agriculture

The Obama Administration and Food, Year One

A year after America voted for the change-agent they saw in Barack Obama, advocates hoping for deep improvements in our food system can point to only a few successes, while other policies that could lead to food insecurity are brewing in back rooms.

Nearly two years ago, candidate Obama said the following in a speech at the Iowa Farmer's Union:

Monsanto and Pioneer Duke It Out Over Biotech Corn, Farmers Take the Hit

There is an old African saying "Whether elephants make love or war, the grass suffers." The two elephants in the agricultural seed business are now making real war, although they have been wary of each other for years. Monsanto, a relatively recent entry into the business, has become the "dominant male" in the battle after moving to acquire a large number of formerly independent seed companies. Pioneer, content for years to be the premiere corn breeder in the world, has

The Organic Revolution: How We Can Stop Global Warming

"Let us not talk falsely now, for the hour is getting late."

Bob Dylan, "All Along the Watchtower"

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On World Food Day: Crunching the Numbers

Tomorrow is World Food Day and since I can't invite you all over for dinner, I thought I'd serve up a smorgasbord of facts and figures about the way the US and the world eat or don't eat, as the case may be.

The Cost of Palm Oil

"The day the (palm) seeds arrived in our country on the plane, I wondered, `what are these seeds?'" Matilda Pilacapio told us at a meeting in late September. Pilacapio is a human rights advocate from Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea and she stopped by our Minneapolis office on the way to a meeting with Cargill—the largest palm oil importer in the U.S.

Norman Borlaug's Unsustainable Green Revolution

Last month, the world lost a Nobel laureate. In the many tributes following his death, Norman Borlaug was credited with saving more lives than any man in history. Borlaug’s legacy was the Green Revolution – bringing industrial agriculture to Mexico, India, and Pakistan. Pesticides, ammonia fertilizer, irrigation, and hybrid seeds resulted in a predictable outcome: lush green fields full of high-yielding crops. At last, mankind had the tools at its fingertips to overcome hunger.

More Americans Growing Food on Small `Hobby Farms'

In this Friday, Sept. 11, 2009 photo, Gary Mithoefer washes vegetables picked from one of his two garden plots filled with sweet potatoes, squash, cabbages and a dozen other types of vegetables, including freshly planted rows of fall lettuce in Gem, Ind. Mithoefer gardens after his workday ends at his state highway job, is one of a growing number of Americans who are rolling up their sleeves and digging into the dirt to raise crops or livestock on a small-scale.(AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

GEM, Ind. - Most evenings, Gary Mithoefer can be found at the end of a long gravel driveway off a busy highway, tending two garden plots filled with white sweet potatoes, squash, cabbages and a dozen other vegetables still thriving in early fall.

The 62-year-old, who gardens after his workday ends at his state highway job, is one of a growing number of Americans rolling up their sleeves and digging into the dirt to raise crops or livestock on a small scale.

Climate Billl Is the Wrong Place for Farm Policy

This week, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) introduced a new piece of climate legislation, and agriculture once again is expected to be at the center of debate as the bill moves forward. The new legislation is a complement to the Waxman-Markey climate bill the House passed last June, a bill that placed agriculture in a potentially perilous position. The Boxer-Kerry legislation now threatens to do the same, a move that could be bad for farmers, eaters, and the planet.

Food Supply Hangs in the Balance

A farmer carries dried corn outside Jalapa, Guatemala September 26, 2009. Guatemalan president Alvaro Colom declared a state of \"calamity\" over food supply in Guatemala, where a prolonged dry spell has reduced the harvest of staples like maize and beans by up to 50 percent. Not isolated to Guatemala, the food supply crisis is a global, and without radical improvements in the food supply system, things could get much worse. (REUTERS/Daniel LeClair) UXBRIDGE, Canada - Rocketing food prices and hundreds of millions more starving people will be part of humanity's grim future without concerted action on climate change and new investments in agriculture, experts reported this week.

The current devastating drought in East Africa, where millions of people are on the brink of starvation, is a window on our future, suggests a new study looking at the impacts of climate change.

Getting Corny: Environmentalists Seek 'Agricultural Asylum'

Environmentalist rallying against genetically-modified corn. (AFP image)

MADRID — Environmentalists dressed as giant ears of corn Tuesday asked for "agricultural asylum" in the French embassy in Madrid in a protest over genetically modified crops.

The environmental organisation Friends of the Earth organised the symbolic act to protest Spain's "large-scale" production of genetically modified corn, which is banned in France.

Around 20 protesters from several European countries and dressed as corn cobs demonstrated outside the French embassy in central Madrid.

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