local food

Climate-news poem: Cash for cukes edition

This week’s verse was contributed by the White House as it worked on plans for a farmers market. Check out more climate poems from Grist. First we thought cars were the fix, so Congress made a bet:Give people cash and they will trade their clunking old Corvette.And boy, they did! In drives — uh, droves […]

Katharine Wroth Culture

Wendell Berry on the promise of GMOs to ‘feed the world’

“The inevitable aim of industrial agri-investors is the big universal solution. They want a big product that can be marketed everywhere. And the kind of agriculture we’re talking about that leads to food security and land conservation is locally adapted agriculture. And they can’t do that. Industrial agriculture plants cornfields in Arizona; locally adapted agriculture […]

Tom Philpott Food

Michael Pollan on the affordability of good, local, organic food

I don’t think our goal should be to make all food in America as cheap as cheap food is now. … If the goal is cheap food, we’re going to hurt our farmers, we’re going to hurt the environment, we’re going to hurt the public health. The goal should be to give people the money […]

Lisa Hymas Food

The oil intensity of food

Today we are an oil-based civilization, one that is totally dependent on a resource whose production will soon be falling. Since 1981, the quantity of oil extracted has exceeded new discoveries by an ever-widening margin. In 2008, the world pumped 31 billion barrels of oil but discovered fewer than 9 billion barrels of new oil. […]

Lester Brown Climate & Energy

Food safety: How local can you go?

Photo: Beth RankinThe Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 (FSEA) draft, was introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Waxman on May 26, 2009 and is expected to move quickly through the House. Consumers, farmers, and manufacturers alike all appear to be for a food safety bill, so the question is not whether a […]

Robynn Shrader Food

Can the Internet help small farms act big?

Wired Science has a good piece on the potential for tech startups to play a “disruptive” role in commercial food distribution. The post looks at several web services that are trying to replicate the restaurant supply chain system dominated by produce distribution giant Sysco and its ubiquitous trucks via a network of small farmers, iPhones […]

Tom Laskawy Food

Free local cheese, a win-win-win

Jeff Maurone via Flickr.If you were anywhere near Seattle this weekend and you didn’t make it to the Seattle Cheese Festival, oh man, I’m sorry. Oh man. Pike Place Market, a sample-lover’s paradise on any day, played host to more than 200 artisanal cheesemakers for the weekend. Each brought some fine creations and each offered […]

Jonathan Hiskes Technology

Big Food’s ‘local’ push: what’s it really about?

Photo: TheTruthAbout…, via FlickrThe Ethicurean probably had it right when it declared yesterday that “local” jumped the shark. The shark in this case (or is it the jumper? I’m never sure which is which) is Frito-Lay and its Big Food brethren, which have embarked on marketing campaigns emphasizing the “local” producers who supply them. The […]