Grist | Topics | 25 Results

RESULTS		Results 1 – 25 of 25
Headline	Author	Published	Section
Siding with the Bushies? Why a Bush veto of the farm bill is bad for the food movement (and the world)	Elanor Starmer	12 May 2008	Gristmill
My former boss in D.C. once said that if she ever found herself on the same side of an issue as the Bush administration, it was time to go back and look more closely: There must be a hidden agenda. That was the thought that struck me as I contemplated the administration's farm bill veto threat on Friday. I understand the calls from some in the sustainable-ag community to veto the farm bill (and thank Tom Philpott and the comment crew for outlining them). The argume ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, food, legislation, politics (all these topics)

Perry and Thrust U.S. should back off from biofuels to bring down food prices, says Texas guv		28 Apr 2008	News
Posted at 4:56 PM on 28 Apr 2008 Has the U.S. push for biofuels contributed to rising global food prices? Well, yes, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday: "There has been apparently some effect, unintended consequence from the alternative fuels effort." But, she hastened to add, "biofuels continue to be an extremely important piece of the alternative energy picture" and & ...
Topics: ag policy, ag subsidies, agriculture, biofuels, economy, energy, food, news, politics, state politics, Texas (all these topics)

Thinking outside the cereal box Thoughts on the farm bill and the skyrocketing cost of food	Guest author	24 Apr 2008	Gristmill
This is a guest post by Alan Hunt, senior policy analyst for food and farm policy at the Northeast-Midwest Institute and coordinator of the Farm and Food Policy Project. ----- The rising cost of food worldwide is more complex than portrayed in recent articles in The New York Times and the Washington Post. Like a magician revealing his secrets, the once-invisible farm and food system is drawing scrutiny from the media, policymakers, and the public as we realize h ...
Topics: ag policy, ag subsidies, agriculture, food, legislation, politics (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)

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)

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)

Election '08: Real alternatives for real food? Questions for Obama and Clinton from a Wisconsin farmer	Guest author	19 Feb 2008	Gristmill
The following is a guest essay by Jim Goodman, a farmer in Wonewoc, Wisc., and a Kellogg Foundation Food & Society Policy Fellow. It first appeared in the Capitol Times (Madison, Wisc.). ----- The candidates have come and gone through Wisconsin for the primary season, but I still have some questions for the Democratic candidates, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama. I would like to be enthusiastic about this election, I really would. After the past ...
Topics: ag policy, ag subsidies, agriculture, Barack Obama, biofuels, elections, food, health, Hillary Clinton, local food, politics, presidential race 08, Wisconsin (all these topics)

Countdown to the 2008 Farm Bill: Part V Direct and value-added marketing in the farm bill	Aimee Witteman	20 Jan 2008	Gristmill
This is the last installment of a five-part series of farm bill fact sheets from the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. For additional information about the status of sustainable agriculture priorities in the House and Senate versions of the farm bill, please check out SAC's farm bill progress chart. Farm Bill "conference" negotiations are underway at the staff level. Please call your Senators and Representative today and tell them what you want to see in th ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, food, politics (all these topics)

Countdown to the 2008 Farm Bill: Part III Organic production and research	Aimee Witteman	15 Jan 2008	Gristmill
This is the third in a series of five farm bill fact sheets from the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. For more information on the status of all sustainable agriculture provisions in the Senate and House versions of the farm bill, please visit SAC's farm bill legislative tracking center. Despite the fact that organic agriculture is one of the fastest growing sectors of American agriculture, the U.S. is currently experiencing a domestic shortfall of organically pro ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, food, legislation, organic food, politics (all these topics)

Meat Wagon: Factory farms milk the government Conservation title schemes, youth flee CAFO country, and a side of E. coli beef	Tom Philpott	14 Jan 2008	Gristmill
In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat industry. In the business section of Sunday's New York Times, reporter Andrew Martin shined a bright light on a USDA program called the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, or EQIP. Funded through the conservation title of the farm bill, EQIP was originally intended to support farmers who wanted to improve the ecological performance of their farms -- say, by sharing the cost of building a fence to k ...
Topics: agriculture, politics, ag policy, food, industrial ag (all these topics)

The underground food movement gains force, plus lots of bad news Top green food stories of 2007	Tom Philpott	21 Dec 2007	Gristmill
'...to make whole what has been smashed...' -- Walter Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History All over the country, communities are organizing to establish food sovereignty. From low-income neighborhoods in Milwaukee to Detroit and Brooklyn, to the very heart of industrial agriculture, people are getting their hands dirty and building up their own alternatives to industrial food. In a nation with billions of dollars invested in growing, processing, distributin ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, food, health, local food, politics, sustainable ag (all these topics)

The corn supremacy A new piece on the insanity that is U.S. ethanol policy	Joseph Romm	20 Dec 2007	Gristmill
I have an article in Salon on the insanity that is America's ethanol policy. The new energy bill sets this country on a path to finish the assault on the world food supply begun by the (even lamer) 2005 energy bill. As I explain, our ethanol policy does not help fight global warming, but it does threaten food supplies: In just the past two years, food prices have jumped 75 percent in real terms ... The Economist points out the amazing statistic that "the deman ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, biofuels, ethanol, food, politics (all these topics)

Time for some rehab Agriculture is drunk on corn-based ethanol	Thomas Dobbs	14 Dec 2007	Gristmill
Thomas Dobbs is Professor Emeritus of Economics at South Dakota State University, and a W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food & Society Policy Fellow. ----- American agriculture is becoming addicted to corn-based ethanol, and the economic and environmental effects of this addiction call for some intervention! The explosive growth in U.S. ethanol production from corn is having worldwide ramifications. December 6 articles in The Economist ('Cheap no more' ...
Topics: legislation, ag subsidies, ag policy, politics, food, economy, ethanol, biofuels, agriculture (all these topics)

Beyond the farm bill Progressive urban food bills could help reshape America's food future	Guest author	14 Dec 2007	Gristmill
The following is a guest essay by Christopher D. Cook, author of Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis. His work has appeared in The Nation, Harper's, The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor and Mother Jones. ----- After many legislative hiccups along the way, Congress is rapidly deciding the fate of America's food supply: what's grown, how it's produced and by whom, and how that food will affect our health and the planet. The roughl ...
Topics: food, ag policy, politics, agriculture, sustainable ag (all these topics)

On corn, meat, and the myth of Big Farma Why we shouldn't target farmers for our farm bill frustrations	Guest author	13 Dec 2007	Gristmill
We're very pleased to run this guest essay by Elanor Starmer, an independent activist scholar who lives in California. Elanor recently published an important paper (PDF) on the livestock industry with Tim Wise of the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University. As the farm bill lurches to its conclusion amid shrill rhetoric about the 'farm bloc,' Elanor redirects our attention to the real beneficiaries of both federal farm policy and conventional at ...
Topics: politics, legislation, industrial ag, ag policy, agriculture, food (all these topics)

A bumper crop of corn Malawi celebrates, but for how long?	Maywa Montenegro	03 Dec 2007	Gristmill
So while the U.S. Farm Bill is out to pasture until 2008, it looks like most commodity subsidies will remain untouched. Agricultural price supports may be the law of the land here, but it's certainly not what we've been advocating abroad. A bittersweet story on page one of today's NY Times documents how Malawians are pulling back from the brink, largely because -- going against the wishes of the World Bank -- they've begun to reinstitute government crop subsidies: ...
Topics: agriculture, ag policy, ag subsidies, Malawi, politics, food (all these topics)

Subsidizing healthier freedom fries Yet another distortion to correct a distortion	Ron Steenblik	06 Aug 2007	Gristmill
Anybody who closely follows U.S. agricultural policy appreciates the journalism of Philip Brasher and his team at the Des Moines Register. One of Mr. Brasher's recent articles highlights a feature of the farm bill recently passed by the House of Representatives that probably few people have heard of: the 'Healthy Oils Incentive Program.' According to the website of freshman Congressman Nick Lampson (D-Stafford, Texas) -- who recently underwent quadruple heart bypass ...
Topics: ag policy, ag subsidies, agriculture, biofuels, food, politics (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)

Ag policy as if people mattered Time to kick it old school on the farm bill.	Tom Philpott	24 Jun 2007	Gristmill
The terms of debate around the 2007 farm bill's controversial commodity title have gotten rather narrow.On the one hand, you've got the House subcommittee on ag commodities, which essentially cut and pasted commodity language from the subsidy-heavy 2002 farm bill into the 2007 version now being drafted.On the other hand, you've got a chorus of critics, ranging from Oxfam to the Cato Institute to the Environmental Working Group, demanding an end to ag subsidies. This gro ...
Topics: ag policy, ag subsidies, agriculture, Big Ag, food, legislation, politics (all these topics)

Nothing busted but our chops How the 2007 Farm Bill can help restore market competition	Aimee Witteman	13 Jun 2007	Gristmill
Are federal authorities finally taking the idea that a few companies shouldn't be allowed to dominate the food system seriously? Well, the Federal Trade Commission recently blocked Whole Foods from gobbling up rival natural foods marketer Wild Oats. Congratulations to the FTC for busting up the natural-foods trust! But even combined, Whole Foods and Wild Oats would account for only 15 percent of natural-foods sales. Meanwhile, Smithfield Foods alone now controls ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, Congress, Department of Agriculture, Department of Justice, food, politics (all these topics)

Influencing the Farm Bill Now is the time to harangue your reps about farm and food policy.	Steph Larsen	16 May 2007	Gristmill
As debate over the 2007 Farm Bill heats up, more people than ever are realizing that the five-year omnibus legislation, due to expire this year, directly influences what crops are produced in this country, who gets paid for them and how much, the manner in which they are produced, what kind of product they become, and who eats what. They're also connecting the dots and realizing that our current farm and food policy is making us overweight and unhealthy while lining the ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, Congress, food, politics (all these topics)

The sweet smell of an organic coffee victory It's safe, for now	Samuel Fromartz	03 May 2007	Gristmill
Organic coffee is safe, for now. In a victory for organic farmers in the developing world and organic coffee drinkers here, the USDA's National Organic Program has backed down and said that there will be no immediate change in the way these farmers are certified. The NOP had quietly announced in March that it was changing certification procedures for these farms, meaning that their future as organic farmers was in jeopardy. The change would have increased costs s ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, food, organic food, politics (all these topics)

Food Chain Radio: great edible audio	Erik Hoffner	02 May 2007	Gristmill
I'd like to recommend Food Chain Radio to all you people who like to eat. This podcast/broadcast is freely available and fascinating, delving into the implications of our appetites: everything from factory farming and CAFOs to irradiation and poisoned pet food. The most interesting recent show available at the link above is called Grandma's Wartime Kitchen, which discusses a time of rationing when oddities like knuckle of pork and stuffed beef heart became culinary trea ...
Topics: food, agriculture, industrial ag, ag policy, politics (all these topics)

Tortilla Spat How Mexico's iconic flatbread went industrial and lost its flavor	Tom Philpott	13 Sep 2006	Victual Reality
In a spectacle similar to the one conjured up by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000, a Mexican judiciary panel handed the nation's presidency to Felipe Calder�n last week. Even The New York Times, in its circumspect way, acknowledged that the new president-elect's narrow victory over leftist rival Andr�s Manuel L�pez Obrador involved seemingly illegal activity by Calder�n's governmental and bi ...
Topics: ag policy, agriculture, Big Ag, business, food, local food, Mexico, politics, Victual Reality (all these topics)

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