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RESULTS		Results 401 – 425 of 703
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Headline	Author	Published	Section
'Free' market religion kills Noticing the elephant stomping Africa	JMG	13 Oct 2007	Gristmill
Bob ('Prisoner of Trebekistan') Harris notices how often U.S. media aids and abets counterproductive U.S. foreign 'aid' policies. The same people whose worship of the so-called free market allows them to demolish countries are the ones leading the Bush Administration's efforts to ensure that the global response to global heating doesn't adopt any heresies. Which is why our policy response to global heating has been zilch. That's the headline of this front-page story in today's ...
Topics: ag subsidies, agriculture, Malawi (all these topics)

Table Talk A conversation with Michael Pollan	Tom Philpott	12 Oct 2007	Grist Feature
In his 1996 book Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom, the great food anthropologist Sidney Mintz concluded that the United States had no cuisine. Interestingly, Mintz's definition of cuisine came down to conversation. For Mintz, Americans just didn't engage in passionate talk about food. Unlike the southwest French and their cassoulet, most Americans don't obsess and quarrel about what comprises, say, an authentic veggie burge ...
Topics: agriculture, food, health (all these topics)

'The ABCs of rainforest destruction' Raising a ruckus about agrofuels at the Chicago Board of Trade	Tom Philpott	11 Oct 2007	Gristmill
From the The Chicago Tribune: Police this morning arrested five people who scaled the Chicago Board of Trade building in the Loop and unfurled a banner to protest the destruction of the world's rain forests. The demonstrators, members of the Rainforest Action Network ... displayed a 50-foot banner protesting three U.S. agriculture companies. The protest was part of a campaign to "halt agribusiness expansion in the rain forests of South America, Southeast Asia an ...
Topics: agriculture, business, Chicago, grassroots activism, industrial ag (all these topics)

In the Belly of the Beast The savory challenges of being a sustainable chef in Big Ag country	Kurt Michael Friese	11 Oct 2007	Grist Feature
Fifteen years ago, I left a great job teaching at a prestigious northeast culinary school to move back to Iowa and be an executive chef at a Holiday Inn. It was difficult to find people, in Vermont or Iowa, who did not think I was certifiably insane. Those who thought they knew Iowa claimed, "There's no there there!" And those who did not asked, "Iowa? I ...
Topics: agriculture, Big Ag, food, green living, Iowa, recipes, sustainable ag (all these topics)

It Can Be Done Images of a sustainable-food revolution		10 Oct 2007	Grist Feature
Imagine a place where residents pull together to create a thriving store and restaurant serving fresh, local food. Imagine a place where the money appears, the dreams become real, the produce and pastured meat taste like home. Imagine a place where officials support these dreams with policies that fund organic farmers and encourage the purchase of local food. You can stop imagining. It's happening in Woodbury County, Iowa. It ...
Topics: agriculture, food, Iowa, local food, sustainable ag (all these topics)

A Tale of Two Counties In the farm belt, a look at the extremes of agricultural production	Tom Philpott	10 Oct 2007	Grist Feature
When I arrived in Iowa on a reporting trip this summer, I expected to experience it with city eyes: frankly, as a rural backwater. I've lived on a farm in the Appalachians of North Carolina since 2004, but the ten years before that, I lived in Mexico City and New York City. I don't know from vast fields and wide horizons. Instead, barreling down the highway between appointme ...
Topics: agriculture, farmers markets, food, grassroots activism, industrial ag, Iowa, local food, sustainable ag (all these topics)

We'll Worry About This Later Boosting crops for fuel will hurt water supplies, says report		10 Oct 2007	News
Posted at 3:02 PM on 10 Oct 2007 Increased production of corn and other crops to fulfill America's biofuel gluttony could threaten both availability and quality of water supplies, according to a report released today by the National Research Council. Fulfilling President Bush's stated goal of producing 35 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2017 "would mean a lot more fertilizers and pesticides&quo ...
Topics: agriculture, biofuels, energy, ethanol, news, scientific research, water conflicts, water pollution (all these topics)

A slew of new reports on biofuel subsidies Evaluating U.S. and EU policies	Ron Steenblik	10 Oct 2007	Gristmill
The last couple of months I've been busy preparing two major reports on government support for biofuels, both for the Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI) of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). These reports follow on from our October 2006 report on support for biofuels in the United States, which we commissioned from Doug Koplow of Earth Track, and which has been cited numerous times on these pages. Last month, we issued what we call our ...
Topics: ag subsidies, agriculture, biofuels, energy (all these topics)

French conservatives go green, too! Sarkozy pushes proposals on energy and the environment	Joseph Romm	09 Oct 2007	Gristmill
We have already seen that British Conservatives 'get' global warming -- both the danger of inaction and the economic opportunity of a 'green revolution.' Now the right wing cheese-eating surrender monkeys are also putting their American political counterparts to shame. As Nature reports about the new conservative French president: Sarkozy made the greening of France a major plank of his election campaign this year. He has since created a superministry for ecol ...
Topics: energy efficiency, energy, France, politics, renewable energy, agriculture (all these topics)

Your Food Doesn't Come From the Store A journey into the heart of industrial agriculture	Tom Philpott	09 Oct 2007	Grist Feature
Americans live in a post-agricultural age. Today, fewer than two of every 100 U.S. citizens owe their living primarily to the land. A century ago, two of every five did. Yet even though very few of us contribute to food production, we all still eat -- and food comes from somewhere. But where? In a sense, the answer is: Iowa, buckle of the farm belt, heart of the heartland ...
Topics: agriculture, food, green living, Iowa, placemaking (all these topics)

Sow What? A Grist special series on food and farming		09 Oct 2007	Grist Feature
You know where babies come from, sure -- but do you know where Tater Tots come from? In this two-week series, we'll take you on a behind-the-scenes tour of your very own diet. Everybody eats, every day, but we tend to gloss over the details. Things like the work that really goes into putting food on our plates, the environmental impacts of food production, and how we can make the best choices -- for our bodies and the planet -- ...
Topics: agriculture, food, green living, health (all these topics)

Berry Bad News EPA approves carcinogenic pesticide		08 Oct 2007	News
Posted at 1:45 PM on 08 Oct 2007 Just when we think the U.S. EPA might have some sense, it goes and approves a carcinogenic pesticide, ignoring scientists' warnings that "pregnant women and the fetus, children, the elderly, farmworkers, and other people living near application sites would be at serious risk." As a substitute for ozone-depleting fumigant methyl bromide, California and Florida strawberry growers and other farmers will w ...
Topics: agriculture, California, Florida, health, news, toxics, US EPA (all these topics)

Angry greens giants Inspired by the spinach scare, new California rules could wilt small farmers	Tom Philpott	04 Oct 2007	Gristmill
This is a guest essay by Judith Redmond, co-owner of Northern California's legendary Full Belly Farm and president of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers. California is on the verge of adopting a policy that would regulate all of the state's salad greens-producing farms -- including ones that sell to a local market -- as if they were huge operations that ship cross-country. That's as predictable as it is absurd -- another case of the problems caused by industri ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, California, food, health, industrial ag (all these topics)

The 'Exxon of corn' licks its chops Archer Daniels Midland sees glut as opportunity to consolidate the ethanol market	Tom Philpott	03 Oct 2007	Gristmill
Over the past year, ethanol production has exploded -- surpassing even the dramatically higher "alternative fuel requirement" in last year's energy bill. And now we have a glut of ethanol on the market, which has pushed prices down dramatically and caused many ethanol plants -- particularly independent farmer-owned ones -- to struggle. But Archer Daniels Midland, hailed on Wall Street as the Exxon of corn, is seeing the downturn in ethanol prices as an ...
Topics: agriculture, biofuels, business, energy, ethanol (all these topics)

Neither trick nor treat Pumpkin production is down for second year in a row	Sarah van Schagen	02 Oct 2007	Gristmill
Halloween may still be four weeks away, but this story's already got me spooked: Scorching weather and lack of rain this summer wiped out some pumpkin crops from western New York to Illinois, leaving fields dotted with undersized fruit. Other fields got too much rain and their crops rotted. It's the second year in a row that pumpkin production has been down. First we're losing our woolly turtlenecks and now our jack-o'-lanterns? Scary. Good thing no on ...
Topics: agriculture, climate, food, holiday, severe weather (all these topics)

Take Your Chertoff Federal officials claim ethanol, border fence green as can be		02 Oct 2007	News
Posted at 2:11 PM on 02 Oct 2007 Well, phew. Ethanol's not to blame for high food prices and a fence on the U.S.-Mexico border will actually benefit the environment. If we can't believe the top federal farm official and the top federal security official, whom can we believe? From the Archives McCormick and Quits. President of Nature Conservancy resigns. Happy Decouple. States adopt decoupl ...
Topics: agriculture, Department of Agriculture, Department of Homeland Security, energy, ethanol, food, lying liars, national security, news (all these topics)

Business as usual? Why we shouldn't forget the Farm Bill	Aimee Witteman	02 Oct 2007	Gristmill
Once again, a prime example of our misguided farm policies hits like a ton of factory-farm manure sludge -- or in this case, a massive sack of federally insured, genetically modified corn. Last Wednesday, Monsanto announced that the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) approved a pilot program that will give farmers a 20 percent discount on insurance premiums if they plant a majority of their corn acres with seeds featuring Monsanto's trademarked YieldG ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, business, legislation, politics (all these topics)

All's Fair and We Love More Fair-trade market boosted by consumer demand		02 Oct 2007	News
Posted at 10:24 AM on 02 Oct 2007 An ever-greener and ever-more-caffeinated world is boosting the fair-trade market -- not just for coffee, but for products such as cocoa, cotton, tea, pineapples, and flowers. The certification, which holds growers to strict standards per child labor, pesticide use, recycling, and more, is not a phenomenon specific to hippie shops: all Dunkin' Donuts in the U.S. and all McDonald's in Englan ...
Topics: agriculture, business, food, greenish companies, news, sustainable ag (all these topics)

DDT, Yeah You Know Me Study suggests link between DDT exposure and breast cancer		01 Oct 2007	News
Posted at 1:04 PM on 01 Oct 2007 Women exposed to the pesticide DDT as children are five times as likely to develop breast cancer, according to a study published in Environmental Health Perspectives. Draw your own conclusions. source: Los Angeles Times From the Archives Veg Out. Today is World Vegetarian Day. Lejeune Bugged. U.S. Navy must notify N.C.-based Marines of exposure to contamin ...
Topics: agriculture, health, news, scientific research, toxics (all these topics)

Welcome to the Fuel World U.S. ethanol boom slowing due to market glut		01 Oct 2007	News
Posted at 6:16 AM on 01 Oct 2007 The ethanol boom in the United States, the political darling of presidential candidates, farm-state lawmakers, and others, has recently been showing signs of slowing due to a market glut that's exacerbated by infrastructure troubles. It seems everyone and their farmer have been constructing ethanol refineries to turn corn into fuel, but the means to get that fuel to gas stations hasn't been k ...
Topics: agriculture, ethanol, news, United States (all these topics)

On not rearing pigs A little weekend humor	Erik Hoffner	29 Sep 2007	Gristmill
In case you missed this hilarious letter that made the email rounds early this year poking fun at bizarre agricultural subsidies ... it gets to carbon credits midway through, naturally: Secretary of State Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Smith Square London Dear Secretary of State, My friend, who is in farming at the moment, recently received a cheque for £3,000 from the Rural Payments Agency for not rearing pigs. I would now like to joi ...
Topics: ag subsidies, agriculture, funnies, politics, United Kingdom (all these topics)

Iodide and Gone to Heaven EPA delays approval of nasty pesticide		28 Sep 2007	News
Posted at 3:06 PM on 28 Sep 2007 Delightfully defying our dire predictions, the U.S. EPA will (again) delay approval of nasty pesticide methyl iodide, after 54 scientists wrote a letter expressing shock that the agency was even considering giving such a toxic chemical the thumbs-up for agricultural use. source: Associated Press From the Archives Dimmockery. British citizen sues government over distributi ...
Topics: agriculture, news, progress, toxics, US EPA (all these topics)

Live green, go yellow U.S. conservation land may soon end up in your gas tank	David Roberts	27 Sep 2007	Gristmill
Well isn't this delightful (sub rqd): The Agriculture Department may allow farmers to plow up land in conservation agreements to plant row crops, despite a record corn crop this year, fueled by the ethanol industry's thirst for the feedstock. Acting Secretary Chuck Conner told reporters this week that USDA is considering releasing some land currently enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers to idle nearly 34 million acres of land for wildl ...
Topics: agriculture, biofuels, energy, ethanol (all these topics)

Smokin' greens The eco-depredations of the tobacco industry	David Roberts	26 Sep 2007	Gristmill
Brad Plumer points to what is no doubt going to be a fascinating story on the environmental evils of the tobacco industry. Clicking the link reveals that the story itself won't be available until Oct. 1, but using his prodigious powers of precognition, Brad excerpts this bit: Without even factoring in the paper wrapping, packaging, and print advertisements--which require as much paper by weight as the tobacco being grown--nearly 600 million trees are felled each yea ...
Topics: agriculture, climate, deforestation, food, greenhouse-gas emissions (all these topics)

Spare the Ozone and Despoil the Riled EPA may soon approve toxic alternative to ozone-depleting pesticide, despite criticism		26 Sep 2007	News
Posted at 7:11 AM on 26 Sep 2007 To replace the toxic, ozone-depleting pesticide methyl bromide -- a favorite of stubborn U.S. berry growers -- the U.S. EPA is reportedly set to soon approve an alternative that doesn't deplete ozone but is "one of the more toxic chemicals used in manufacturing" according to opponents, including six Nobel Prize-winning chemists. ...
Topics: agriculture, news, toxics, United States, US EPA (all these topics)

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