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RESULTS		Results 1 – 25 of 50
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Headline	Author	Published	Section
Hole in the Middle To make local food more accessible, time to revive mid-sized farms	Tom Philpott	18 Apr 2008	Victual Reality

Topics: agriculture, farmers markets, food, green living, local food, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Kitchen-Table Issues As the feds bail out Wall Street, here's a food-related fix for Main Street	Tom Philpott	21 Mar 2008	Victual Reality

Topics: agriculture, biofuels, economy, food, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Pay Rent and Eat Too? Rising food prices hit home around the world	Tom Philpott	06 Mar 2008	Victual Reality
Is a change coming to your cart? Photo: iStockphoto Hey you, in the supermarket line -- yeah, you, the one with the stuffed cart. Are you ready to pay up for those groceries? You'd better be, pal. That's the message from Bill Lapp, former chief economist for the food giant Conagra. "I think [U.S.] consumers are more prepared than we realize to accept higher prices on food and I think that's pa ...
Topics: agriculture, environmental justice, food, green living, shopping, Victual Reality (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)

Dominant Traits Monsanto's latest court triumph cloaks massive market power	Tom Philpott	17 Jan 2008	Victual Reality
How does your garden grow? Photo: iStockphoto At first glance, it was an open-and-shut case. In 1998, Mississippi farmer Homan McFarling bought soybean seeds with genetic traits owned by Monsanto, then as now the world's dominant provider of genetically modified seeds -- and also the biggest herbicide maker. Like all farmers who buy GM seeds, McFarling signed a contract obliging him not to ...
Topics: agriculture, Big Ag, business, food, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Lessons From the Oil Patch Why 'the end of cheap food' isn't automatically a good thing	Tom Philpott	20 Dec 2007	Victual Reality
Why "the end of cheap food" isn't automatically a good thing By Tom Philpott 20 Dec 2007 A decade ago, a barrel of oil fetched little more than $10. While the bargain-priced oil gushed, SUVs roared out of dealer lots and carbon emissions rose steadily. To a lot of people concerned about climate change, the time seemed ripe for a steep jump in oil prices. We're in for some roughage. Photo: iStockphoto The end of cheap oil would usher in a new era in which peop ...
Topics: agriculture, energy, food, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Sterile Soil, Dirty Hands An EPA-approved pesticide is worse than the one it's replacing	Tom Philpott	06 Dec 2007	Victual Reality
"The soil is, as a matter of fact, full of live organisms. It is essential to conceive of it as something pulsating with life, not as a dead or inert mass." -- Albert Howard, The Soil and Health, 1947 Strawberry fields poisoned forever? Photo: iStockphoto In October, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency granted temporary approval for use of methyl iodide, a highly to ...
Topics: agriculture, Big Ag, food, toxics, US EPA, Victual Reality (all these topics)

It's the Agronomy, Stupid Why gutting subsidies shouldn't be the focus of Farm Bill reform efforts	Tom Philpott	08 Nov 2007	Victual Reality
A lot of people, myself among them, have spent substantial time this year trying to demystify the 2007 Farm Bill. But as it lurches into its stretch run -- with passage possible by year-end -- I fear that the bill is more shrouded in mystery than ever, even among sustainable-agriculture advocates. The answer ain't blowin' in the wind. Photo: iStockphoto Here's what we ca ...
Topics: agriculture, Congress, economy, industrial ag, legislation, Victual Reality (all these topics)

The Corn Supremacy A conversation with a spokesperson for the National Corn Growers Association and his friend from the American Farmland Trust	Tom Philpott	25 Oct 2007	Victual Reality
The productivity of U.S. corn farmers should inspire awe. According to the U.S. Grains Council, the U.S. produces about 44 percent of the globe's corn crop -- that's more than China, the European Union, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico combined. Iowa alone, which produces a sixth of U.S. corn, produces about as much as the Eu ...
Topics: agriculture, industrial ag, interview, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Cookin' It Old School Time to reinvest in the school-lunch program	Tom Philpott	27 Sep 2007	Victual Reality
At private schools across the country, good cafeteria food is becoming as de rigueur as French classes taught by native speakers, Associated Press reports. Schoolyard vegetable gardens bloom, tended by future Ivy Leaguers under the watch of "sustainability coordinators." In the kitchen, trained cooks transform that bounty into food worthy of enjoying, not merely enduring. Unfortunately ...
Topics: education, food, green living, parenting, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Import-Export Business How globalization is smothering U.S. fruit and vegetable farms	Tom Philpott	30 Aug 2007	Victual Reality
Earlier this month, President Bush roiled U.S. vegetable farmers by announcing a crackdown on undocumented workers. Last week, industrial-meat giant Smithfield Foods goosed the hog-futures market by inking a deal to export 60 million pounds of U.S.-grown pork to China. These events, unrelated though they seem, illustrate a common point: that despite all the recent fuss around loc ...
Topics: agriculture, business, food, international politics, Victual Reality (all these topics)

The Eat-Local Backlash If buying locally isn't the answer, then what is?	Tom Philpott	16 Aug 2007	Victual Reality
Is long-distance better than local? Photo: Sheila Steele Attention farmers' market shoppers: Put that heirloom tomato down and rush to the nearest supermarket. By seeking local food, you're wantonly spewing carbon into the atmosphere. That's the message of a budding backlash against the eat-local movement. The Economist fired a shotgun-style opening salvo last December, peppering what it ...
Topics: agriculture, food, local food, organic food, sustainable ag, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Forget the Farm Bill For now, local politics is the way to effect ag-policy change	Tom Philpott	02 Aug 2007	Victual Reality
Over the past few years, grassroots support has swelled for new federal farm policies -- ones that promote healthy, sustainably grown food, not the interests of a few agribusiness firms. Udder madness. Photo: iStockphoto The target of much of this organizing has been the 2007 farm bill. If past farm bill debates have been the concern of a small cadre of lobbyists and activists, this one ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, Congress, farmers markets, food, industrial ag, Iowa, local food, organic food, politics, sustainable ag, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Whole Market Foods? Why the FTC is right to block Whole Foods' buyout of Wild Oats	Tom Philpott	19 Jul 2007	Victual Reality

Topics: agriculture, business, food, green living, shopping, Victual Reality (all these topics)

The Hand That Feeds Don't blame farmers for the farm-subsidy mess	Tom Philpott	21 Jun 2007	Victual Reality

Topics: agriculture, food, industrial ag, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Slow Food Fight Ruminations on food, class, and Carlo Petrini	Tom Philpott	07 Jun 2007	Victual Reality

Topics: farmers markets, food, green living, San Francisco, slow food, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Family Feud Why agribusiness giants are facing off over corn ethanol	Tom Philpott	24 May 2007	Victual Reality
As recently as 2005, a buck fifty could get you a bushel of corn -- about three days' rations for a confined dairy cow. Today, that same bushel would run you nearly $4. Trouble in Big Ag paradise. Photo: iStockphoto That rapid price increase, inspired by a slew of federal policies that encourage transforming corn into ethanol, is rippling through the global food system, jacking up food prices and squ ...
Topics: biofuels, industrial ag, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Buyer Be Wary On the peculiar American habit of demonizing food	Tom Philpott	10 May 2007	Victual Reality
Not long ago, a reader wrote in with an interesting response to one of my many articles condemning industrially grown corn. Yes, you can buy it! Photo: iStockphoto "When sweet corn appears at the farmers' market next summer, can I buy it in good conscience?" she wanted to know. "Or is it bad for me and bad for the land?" I can see why she might be confused. Even as U.S. farmers pre ...
Topics: advice, agriculture, food, industrial ag, Victual Reality (all these topics)

From Concentrate How food processing got into the hands of a few giant companies	Tom Philpott	26 Apr 2007	Victual Reality
Two years ago, dairy giant Dean Foods shuttered a milk-processing facility in Wilkesboro, a town at the eastern edge of North Carolina's Appalachian Mountains. Photo: iStockphoto Dean processes 35 percent of the fluid milk in the U.S. and Canada -- roughly equal to the combined market share of its three biggest rivals combined. In my area of western North Carolina, it processes 100 percen ...
Topics: food and agriculture, industrial ag, North Carolina, Victual Reality (all these topics)

The Route of the Problem Following U.S. consumerism through the fields of China and Brazil	Tom Philpott	12 Apr 2007	Victual Reality
In what surely counts as one of the greatest feats in the history of global trade, the United States has essentially outsourced its manufacturing base to China in little more than a decade. It all starts with shuttered factories. Photo: iStockphoto But in doing so, the U.S. has helped unleash new trends in global agriculture that threaten global climate stability and biodiversit ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, Brazil, China, industrial ag, United States, Victual Reality, Wal-Mart (all these topics)

Garden Variety Now's the time to discover the myriad pleasures of growing food	Tom Philpott	29 Mar 2007	Victual Reality
"A natural diet lies right at one's feet." -- Masanobu Fukuoka, The One-Straw Revolution It's springtime here on my mountain farm, and that means an explosion of activity. We're starting seeds in one greenhouse, and finishing construction on another. Fields are being tilled, and we're putting in the very first sugar-snap peas and spring onions. We're depleting a pile of compost ...
Topics: food and agriculture, gardening, local food, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Filling Their Sales If organic food is so popular, why are so few farms transitioning their land?	Tom Philpott	22 Mar 2007	Victual Reality
On a recent trip to Austin, I visited the flagship Whole Foods -- a vast space where people gather en masse to render financial sacrifice to that new god, organic food. From the depths of the parking lot, as you make your way up to the store, you're urged again and again by a sign that simply says, "Love where you shop." From the doe-eyed look of the supplicants ...
Topics: business, food and agriculture, organic food, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Food and Punishment Colorado's inmates-as-farmworkers plan says plenty about our food culture	Tom Philpott	15 Mar 2007	Victual Reality
Last summer, the Colorado General Assembly passed some of the nation's most rigorous anti-immigrant policy laws. Debate was fierce -- but only because some GOP lawmakers fumed that the Democratic-engineered crackdown wasn't draconian enough. How times have changed. Essentially, the state's political elite -- backed editorially by The Denver Post -- took aim at its low-wage wo ...
Topics: ag policy, Colorado, food and agriculture, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Dishing It Out My address to the Southern Appalachian Youth on Food conference	Tom Philpott	08 Mar 2007	Victual Reality
One crop to rule them all. Photo: USDA Tucked into the rolling hills of North Carolina's Swannanoa Valley, Warren Wilson College is essentially surrounded by a farm. The school's 800 students not only tend the 275-acre farm -- which includes pastured livestock and vegetables -- they also provide the labor to run the campus. They do everything from accounting to plumbing to cooking in the ca ...
Topics: food and agriculture, industrial ag, sustainable ag, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Fertile Ground Reviving a much-cited, little-read sustainable-ag masterpiece	Tom Philpott	01 Mar 2007	Victual Reality
The real Arsenal of Democracy is a fertile soil, the fresh produce of which is the birthright of nations. -- Sir Albert Howard, The Soil and Health Sir Albert Howard. Around 1900, a 27-year-old British scientist named Albert Howard, a specialist in plant diseases, arrived in Barbados, then a province of the British Empire. His charge was to find cutting-edge cures for diseases that attacked t ...
Topics: food and agriculture, sustainable ag, Victual Reality (all these topics)

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