Farm to Fork: Uncovering Hazards in Our Food Systems
Reveal News from The Center for Investigative Reporting In December, Reveal will dedicate an hour to stories about food, looking at the complicated networks of labor, trade and regulation that carry meat, produce and other products to our tables. We’ll upend your ideas about what kind of chicken is most susceptible to salmonella, unveil the secret […]
A Brief History of the Modern Strawberry
YouTube by Reveal From cereal to ice cream to cocktails, it seems that strawberries are served with just about everything. But it wasn’t always this way. Today, Americans eat four times as many strawberries as they did 40 years ago. This short stop-motion animation explains how clever advertising tactics and certain pesticides helped make the […]
Weaker Breaths in Kids Linked to Early Pesticide Exposure
Science Daily by Sarah Yang Source: Robert Patton Taking a deep breath might be a bit harder for children exposed early in life to a widely used class of pesticides in agriculture, according to a new paper by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. A new study has linked the levels of organophosphate pesticide […]
Carbon Farming Gets A Nod At Paris Climate Conference
The Salt – NPR by Alastair Bland Source: NRCS This week, world leaders are hashing out a binding agreement in Paris at the 2015 U.N. Climate Change Conference for curbing greenhouse gas emissions. And for the first time, they’ve made the capture of carbon in soil a formal part of the global response to the […]
The Lynchpin of Industrial Ag
Pesticide Action Network – North America Source: Pieter van Marion Pesticides are the lynchpin of an unsustainable industrial agriculture system. Sixty years ago, after World War II, we started industrializing U.S. farming operations through a mix of policy decisions and accidents of history. This method of farming is neither inevitable nor efficient. More to the […]
Warning: After Reading This, You May Never Eat Shrimp from Thailand Again
CivilEats by Barry Estabrook Source: David Dennis I vowed never to touch another Thai-farmed shrimp after attending a panel discussion recently at the SeaWeb Seafood Summit in New Orleans. Steve Trent, the executive director of Britain’s Environmental Justice Foundation, described a multi-billion-dollar industry with a financial model that would not be viable without slave labor. “It’s […]
Monsanto on Trial for Crimes Against Nature and Humanity
The Ecologist by Pavlos Georgiadis Monsanto was accused of ‘crimes against humanity and the environment’ at COP21 in Paris this week, writes Pavlos Georgiadis. And now the evidence against it is being gathered for presentation at a ‘Monsanto Tribunal’ taking place next October in The Hague. Civil society groups are putting Monsanto on trial for […]
The Cultivator – Winter 2015
The Winter 2015 Cultivator, Cornucopia’s quarterly newsletter, is now available online. Download the PDF here. In it you’ll find: Cover story: Scrambled Eggs? Commentary: NOP Leader Subject of Ethics Investigation Feature: The Truth about Pet Food News: California Dream Faces Stark Reality Legal Update Choices for Charitable Giving FDA Rolls Out Food Safety Rules Farmer Profile: Singing the Song […]
Tell Consumers What They Are Eating
The New York Times by the Editorial Board Source: Prachatai In approving genetically engineered salmon as safe to eat and safe for the environment, the Food and Drug Administration rejected petitions from environmental and food safety groups asking that companies selling this salmon be required to label it as genetically engineered. Congress should overturn that […]
New Poll: Nearly Nine in 10 Americans Want Labels on GMO Food Strong Support for Labels Crosses Party Lines
Just Label It By an overwhelming margin, American voters say consumers should have the right to know if their food is genetically modified, with 89 percent in support of mandatory GMO labeling, according to a new national poll. Nearly the same number of consumers would like to see the labels in an easy to read […]
As Big Food Feels Threat Of Climate Change, Companies Speak Up
NPR – The Salt by Dan Charles Source: Frankie Leon Chances are, you’ve picked up some chatter about the new global talks on climate change. If you can’t quite see how it matters to you, personally, you might want to take a peek inside your pantry. Or your candy jar. Because it might just affect […]
California Dream Faces Stark Reality
[This article was previously published in the winter issue of The Cultivator, Cornucopia’s quarterly newsletter.] by Will Fantle, Codirector at The Cornucopia Institute What Does Record Drought in the Golden State Mean for Organic Food in the U.S.? Over 92% of California is currently under severe, extreme, or exceptional drought, according to the U.S. Drought Portal.Source: Thinkstock Photos […]
