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Big Ag

  • Another big horticultural seed company bought by Monsanto

    When Monsanto buys into a market, they buy in big. In 2005, Monsanto's seed/genetic trait holdings were primarily in corn, cotton, soybeans, and canola. That year, they purchased Seminis, the world's largest vegetable seed company (see And We Have the Seed) specializing in seed for vegetable field crops. Now their takeover of the vegetable seed sector continues, as they have announced the intent to purchase the Dutch breeding and seed company, De Ruiter Seeds.

    Matthew Dillon Technology

  • Farmworker Awareness Week is a chance to recognize the people whose labor means we can eat

    This is Farmworker Awareness Week, a time to support the millions of farmworkers whose labor puts food on every American table, and who work and live in some of the worst environmental conditions in our nation.

    It's estimated that 2 to 3 million farmworkers plant, tend, and harvest American crops every year. Many farmworkers in the U.S. are migrants who move from place to place following the harvest. Where I live, in North Carolina, migrant farmworkers are the majority. The average annual income for a farmworker in the United States is about $11,000, or about $16,000 for a farmworking family (though pay on the East Coast is lower than the national average). Farmworkers live in overcrowded housing and very few receive health care or unemployment benefits. Here in North Carolina, about half of our farmworkers cannot afford enough food for themselves and their families.

    Fawn Pattison Technology

  • Gourmet magazine points the way toward a green and smart farm policy

    In Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, there’s a detailed article about the farm-subsidy mess. It can be summarized as follows: 1) the government-engineered ethanol boom has driven up farm-commodity prices; 2) farm incomes are sharply up; yet 3) the government still makes subsidy payments in the billions per year; and thus 4) it’s time to cut […]

    Tom Philpott Politics

  • The burrito giant buys pork from celebrity farmer Joel Salatin

    Chipotle Mexican Grill used to be, but no longer is, partly owned by McDonald’s. It runs 700 restaurants nationwide — with plans to roll out 125 more this year — and is considered one of the nation’s fastest-growing “casual dining” chains. And it seems earnestly interested in sourcing ingredients from small- and mid-sized farmers near […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • Recent studies: organic ag is just as productive, and better for you

    For years, industrial-food enthusiasts such as Norman Borlaug have attacked organic farming on two grounds: 1) it produces essentially the same nutritional results as chemical-intensive farming, and 2) it’s less productive. Both of those criticisms are crumbling. This month, the Organic Center released a “state of science” analysis of peer-reviewed studies comparing the nutritional content […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • Canada says no to ethanol waste as cow feed, and more

    In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat industry. Back in January, a high USDA official made a pair of statements that say a lot about how we regulate industrial food production here in the United States. On the one hand, he admitted to a journalist that feeding cows high levels […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • Rainforest Action Network’s new pledge petition

    The following post is by Earl Killian, guest blogger at Climate Progress.

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    In Hell and High Water, Joe lays out his proposals for how to slow down our greenhouse-gas emissions in the first half of this century, giving us the breathing space to eliminate them in the second half. His program primarily consists of deploying existing technology, and it is quite doable, should we find the political will.

    His last proposal, however, is to "stop all tropical deforestation, while doubling the rate of new tree planting." I've always considered this to be the toughest item on his list to acheive. So it is encouraging to find a group that is working directly on pieces of the problem. Rainforest Action Network has launched a campaign to stop U.S. agribusiness expansion in the rainforests. In a recent action, they have asked Archer Daniels Midland to sign a pledge to halt their palm oil madness. In particular, the pledge asks ADM to "once and for all commit to halting all direct or indirect engagement with companies that destroy tropical rainforest ecosystems for industrial biofuels."

    Joseph Romm Technology

  • Antibiotic-resistant bacteria thrives in CAFO pork, and Wall Street gobbles up Big Meat shares

    In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat industry. Back in December, Michael Pollan wrote a important article about the antibiotic resistant bacteria MSRA, which Pollan decsribed like this: … the very scary antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococcus bacteria that is now killing more Americans each year than AIDS — 100,000 infections […]

    Tom Philpott Technology

  • In Arkansas, state ag officials turn to Syngenta to solve problems caused by Monsanto

    In the late 1990s, farmers in the Southeast began planting Roundup Ready cotton — genetically engineered by Monsanto to withstand heavy doses of Roundup, the seed giant’s own blockbuster herbicide. As a result, use of Roundup exploded — and the farmers enjoyed “clean” (i.e., weedless) fields of monocropped cotton. But after a point, something funny […]

    Tom Philpott Technology