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Headline	Author	Published	Section
Corn guzzler What it means to put 4.1 billion bushels of corn into our gas tanks	Tom Philpott	13 Aug 2008	Gristmill
The USDA just raised its projection for how much corn it expects the ethanol industry to burn through this year by 150 million bushels. It now expects a total of 4.1 billion bushels of corn to be turned into liquid fuel. That's about double the amount of corn that went to ethanol in 2006 (2.1 billion bushels), and a third again as much as last year (3 billion bushels.) The USDA now expects the '08 corn harvest to hit 12.3 billion bushels. That means that 33 percent of ...
Topics: agriculture, biofuels, Department of Agriculture, ethanol, greenhouse-gas emissions (all these topics)

Corn chronicles USDA says crops have shaken off flood damage	Tom Philpott	13 Aug 2008	Gristmill
In early June, heavy storms and floods pounded the Midwest, threatening the 2008 corn and soy harvests. With heavy U.S. and European biofuel mandates in place, any major shortfall in these key crops would cause food prices to spike. Anticipating a poor harvest, investors bid corn and soy prices to all-time highs. Certain food-politics writers penned grim columns about what it all meant. Since then, however, the Midwestern weather has transformed from way-too-we ...
Topics: agriculture, Department of Agriculture, industrial ag (all these topics)

Sustainable biotech crops -- solution or oxymoron? Industry report touts potential for biotech crops to combat climate change	Meredith Niles	30 Jul 2008	Gristmill
I am always a sucker for a catchy sounding report -- like the one the World Business Council for Sustainable Development released last week: 'Agricultural Ecosystems: Facts and Trends.' It had it all: the noble sounding 'Council,' the association between agriculture and ecosystems, and the appeal to my inner science-geek with words like 'facts' and 'trends.' I printed it out enthusiastically and got out my highlighter, ready to read all of the fascinating new insig ...
Topics: agriculture, climate, Department of Agriculture, GMOs, greenhouse-gas emissions, sustainable ag (all these topics)

A gastronomic renaissance Farmers markets and local agriculture: age-old systems for the future	Jim Goodman	25 Jul 2008	Gristmill
We often think that farmers markets are products of our times as they spring up in cities and small towns across the country. Truth is, a farmers market is the traditional way of selling agricultural produce around the world. The really nice aspect of this transaction is that the farmer receives just compensation for his product and the eater can be assured the product is fresh, local, and grown in a manner that is acceptable to all. If these criteria are not met, the c ...
Topics: agriculture, Department of Agriculture, farmers markets, food, local food (all these topics)

ANWR of the heartland, revisited WaPo's misguided call to scale back the Conservation Reserve Program	Tom Philpott	21 Jul 2008	Gristmill
Back in April, it already seemed obvious: Spooked by skyrocketing prices for corn, soy, and wheat, policymakers would push to put as much land as possible in the Midwest under the plow, environmental consequences be damned. One of the first policy levers, I figured, would involve gutting the Conservation Reserve Program. The CRP is a federal scheme that pays farmers to take ecologically fragile land out of production -- an act which benefits society but would otherwis ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, biofuels, Department of Agriculture, food (all these topics)

In My Hunger Days USDA pessimistic on hunger outlook		09 Jul 2008	News
Posted at 3:57 PM on 09 Jul 2008 In 2006, the U.S. Department of Agriculture calculated that 849 million people across the globe were "food-insecure" -- consuming less than 2,100 calories a day, or, in a word, hungry. But in its 2006 Food Security Report, the agency took an optimistic view of the situation, suggesting that the number of malnourished would fall to 800 million by 2017. Well, so much for that idea: In the just-released ...
Topics: biofuels, Department of Agriculture, food, news (all these topics)

Graze Anatomy Conservation land in flood zone opened to grazing		09 Jul 2008	News
Posted at 1:26 PM on 09 Jul 2008 Livestock grazing will be allowed on thousands of acres of Midwest land that had been set aside for conservation, Department of Agriculture Secretary Ed Schaeffer announced this week. Under the federal Conservation Reserve Program, landowners are paid to let their acreage just chill out and be wildlife habitat. But after the region's recent spate of flooding, Schaeffer gave in to the requests of sev ...
Topics: agriculture, Department of Agriculture, habitat loss, livestock, news (all these topics)

Crisis and opportunity in the farm belt Sen. Grassley: Screw conservation, let's grow more corn!	Tom Philpott	02 Jul 2008	Gristmill
Here in the U.S., our grocery bills are rising faster than they have since Gerald Ford bumbled about the Oval Office. Across the globe, the recent surge in crop prices is putting sufficient food out of reach of millions of people. The dismal human dimension of the food crisis has been amply (if sporadically) covered by the media. But its budding ecological component has gotten short shrift. The price surge has inspired a virtual tsunami of agrichemicals to be spilled on ...
Topics: agriculture, Department of Agriculture, food, industrial ag, Iowa, severe weather (all these topics)

Meat Wagon: Filthy swine U.S. officials dither while antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains creep into our pork supply	Tom Philpott	10 Jun 2008	Gristmill
In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries.The good news is that people are earnestly trying to figure out if a deadly antibiotic-resistant bacteria strain is infecting our nation's vast supply of pork.The bad news is, they don't work for a government regulator with the power to do something about it. Rather, they're university researchers and journalists, whose only real power is the public outrage they can generate through th ...
Topics: agriculture, Department of Agriculture, food, Food and Drug Administration, health, industrial ag (all these topics)

Old MacDonald had a farm bill The good, bad, and ugly in our national five-year agricultural plan	Guest author	04 Jun 2008	Gristmill
This is a guest post from Debra Eschmeyer, marketing and media manager of the National Farm to School Network and the Center for Food & Justice. She works from a fifth-generation family farm in Ohio, where she continues her passion for organic farming by raising heirloom fruits, vegetables, and chickens. ----- We've all noticed higher grocery bills, but did you know Congress passed a $307 billion farm bill in late May that has a much bigger impact on what you ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, Department of Agriculture, food, GMOs, sustainable ag (all these topics)

Grass-fed milk: better for you So says U.K. study	Tom Philpott	30 May 2008	Gristmill
Another study has confirmed that organic milk, from cows that feed on pasture, delivers significantly more nutrition than feedlot milk. The U.K. Independent reports that grass-fed cows offer '60 per cent higher levels of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA9), which has been linked to a reduced risk of cancer.' Omega-3 fatty acids (39 percent higher) and vitamin E (33 percent higher) are also more abundant in milk from grass-fed cows. Unlike in the U.S., U.K. organic standards ...
Topics: agriculture, Department of Agriculture, food, health, organic food (all these topics)

Harm, Harm on the Range Climate change doing a number on U.S. West, says USDA report		27 May 2008	News
Posted at 12:56 PM on 27 May 2008 Climate change is having "profound impacts" on the U.S. West and will continue to do so in coming decades, says a new report spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Titled "The Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture, Land Resources, Water Resources, and Biodiversity," the report focuses on Western rangelands, arid lands, forests, and fisheries. I ...
Topics: agriculture, climate, climate change impacts, Department of Agriculture, news (all these topics)

Feeding the food-for-fuel debate USDA defends America's fuel supply	biodiversivist	27 May 2008	Gristmill
Vinod Khosla. Photo: brettwayn via Flickr. Much of what Vinod Khosla had to say in his latest post, and my responses to that post here, have been covered in previous posts. So, if some of this sounds eerily familiar, now you know why. Admittedly, I have an advantage in this debate because he can't respond directly to my arguments. Remember the West Wing episode where the Josh Lyman character makes the mistake of responding to a blogger? On the other hand, ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, biofuels, Department of Agriculture, energy (all these topics)

USDA: What pesticide use? The agency cravenly stops measuring the poisons used in U.S. farming	Tom Philpott	23 May 2008	Gristmill
The USDA's 'Agricultural Chemical Use Database' is a wonderful thing. With a few clicks, consumers, researchers, and anyone else kind find all manner of information on pesticides, broken down by crop and by state. As an agriculture writer, I have an interest in industrial corn, by far our biggest crop. With a simple search, I find that corn farmers have increased applications of glyphosphate -- Monsanto's broad-spectrum herbicide Roundup -- by a factor of eight since M ...
Topics: agriculture, Department of Agriculture, health, shenanigans, toxics, websites (all these topics)

Downer and out? The USDA's new ban won't keep sick cows out of the food supply	Tom Philpott	23 May 2008	Gristmill
Months after the downer-cow scandal of last winter, USDA chief Ed Schafer announced plans to ban all downer cows from the food supply. The rule involves cows that get sick after an initial inspection by veterinarians before slaughter. Under old rules, such cows could be reinspected by vets and then cleared for slaughter if the vet decided they posed no threat. In the press release announcing the proposed new rules, Shafer had this to say: Last year, of the nea ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, Department of Agriculture, food, health, industrial ag (all these topics)

Not-so-organic salmon USDA considers first-ever organic standards for farmed fish	Andrew Sharpless	20 May 2008	Gristmill
You may have seen 'organic salmon' on the menu in your favorite seafood restaurant or counter. Guess what? It's not organic, according to the USDA. It turns out that some fishmongers have been promoting their fish as organic with definitions of their own. This week, a USDA advisory panel will consider a key element of the country's first-ever standards for 'organic' farmed fish, including salmon. The surprising news is that this standard -- if adopted -- could ...
Topics: aquaculture, Department of Agriculture, food, oceans, organic food, salmon (all these topics)

The farm bill, Archer Daniels Midland's man at USDA, and me I loathe the farm bill but can't bring myself to accept the Bush administration's party line	Tom Philpott	16 May 2008	Gristmill
People keep asking me what I think about the new farm bill -- the one that will soon likely become law, since both houses of Congress passed it with majorities that would withstand Bush's threatened veto.I hate it; it fails utterly to make the investments we need to rebuild local and regional food systems around cities and in rural areas. But I think I hate the Bush administration's vision for agriculture even more. The debate between Congress and the Bushies has change ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, Department of Agriculture, food (all these topics)

What the world needs now Three million more acres of industrial corn?	Tom Philpott	18 Apr 2008	Gristmill
According to USDA projections, U.S. farmers will plant 86 million acres of corn in 2008. At any time in the last 50 years, that would be plenty. Since 1958, USDA figures tell us, farmers have broken 80 million acres only ten times. In fact, if farmers meet expectations, 2008 will rank as the second-largest planting of corn since 1949. If you own shares in a fertilizer company -- corn being an extremely fertilizer-intensive crop -- you're celebrating. Indeed, shares o ...
Topics: agriculture, Big Ag, cellulosic ethanol, Department of Agriculture, industrial ag (all these topics)

The solution beneath our feet As food prices rise, policymakers ignore potential of home and community gardens	Guest author	11 Apr 2008	Gristmill
This is a guest essay by Bill Duesing, executive director of the Northeast Organic Farmers Association of Connecticut. It originally aired on WSHU Public Radio in Fairfield, Conn. ----- 'Gardens are viewed as 'hobbies' by most politicians/bureaucrats and administrators and are seldom taken seriously as real sources of real food,' says a University of Connecticut agricultural extension specialist, speaking of the United States Department of Agriculture. This attitud ...
Topics: agriculture, Department of Agriculture, food, gardening, organic food (all these topics)

Up, up, and away: corn edition Corn hits a new record -- $6 a bushel	Joseph Romm	06 Apr 2008	Gristmill
At the end of February, I blogged on a Fortune article that had the subhead 'The ethanol boom is running out of gas as corn prices spike.' That article noted: Spurred by an ethanol plant construction binge, corn prices have gone stratospheric, soaring from below $2 a bushel in 2006 to over $5.25 a bushel today. As a result, it's become difficult for ethanol plants to make a healthy profit, even with oil at $100 a barrel. Just six weeks later, we have an AP article ...
Topics: agriculture, biofuels, cellulosic ethanol, Department of Agriculture, energy, food (all these topics)

Against the grain: What are they thinking? Part 2 Time bashes grain ethanol	Joseph Romm	03 Apr 2008	Gristmill
This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project. ----- All that glitters is not gold. And all that grows is not green. That is the belated realization about grain ethanol -- in fact, about any ethanol whose feedstock is grown on cropland. Joe Romm has done a good job posting on this issue, including his report on the recent studies featured in Science magazine. I'd like to weigh in with a few add ...
Topics: agriculture, cellulosic ethanol, deforestation, Department of Agriculture, energy, ethanol, magazines, renewable energy (all these topics)

Leave Us a Loan Federal loan program for coal-fired power plants suspended amid climate, cost concerns		05 Mar 2008	News
Posted at 7:10 AM on 05 Mar 2008 A federal loan program for coal-fired power plants in rural areas has been suspended due to concerns over climate change and the costs of the program. The Rural Utilities Service, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, issued $1.3 billion in loans to coal plants since 2001 under the program. However, RUS officials said costs for new coal-fired power plants ...
Topics: business, coal, Department of Agriculture, news, United States (all these topics)

Wildlife, Shmildlife USDA head suggests harvesting switchgrass on conservation land		04 Mar 2008	News
Posted at 1:25 PM on 04 Mar 2008 Department of Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said Tuesday that it would be a "great idea" to allow farmers to grow and harvest biofuel-bound switchgrass on land currently set aside as wildlife habitat. More than 34 million acres in the U.S. are in the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays landowners to convert cropland to native grasses and keep it largely untouche ...
Topics: biofuels, Department of Agriculture, energy, habitat loss, habitat protection, news (all these topics)

Smog struggle A view behind the scenes at the EPA and the White House	Frank O'Donnell	14 Feb 2008	Gristmill
It is now less than four weeks until the EPA announces its decision on whether to change current national standards for ozone or smog. And things are getting very interesting behind the scenes. Officially, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget website, the EPA has not yet transmitted its plan to the White House for review. The truth is, the EPA is obviously being picked at by the OMB already. The Bush administration is jus ...
Topics: agriculture, air pollution, climate, Department of Agriculture, greenhouse-gas emissions, politics, US EPA (all these topics)

The Butz Stops Here A reflection on the lasting legacy of 1970s USDA Secretary Earl Butz	Tom Philpott	07 Feb 2008	Victual Reality
Industrial agriculture lost one of its greatest champions last week: Earl "Rusty" Butz, secretary of the USDA under Nixon. Blustering, boisterous, and often vulgar, Butz lorded over the U.S. farm scene at a key period. He plunged a pitchfork into New Deal agricultural policies that sought to protect farmers from the big agribusiness companies whose interests he openly ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, Department of Agriculture, industrial ag, Victual Reality (all these topics)

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