Section » Farming
Helping veterans become farmers
From fields of war to fields of crops: The Davis, California-based Farmer Veteran Coalition put on a job fair in southern California last week, giving veterans a chance to learn about potential careers in the food and farming business. One of the exhibitors was Marine veteran Colin Archipley, who currently runs Archi's Acres in San Diego County and
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Getting Lodi’d: It’s raining apples!
When nature calls on the farm, we listen. Meaning, when a fruit with a short shelf life becomes suddenly ripe, there's no choice but to drop everything else. Did you know there are 7,500
The new New Urbanism incorporates food growing into urban planning
Let's rurbalize it!: While "farming is the new golf," in terms of surburban developments incorporating communal food-growing operations into their scope, urban planner Daniel Nairn sees many more advantages to embedding such land use into the fabric of a dense city block. In this interesting concept
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Arsenic found in Utah kids’ pee traced to their pet chickens’ feed
Poison - It's what's for breakfast!: A toxicologist for the Utah Department of Health tracked worrisome levels of arsenic in two children to the family’s backyard chicken coop — "along with the eggs that came out of it, the feed that went into the hens that laid them and, finally, widely used
Battling the bugs—and the temptation to use chemical WMDs
Off to war against the weed-lurking worms. (Steph Larsen photos) I'm at war with the common stalk borer. As much as I believe in sustainability and chemical-free agriculture in theory, I've never been more
Chicken expert Gail Damerow answers newbie questions
Cluck, cluck, cluck. Bwaak! These are not sounds I expect to hear on a stroll in my North Oakland, Calif. neighborhood -- the usual soundtrack is more like thumping bass, sirens, and the rattle of fast-food paper bags. And yet chickens are pecking in backyards on practically every block, in converted
Mapping the farm with my ears
Ever since taking a cartography class in graduate school, I've had a penchant for maps. Full of information, they elegantly highlight places and ideas that we may have missed otherwise. As a visual person, I can appreciate the splashes of color and clean designs. But not all maps are visual. We can
Must read: Temple Grandin two-part interview
Eats, chutes, and leaves: The well-known expert on humane slaughter dishes up several choice nuggets about how size and line speed aren't the determining factors when it comes to whether a slaughterhouse is "good" or "bad." What's important "is whether people care....There were some that were like the
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Why we need to arm the EPA against toxic chemicals
Silent scream: "In America, chemicals are innocent until proven guilty," writes Bejamin Ross in this fascinating summary of the FDA and the larger history of U.S. regulation of toxic substances in food and our everyday environments. While this rule of thumb has been in place for over a century, it's
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The USDA looks at local food
Every now and then, newspapers print an article that makes it seem like locavores are running the U.S. food system, throwing our weight around, causing Big Ag to cower in corners. If only we
So long office, hello farm!
Maybe there's something in the air (or soil or water). Maybe it's the growing (no pun intended) interest in farming around the country. Maybe... it's just time. How else do you explain not one, but three Ethicurean contributors heading off into a new field? Unlike Stephanie
The first rule of farming: Be prepared
(Steph Larsen photos)Everyone knows the Boy Scouts' motto: Be Prepared. While my immediate inclination is to ask "For what?", it's as good a command as any to live by. One at which I failed miserably last week. I came home from work and went out to the sheep paddocks to make sure they looked healthy
EPA to increase oversight over CAFO manure
Thanks in part to a lawsuit from the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and Waterkeeper Alliance, the EPA has agreed to increase its oversight of manure discharges from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)*. The EPA estimates that CAFOs in the U.S.generate three times more bodily
Researchers trace corn’s ancient history
Children of the teosinte: Even though maize (Zea mays) is perhaps the most important crop in the Americas (for better or worse), until recently, we didn't know where it came from and when it was domesticated. Research by botanists, geneticists and archeologists has finally found the answers in a grass
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Dairy cows’ feed exacerbates air pollution in central California
Although it has a relatively low population density, California's San Joaquin Valley has some of the worst air pollution in the nation, especially when it comes to ozone (O3), a gas that can cause respiratory and cardiac problems. To
