Why is conventional agriculture so wound up? Are they afraid of organic
agriculture? What's all the fuss about? After all, a recent study by the Lieberman Research Group showed that organic food sales account for only 3.5% of all food product sales in the US.
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:
Author Michael Pollan is no stranger to controversy. He has broadened
the discussion of what we eat, where and how it is grown, big vs.
small, organic farming vs. conventional. When he speaks some in the
audience will love him, some will not.
SAN DIEGO, California - Juxtapose the word urban in front of farm and there’s bound to be a lot of head
scratching. But in cities around the U.S. small-scale farms and garden plots are
coming to life in unlikely places. Abandoned city lots, and neglected yards are
being converted into vegetable gardens - as basic food literacy becomes part of
the vocabulary of city dwellers.
SALINA, Kansas - When
the Agriculture Department released its 2007 census recently, the news
appeared surprisingly good: For the first time since World War II, the
United States did not lose farms, it gained them — 75,810, to be exact,
for a total of 2.2 million.
From the Victory gardens of the last century's two world wars to the community-garden movement started in the 1970s, urban agriculture has played an important role in the security of the food supply.
Metro Vancouver is no stranger to the urban harvest. According to City Farmer, 44 per cent of Vancouver's population is involved in some form of urban agriculture.
When Vancouver city council passed a motion in 2006 to encourage the creation of 2,010 new garden plots by Jan. 1, 2010, a legacy for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games, there were 950 plots in 18 gardens.
In the battle for the hearts and minds (and pocket books) of
everyday Americans, the large corporate players in today's industrial
food system must be pleased.
YAVATMAL, India - Eleven-year-old Digambar Rathod looks older than his age. Shy and uncertain, he stares disconcertedly at the garlanded photograph of his father Jaideep, a 42-year-old cotton farmer who committed suicide on Jan. 1, 2009 in Tiwsala village, in eastern Maharashtra state's suicide-torn Yavatmal district.
As the new head of the household, the boy-turned-farmer has adult responsibilities like the repayment of a bank loan of 190,000 rupees (roughly 3,960 dollars) that was the cause of his father's death.
Farmers claim to be stewards of the environment, some would say it's best friend; others, its worst enemy. The truth is we can be both.
Humans have never left a small footprint, we have always tried to shape the environment to suit our needs. Initially farming had one purpose, food; farming provided a more stable diet than the hunter-gatherer existence.
