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Headline	Author	Published	Section
School-lunch crunch Higher food prices mean crappier cafeteria fare for kids	Tom Philpott	16 Apr 2008	Gristmill
As food prices rise, who gets hit first and hardest? Clearly, urban dwellers in the global south, where people spend upwards of half of their incomes on food. According to the Wall Street Journal, here's the ever-growing list of nations that have experienced food-price riots:Rioting in response to soaring food prices recently has broken out in Egypt, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Ethiopia. In Pakistan and Thailand, army troops have been deployed to ...
Topics: agriculture, education, food, green living, health, parenting (all these topics)

Bisphenol, Eh? Health Canada primed to declare bisphenol A toxic		15 Apr 2008	News
Posted at 2:43 PM on 15 Apr 2008 Canada's health department is expected to become the first regulatory body ever to declare chemical bisphenol A a toxic substance that humans should reduce their exposure to. BPA shows up in (and leaches from) hard plastic water bottles, aluminum cans, and other containers that consumers regularly eat and drink from. The chemical, which has been linked to reproductive anomalies, has come under some ...
Topics: Canada, food, health, news, politics, toxics (all these topics)

That '70s show Thirty years ago, high crop prices caused environmental destruction, too	Tom Philpott	14 Apr 2008	Gristmill
Last week, I wrote about high crop prices that were inspiring people to make all manner of dubious land-use decisions, like plowing up environmentally sensitive land to plant environmentally destructive corn.Then I came across an interesting bit from Merchants of Grain: The Power and Profits of the Five Giant Companies at the Center of the World's Food Supply, by veteran Washington Post reporter Dan Morgan. I've just started the book, which first came out in 1979. It's ...
Topics: agriculture, books, economy, food, toxics, water pollution (all these topics)

Putting your money where your mouth is How expensive is food, really?	Sharon Astyk	14 Apr 2008	Gristmill
There is no doubt whatsoever that rising food costs are hurting people all over the world. More than half of the world's population spends 50 percent of their income or more on food, and the massive rise in staple prices threatens to increase famine rates drastically. We are already seeing the early signs of this in Haiti and in other poor nations. It is also undoubtedly true that rising food prices are digging into the budgets of average people, including me. An ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, economy, food, legislation, politics, sustainable ag (all these topics)

Crunch time for the farm bill The legislation isn't perfect, but it's far better than extending the 2002 bill	Aimee Witteman	14 Apr 2008	Gristmill
With the new farm bill languishing in the last stages of negotiations, many are bemoaning its lack of sweeping reform, suggesting that we have gained very little from months and years of work. But if the new bill is not to be the visionary document that many hoped and advocated for, what, if anything, do we stand to lose if the new bill is vetoed or negotiations reach an impasse and the 2002 farm bill is extended for two years? There are several small but import ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, food, legislation, local food, organic food, politics, sustainable ag (all these topics)

Coke: Still 'it' with the kids Coca-Cola and McD's top brands among teens, study says	Tom Philpott	14 Apr 2008	Gristmill
Photo: Taneli Mielik�inen There has been a lot of great work in the last decade to wake kids up to alternatives to industrial food. Here and there, farm-to-school programs have been launched, soft drinks banished from cafeterias, books like Eric Schlosser's Chew on This have emerged. Yet clearly, much more work needs to be done. Seems that teens are still gulping down Coke and flocking to McDonald's (when they're not heading for Burger King, evidently seen ...
Topics: advertising, agriculture, business, food, health, industrial ag, messaging (all these topics)

Are You Chicken? Meat of the future may be grown in a lab		11 Apr 2008	News
Posted at 2:15 PM on 11 Apr 2008 Problem: Large-scale meat production has environmental problems out the wazoo, but Homo sapiens shows much reluctance to giving up meat. Possible solution: Test-tube sausage! The awkwardly named In Vitro Meat Consortium just wrapped up the first-ever international conference focused on the potential for replacing slaughtered animals with grown-in-a-lab chicken nuggets and ground beef. In theory, test-tube ...
Topics: food, news, scientific research (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)

ANWR of the heartland? Why plowing up Conservation Reserve Program land won't solve the food crisis	Tom Philpott	11 Apr 2008	Gristmill
Uh oh. The New York Times reports that 'thousands of farmers are taking their fields out of the government's biggest conservation program, which pays them not to cultivate.' Rather then let the ground lie fallow, they're planting it with corn, soy, and wheat -- the price of each of which stands near or above all-time highs. 'Last fall, they took back as many acres as are in Rhode Island and Delaware combined,' The Times reports. And there's serious pressure to bring mo ...
Topics: agriculture, Big Ag, business, cellulosic ethanol, economy, food, industrial ag (all these topics)

Can industrial agriculture feed the world? Part 2 Global food riots edition	Tom Philpott	10 Apr 2008	Gristmill
A couple of months ago, I raised the question, can industrial agriculture feed the world?I was being intentionally provocative. For decades, policymakers have treated low-input, diversified agriculture -- 'organic' in the sense described by the great British agriculture scholar Sir Albert Howard -- as a kind of hippy indulgence. Sure, it's nice to grow food without poison, but you can't feed the world that way. To feed the globe's teeming masses, you need loads of mined ...
Topics: agriculture, Big Ag, business, food, industrial ag (all these topics)

Going With the Grain While food prices rise, here's a stick-to-your-ribs pasta dish that won't cause sticker shock	Roz Cummins	10 Apr 2008	'Tis the Season
Every time I go to the supermarket lately, I get sticker shock. Why is it suddenly costing an arm and a leg to keep body and soul together? Part of the explanation lies in recent developments at the gas station. Skyrocketing fuel prices translate to higher costs for growing and transporting food -- and higher retail prices for us. Then there's the biof ...
Topics: agriculture, food, green living, recipes, Tis the Season (all these topics)

How to reach Joe Sixpack on climate issues	Adam Browning	10 Apr 2008	Gristmill
Gore's spending $300 million on it, but actually, I think a more direct approach might do the trick.
Topics: advertising, food, green living, messaging (all these topics)

Troubles a-Brewing Climate change affects -- noooooooo! -- beer		09 Apr 2008	News
Posted at 12:42 PM on 09 Apr 2008 If dire warnings about the fate of global health and security don't move you to care about climate change, maybe this will: Climate change could make beer more expensive. (No! Anything but that!) Malting barley will likely be harder to grow in a warming world, especially in Australia, says climate scientist Jim Salinger. He warned at an Institute of Brewing and Distilling convention Tuesday that wit ...
Topics: Australia, climate, climate change impacts, food, news (all these topics)

Smithfield's European strategy The hog giant CAFOizes Poland and Romania to gain access to Western Europe	Tom Philpott	09 Apr 2008	Gristmill
Farmers in Iowa and North Carolina -- the two states that together house nearly half of U.S. hog production [PDF] -- won't be surprised by this report, from the International Herald Tribune: The American bacon producer, Smithfield Farms, now operates a dozen vast industrial pig farms in Poland. Importing cheap soy feed from South America, which the company feeds intensively to its tens of thousands of pigs, it has caused the price of pork to drop dramatically ...
Topics: agriculture, Big Ag, business, European Union, food, industrial ag, Poland, Romania (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)

Skewed View from the Berkeley Hills Why Michael Pollan and Alice Waters should quit celebrating food-price hikes	Tom Philpott	04 Apr 2008	Victual Reality
As their grocery bills rise, Americans should take comfort: the price they're paying for industrially produced food in the supermarket is starting to approach that of artisanally produced food at the farmers' market. And that might make more of them choose healthier, less environmentally destructive diets. At least, that's the message of an article in Wedne ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, consumerism, economy, food, health, local food, politics (all these topics)

Who owns your tomato? Another big horticultural seed company bought by Monsanto	Matthew Dillon	04 Apr 2008	Gristmill
When Monsanto buys into a market, they buy in big. In 2005, Monsanto's seed/genetic trait holdings were primarily in corn, cotton, soybeans, and canola. That year, they purchased Seminis, the world's largest vegetable seed company (see And We Have the Seed) specializing in seed for vegetable field crops. Now their takeover of the vegetable seed sector continues, as they have announced the intent to purchase the Dutch breeding and seed company, De Ruiter Seeds.This pur ...
Topics: agriculture, Big Ag, business, Department of Justice, food, industrial ag, regulation (all these topics)

Spears of Spring The Age of Asparagus dawned in Roman times, but the time to eat it is now	Kurt Michael Friese	03 Apr 2008	Chef's Diary
Asparagus may be associated with spring, but there's nothing new about it. It's been gracing tables -- to the joy of some diners and the horror of others -- for at least two thousand years. In the earliest known cookbook, De Re Culinaria (circa A.D. 100), proto-foodie Marcus Apicius recommends pounding asparagus tips with black pepper, lovage, coriander, savory, onion, wi ...
Topics: Chef's Diary, food, green living, oceans, recipes (all these topics)

Got food? Farmworker Awareness Week is a chance to recognize the people whose labor means we can eat	Fawn Pattison	31 Mar 2008	Gristmill
This is Farmworker Awareness Week, a time to support the millions of farmworkers whose labor puts food on every American table, and who work and live in some of the worst environmental conditions in our nation. It's estimated that 2 to 3 million farmworkers plant, tend, and harvest American crops every year. Many farmworkers in the U.S. are migrants who move from place to place following the harvest. Where I live, in North Carolina, migrant farmworkers are the ma ...
Topics: agriculture, Big Ag, business, environmental justice, food, grassroots activism, health, toxics (all these topics)

Birds do it; bees do it NYT op-ed: pesticides wiping out songbirds	Tom Philpott	31 Mar 2008	Gristmill
When the little bluebird Who has never said a word Starts to sing Spring ... It is nature, that is all, Simply telling us to fall in love. -- Cole Porter, 'Let's Do It' The immortal refrain of an old Cole Porter chestnut -- 'birds do it; bees do it' -- has taken on an ominous ring. Evidently, songbirds have followed honeybees by engaging in a massive die-off. (Bats, whose mating rituals evidently didn't capture Porter's fancy, are dying off as well.)According t ...
Topics: agriculture, extinction, food, health, organic food, US EPA (all these topics)

Different Beasts On organic vs. natural foods	Umbra Fisk	31 Mar 2008	Ask Umbra
Dear Umbra, I'm trying to convince my sister that there is a difference between all-natural and organic products, and she doesn't think there is. I'm pretty sure there is a difference, I just don't know what it is. I look at the ingredients of some of the food she buys that she says are "natural" and I wonder how these products are able to claim that! What are the qualifications for something to be labeled all-natu ...
Topics: advice, Ask Umbra, consumerism, food, green living, green products, organic food, shopping (all these topics)

More signs of the Apocalypse? Soy, corn, and wheat prices puzzling economists	Tia Ghose	30 Mar 2008	Gristmill
Just in case you weren't worried about rising food prices, The New York Times has an article out that makes the food markets seem even more volatile. Apparently, identical bushels of corn, wheat, and soybeans are selling for two different prices on the derivatives and cash markets.Now, I'm not an economist, but the first line of the article makes the whole thing sound freakish. From the article: Economists note there should not be two prices for one thing at the same pla ...
Topics: agriculture, business, economy, food (all these topics)

Under My Mozzarella (Ella, Ella, Eh, Eh, Eh) Trash likely the source of dioxin tainting Italy's mozzarella		28 Mar 2008	News
Posted at 2:11 PM on 28 Mar 2008 Some batches of Italy's famous buffalo mozzarella cheese have been tainted with dioxin, leading to alarm in the nation's $500 million mozzarella industry. The source of the contamination? Buffalo near Naples are likely grazing in soil tainted with dioxin from piles of toxic garbage that the mafia-controlled trash business can't, or won't, get under control. ...
Topics: food, Italy, news, toxics, waste (all these topics)

My Brightest Diamond is the earth's best friend Shara chats about animals, organics, and recycling	Sarah van Schagen	28 Mar 2008	Gristmill
Check out this video of indie artist Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond at South by Southwest as she chats about her love for animals, organic foods, and recycling: My Brightest Diamond at SXSWUploaded by NRDC
Topics: food, green living, music, oceans, organic food (all these topics)

Chipotle Mexican Grill goes green (i.e., local)! The burrito giant buys pork from celebrity farmer Joel Salatin	Tom Philpott	28 Mar 2008	Gristmill
Chipotle Mexican Grill used to be, but no longer is, partly owned by McDonald's. It runs 700 restaurants nationwide -- with plans to roll out 125 more this year -- and is considered one of the nation's fastest-growing 'casual dining' chains. And it seems earnestly interested in sourcing ingredients from small- and mid-sized farmers near its outlets. At its shop in Charlottesville, Va., the Washington Post reports, it's been buying pork from Polyface Farm, an operation ...
Topics: food, greening biz operations, industrial ag, local food, sustainable ag, Virginia (all these topics)

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