Section » CAFOs
Digest – Commentary: Farm Bill compromise derided, vets and neighbors hate CAFOs, Kleckner op-ed
"A Deal With the Devil": The Center for Rural Affairs staff have been practically live-blogging the Senate Farm Bill fight all day long on their Blog for Rural America. They decided to call Reform's time of death at about 4:30 p.m. with this blistering
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Digest – Commentary: On leafy-greens laws, unfair crop insurance rates, and the coming poo-storm
Take action: Killing bacteria with a sledgehammer: Judith Redmond of the Bay Area's beloved Full Belly Farm argues that the leafy-greens industry is taking a misguided, one-size-fits-all approach to food safety. Many of the industry's ideas focus on erasing nature from the farm, something that
Digest – Commentary: Aurora Dairy vs. the world, Pollan talks to food manufacturer, most beef drug-free
Sam, have you been served yet?: "Organic, Inc" author Sam Fromartz lets fly the latest salvo in the war of words between Aurora Organic Dairy and its critics. Rebutting Aurora's "they hate us big guys" defense
Digest – Features: Berry vs. Dyson, California overachievers, young farmers needed
Wendell Berry vs. Freeman Dyson: Our favorite farmer-philosopher pens a letter to the New York Review of Books in response to our former favorite physicist-philosopher's rhapsodic essay titled "Our Biotech Future." Writes Berry, in typical measured, thoughtful fashion: It is disconcerting to
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Digest – Commentary & Blogsnacks: Aurora talks back, Johanns departure analyzed, Alice Waters blogs
COMMENTARY Aurora Organic fights back in print: A rebuttal to Sam Fromartz's coverage, from the Colorado dairy that had its organic certification threatened. "Some observers, whose glasses of organic milk are always half-empty, lament the fact that what began as the organic-food movement has evolved
Digest – Commentary: Flesh plantations, intangible benefits of eating local
Understanding the Meatrix: How is Big Meat managing to shake off higher corn prices? By establishing classic "Third World" labor and environmental conditions right here in America, explains Tom Philpott in an even-better-than-usual Victual Reality. (Grist) Not
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Digest – News: Biofuel savior, Organic Pastures cream recalled, organic food more nutritious
The Holy Grail of fuel plants?: The poisonous black seeds of a seemingly worthless weed may be a potentially ideal source of biofuel. Developing nations are in a mad race to plant jatropha, which can grow in marginal soil or beside food crops, does not require a lot of fertilizer, and yields many times
Not so NAIS: Animal-tracking program is solution to wrong problem
Thanks to Marc R. for calling my attention to the Government Accountability Office's recent report on the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). NAIS, which first saw the light of corner offices at the USDA
Digest: NYT eggstrapolation, WA oyster problem, ADM bashing
Ahhh, August -- only 677 new headlines on the RSS reader this morning. However, a briefer Digest means more commentary... NEWS A giant clucking sound: The usually excellent Kim Severson has a weirdly incomplete piece in the New
North Carolina legislature says “no new manure lagoons”
Here are a few related items following up on a recent Digest item about the EPA's agreements with CAFO operators that shield them from lawsuits. North Carolina says "No new lagoons" Via The
Digest – Commentary: Cellulosic beef, Farm Bill snit
Give this man an award: In a post with the Swiftian title "A Modest Proposal," economist Tom Konrad argues that we can jumpstart the biofuel revolution by — wait for it — feeding grass to cows. Let's hear it for "cellulosic beef"! (Alternative
Digest – News and Commentary: animal welfare, recalls, CAFO map
Although the House passed its version of the Food and Farm Bill on Friday, this news digest will be Farm Bill-free news digest (to which many will breathe a sigh of relief). We'll have a special Food and Farm Bill digest in the next few days that will be full of wonky goodness. Welfare goes widespread:
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Digest – News and Commentary: canned food recall, Farm Bill happenings, soda sagas
Botulism alert boosted: The recall of canned meat products made by Castleberry's Food Co. (under many, many labels) has expanded to cover almost 100 products. The article has a list of brand names and a contact number. (San
Digest – Features: CAFOs on the march, cooking with the sun, bioplastics
Hog CAFOs marching north: After fouling parts of Iowa with the spoils of hog farming (stench, contaminated water), the hog industry is looking north to Wisconsin. Proximity to packing plants is one reason; a Wisconsin law that permits CAFOs of up to 2,499 animals with almost no state monitoring is another.
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Digest – News & Commentary: plants take antibiotics, USDA plans GMO overhaul
Unintentional "pharming" : University of Minnesota researchers have found that food crops grown in soil nourished with antibiotic-laced animal manure (such as waste from a hog CAFO) will store the antibiotics throughout the plant. Ironically, organic farmers are most dependent on animal manure
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