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RESULTS		Results 51 – 75 of 75
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Headline	Author	Published	Section
Unrigging the game How to stop the agribiz giants from impeding the growth of local food.	Tom Philpott	26 Apr 2007	Gristmill
In today's Victual Reality I discussed how a few companies dominate U.S. food production, and how their market girth weighs heavily on efforts to rebuild local-oriented, environmentally and socially responsible food networks. Now I'd like to add a few words on what might be done to remedy the situation. First of all, it's important to note that heavily consolidated food markets rig the game to favor large-scale, industrial-style farming. As companies like Cargill a ...
Topics: agriculture, Big Ag, business, food, industrial ag, local food, sustainable ag (all these topics)

BBC on 'feeding the world' The perils of cooking with greenhouse gas.	Tom Philpott	29 Mar 2007	Gristmill
The BBC has issued a pretty clear-eyed report on food production and climate change, the podcast of which you can download here. The report makes no brief for sustainable ag, but it does cogently question industrial ag's ability to 'feed the world' as climate change saps water tables and population continues to grow.
Topics: agriculture, climate, food, industrial ag, sustainable ag (all these topics)

Is humane meat better for the environment?	Jason D Scorse	26 Mar 2007	Gristmill
According to this NYT article, one of the country's biggest restaurant moguls has decided that he will only sell humanely treated animals in all of his restaurants. This is, in one sense, a great victory. But I fear that there may be unintended consequences. Humane meat is likely to be nearly as environmentally intensive and inefficient as factory-farm raised meat (requiring much more water, energy, and producing much more CO2 than plant food) so by convincing the ...
Topics: agriculture, animal welfare, food, green living, sustainable ag (all these topics)

Dishing It Out My address to the Southern Appalachian Youth on Food conference	Tom Philpott	08 Mar 2007	Victual Reality
One crop to rule them all. Photo: USDA Tucked into the rolling hills of North Carolina's Swannanoa Valley, Warren Wilson College is essentially surrounded by a farm. The school's 800 students not only tend the 275-acre farm -- which includes pastured livestock and vegetables -- they also provide the labor to run the campus. They do everything from accounting to plumbing to cooking in the ca ...
Topics: food and agriculture, industrial ag, sustainable ag, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Fertile Ground Reviving a much-cited, little-read sustainable-ag masterpiece	Tom Philpott	01 Mar 2007	Victual Reality
The real Arsenal of Democracy is a fertile soil, the fresh produce of which is the birthright of nations. -- Sir Albert Howard, The Soil and Health Sir Albert Howard. Around 1900, a 27-year-old British scientist named Albert Howard, a specialist in plant diseases, arrived in Barbados, then a province of the British Empire. His charge was to find cutting-edge cures for diseases that attacked t ...
Topics: food and agriculture, sustainable ag, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Reform School Bush's farm bill 'reform' proposal falls woefully short	Tom Philpott	06 Feb 2007	Victual Reality
Bush's farm bill "reform" proposal falls woefully short By Tom Philpott 06 Feb 2007 Note: This is the third of a three-column series on the 2007 farm bill. The first two columns are here and here. The author promises not to return to the topic for at least a few weeks -- but will likely backslide from this pledge in his Gristmill blog posts. Can Bush point the way for America's farmers? Photo: whitehouse.gov/Eric Draper In this series, I promised to lay out new models for ...
Topics: ag policy, ag subsidies, food, local food, politics, sustainable ag, Victual Reality (all these topics)

The myth of grass-fed beef It's only natural	Julia Olmstead	01 Feb 2007	Gristmill
About twice a day, an email from a mystery man/unflagging anti-ethanol crusader named Ray Wallace appears in my inbox, chock full of excerpts from the latest ethanol slams and, on lucky days, choice quotes from politicos and the like sounding less-than-smart about the whole business. I'm not sure how I got on his listserv, and I can't quite say how you can (but if you'd really like to, let me know and we can probably work something out). Anyhow (I'm getting to my poin ...
Topics: agriculture, food, sustainable ag (all these topics)

Risky Business Thoughts from a small farm during the midwinter lull	Tom Philpott	10 Jan 2007	Victual Reality
Before I became a farmer three growing seasons ago, I lived in Brooklyn, N.Y., and reveled in the array of top-flight local produce available from mid-spring to late fall. Long about January, though, a kind of local-food withdrawal would set in. Frosty, with a chance of failure. Photo: iStockphoto By this time of year, the legendary produce aisle of the Park Slope Food Co-op would be given over mainly ...
Topics: ag subsidies, agriculture, farmers markets, food, local food, sustainable ag, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Poor Taste Why The Economist's recent assault on 'ethical food' missed the mark	Tom Philpott	03 Jan 2007	Victual Reality
Why The Economist's recent assault on "ethical food" missed the mark By Tom Philpott 03 Jan 2007 Last month, the influential British newsweekly The Economist took the measure of the sustainable-food movement and found it wanting. "There are good reasons to doubt the claims made about three of the most popular varieties of 'ethical food': organic food, fair-trade food, and local food," the journal declared, and proceeded to subject each to withering analysis. Do ...
Topics: agriculture, business, consumerism, farmers markets, food, green living, local food, organic food, sustainable ag, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Elite Eats Locally grown food shouldn't be just for those with cash to spare	Tom Philpott	29 Nov 2006	Victual Reality
As a critic of the globalized industrial food system, I often face charges of elitism -- in part, likely, because I neglect to acknowledge the system's clear achievements. So here goes. In the mood for good food? Look no further than your backyard. Photo: iStockphoto In human history, few pampered Roman emperors or African kings had as easy access to a broad variety of foods as the present-d ...
Topics: agriculture, farmers markets, food, gardening, local food, slow food, sustainable ag, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Cold Comfort Farm Could small farms provide fresh food year-round, even in northern climes?	Tom Philpott	30 Aug 2006	Victual Reality
Is the sustainable-agriculture movement essentially Luddite? It's a common charge -- and a fair enough question. The Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug, perhaps industrial agriculture's greatest living apologist, deplores at every opportunity the organic movement's supposedly technophobic ways. Addressing a graduating class a few years ago at Texas A&M -- that factory for fu ...
Topics: ag subsidies, agriculture, Department of Agriculture, food, local food, sustainable ag, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Eatin' Good in the Neighborhood Why 'the market' alone can't save local agriculture	Tom Philpott	16 Aug 2006	Victual Reality
Why "the market" alone can't save local agriculture By Tom Philpott 16 Aug 2006 The local-food movement has reached an interesting juncture. Through one lens, things are looking better than ever. According to a USDA report (PDF), the number of farmers' markets leapt 79 percent to 3,100 between 1994 and 2002. Community-supported agriculture programs -- wherein consumers buy a share of a farm's output before the season starts, sharing the risks and rew ...
Topics: agriculture, business, CSAs, farmers markets, food, local food, sustainable ag, Victual Reality, Wal-Mart (all these topics)

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)

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)

Back to the Garden Two new photo books focus on food	Tom Philpott	09 Feb 2006	Arts and Minds
In the valuable new book Fields of Plenty: A Farmer's Journey in Search of Real Food and the People Who Grow It, author Michael Ableman rambles across the country in a VW van, visiting small-scale farmers to talk with them at the table and in the field. Vine and dandy. Photo: Chrissi Nerantzi. Not surprisingly, he encounters an array of colorful characters, including Bob Cannard, a celebrated Northern California mic ...
Topics: agriculture, books, food, green living, recipes, slow food, sustainable ag (all these topics)

In Farm's Way Sustainable-ag legend Joel Salatin can farm -- but can he write?	Tom Philpott	29 Nov 2005	Arts and Minds
Over the past 20 years, Joel Salatin has emerged as a sort of guru of the sustainable-food movement. His 500-acre Polyface Farm in Swoope, Va., is legendary among a small circle of foodies for its robustly flavored beef, pork, chicken, and eggs. Among farmers, Salatin has won cult status for his innovations in multi-species, pasture-based animal husbandry. But readers of his new book, Holy ...
Topics: agriculture, food, green living, local food, slow food, sustainable ag (all these topics)

Seedy business: A sustainable-ag champion gets plowed under at Iowa State Is agribusiness behind the ouster of one of its biggest critics?	Tom Philpott	02 Nov 2005	Gristmill
Plunked down in the land of huge, chemical-addicted grain farms and the nation's greatest concentration of hog feedlots, Iowa State University's Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture has always had a tough row to hoe. Imagine trying to operate an Anti-Cronyism League from Bush's West Wing, and you get an idea of what the Leopold Center is up against. Industrial agriculture runs the show in Iowa, sustained by regular infusions of federal cash and its government-sa ...
Topics: agriculture, education, Iowa, sustainable ag (all these topics)

Food and class To create a truly sustainable food system, we'll need to make some fundamental changes.	Tom Philpott	12 Oct 2005	Gristmill
The sustainable-food movement has a class problem. Slow Food, for example, is an essential organization, with its declaration of a universal 'right to taste' and its mandate to ... ... oppose the standardisation of taste, defend the need for consumer information, protect cultural identities tied to food and gastronomic traditions, safeguard foods and cultivation and processing techniques inherited from tradition and defend domestic and wild animal and vegetable speci ...
Topics: agriculture, food, sustainable ag (all these topics)

Grow With the Flow On hydroponic farming	Umbra Fisk	16 Aug 2004	Ask Umbra
Dear Umbra, What are the advantages of hydroponics, and if it is so good, why isn't it used more? Luke Mitchellville, Iowa Dearest Luke, Plants take up most of their nutrients through their roots, despite all we learned in elementary school about leaves making food from the sun. Soil is a complex conglomeration of minerals, nutrients, bugs, and fungi that deliver nutrients to plants via the root system. Farmers and gardeners lab ...
Topics: advice, Ask Umbra, food and agriculture, sustainable ag (all these topics)

Bake Your Cake and Eat It Too On getting a job in the 'eco-field'	Umbra Fisk	14 Jun 2004	Ask Umbra
On getting a job in the "eco-field" By Umbra Fisk 14 Jun 2004 Dear Umbra, I'm a conscientious baby boomer who would like to do things to help the planet. I'm simultaneously enjoying a midlife crisis. I have spent more than eight years in college, studying to be a psychologist/chef. Where in the eco-field is there a place for a reformed business owner/computer teacher/chef with years and years of experience in the psychology of women? Dr. Thom Jacksonvill ...
Topics: advice, Ask Umbra, food and agriculture, green jobs, green living, local food, organic food, sustainable ag (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)

The Organic Verses On organic food and farming	Umbra Fisk	26 Nov 2002	Ask Umbra
Dear Umbra, I try to buy organic food where possible, but I notice that there is often a tradeoff with other factors. For example, organic food has often been shipped further and/or is more heavily packaged. How do I assess those tradeoffs? Ellen Watertown, Mass. Dearest Ellen, As I've mentioned before, the USDA national organic standards came into effect last month, an event that has caused both rejoicing and concern in t ...
Topics: advice, agriculture, Ask Umbra, CSAs, farmers markets, food, food and agriculture, green living, local food, organic food, sustainable ag (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)

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