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Big Ag

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    A quarter-century later, lessons from the world’s deadliest agrichemical disaster

    Today is the 25th anniversary of the Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) leak at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India. The number of people affected, injured, and killed has been the subject of debate. But it seems clear that a half a million were exposed to some degree to MIC and other chemicals released and approximately […]

    Chris Bedford Food

  • Will Africa’s farmland become a ‘resource curse’?

    Palm-oil trees in the making, Ivory Coast.In his Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis teases out the mechanisms of famine in British-ruled 19th century India. When a drought would wipe out a grain harvest in one region of India, the price of grain would spike. People all over the subcontinent would suddenly find themselves priced out […]

    Tom Philpott Politics

  • No to Obama’s agrichemical industry man, yes to Bed-Stuy Farm

    This post marks the launch of “Plate Tectonics,” a new feature that highlights ways that citizen action can move the food system in more sustainable directions. —————– How do we stop this thing?Like many people, I applauded when Michelle Obama broke ground on her organic garden–and jeered when Croplife America, the pesticide industry’s main lobby […]

    Tom Philpott Politics

  • Corporate agribusiness divides farmers

    Most farmers Jim Goodman knows see organic farming as just another way to farm, curious, perhaps a bit backward, but to most conventional farmers organic farming doesn't even register. With agribusiness however, it's another story. They're not content with just 96.5 percent of the food system, they want it all.

    Jim Goodman Food

  • Sen. Inhofe and U.S. Farm Bureau chief casually chat about destroying the climate bill

    Break out the heavy artillery: Sen. Inhofe leads the denier brigades. Photo: U.S. ArmyPaging Michael Specter: I’ve got some live ones for you. Deniers, that is–folks who irrationally cling to faith-based beliefs, despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary. I’m not talking fear-mongering Internet bandits here–guys who amplify their dubious screeds on large-type blogs. I’m […]

    Tom Philpott Politics

  • Six months after the outbreak, who’s investigating the CAFO-swine flu link?

    Not hogging the H1N1 spotlight: A “state of the art” pig CAFO in Georgia.Photo courtesy of USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.“When respiratory viruses get into these confinement facilities, they have continual opportunity to replicate, mutate, reassort, and recombine into novel strains … The best surrogates we can find in the human population are prisons, military […]

    Tom Philpott Politics

  • Obama’s attempt to tap an agrichemical-industry flack runs into trouble

    While in charge of governmental affairs at Croplife America, Isi Siddiqui, second from left, talks global patent law with U.S. Trade Office officials on April 22, 2009. But don’t use the “L” word! Photo: U.S. State Department “[Croplife America] was relentless in its pursuit of monitoring and actively engaging with key influencers in its attempts […]

    Tom Philpott Politics

  • A new direction on research at the USDA?

    Last week, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack gave a speech on the role of research at the USDA at the launch of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), the research arm of that agency formerly referred to as the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES). Vilsack had this to say in […]

    Paula Crossfield Technology

  • Big Ag’s odd obsession with You-Know-Who

    I really really really didn’t want to write another post on Michael Pollan. Don’t get me wrong — I’m a big fan. It’s just that reducing the whole of the food movement to Pollan’s work naturally ignores so much else that’s going on. But don’t blame me for this post. Blame Big Ag. These guys […]

    Tom Laskawy Food