people in our society in order to eliminate the need for so much petroleum.

    In order to understand how to accomplish all of this, we need to know how petroleum is used, so let's look at some numbers!

    Jon Rynn Cities

  • Thoughts on the NODPA/Stonyfield debate over organic dairy

    About four years ago, I attended a workshop by Jonathan White, the maverick New York State cheese maker/baker/dairy farmer of Bobolink Dairy. Photo: iStockphoto Like a Southern Baptist preacher thundering from the pulpit — only with a Northeastern accent and lots of good humor — White had a message to deliver. He exhorted conventional dairy […]

    Tom Philpott Technology

  • Biodiesel company convinces B.C. restaurants to switch oils

    Came across this piece about a biodiesel company in British Columbia that’s convincing restaurants to switch to a lighter, healthier cooking oil so it can buy the oil and turn it into biodiesel. And partly I’m just excited because the program, called Restaurant Green Zone, is finding the biggest success in Chilliwack! And that’s fun […]

    Katharine Wroth Food

  • Umbra on joining a CSA

    Umbra, I have heard mention of community-supported agriculture programs but don’t really know what they are. The name sounds very cool, but can you let me in on the specifics? Bryties Redding, Calif. Dearest Bryties, The springtime alarm is sounding, and your question is perfectly timed. Some of you might be experiencing hints of spring […]

    Ask Umbra® Culture

  • Dairy producers’ alliance responds to Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farm

    This essay is the latest installment in a debate between Ed Maltby and Gary Hirshberg, CE-Yo of Stonyfield Farm. Maltby opened the debate with this post; Hirshberg responded here; Maltby's response follows below. We are airing the debate at length because we think our readers should know that our organic dairy farmers have reached a crisis point -- squeezed by production costs that are rising much faster than the price they receive in the market.

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    I want to thank Gary Hirshberg for replying so quickly to some of the points that we have been raising for the last six months. Gary and Nancy Hirshberg and the many employees of Stonyfield have been pioneers in the organic movement, along with folks like George Siemon of Organic Valley and Mark Retzloff of Aurora Organic Dairy.

    Gary has long been a leader of the organic community and has helped shape the way in which the industry has expanded. In answering some of Gary's points, I'd like to widen the discussion and move away from sound bites and platitudes that are the bane of our society, and share some of the difficulties of organic dairy that we all struggle with day after day.

    Ed Maltby Technology

  • Pushing for ‘fair food’ on campus in the land of hog factories

    Last year, a bunch of students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill got tired of the industrial dreck served up in the cafeteria. They discovered that the landscape around them was producing some amazing, chemical-free meat and produce and set about figuring out how to get some in school dining halls. Photo: […]

    Tom Philpott Food