farms
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The birds and the weeds: A farm conservation love story
A recent study shows that weeds on farms are crucial to keeping birds and other wildlife alive.
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Can the 2012 Farm Bill protect the Ogallala Aquifer?
Kansas wheat.Photo: Brian McGuirkMy father farmed in Kansas and envied those lucky farmers in the wetter states to the east of us, who could grow 200-bushel corn and other lucrative crops like soy beans and sugar beets. He had to satisfy himself with wheat, a drought-tolerant crop first brought to the States from a place […]
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Willie Nelson wants you to occupy Big Food
No less an authority than Willie Nelson is writing in the Huffington Post, calling on people to Occupy the Food System. Big Agriculture is just as one-percenty as the banks, says Nelson, with most of the resources concentrated in the hands of a few large corporations — and the government isn't doing anything to help. Our […]
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McDonald’s appears to have at least one scruple about farming practices
If you thought it was impossible to get McDonald's to take abusive and unsafe farm practices seriously, prepare to be proved wrong! Turns out, all it takes for McDonald's to break ranks with a supplier is 13 violations of salmonella-prevention regulations, an FDA citation for "significant … and serious violations," and undercover video showing unsanitary […]
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Critical List: Australia will have a carbon tax; 10 percent of Chinese farmland contaminated
Australia is going to have a carbon tax: The prime minister's plan just passed the country's senate. Not only do cars kill, so do commutes. A man in England dumped more than 1 million tires across the country. Heavy metals have contaminated 10 percent of farmland in China. Shorter Rick Perry: The government should stop […]
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Incredible shrinking farmland
Photo: Alicia Guy Joel Huesby comes from a long line of conventional farmers, but in 1994, he had what he calls an epiphany that led him to switch to organic farming. He’s of the mind that we’ll drive ourselves to extinction if we drive our farmlands that way first. “Conventional commodity agriculture, to my way […]
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USDA pushes veggies, but subsidizes meat
The Washington Post reports that the USDA's nutrition guidelines are seriously out of step with food subsidies. The government recommends people eat fruits and veggies as nearly half their daily intake, and protein as less than a quarter — but they subsidize meat in totally different proportions. We whipped up this little graphic to compare […]
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Buy a $150,000 bag of onions to save a family farm
Oh man, you're probably wishing you hadn't spent that $4,500 on a Rick Perry head planter yesterday. If you'd saved it, you could have put it towards ... well, a bag of onions, but also they'll throw in some dirt!
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Field of broken dreams
New labor laws could protect children as young as 12 from working, and even dying, in dangerous jobs on industrial farms. But do they go far enough?