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  • Heritage Foods’ Patrick Martins wants to put slaughterhouses back in the city [Q&A]

    Rare breed: Patrick Martins moves old-school meat.(Les Meyers photo)After founding Slow Food USA in 2000, Patrick Martins went on to cofound Heritage Foods USA, a nationwide purveyor of meat from sustainably raised, heritage-breed animals, which he continues to head. And every Sunday, he records a radio show & podcast, The Main Course, from New York […]

  • Biochar – probably not going to save the world after all

    Biochar is being promoted as a way to save the world. (I admit to being optimistic about this myself for a very brief time.) It certainly sounds good. Take agricultural or forestry waste that is pretty much pure carbon, with almost none of the other nutrients plants need. Burn it without oxygen, producing a bit […]

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    A video smorgasbord of sustainable-food speakers

    How we let our biology end up in the hands of Nestlé and Unilever and General Foods, we can leave to cultural historians to figure out, But we know now that in order to take back the ownership and responsibility for our health, and the biological integrity of our oceans and our land, we have […]

  • A new café owner forages and finds a fresh take on sustainability

    From activists to politicians, everybody loves to talk about the promise of green jobs. But in reality, who the heck actually has a green job, and how do you get one? In our new column, “I Have a Green Job,” Grist will be regularly profiling one of the lucky employed who has landed a job […]

  • What climate change means for the wine industry

    John Williams has been making wine in California’s Napa Valley for nearly 30 years, and he farms so ecologically that his peers call him Mr. Green. But if you ask him how climate change will affect Napa’s world famous wines, he gets irritated, almost insulted. “You know, I’ve been getting that question a lot recently, […]

  • Interview with ‘Growing Green’ water steward Mike Benziger

    An April 13, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) announced the four winners of its second annual “Growing Green” awards, which honor leaders in the sustainable-food world in four categories: “thought leader,” “producer,” business leader,” and “water steward.” I interviewed “thought leader” Fred Kirschenmann here and “business leader” Karl Kupers of Shepherd’s Grain here. Now […]

  • Cuba’s urban-ag revival offers limited lessons

    Cuba’s flourishing urban agriculture comes with a strong dose of government control. This post originally appeared on Civil Eats. Many of us in the U.S. sustainable-food movement idolize Cuba’s experience in building a vibrant urban-farming sector. This idealization is due to the lack of information available on the Cuban system, as caused by the travel […]

  • Rob Jones

    Art: Nat Damm Rob Jones Cofounder, Crop Mob Carrboro, N.C. Like a growing number of young folks across the country, Rob Jones, 27, likes to get his hands in the dirt, making his foodshed and community more robust and vibrant. Once each month, Jones and a band of young agrarians alight upon an area farm. […]

  • LaDonna Redmond

    Art: Nat Damm LaDonna Redmond President, Institute for Community Resource Development; Founder, Graffiti and Grub Chicago, Ill. A decade ago, LaDonna Redmond found that her infant son had an array of food allergies. After doing research, she concluded the best diet for her family was organic whole foods. Trouble was, in her west Chicago neighborhood, […]