Climate Food and Agriculture

Spoiling organic milk?

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 complaint against a similar operation in Colorado. This led the USDA to start ruminating on what "access to pasture" really means, anyway.

While the folks at Cornucopia are doing their best to help the little guys get herd -- er, heard -- larger-scale farmers say they're doing right by cows and consumers. "Our reason for doing it is we'd like to see agriculture change," Mark Retzloff, who runs the Colorado farm, told the Chicago Tribune. "If we're really going to change agriculture, we have to do it on all scales."

Make all U.S. farming organic?

The Land Institute runs a program call the Prairie Writer's Circle, which brings together writers who cover sustainability issues in agriculture (and related issues). They distribute their op-eds free of charge. We get them frequently, and I always like them, but we rarely have the space or resources to get them up on the site.

However! Thanks the magic of blogitude, I shall start running the ones I like here. To kick it off, here's an essay about how all -- that's right, all -- farming in the U.S. should go organic within 10 years.

Local food

Here's a great AP story about colleges buying more food from local farmers. Students love it because it tastes better. School officials love it because it adds to the "quality of life" that attracts applicants. Cafeteria workers love it because they get to cook and prepare food again instead of just ripping open packages. Farmers with small- and medium-sized farms love it because it helps them stay above water. And environmentalists love it because it encourages the organic food industry and results in fewer miles of polluting transportation of food.

Consider what's holding this back from spreading and becoming common practice, not only for schools and other institutions but for the average consumer. It is not desire, I suspect -- even the totally eco-unconscious prefer better-tasting food. What's lacking is technology: The ability to closely track exactly what farmer has what and when, what consumer wants it and when, where they both are, and the most efficient way for them to connect. This kind of technology is being developed in bits and pieces all around us.

Enviros can help by publicizing and celebrating trends like this.

Full of Crop

Cultivation of GM crops on the rise Could 8 million farmers be wrong? Well, yes, contend a growing number of critics of genetically modified crops. Despite widespread resistance to GM foods abroad and in some areas of the U.S. (OK, California), the planting of bioengineered crops is on the rise in 17 GM-friendly countries. There, […]

Water, Water Everywh … Hey, Where’d the Water Go?

Agriculture needs to start conserving water, badly A new study by David Pimentel in the journal BioScience backs its call for greater agricultural water conservation with some disturbing statistics. Worldwide, agriculture uses some 70 percent of the freshwater supply. The ginormous Ogallala aquifer, which supplies water to a fifth of all irrigated land in the […]

Umbra on composting

Dear Umbra, Can you tell me what is the best and most effective composter for a small urban backyard? JoeBaltimore, Md. Dearest Joe, Sort of. It’s ultimately a very personal choice, and one that depends on what you will try to compost and the amount of time you are willing to spend helping the compost […]

Holy Frijoles!

Burgeoning soybean market transforming South American environment The global market for soybeans is exploding, largely driven by massive demand from China, and the resulting modern-day agricultural gold rush is transforming the landscape in South America. Farmers are chopping down rainforests, colonizing savannahs, damming rivers, and digging canals, all in an effort to get more land […]

Umbra on odd fruit

Dear Umbra, Yesterday in the grocery store I saw a “golden kiwi.” Is there really such a thing? It was over twice the size of a regular kiwi and the familiar fuzz was not there. It was almost as smooth as a nectarine. When I inquired of the produce representative, she told me that it […]

Ay-Yay-Yayurvedic

Imported herbal remedies found to contain lead and other nasties Ayurvedic herbal supplements imported from South Asia may contain lead, mercury, and arsenic, sometimes at levels high enough to cause serious health problems, including vomiting, convulsions, and seizures. A new report in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 20 percent of the […]

Sweet ‘n’ Low-Down

Sugar is causing environmental catastrophes A high-sugar diet is slowly fattening and sickening American people, but we’re getting off easy. Turns out the sweet stuff is outright killing endangered Florida panthers, not to mention the ecosystem in which they live. Almost 700,000 acres of the Florida Everglades have been drained to create the Everglades Agricultural […]