Grist | Topics | 170 Results

RESULTS		Results 151 – 170 of 170
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Headline	Author	Published	Section
How to make Wal-Mart's organic push not matter An innovative Alabama CSA shows the way forward.	Tom Philpott	15 May 2006	Gristmill
When Wal-Mart announced plans to become the world's biggest purveyor of organically grown food last week, the polite applause from the enviro gallery grated on my ears. (Here's a spirited recent debate on Gristmill.) Even the New York Times editorial page could see through this move. While some greens cooed at at Wal-Mart's magnamity, the Grey Lady unleashed an appropriately cynical analysis: There is no chance that Wal-Mart will be buying from small, local organic fa ...
Topics: agriculture, food, industrial ag, organic food, sustainable ag, Wal-Mart (all these topics)

ADM, high-fructose corn syrup, and ethanol A speculation about why ADM's HFCS business is booming.	Tom Philpott	10 May 2006	Gristmill
In the first quarter of 2006, as I reported yesterday, Archer Daniels Midland somehow managed to boost the price of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) despite mounting concern over the sweetener's health effects. The company booked a cool $113 million profit from HFCS over the quarter, more than three times more than it netted in the same period a year before ($33 million). This, despite a slowing domestic market for sweet soft drinks, as consumers increasingly switch to j ...
Topics: agriculture, biofuels, Brazil, business, ethanol, food, industrial ag (all these topics)

What's at stake in the 2007 Farm Bill On the art and brutal economics of small-scale farming.	Tom Philpott	13 Apr 2006	Gristmill
Since moving to the North Carolina mountains in 2004 to launch a farm project, I've learned some sobering lessons about idyllic rural life. To wit, small-scale organic farming is an art form -- and as with most artistic endeavors, the hours are long and the pay is crap. How did I wind up penniless and exhausted, sporting a beat-up pair of Carhartts? You'd think I had set up shop as an abstract painter in some squalid, ruinously priced Williamsburg, Brooklyn, garret. ...
Topics: agriculture, food, industrial ag, legislation, politics (all these topics)

The Meatrix II: Now playing at a website near you	Chris Schults	29 Mar 2006	Gristmill
Ladies and gentleman. Boys and girls. The Meatrix II: Revolting is finally here. Help Leo, Moopheus, and Chickity fight factory farms.
Topics: agriculture, food, industrial ag, movies (all these topics)

Food, sustainability, and the environmentalists A food-politics writer expresses angst at the obscurity of his topic	Tom Philpott	21 Mar 2006	Gristmill
The other day, a prominent Canadian journalist paid me a visit to interview me for his book on building a sustainable future. At one point, I expounded on the closed-nutrient cycle of old-school organic farming, contrasting it with what writer Michael Pollan deemed the 'industrial-organic' way. In the old-school organic style, which relies on animals, farm wastes are recycled into the soil, providing all the nutrients necessary for the next harvest. The industrial-org ...
Topics: agriculture, food, industrial ag, organic food, sustainable ag (all these topics)

Turn the Eat Around Forgotten by many, a Brooklyn neighborhood nourishes its own	Tom Philpott	22 Feb 2006	Main Dish
Wander into Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood on a Saturday morning in summer, and you'll see a sight not uncommon in New York City these days: a thriving and diverse farmers' market. Neighborhood denizens cluster around stands offering free-range meat, fresh cheese, cream-on-top milk, and a whole array of fresh fruit and vegetables, many of them grown right down the block. An Added Value ...
Topics: Big Ag, Department of Agriculture, environmental justice, gardening, grassroots activism, industrial ag, local food, New York, placemaking, Poverty and the Environment, sustainable ag (all these topics)

I'm Hatin' It How the feds make bad-for-you food cheaper than healthful fare	Tom Philpott	22 Feb 2006	Main Dish
If you're going to talk about poverty, food, and the environment in the United States, you might as well start in the Corn Belt. So good, and so good for you -- until it's turned into soda. Photo: stock.xchng. This fertile area produces most of the country's annual corn harvest of more than 10 billion bushels, far and away the world's largest such haul. Where does it all go? The majority -- a ...
Topics: Big Ag, Department of Agriculture, environmental justice, gardening, grassroots activism, industrial ag, local food, New York, placemaking, Poverty and the Environment, sustainable ag (all these topics)

Archer Daniels Midland: The Exxon of corn? ADM is doing for soil what Exxon has done to air.	Tom Philpott	02 Feb 2006	Gristmill
Amid all the hoopla over President Bush's State of the Union address, Archer Daniels Midland's quarterly report (PDF), released Tuesday, got little attention outside of Wall Street -- where it drew cheers, sending ADM's share price to an all-time high. At the company's conference call with analysts, the Wall Street Journal reports, John M. McMillin of Prudential Securities 'likened [Archer Daniels Midland] to Exxon Mobil Corp., which just announced its own record-brea ...
Topics: agriculture, Big Ag, business, food, industrial ag (all these topics)

The WSJ documents GM contamination	Tom Philpott	08 Nov 2005	Gristmill
The Wall Street Journal came out with a terrific page-one article documenting 'genetic pollution' -- the damage caused when genetically modified crops cross-pollinate with conventional crops. The article leads with an organic farmer in Spain whose sells his red field corn at a premium to nearby chicken farmers, who prize the product because it 'it gives their meat and eggs a rosy color.' (I'd be willing to bet that rosy color also translates to higher nutrition conte ...
Topics: agriculture, food, GMOs, industrial ag (all these topics)

Genetically modified TV Ag giants launch new public-tv show that promises to be so bad it's ... bad	Tom Philpott	24 Oct 2005	Gristmill
What do you get when Monsanto and the Farm Bureau (whose sorry politics are discussed here) team up with the National Corn Growers Association, the United Soybean Board, the U.S. Grains Council, and the National Cotton Council (discussed here)? If your answer is vast-scale, heavily subsidized, environmentally ruinous agriculture, you have a point. But I was thinking of a different response: Television that promises to be so bad that it might qualify as camp.The above-m ...
Topics: agriculture, food, industrial ag, TV (all these topics)

How now, organic cow? USDA inaction supports feedlot-style	Tom Philpott	19 Oct 2005	Gristmill
Consumers looking for milk from grass-fed cows can't rely on the USDA's organic label. As this Chicago Tribune article shows, the department has been allowing feedlot-style mega-dairies to claim organic status -- despite a recommendation from the National Organic Standards Board that it close existing loopholes. Access to pasture lies at the heart of any meaningful definition of organic farm-animal stewardship. Grass-fed cows produce a healthier product, they're eas ...
Topics: agriculture, food, industrial ag, organic food (all these topics)

Spoiling organic milk?	Katharine Wroth	17 Feb 2005	Gristmill
The Wisconsin-based Cornucopia Institute has just filed a complaint with the USDA against two dairy farms in Idaho and California. It alleges that massive factory farms are labeling their products organic even though their thousands of cows are not pasture-fed, as required by USDA guidelines. Last month the institute -- which is devoted to 'the fight for economic justice for the family-scale farming community' (and also taking pictures out the car window) -- filed a ...
Topics: agriculture, food, industrial ag, organic food (all these topics)

A Big To-Doo-Doo EPA offers air-pollution immunity to factory farms	Amanda Griscom Little	24 Jan 2005	Muckraker
On Friday, in the shadow of the splashy presidential inauguration jamboree, the Bush EPA offered factory farms a tempting tradeoff: more than two years of immunity from the Clean Air Act and certain toxic-discharge standards in exchange for participating in a data-collection program that would monitor air emissions from their facilities. Factory farms may be getting off easy, but not so the c ...
Topics: agriculture, air pollution, Big Ag, industrial ag, Muckraker, politics, US EPA (all these topics)

Vegging Out Advice on antioxidant-rich foods and why they cost so much	Umbra Fisk	21 Jun 2004	Ask Umbra
Dear Umbra, Antioxidant foods are "the thing" right now, and I would love to be able to eat as many as I need. However, they are usually the most expensive fruits and vegetables. Would it not make sense for farmers or producers to grow these products in greater volume, so we could all afford them and be able to eat healthier more easily? How difficult would such an adjustment in crops be fo ...
Topics: advice, ag subsidies, Ask Umbra, business, food and agriculture, health, industrial ag (all these topics)

Fowl Play Factory farms get off easy on air pollution	Amanda Griscom	19 May 2004	Muckraker
What do the National Chicken Council, the National Turkey Federation, United Egg Producers, and Tyson Foods have in common? Crying fowl. Photo: USDA. Well, first there's the obvious fowl connection. Then there's the foul connection: Their facilities, known as "concentrated animal feeding operations" (CAFOs), have growing air-pollution problems thanks to the mountains of gas-emitting excrement deposited ...
Topics: agriculture, air pollution, business, food, health, industrial ag, Muckraker, politics, US EPA (all these topics)

In the Flesh On eco-friendly meat	Umbra Fisk	11 Dec 2003	Ask Umbra
Dear Umbra, While I'm not a vegetarian, I try to choose my foods based on their environmental impact. For me, most non-organic meat doesn't make the cut: It uses too much water, land, and other resources, and it pollutes our land and water. I know this because I know about CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations), which are the sources of the bulk of the chicken, pork, and beef that Americans eat. But what about lamb? I've never s ...
Topics: advice, Ask Umbra, food and agriculture, green living, industrial ag, local food, ranching, sustainable ag (all these topics)

Just Spray No On fruit sprays and organic food	Umbra Fisk	26 Nov 2002	Ask Umbra
Dear Umbra, The tangerines I bought recently had this on the label: "Thiabendazole and/or orthopenylphenol and/or imazalil used as fungicides, and coated with food-grade shellac based wax or resin to maintain freshness." Presumably the shellac stays on the skin and does not affect the fruit, but what about the other products? What are these products and do we know what the impact of spraying or putting them on the ...
Topics: advice, agriculture, Ask Umbra, food, food and agriculture, green living, industrial ag, organic food, toxics (all these topics)

McChicken Run Consumers have the power to fight factory farms	Donella H. Meadows	02 Oct 2000	Global Citizen
According to the rules of the World Trade Organization, governments cannot block the import of a product on the basis of how it is produced. So what if a rainforest has been cut down or a stream polluted or an animal tortured or workers paid pitiful wages? That's the concern of the producing country, not the consuming one. Consumers should care only that they get what they want as cheaply as possible. ...
Topics: agriculture, animal welfare, business, consumerism, food, industrial ag, sustainable ag (all these topics)

Pork Politics	Donella H. Meadows	24 Jan 2000	Global Citizen
"Campaign reform" is much too polite a phrase. "Ending corruption" is more like it. I could -- and maybe I will -- write a column a week from now till next fall's election counting the ways campaign contributions corrupt our government, destroy our public assets, and rob taxpayers. Today's example is industrial hog farming. This little piggy went to market. As recently as 20 years ago, most pigs were raised on family farms. F ...
Topics: agriculture, industrial ag, waste (all these topics)

Sweet Georgie green?	Ben White	16 Sep 1999	Muckraker
Dubya. Texas Gov. George W. Bush may not be about to sit down and pen a sequel to Al Gore's environmental manifesto Earth in the Balance, but he has done something several other GOP presidential candidates appear reluctant to do: acknowledge the existence of global warming. On May 12, Bush told a news conference in Austin: "I believe there is global warming." So, what brought Bush to this dramatic realization? Could it have been hi ...
Topics: agriculture, George Bush, industrial ag, Muckraker, politics (all these topics)

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