Big Ag
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Arkansas’ Blanche Lincoln grabs Senate ag committee chair [UPDATED]
Blanche Lincoln: bully for industrial cotton growers; bad for climate change mitigation. [Note: This post has been updated to reflect confirmation that Blanche Lincoln will take the top Senate Agriculture Committee post. Additional updates at bottom of post–including information about Lincoln’s status as a favorite of agribusiness funders.] Late yesterday afternoon marked a dark moment […]
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California’s ag crisis and our concentrated food system
Not many “green shoots” in the Central Valley. California’s severe drought–which could well be related to climate change–isn’t just menacing Los Angeles. The drought has helped tip the state’s Central Valley, epicenter of U.S. fruit and vegetable production, into a severe crisis, The Wall Street Journal reports. Hammered by dry weather, the weak economy, and […]
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The way we eat is trashing the fragile conditions that make human life possible
In the ongoing debate about whether sustainable agriculture can “feed the world,” it’s important not to lose sight of what industrial agriculture is doing to ecosystems–both in specific areas and on a grand scale. Producing and distributing lots and lots of calories, leveraged by fossil fuel and synthetic fertilizers and poisons, may solve certain short-term […]
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Sustainable ag meets the MSM — and wins!
TIME Magazine‘s current cover story wants you to know that our fossil-fueled, chemically intensive industrial food system is destined to fail. Granted, the second part of that sentence isn’t news to Grist readers. But the first part of that sentence is news. Personally, I wouldn’t have expected to read the following positively Philpottian (if not […]
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An ‘agri-intellectual’ talks back
Photo illustration by Tom Twigg / Grist A lot of folks have asked what I think of the essay “The Omnivore’s Delusion: Against the Agri-intellectuals,” by Missouri corn/soy farmer Blake Hurst, published in The American, the journal of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute. My first reaction is that I’m thrilled this debate is taking place. […]
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Cargill, the National School Lunch Program, and antibiotic-resistant salmonella
In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. ———- Is antibiotic-resistant-salmonella-tainted beef what’s for dinner? Standard j-school-style journalism takes a lot of lumps these days–and justifiably so. To maintain an illusion of “objectivity,” traditional reporters write like above-the-fray observers merely recording “the facts”–as if choosing which facts to […]
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Offsets and Big Ag: Does the climate bill give away too much to the farm sector?
Special Series: What’s the deal with offsets?Photo illustration by Tom Twigg / GristThe compliance market for offsets proposed under the House’s American Clean Energy and Security Act would not just mean more opportunity for companies already in the business of selling carbon offsets. It would also result in a major realignment in the types of […]
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Can climate legislation survive the Senate Ag Committee’s embrace?
Real climate action–or agribusiness as usual?Photo: mike138After the House narrowly passed the Waxman-Markey climate legislation, there was some talk that the bill might be “strengthened” in the Senate. The bill’s sponsors had faced a serious slog in getting it through the House, and were forced into making large compromises with the energy and agribusiness industries. […]
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On the origin of ‘superweeds’ and the chemical treadmill
“There is no telling how many articles I have written with the theme of ‘Roundup every Monday morning until there is nothing out there but soybeans’ or ‘the best tank mix partner with Roundup is more Roundup.’ That made soybean farming so easy that even I could probably have done it.”—Ford L. Baldwin of Arkansas-based […]
