Comments Jeremy Cherfas has made

  • Thanks Meredith. I was thinking about transport on roads -- the food miles, if you like.The non-road vehicles is a bonus, I suppose.

    On New climate legislation overlooks a major GHG source: industrial ag posted 7 months, 4 weeks ago 21 Responses

  • Excellent article. Thanks

    Can someone familiar with the bill tell me whether the transport associated with agriculture is subject to cap or not?

    On New climate legislation overlooks a major GHG source: industrial ag posted 7 months, 4 weeks ago 21 Responses

  • Agreed, but

    Both of your suggestions make excellent sense, and I do hope that they are taken heed of not just in affluent countries but also in the developing world.

    The big problem for strictly local growing, though, is calories. Good nutrition is probably better supplied locally in almost all cases. But the calories needed to do the heavy lifting of nutrition may be better grown further away. and even after internalising all the external costs of transport and the like, on a level playing field it may still make economic sense for people (and countries) to buy major cereal grains from elsewhere while supplementing that with local products for healthy nutrition.On Sen. Grassley: Screw conservation, let's grow more corn! posted 1 year, 5 months ago 33 Responses

  • It isn't the O that matters

    it is the entire scale of the system. If you mix produce -- any produce -- in large warehousing and packing operations then you allow cross contamination. If you speed up the processes, because it is more profitable, then you allow cross contamination. doesn't matter whether you are certified organic or not.

    It isn't as if farmers actually smear feces on the tomatoes, which is what you would like us to think.

    There is contamination via water and via soil, and the best guarantee of safe produce is to buy from people who grow as if they will have to eat it themselves.
    On Now's the time for scapes and green garlic posted 1 year, 5 months ago 12 Responses

  • Of course, it depends where you are starting from

    Yes, you're right, the local farmers are less productive than the intensive farmers on the flat lands, with the high-potential varieties, the fertilizers and pesticides and the irrigation. But that's a really unfair comparison. Nothing would ever make them even close in simply measured productivity.

    The good news in that article, for me, was that they are 3 to 4 times more productive than they were 20 years ago. That is making it possible to stay on the land and to be somewhat insulated from market prices for maize.

    I suspect we are in total agreement, and that we barely begin to know how to measure "productivity".
    On I loathe the farm bill but can't bring myself to accept the Bush administration's party line posted 1 year, 6 months ago 4 Responses

  • It isn't less productive

    Thanks for the link to the NYT article, but why do you say that the farmers in Oaxaca are less productive? The whole point of the article is that they are more productive than they used to be. Maybe they don't compete with intensive industrial agriculture, but that's hardly the point. They are now more productive than they were 20 years ago, and that is enabling them to eat and to stay on the land.On I loathe the farm bill but can't bring myself to accept the Bush administration's party line posted 1 year, 6 months ago 4 Responses

  • Thanks for this

    I somehow missed this a couple of days ago, and found it when a friend commented on a post I had written.

    The problems are not exclusive to the US, although where the US leads the rest of us follow, and that includes repeating some of your mistakes.

    When you consider the sorts of things that Wes Jackson of The Land Institute has been saying about community values and the rest of it, I'm wondering whether anyone has done a good economic analysis of how mid-swize farms stack up.On To make local food more accessible, time to revive mid-sized farms posted 1 year, 7 months ago 10 Responses

  • Just say no

    As others have already noted, the big effect will be on commercial growers and the supermarkets who support them. Gardeners and people with access to a decent farmers' market will continue to be able to enjoy great tomatoes, at least for part of the year. The rest of the year, there's not much enjoyment anyway!On Another big horticultural seed company bought by Monsanto posted 1 year, 7 months ago 6 Responses

  • Absolutely right ...

    ... and that applies in spades to TV documentaries. But somehow, while I'm sneering at the obvious half-truths in some piece I know a little about, I'll often lap up as gospel information on a topic that's new to me.

    I like consistency, I'm just not always able to do it.
    On The NYT hails the era of the hipster farmer posted 1 year, 8 months ago 9 Responses

  • Thanks ...

    ... for pointing out what we all more or less know; that the press is fine and dandy and useful, but not on topics you yourself actually know something about.
    On The NYT hails the era of the hipster farmer posted 1 year, 8 months ago 9 Responses

  • Make better compost

    If you get intercrops of anything after spreading compost, you're not making your compost properly.

    Having said that, I agree that amaranth is a fine and overlooked crop.

    False alarms? I don't think so. Just that in the agriculture you're familiar with, people pay for fungicides and the like. Asian soybean rust has cost Brazil millions of dollars a year.On With global wheat stocks at all-time lows, a killer fungus looms posted 1 year, 8 months ago 5 Responses

  • North America just as vulnerable

    Dear Tom

    You single out the quote about Africa and Asia's wheats all being susceptible.

    You think North America's are any better off? The big difference is, North America can afford fungicides.

    JeremyOn With global wheat stocks at all-time lows, a killer fungus looms posted 1 year, 8 months ago 5 Responses

  • F1s maybe

    You dson't think it could be that those children are making F1 hybrids, rather than GMOs?

    It's the kind of mistake a not-very-savvy writer might make.

    Not that I'm condoning the use of underpaid child labour, just trying to get at the facts ...On Forbes says that Frankenfruits are already here posted 1 year, 9 months ago 5 Responses

  • And the insects ...

    Had you seen the recent report, of the first detected resistance to BT engineered into crops? It is here http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v26/n2/abs/nbt1382.html ...On While global GMO acreage surges, herbicide-resistent weeds thrive posted 1 year, 9 months ago 29 Responses

  • When in rome

    Here in Rome the local transit www.atac.roma.it has a brilliant mapping service that offers the choice of transit or other. Not bikes, but Rome is not very bike friendly.On Will Google Maps or Mapquest be the first to help folks travel green? posted 2 years, 7 months ago 16 Responses

  • Divine chocolate

    Have you heard of Divine Chocolate, which is 45% owned by a cocoa cooperative in Ghana? I saw it in an article in the Economist a couple of weeks ago. that's behind a paywall, but the company has lots of information and seems to have US outlets.

    As for the crappy chocolate, we've had that in the UK for years, to the point where the EU was rumoured to be considering forcing UK chocs to be labelled "chocolate-flavoured vegetable fat" or something equally apocryphal. People who eat crap continue to eat it. As one commenter said, what's the problem?
    On ADM gets its filthy paws on an immaculate confection posted 2 years, 7 months ago 23 Responses

  • EZ bread

    I saw the article, and as a confirmed sourdough baker, started last night. The dough is  incredibly wet, almost as wet as an Italian biga, or a poolish. The instruction to shape it into a ball was a joke; I have a pancake, almost coming to the end of its rise. The covered casserole is in the oven. Lift-off is in about 20 minutes. We shall see.

    If it works, I'll be delighted. and I will try it with a sourdough starter, for sure.
    On A revolutionary bread-making technique, and two new foodie blogs posted 3 years ago 5 Responses