corn
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How industrial agriculture makes us vulnerable to climate change, Mississippi floods edition
An “ephemeral gulley” that carried soil and agrichemicals from an Iowa farm toward the Gulf of Mexico during a 2010 storm. Photo: Environmental Working GroupNancy Rabalais, marine scientist and executive director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, is probably our foremost authority on the vast, oxygen-depleted “dead zone” that rears up annually in the Gulf […]
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Government-backed corn ethanol lurches on, paving a road to nowhere
During the Bush II administration, I used to groan that the closest thing we had to a concerted policy response to climate change was the federal government’s slew of goodies for corn-based ethanol. It was a monumentally depressing situation, because propping up corn-derived fuel is expensive and (despite industry hype) doesn’t actually do much, if […]
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Big Ag is pissing away our nation’s rich topsoil
Midwest farmland is more scarred and eroded then previous reports suggested.Photo: Environmental Working GroupBad federal policy and intensifying storms are washing away the rich dark soils in the Midwest that made this country an agricultural powerhouse and that remain the essential foundation of a healthy and sustainable food system in the future. That’s the alarming […]
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Europe to turn Africans into fuel
After discovering the disastrous consequences of turning its own food crops into fuel, China has turned to cassava — mostly from southeast Asia — as a source for biofuels. Europe, meanwhile, is buying up tracts of "marginal land" in Africa in order to grow jatropha for biofuels. In the U.S., of course, it's corn for […]
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The American diet in one chart, with lots of fats and sugars
This is a non-interactive version of the chart. Also check out the interactive version, by Civil Eats and the UC-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism News21 course.Over on Civil Eats, Andrea Jezovit has put together a terrific interactive chart on the U.S. diet. Using USDA data for “average daily calories available per capita, adjusted for spoilage […]
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'Bio-based': organic’s sketchy new cousin
Will the USDA's new "bio-based" label, for products made with renewable ingredients, actually just enable greenwashing?
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Why Mexico is such a mess
Tufts researcher Tim Wise argues that U.S. involvement in the Mexico meltdown goes beyond our role as ultimate consumer of its drugs -- basically, NAFTA plus corn dumping equals an economic void filled by the narco trade.
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Corn lobby cashes in on tax compromise
It wasn't just plutocrats who made out like bandits in President Obama's grand tax compromise. King Corn got his paws into the public till, too, snatching a cool $5 billion. So why does fiscal rectitude mean that school lunches only get a tiny boost -- offset by a cut in food stamps?
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Leaked document shows EPA allowed bee-toxic pesticide despite own scientists’ red flags
An internal EPA memo leaked Wednesday shows that the agency has been ignoring warnings from its own scientists about the possible pollinator-killing side effects of clothianidin, a Bayer pesticide the EPA approved for widespread use on corn and other crops.