agriculture

With wheat stocks at all-time lows, a fertilizer magnate utters the F-word

Famine. For us Americans, the word conjures images of heart-rending scenes from distant shores: the kind of images a sad-eyed Sally Struthers busts our chops about on late-night cable TV. Famine is an abstract concept, a specter haunting not us, but distant ancestors and exotic-looking people in faraway lands. Of course, as Richard Manning drives […]

Why are biofuels losing steam in Europe — and barreling ahead in the U.S.?

The signs are cropping up — we just need to heed them. Photo: iStockphoto “Biodiesel: No War Required,” reads a bumper sticker I see more often than you might expect in North Carolina. As in other states across the nation, a lot of activist energy here has gone into creating a market for diesel fuel […]

U.K. government says organic, free-range eggs have ‘significantly’ less salmonella

The case for sustainably grown food as a healthier and safer alternative to industrial dreck is gaining force. Here’s the latest, from Natural Choices UK: A recent [U.K.] government survey shows that organic laying hen farms have a significantly lower level of Salmonella. Salmonella is a bacterium that causes one of the commonest forms of […]

Upton Sinclair on downer cows

Regarding the record-breaking meat recall in California, involving an industrial slaughterhouse that used torture to compel downer (i.e, too sick to walk) cows to slaughter, I caught word of a passage from Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (published exactly 102 years ago Monday). Forcing downer cows through the kill line and into the food supply has […]

ILSR, spinning like a top

This is really, really sad. A group, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which has done stalwart work on relocalizing the economy, has let their pro-local passion overcome their principles.

Now they simply embarass themselves, beating the drums for corn ethanol, using flackery techniques that would do any corporate PR shop proud. Let's start in:

Fortune mag: widespread poverty and child labor in the cocoa-producing world

While I was waxing euphoric last week about Fair Trade and ultra-fancy chocolate ahead of Valentine’s Day, interesting things were happening in the chocolate world. Regulators in Germany raided the offices of seven corporate chocolate makers — including Nestle, Kraft, and Mars — investigating allegations of price fixing. Six food conglomerates process half of the […]

Despite biggest meat recall ever, 37 million pounds of suspect meat made it to schools.

In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat industry. In the last edition of Meat Wagon, we mentioned the scandal at an industrial-scale slaughterhouse in California, where workers had been caught on videotape torturing severely sick ("downer") cows. Horrifically enough, the workers were abusing the enfeebled animals in an attempt to […]

Haagen-Dazs says CCD could interrupt your ice cream fix

As I and many others have pointed out, the loss of as much as 70-80 percent of the US honeybee population to Colony Collapse Disorder is a far greater concern than missing that spot of honey in your lavender soy chai.

Premium ice cream maker Haagen-Dazs has joined in to sound the alarm about CCD and the impact it could have on our food supply

Haagen-Dazs is warning that a creature as small as a honeybee could become a big problem for the premium ice cream maker's business.

At issue is the disappearing bee colonies in the United States, a situation that continue to mystify scientists and frighten foodmakers.

That's because, according to Haagen-Dazs, one-third of the U.S. food supply - including a variety of fruits, vegetables and even nuts - depends on pollination from bees.

Haagen-Dazs, which is owned by General Mills, said bees are actually responsible for 40% of its 60 flavors - such as strawberry, toasted pecan and banana split.

When major corporations who are not "on our side" -- as it were -- begin to notice what environmentalists have been saying and sometimes shouting about for a long time, it means that our message is finally getting through.

Perhaps the Chicken Little accusations will subside now that the corporate apologists wives' supply of white chocolate raspberry truffle could be interrupted.

A view behind the scenes at the EPA and the White House

It is now less than four weeks until the EPA announces its decision on whether to change current national standards for ozone or smog. And things are getting very interesting behind the scenes.

Officially, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget website, the EPA has not yet transmitted its plan to the White House for review. The truth is, the EPA is obviously being picked at by the OMB already.

The Bush administration is just trying to keep the details of this matter as secret as possible. (Some business lobbyists have heard that the EPA is pushing a tougher new standard, though weaker than that recommended by their science advisers.)

Despite the efforts at secrecy, some information is creeping out as EPA puts information in its official regulatory docket. (You can see this for yourself here by searching for docket number EPA-HQ-OAR-2005-0172. )