Genetically modified foods are everywhere, having crept into processed foods as key components, such as corn oil, corn flour, high fructose corn syrup, soybean oil, soy isolate, invert sugar and on down the food label. How can a consumer cope? Until GE foods are labeled, shoppers have to ferret out the non-GMO foods and ingredients.
Tags: · Agriculture, biotech, corn, engineered foods, GE foods, GMO foods, groceries, Non-GMO Project, Organic certification, Organics, packaged foods, soybeans, sugar beets
European researchers studying the effects of seven common agricultural pesticides on frogs report that exposing the amphibians directly to the chemicals resulted in rates of mortality from 40 to 100 percent.
Tags: · Agriculture, amphibian decline, frogs, pesticides, poison
s we start 2013, many people will be thinking about plans and promises to improve their diet and health. But we think a broader collection of farmers, policy-makers, and eaters need new, bigger resolutions for fixing the food system – real changes with long-term impacts in fields, boardrooms, and on plates all over the world. These are resolutions that the world can’t afford to break with nearly one billion still hungry and more than one billion suffering from the effects of being overweight and obese. We have the tools—let’s use them in 2013!
Tags: · agri-chemicals, Agriculture, Food/Drink, Hunger, obesity, urban agriculture, waste, world hunger relief
We may have reached “peak farmland” on earth, meaning we have enough cultivated land to support our bulging human population, according to a report released this week.
Even as the planet reaches a population of 10 billion people by around 2060, it will still have adequate farmland — and be able to return a sizable chunk of arable land back to nature — thanks to more efficient agriculture, stabilizing populations and changing food tastes, say the three authors of “Peak Farmland and the Prospects for Sparing Nature,” being published in Population and Development Review (PDR) in 2013
Tags: · Agriculture, crop land, cropland, feeding the world, food shortage, Peak Farmland, returning land to nature
A new study finds that nearly one-quarter of the world’s population lives in regions where water is being used faster than it can be replenished. Using computer models of global groundwater resources and water use data, scientists from Canada and the…
Tags: · Agriculture, aquifers, groundwater
Drought continues to savage the U.S., claiming crops, threatening livestock and spurring wildfires, and it is intensifying. The U.S. Drought Monitor reveals a deepening drought in the midsection of the country, which is predicted to continue as above-average hot temperatures fail to abate.
Tags: · 2012 drought, Agriculture, Drought, farm losses, Food Prices
‘Tis the season of farmers’ markets. Last week I moseyed on down to the Southampton (NY) farmers market and picked up some tasty, locally produced cheese that melted in my mouth with a delicious tang. But that local dairy farmer and others like him could become an endangered species if we continue on our current carbon-spewing energy path. Cows don’t produce much in very hot weather and scientists say that “heat stress and other factors could cause a decline in milk production of up to 20 percent or higher” in the Northeast under a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario. That’s a big deal: dairy is the largest agricultural sector in the region, producing some $3.6 billion dollars annually.
Tags: · Agriculture, Anna Lappe, CAFOs, carbon impact of meat, Diet for a Hot Planet, industrial agriculture, OtherVoicesBlog, pesticides
Green Right Now Reports
Coca-Cola company announced it will be observing Earth Hour tomorrow by turning out some iconic lighted signs in cities around the world, including those in Times Square in New York, Piccadilly Circus in London, San Pedro Sula in Honduras and Kings Cross in Sydney.
The global soft drink maker also will darken corporate offices in Atlanta to observe Earth Hour on Saturday at 8:30 p.m. local time. Hundreds of countries, thousands of cities and many other corporate entities will be turning out the lights for one hour, supporting of the symbolic show of unity against climate change.
Unintentionally, Coca-Cola also took another Earth-friendly step this month, issuing a kosher version of Coke for Passover that is made with sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup.
Tags: · Agriculture, Climate Change, Coca-Cola, corn, high fructose corn syrup, monoculture, nitrogen fertilizers, Passover, Sugar Cane
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
This Global Change Research report released this week is a compendium of the expected fallout from climate change in the U.S.
It’s not something you’ll want to curl up with in place of your bedtime novel; it won’t make you hazy, happy and sleepy (picture yourself bolt upright, watching crime news to calm down). Still, for those of us deliberately trying to keep our heads above the sand (or our real estate above the tide) it’s a must read.
I recommend skipping a lot of the governmentish intros and conclusions. Cut to the heartland synopses; these assessments of each region are a great reality check. This section of the report is stout and specific and will wrest away any fuzzy notion you have that climate change will just make things a tad warmer and we’ll all wear fewer sweaters.
Tags: · Agriculture, BarbaraKesslerBlog, Climage Change, coastal flooding, cropland, dairy farming, Drought, Global Change Research Project, Great Lakes, heatwaves, hydropower, insects, New England, Ogallala Aquifer, Pests, United States, warming temperatures
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
The movie FOOD, INC. opened this past weekend in New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
It’s not the first film to tackle the problems of our industrial food complex. Indies like Chris Taylor’s Food Fight (2008) and King Corn (2007) a handful of few bigger releases, like Fast Food Nation (2006) have been chipping away at this story for a few years now.
But FOOD INC. arrives at a time when the American public seems primed for the message in ways it wasn’t before: We better recognize today that our mass-produced food is threatening our vitality and tearing up the arable land we need; that food that’s been processed beyond recognition has also been stripped of nutrients; that packaging can’t substitute for flavor and that local food often tastes better it has a lower environmental cost (OK, not everyone gets that last point, yet).
Tags: · Agriculture, BarbaraKesslerBlog, FOOD INC., food news, healthy living, Local Food, Movies
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
Agriculture, so often cited as a factor in global decline – for claiming natural grasslands that store carbon, soil erosion and pesticide runoff – could become a big part of the solution to global warming, according to a hopeful report by Worldwatch Institute released today.
I
nnovations in food production and land use that are ready to be put to work could reduce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to roughly 25 percent of global fossil fuel emissions and be managed to reduce carbon already in the atmosphere as well, according to WWI and Ecoagriculture Partners.
Carbon capture technology remains unproven and will take a decade at least to put into operation. By contrast, agricultural and land use management practices that are ready today could be employed to sequester carbon through photosynthesis by growing and sustaining more plants.
Tags: · Agriculture, Carbon capture technology, Mitigating Climate Change Through Food and Land Use, Sajal Sthapit, Sara Scherr, Worldwatch Institute
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
For years we’ve been told that pesticides and herbicides are necessary for big agricultural operations because they increase yields.
But what if it weren’t true?
Recent research on potatoes showed that low levels of herbicides, which did not result in obvious damage to the plants above ground, negatively affected their underground growth, reducing yields.
Tags: · Agriculture, herbicides, potatoes
Barbara Kessler
Andrew Winston
Danielle Nierenberg
Anthony Swift