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RESULTS		Results 151 – 175 of 644
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Headline	Author	Published	Section
Got chemical and pesticide residues in your milk? Conventional milk contains toxics, says the USDA	Tom Philpott	13 Mar 2008	Gristmill
The Organic Center acts as a kind of shadow USDA, digesting the latest peer-reviewed research on organic food, translating it into English, and issuing summary reports. Consumers won't want to miss the center's newest one on pesticide residues [PDF]. It contains one of those handy guides on which conventional fruits and veggies convey the most toxic traces to eaters (here's a handy two-pager [PDF] for the fridge), as well as a blunt and important discussion of the pl ...
Topics: agriculture, food, health, organic food, toxics (all these topics)

Cotton the Moment Misleading cotton ads banned in U.K.		13 Mar 2008	News
Posted at 10:07 AM on 13 Mar 2008 Poster and magazine ads by the U.S. cotton industry have been banned in Britain. The U.K. Advertising Standards Authority can put the kibosh on advertising deemed to be greenwashing, and regulators took issue with the cotton ads' claim that the crop is "soft, sensual, and sustainable." The ad authority pointed out that cotton is a "pesticide- and insecticide-intensive crop" and can " ...
Topics: advertising, agriculture, business, green living, greenwashing, news, United Kingdom (all these topics)

All close together now A post-petroleum American dream	Jon Rynn	13 Mar 2008	Gristmill
'This craziness is not sustainable,' concludes The New York Times op-ed columnist Bob Herbert, and he's talking about the economy, not the environment. He continues: Without an educated and empowered work force, without sustained investment in the infrastructure and technologies that foster long-term employment, and without a system of taxation that can actually pay for the services provided by government, the American dream as we know it will expire. And without pet ...
Topics: agriculture, cars, energy, placemaking, public transportation, urban planning (all these topics)

Organic milk: survival of the biggest? Thoughts on the NODPA/Stonyfield debate over organic dairy	Tom Philpott	12 Mar 2008	Gristmill
About four years ago, I attended a workshop by Jonathan White, the maverick New York State cheese maker/baker/dairy farmer of Bobolink Dairy. Photo: iStockphoto Like a Southern Baptist preacher thundering from the pulpit -- only with a Northeastern accent and lots of good humor -- White had a message to deliver. He exhorted conventional dairy farmers to sell half of their herds, invest the proceeds in cheese-making equipment, and turn their remaining cows ...
Topics: agriculture, business, economy, food, organic food (all these topics)

That's Chilliwack Biodiesel company convinces B.C. restaurants to switch oils	Katharine Wroth	10 Mar 2008	Gristmill
Came across this piece about a biodiesel company in British Columbia that's convincing restaurants to switch to a lighter, healthier cooking oil so it can buy the oil and turn it into biodiesel. And partly I'm just excited because the program, called Restaurant Green Zone, is finding the biggest success in Chilliwack! And that's fun to say on a Monday! But also it's an interesting approach: the company, Effective Resource Management BioSource (known to its pals as ...
Topics: agriculture, biofuels, British Columbia, Canada, food (all these topics)

Cash and Carroty On joining a CSA	Umbra Fisk	10 Mar 2008	Ask Umbra
Umbra, I have heard mention of community-supported agriculture programs but don't really know what they are. The name sounds very cool, but can you let me in on the specifics? Bryties Redding, Calif. Dearest Bryties, The springtime alarm is sounding, and your question is perfectly timed. Some of you might be experiencing hints of spring right now, some not (like me! I'm in a secret location where the all-time snowfall record is under t ...
Topics: advice, agriculture, Ask Umbra, food, green living (all these topics)

Conditions sour for organic dairy farms Dairy producers' alliance responds to Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farm	Guest author	10 Mar 2008	Gristmill
The following guest essay is the latest installment in a debate between Ed Maltby, executive director of the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance, and Gary Hirshberg, CE-Yo of Stonyfield Farm. Maltby opened the debate with this post; Hirshberg responded here; Maltby's response follows below. We are airing the debate at length because we think our readers should know that our organic dairy farmers have reached a crisis point -- squeezed by production costs that are ...
Topics: agriculture, business, economy, food, organic food (all these topics)

U. of North Carolina students say no to Smithfield pork Pushing for 'fair food' on campus in the land of hog factories	Tom Philpott	08 Mar 2008	Gristmill
Last year, a bunch of students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill got tired of the industrial dreck served up in the cafeteria. They discovered that the landscape around them was producing some amazing, chemical-free meat and produce and set about figuring out how to get some in school dining halls. Photo: iStockphoto Led by seniors Sally Lee and David Hamilton, they declared themselves FLO Food (FLO = fair, local, organic), and began negot ...
Topics: agriculture, campus activism, education, food, industrial ag, local food, North Carolina, organic food, sustainable ag (all these topics)

Stonyfield Farm responds Gary Hirshberg argues that his company is doing a lot to support organic dairy farmers	Guest author	07 Mar 2008	Gristmill
The following is a guest post from Stonyfield Farm President and CE-Yo Gary Hirshberg, written in response to a post by Ed Maltby, executive director of the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance. ----- Gary Hirshberg Londonderry, N.H.: These are difficult times for the organic dairy industry, and as we have demonstrated consistently for over a decade, we are deeply engaged in the effort to find solutions that balance escalating supply costs wi ...
Topics: agriculture, business, food, organic food (all these topics)

How now, organic cow? As energy, healthcare, and feed costs skyrocket, organic dairy farmers get squeezed	Guest author	07 Mar 2008	Gristmill
The following is a guest post by Ed Maltby, executive director of the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance. ----- Deerfield, Mass.: What is more important to Stonyfield Farm and HP Hood, market share or the health and welfare of their organic family farmers? Photo: iStockphoto If you ask 24-year-old Mark Ouellette Jr., who supplies organic milk to HP Hood that is sold under the Stonyfield label, his answer is very clear: market share. 'I'm losi ...
Topics: agriculture, business, economy, food, organic food (all these topics)

Small-scale, community-owned biodiesel goes global An honest, interesting statement from Piedmont Biofuels of North Carolina	Tom Philpott	06 Mar 2008	Gristmill
I'm a fierce critic of biofuels, but I've always had a soft spot for small, region-based biodiesel projects that create fuel from local resources, providing jobs in the bargain. (I proudly ran Emily Gertz's feature on the topic in our 2006 biofuels series.) The income from such projects remains within communities, rippling around and building wealth. Rather than being just another conduit for transferring cash from communities into the pockets of global investors, fu ...
Topics: agriculture, biofuels, energy, industrial ag, North Carolina, waste (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)

Bush: Not a Gristmill reader President hails cellulosic ethanol as a panacea	Tom Philpott	06 Mar 2008	Gristmill
I'm offended: President Bush evidently hasn't been following my string of posts about how cellulosic ethanol probably won't ever be viable. Addressing a renewable-energy conference, the president fretted that the ethanol boom he set in motion is 'beginning to affect the price of food.' He added: 'So we got to do something about it.' And what we 'got to do,' evidently, is throw more cash at cellulosic ethanol. Here's how The New York Times summed up his statement: ...
Topics: agriculture, biofuels, cellulosic ethanol, energy, ethanol, George Bush, politics (all these topics)

Meat Wagon: Beef behemoth If deals go through, three firms will own 90 percent of the U.S. beef market	Tom Philpott	05 Mar 2008	Gristmill
In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. You'd be hard-pressed to find an industry more consolidated than beef-packing. Just four companies slaughter 83.5 percent of cows consumed in the United States. In standard antitrust theory, a market stops being competive when the four biggest players control 40 percent. The beef industry's extraordinary concentration gives the Big Four massive leverage to dictate how beef is ra ...
Topics: agriculture, Big Ag, business, food, industrial ag (all these topics)

A storm is brewing Why the disaster trust fund is bad news	Guest author	04 Mar 2008	Gristmill
The following is a guest essay by Britt Lundgren and Jason Funk. Britt Lundgren is an agricultural policy fellow at Environmental Defense Fund. Jason Funk is a Lokey Fellow in the Land, Water and Wildlife program at Environmental Defense Fund. ----- The recent fires in California and the severe drought in the Southeast are just two of the litany of disasters that have hit agriculture in recent memory. When natural disasters happen, members of Congress (at l ...
Topics: legislation, agriculture, politics, ag policy (all these topics)

Cutting Carbofuran EPA attempt to ban bird-killing pesticide runs into opposition		03 Mar 2008	News
Posted at 4:54 PM on 03 Mar 2008 The U.S. EPA has proposed a ban on a pesticide lethal to birds, but is running into resistance from the company that produces the chemical. The pesticide, carbofuran, is typically used on crops such as corn, alfalfa, and potatoes, and has been linked to the dieoff of 558 separate bird flocks since 1972. A manager with pesticide manufacturer FMC Corp. says carbofuran, "when use ...
Topics: agriculture, Big Ag, business, Congress, industrial ag, news, politics, toxics, US EPA, wildlife (all these topics)

Cellulosic ethanol: not likely to be viable New study from mainstream ag economists at Iowa State	Tom Philpott	03 Mar 2008	Gristmill
Cellulosic ethanol represents a beacon on the horizon -- the justification cited by wiseguys like Vinod Khosla for dropping billions per year in public cash to prop up corn ethanol production. Corn ethanol, you see, is a bridge to a bright cellulosic future. But the beacon is looking more and more like a mirage, a ghost, a specter; the bridge we're hurtling down may well lead to a chasm. A quiet consensus seems to be forming among people you'd think would know th ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, biofuels, cellulosic ethanol, energy, ethanol, politics (all these topics)

Biofuel blight: tastes great, less filling Alcohol refinery may enhance tourist industry	biodiversivist	03 Mar 2008	Gristmill
Tourists, bird watchers, and native cattle herders in Kenya's Tana River delta may soon have a spanking-new alcohol refinery in the middle of their wetland. Granted, the wetland will be slightly less wet because a third of its water will be diverted to cropland. Always one to look for a silver lining, I would hope that this refinery will include an air-conditioned bar where tourists and herders alike can gather for happy hour after a long, hot day of wildlife viewing ...
Topics: agriculture, biofuels, cellulosic ethanol, energy, ethanol, Richard Branson (all these topics)

Forbidden fruits (and vegetables) Why the USDA wants to stop local food	Kurt Michael Friese	03 Mar 2008	Gristmill
This is one of those "in case you missed it" kind of posts. In yesterday's New York Times, Minnesota farmer Jack Hedin wrote an op-ed that shows very clearly how the federal deck is stacked against small, sustainable, local farms and in favor of Earl Butz's "get-big-or-get-out" mentality. The commodity farm program effectively forbids farmers who usually grow corn or the other four federally subsidized commodity crops (soybeans, rice, whe ...
Topics: agriculture, Big Ag, food, local food, politics (all these topics)

It's bloomin' idiotic Can words describe how bad corn ethanol is?	Joseph Romm	02 Mar 2008	Gristmill
Well, maybe my words can't describe how bad corn ethanol is, or Mayor Bloomberg's, or those of top scientists, but I think I have found someone's words that do: Opus's from Bloom Country. First, however, the lastest grim news from Fortune: 'The ethanol boom is running out of gas as corn prices spike.' Yes, 'plans for as many as 50 new ethanol plants have been shelved in recent months.' Why? Spurred by an ethanol plant construction binge, corn prices have gon ...
Topics: agriculture, biofuels, energy, ethanol (all these topics)

Genetically modified fruits and veggies in U.S.? Forbes says that Frankenfruits are already here	Tom Philpott	01 Mar 2008	Gristmill
In the mid-'90s, amid much fuss, a biotech firm called Calgene introduced the Flav'r Saver tomato. Genetically engineered to last longer on the shelf, the Flav'r Saver didn't turn out to have much 'flav'r' to save. To make a long story short, consumers generally steered clear of it; farmers had trouble growing it; Calgene burned hundreds of millions developing and marketing it; and eventually ended up tossing it on history's compost pile. In the end, Monsanto ended u ...
Topics: food, agriculture, GMOs (all these topics)

One hell of a company Monsanto uses child labor in its Indian cottonseed fields	Tom Philpott	29 Feb 2008	Gristmill
Photo: iStockphoto Monsanto dominates the global seed industry and churns out $1 billion a year in profit. Investors are so enamored of its market power and profitability that they've bid up its share price by nearly 1500 percent since 2004. So why does Monsanto rely on farms that use child labor to cultivate its genetically modified cotton seeds in India? From Forbes Magazine: Yothi Ramulla Naga is 4 feet tall. From sunup to sundown she is hunched ov ...
Topics: agriculture, business, health, India, toxics (all these topics)

There will be ethanol Archer Daniels Midland will squeeze out competition, says Fortune	Tom Philpott	29 Feb 2008	Gristmill
Record corn prices aren't just squeezing consumers. They're also hurting the ethanol industry -- yes, the very folks whose ravenous appetite for corn drove up prices in the first place.From Fortune Magazine: Cargill announces it's scrapping plans for a $200 million ethanol plant near Topeka, Kan. A judge approves the bankruptcy sale of an unfinished ethanol plant in Canton, Ill.. And that was just Tuesday. Indeed, plans for as many as 50 new ethanol plants have been ...
Topics: agriculture, biofuels, business, ethanol, industrial ag (all these topics)

Farm bill agonistes After all the fuss, looks like we might get an extension of the 2002 farm bill	Tom Philpott	27 Feb 2008	Gristmill
Photo: iStockphoto Remember the farm bill -- the omnibus federal legislation that generated so much sound and fury last year? Like a downer cow slouching toward its executioner, the farm bill still lives, sort of. The House, Senate, and president are haggling over it, squabbling over the bill's price tag and how it will be funded. If they don't hash something out by March 15, they may just extend the 2002 farm bill. Here's what Tom Harkin, chair of th ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, food, legislation, politics (all these topics)

The agricultural lobby vs. the public interest, part 5435 Factory farms fight to avoid reporting on toxic emissions	Jason D Scorse	26 Feb 2008	Gristmill
This article in the WaPo shows yet again how insidious the agricultural lobby in this country is, and how we need leadership that will take it on. This time it's the factory farms fighting laws that mandate that they provide information on their emission of toxic gases (from animal waste). Breaking the power of the agricultural lobby should be a top priority for the environmental community; at every turn it fights for corporate welfare and against environmental progre ...
Topics: agriculture, air pollution, industrial ag, lobbying, politics, waste (all these topics)

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