Opponents of GE-corn designed to resist the potent herbicide 2,4 D have flooded the USDA with letters of protest this week.
The majority of US corn has been engineered to be RoundUp ready. But RoundUp treated fields are producing super weeds that are overrunning the fields. Enter Dow Chemical with 2,4 D resistant corn. (Photo: GreenRightNow.)
Tags: · 4 D corn, Dow Chemical, Farmers, GE corn, Pesticide Action Network, proposed 2, Roundup
Ah, spring. You can smell it on the air — that bracing ammonia smell wafting off your neighbor’s lawn; the acrid odors at the local home store, where the first six aisles have been packed with heaping bags of the season’s poisons.
Hydramethylnon, glyphosate, dicambra, atrazine and 2,4-D.
There’s a little something to wipe out every potential lawn and garden interloper, but the most popular consumer weapons in the annual war on nature are the “weed and feeds.” These fertilizers-herbicide combos were conceived of more than 50 years ago in the US to enrich turf grass, while simultaneously stamping out invading weeds.
Tags: · 2, 4-D, atrazine, cancer and lawn chemicals, dangers of pesticides, dogs and weed and feed, Endocrine Disruptors, EPA, Farmers, frogs and atrazine, health effects of atrazine and 2, herbicides, Hodgkin's lymphoma, kids and weed and feed, lawn chemicals, Lawns, lymphoma, Non-Hodgkins lymphoma, pesticides, weed and feed
On this day of food activism – Occupy the Food System – I’d like to say, Bravo! to the creative minds behind this event. It makes so much sense for food advocates, environment activists and family farmers to work together.
These groups share many goals and struggles. They all want a cleaner world, with quality food and stronger local economies. And they all operate on a precipice, with limited time left to stop the terminal effects of carbon pollution, and in the case of food, the corporate flattening of options. (Fortunately they have some heavyweight support from farm friend Willie Nelson and food activists like Vandana Shiva, Marion Nestle, Raj Patel and Woody Harrelson.)
Tags: · BarbaraKesslerBlog, climate activists, day of action, Farmers, food activists, Occupy Your Food Supply
The Spanish word “salud” (meaning “to your health”) is often used by wine lovers when raising a glass. But when it comes to growing grapes and making wine, not all is in the best of health, especially where ecology is concerned. Grape growing can be just as tough on the land as any other crop – and turning those grapes into environmentally friendly wines can be even more challenging.
Consider the bottling, the waste byproducts, the use of petrol-powered farm equipment, the winery’s carbon footprint, in general. Those things add up – even if a vintner is by nature a steward of the land.
But a renewed awareness of the earth – or call it a “remembering” – has fostered a retro-trend among wineries worldwide to green up, go organic, or at least introduce some eco aspects to their enterprise.
Tags: · biodynamic wine, California, Farmers, Organic wine, vinyards
By John DeFore
With the locavore ideal so much in the media these days and produce of vague origin sparking so many health scares, you’d think the last thing a city would go out of its way to do would be discourage local growers. Especially if those growers are adorable little girls.
Tags: · California, Farmers, Locavore, Produce
Barbara Kessler
Andrew Winston
Danielle Nierenberg
Anthony Swift