Oregonlive.com By Amy Goodman What do a half-billion eggs have to do with democracy? The massive recall of salmonella-infected eggs, the largest egg recall in U.S. history, opens a window on the power of large corporations over not only our health, but over our government. While scores of brands have been recalled, they all can… Read more »
Farther Afield
By Tom Willey T & D Willey Farms Those docile black and white Holstein “milk machines” on today’s industrial dairies hardly evoke an image of their wild progenitor, the enormous auroch, Bos primigenius, that commandeered Eurasian forests some 8,000 years ago, on the cusp of its impending domestication. European scientists, hot on the trail towards… Read more »
The Well-Grounded Senator
New York Times Every 15 minutes of a senator’s waking life in Washington is fully scheduled with meetings, hearings and votes, and much of the rest is devoted to a frantic search for money to fuel the next campaign. “Of any free time you have, I would say 50 percent, maybe even more,” is spent… Read more »
Michael Pollan: The Mighty Rise of the Food Revolution
Alternet Michael Pollan Until very recently, food was invisible as a political issue. Something is stirring. Pollan reviews five books that address the heart of the food movement. Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front by Joel Salatin, Polyface All You Can Eat: How Hungry Is America? by… Read more »
America’s Hemp King
An interesting history of industrial hemp production on American farms, specifically in Wisconsin, as the pressure to lift the prohibition on hemp production in the United States ramps-up.
The True Cost of Unhealthy Food
Natural Foods Merchandiser Unsavory practices in meat processing have captured the public spotlight in recent months. The Oscar-nominated documentary Food Inc. stunned audiences across the country with scenes depicting the dark recesses of the food-processing business. More recently, articles in Time, The New York Times and other media outlets have generated a firestorm of public… Read more »
What’s in a label? Everything
Editorial Source: Capital Press (link no longer available) In the fabled balcony scene, Juliet asks Romeo to reject his name. “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Oh, fair Juliet, a name is everything when you’re trying to sell a product or protect a brand,… Read more »
Taxpayer Subsidized Manure Digesters Stimulate Factory Farm Pollution
By John Kinsman What is the latest taxpayer-subsidized economic stimulus scheme? Why, manure digesters on factory farms, of course! At the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen last December, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack unveiled plans to promote manure digesters as a way to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent. The… Read more »
Op-Ed: Genetically Modified Crops Are Not the Answer
The Hill (link no longer available) By Dr. Hans Herren and Dr. Marcia Ishii-Eiteman The Senate is considering a bill that would overhaul the way Americans deliver foreign aid. With more people going hungry than ever before, the bill’s attention to global hunger could not come at a better time. The Global Food Security Act would… Read more »
OpEd: Ten Good Reasons Why GMOs Are Not Compatible With Organic Agriculture
Rodale Institute By Jim Riddle Despite fundamental differences in what they represent, there are occasional calls to allow the use of genetic engineering (which produces genetically modified organisms, known as GMOs) within the USDA National Organic Program. GMO varieties are currently most widespread in corn, soybean, canola and cotton crops, in dairy production, and in… Read more »
