Tea Off: India’s Farmers Say Climate Changing Brew

Growers in heart of India’s tea industry sip a weakening brew, and say climate change to blame AP GAUHATI, India (AP) — In this humid, lush region where an important part of the world’s breakfast is born, the evidence of climate change is — literally — a weak tea. Growers in tropical Assam state, India’s […]

A Visit From Maine’s Organic Gardening Guru

The Atlantic By Chloe Rossetti Yale’s Timothy Dwight common room is packed. The room quiets down, and a couple hundred Ivy affiliates surrender their ears … to a farmer. The man, the farmer, the legend, is Eliot Coleman, educator, advocate of Four Seasons Farming (a year-round farming philosophy of his own creation), and author of […]

Meyer Natural Foods Acquires Dakota Beef

USAgNet Meyer Natural Foods, Lexington, Ky., and Loveland, Colo., announced it is acquiring Howard, S.D.-based Dakota Beef, one of the largest and oldest certified organic beef brands in North America. As part of the transaction, terms of which were not disclosed, Meyer Natural Foods has secured a long-term supply of organic Angus calves born on […]

WikiLeaks Cables Reveal U.S. Sought to Retaliate Against Europe over Monsanto GM Crops

Democracy Now JUAN GONZALEZ: U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks reveal the Bush administration drew up ways to retaliate against Europe for refusing to use genetically modified seeds. In 2007, then-US ambassador to France Craig Stapleton was concerned about France’s decision to ban cultivation of genetically modified corn produced by biotech giant Monsanto. He also […]

Salinas, California: The Salad Bowl of Pesticides

Politics Daily Sheila Kaplan SALINAS VALLEY, Calif. – Locals call this place the world’s salad bowl. Dole, Naturipe and Fresh Express are here, where much of the global fruit and vegetable trade emerges in neat green fields just over the hills from the Pacific Coast. The difficulties facing migrant workers who plant and pick the […]

Congress Sends Food Safety Bill to President’s Desk

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition On December 21, 2010, the House of Representatives voted 215-144 to pass the Senate version of the Food Safety Modernization Act, with the Tester-Hagan amendment protecting small farms intact. This final vote by the House ends weeks of procedural wrangling, and sends the bill to the President’s desk for enactment. As […]

Unsafe Eggs Linked to U.S. Failure to Act

Washington Post By Lyndsey Layton Public health officials closed the books this month on an outbreak of salmonella illness that had sickened more than 1,900 people since May and led to the largest recall of eggs in U.S. history. Two Iowa egg farms drew most of the blame, triggering a congressional investigation, a federal criminal […]

Vilsack Mulling Limits on Biotech Crop

[The Cornucopia Institute has been providing technical and farmer-plaintiff support to a lawsuit led by the Center for Food Safety challenging Monsanto’s move for deregulation of their geneticially modified alfalfa.] DesMoines Register By Phillip Brasher The Obama administration is considering geographic limits on where biotech alfalfa can be grown, a restriction that would represent a […]

Why Farmers Are Flocking to Manure

The Atlantic By Gene Logsdon I half-jokingly suggested about a year ago that animal manure—used livestock, horse, and chicken bedding—was going to be the hottest commodity on the Chicago Board of Trade one of these days. Shortly after that I got a call from a close acquaintance who manages an awesome business of growing 8,000 […]

GM Crops Threaten to Replace Natural Seeds

Daily Monitor By RICHARD MUGISHA It is alarming that the biotechnology industry and the governments that support them are pushing for Genetically Modified (GM) crops and food into Uganda without due regard to local communities’ livelihoods, bio-safety and democratic rights. GMOs such as genetically engineered maize, cotton and soya are rapidly finding their entry into […]

We Can’t Afford Cheap Meat Anymore

Citizen-Times, Asheville Dena Hoff Most Americans view cheap meat as a good thing, but they generally don’t understand who pays the high cost of the policies making it inexpensive. More than 80 percent of the beef, pork and poultry consumed in this country comes from livestock fed and processed by only three meatpacking companies: JBS-Swift, […]

Factory Farm Nation: Map Charts Unprecedented Growth in Factory Farming

Food & Water Watch Analysis Finds Livestock on Factory Farms Grew by 20 Percent in 5 Years Food and Water Watch Washington, D.C. – Food & Water Watch today unveiled the newest version of its pioneering Factory Farm Map (www.factoryfarmmap.org) that charts the concentration of factory farms across the country and the impacts these massive […]