By Tom Kessler

The Philadelphia Phillies are still trying to close out the World Series, but the team has already been declared winners off the field. The National League Chanmipions were among the winners cited in the Environmenal Protection Agency’s 2008 Green Power Leadership Awards. The announcement was made at the the National Renewable Energy Marketing Conference in Denver, Colo.

EPA’s Green Power Partnership is a voluntary program helping to increase the use of green power among leading U.S. organizations. The program encourages organizations to purchase green power as a way to reduce the environmental impacts associated with conventional electricity use. The EPA says the program has hundreds of partner organizations buying billions of kilowatt-hours of green power annually.

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From the Environmental Protection Agency

The 2008 Green Power Leadership Awards were presented in conjunction with the National Renewable Energy Marketing Conference, held October 26-29 in Denver, Colorado.

EPA Green Power Purchaser Awards: On-Site Generation

Lundberg Family Farms is a family owned and operated farm committed to growing and producing organic rice and rice products in the Sacramento Valley of Northern California. Lundberg’s environmentally focused philosophy has made green power a natural fit for the company.

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By Shermakaye Bass
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 [...]

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By Barbara Kessler

Apparently conventional farming techniques aren’t too grape for vineyard keepers in the Midwest. Their tender fruit withers when it comes into contact with a commonly used herbicide, called 2, 4-D that is spread on corn and other field crops to control broadleaf weeds.

So researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a new grape that can stand up to 2, 4-D (or R2D2 if you’re playing Star Wars).

This new improved grape - imperially named “Improved Chancellor” — does not die when confronted with 2, 4-D (the D stands for Dicholorophenoxyacetic) because it has been genetically altered with an added bacterium that breaks down the herbicide, according to an Environmental News Service release.

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By John DeFore

Nitrates, substances which when consumed by humans can be toxic, especially for infants (whose blood can be made less able to carry enough oxygen), are commonly used in fertilizers. While efforts have been made in recent years to reduce fertilizer use, it’s hard to know — since it takes time for substances to migrate from topsoil into aquifers — how quickly changes to agricultural practices affect water supplies.

Now a study published in the Journal of Environmental Quality finds that nitrate levels in ground water are on the rise in many parts of the U.S., leading researchers to call for increased monitoring.

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By John DeFore

It may rank among the “Least Wanted” plants in North America (the state of Washington describes it as noxious for its ability to crowd out all other vegetation), but the Japanese knotweed may be good for something after all.

Dr. Pam Marrone, founder of Marrone Organic Innovations announced at a recent meeting of the American Chemical Society the development of a new biopesticide made from knotweed extract, one that will be appropriate for use by organic farmers who shun conventional pesticides.

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By Catherine Girardeau

Marin County dairy farmer Albert Straus started moving toward a “slower” way of doing business back in 1994, when his family-owned farm, Straus Family Creamery, became the only organic dairy west of the Mississippi.

Straus, whose organic ice cream will be scooped out at the Ice Cream Pavilion at Slow Food Nation, has been producing organic milk, yogurt, butter and ice cream under the family name ever since. Straus grew up on his father’s conventional dairy farm in Marshall, California, a town so small it had a one-room schoolhouse, on the shores of Tomales Bay in western Marin County, 60 miles north of San Francisco. He joined the farm as a partner in 1977 and made the risky, but prescient decision to transition the operation from conventional to organic in the early 1990s.

“Someone approached me about doing organic milk for ice cream,” Straus said in an interview in a makeshift conference room above his dairy. “I had no clue what it was. It took me three-and-a-half years to figure out what “organic” meant. No one else was doing it. There was one small co-op in Wisconsin, Organic Valley, but that was it.”

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By Barbara Kessler

In yet another indictment of industrial farming methods and another threat to fish, researchers are reporting vast growth of ocean “dead zones.” Once rare, dead zones are multiplying and now total more than 400 around the world’s coastal waters, putting stresses on marine life by upsetting the underwater food chain, according to an August article in the journal Science.

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By John DeFore

Conservation minded farmers might naturally assume it’s wise to get the most out of what’s available; if post-harvest waste material can be used in biofuel production, it seems to make financial and ecological use to sell it.

Not necessarily, according to a scientist at Washington State University who is urging farmers in her region to leave the waste where it falls.

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By John DeFore

While polar bear populations face the challenge of habitat melting beneath their feet, organisms that call water home appear to be grappling with a stranger difficulty: More and more areas of the ocean have oxygen levels too low to sustain them.A report just published in the journal Science asserts that, as tropical oceans warm, regions of low oxygen content are expanding.

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By Bill Sullivan
While most Americans remain fixated on sagging real estate prices and rising gasoline expenses, much of the rest of the planet wrestles with a more pressing concern: The skyrocketing price of food, and the social and political upheaval it is creating in many poorer countries.

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By Shermakaye Bass

So far this winter, things are looking fair-to-middlin’ for David Ellingson’s honeybees, but the Minnesotan is holding his breath until later this month, when he learns how two-thirds of his commercial hives have fared during their wintering season down south.

Ellingson has 1,200 hives in Southeast Texas (normally 20,000 to 30,000 bees inhabit a healthy hive), where he hopes the bees are fattening up in the warmer, moister climate. His remaining 700-800 hives buzz about the fields of California, where they are helping to pollinate the state’s massive almond crop.

The next few weeks are critical for the third-generation beekeeper.

More from GRN
Bee Colony Collapse: Experts Race To Unravel Mystery

Ellingson, a past president of the American Beekeeping Federation, will learn if he’ll have a repeat of last winter, when he lost 65 percent of all his bees. Also, in the next few weeks, he and those affected by Colony Collapse Disorder and other honey-bee health issues will learn if the current Farm Bill, which has a proposed $75 million for research and disaster-relief, will even make it to the House and Senate floors.

“This year so far our bees look better… If I had another year like last year (Ellingson saw an additional 15-20 percent loss during the ‘07 summer), we would be getting ready for a sale. I’m 54 years old. I can’t go any deeper into debt.”

For him, a lifelong passion and family tradition are at stake.

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