I am sitting in a swanky conference center on the outskirts of Phoenix, a city that may be one of our country’s least sustainable, where the water is as scarce as the SUVs and air conditioners are numerous. But for all the shortcomings of developers who thought it would be a great idea to build […]

Here’s a number to knock you out of that mid-day stupor: every year, taxpayers shell out between $7.1 billion and $8.2 billion to subsidize or clean up after our nation’s 9,900 confined animal feeding operations. That’s the finding of “CAFOs Uncovered,” a new report released earlier today by the Union of Concerned Scientists. That amount, […]

Breaking news and developments, such as contaminated-food outbreaks, Farm Bill milestones, and how the farming community is faring around the world.

It’s time to call your congressperson today and tell them to vote against Section 11305 in the current mess of a Farm Bill. Inserted at the behest of pesticide manufacturers, it is titled “No Discrimination Against Use of Registered Pesticide Products or Classes of Pesticide Products,”

Although I’m no longer standing at the Farm Bureau-sponsored exhibit, The Great American Farm, at Disney’s Epcot Center, I can’t seem to shake the creepy feeling it gave me. One of the most visible parts of the exhibit are the Look Closer screens, which invite attendees to Look Closer at biotechnology:

Prominently placed next to the […]

As the Ethicurean has grown, we have started to get some really off-the-wall e-mails from PR people. I can no longer resist publishing the most head-scratching of them, with the identifying information compassionately removed.

A while back, I began a series of posts examining the infamous "farm lobby," that oft-mentioned force supposedly responsible for our food system’s many ills.  I noticed that mainstream media coverage of the Farm Bill tends to demonize farmers to the exclusion of other, more powerful figures whose fingerprints are all over our grocery carts […]

The flaws of industrial agriculture and the current backlash against it came into sharp focus a couple of weeks ago, following the death of former Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz, well-known for his exhortations to farmers to "Get big or get out" and to plant from "fence row to fence row." Between the success […]

Breaking news and developments, such as contaminated-food outbreaks, Farm Bill milestones, and how the farming community is faring around the world.

However, AgSec Ed Schafer said that he would not endorse an outright ban on downer cows entering the food supply or support stiffer penalties for regulatory violations ( Washington Post ). … The American Meat Institute’s president asked Congress why the USDA is sending a mixed message with the record recall of Downergate meat, even as the Fed says it poses only the remotest health risk.

Last week marked the largest proportion of climate change naysayers gathered in one place since Dick Cheney walked into an empty room. Volunteers at the entrance to the World Ag Expo in Tulare, California, screened people as they presented their ticket.
“Do you believe in global warming?”
“It sure is cold out today. I should have […]

Special to The Ethicurean, by Barry Foy
Reactions ranged from bewilderment to outrage at Ethicurean.com today, following news that the food watchdog had fallen victim to a hostile takeover by chemical/genetics giant Monsanto Corp.
Monsanto’s announcement was upbeat: “We are pleased to welcome Ethicurean.com into the Monsanto family (The Stuff of Life: We Own It…for the Children®). […]

As a follow-up to Tom Philpott’s post about genetically modified crops (also known as transgenic or genetically engineered crops), I thought I’d post some data on transgenic crop adoption in the United States. Because products made from transgenic crops are never labeled, it is probably not well known that over 70 percent of […]

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria have been in the news a lot lately.
Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle had a front page story about the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. One of the causes is the routine addition of antibiotics to animal feed as "growth promoters" — including some antibiotics used for treatment of humans.
In a New York Times […]

The Farm Bill is back. (Admit it — you’d been missing it.) House and Senate ag staffers have taken to lurking in each other’s offices and furrowing their brows over what could be a protracted conflict between members of the conference committee, that group of reps and senators assigned to turn the meat grinder on […]