Back in February, the Charlotte Observer published a shocking six-part series on the human suffering involved in producing cheap chicken. “The Cruelest Cuts” package looked at typical working conditions at a poultry plant, the makeup of the workforce, the sorry state of government oversight, and how the companies stay below regulatory radar. (Bonnie’s post […]

Here in the United States alone, more than 170,000 children aged 12-17 — and that’s the legally hired number, estimates of the real number put it closer to 430,000 — are exempt from federal protective child-labor laws. That means they can work in 100-degree fields for six to seven days a week, 10 hours a day, for far less than minimum wage. They do so to help their families survive.

Posts by bloggers at both personal and nonprofit sites that you won’t want to miss.

There’s an image that’s stuck with me from the cross-country drive that my dad and I took last summer. It was one of many late-night stints at the wheel, perhaps 11 p.m., and we were hurtling along through the Utah desert. A sign at the last gas station had warned us of a nearly 100-mile […]

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

Wasn’t the Green Revolution supposed to save the children?: A comprehensive look at the problem of child labor around the world. According to the UN International Labor Organization, there are an estimated 218 million child laborers worldwide — and 7 out of 10 of them are in agriculture. Farmers in India blame Monsanto’s high prices for genetically modified, pesticide-resistant seeds create a cost squeeze that forces them to use child labor. Grab a hanky; this story is heartbreaking. Also, since when were Syngenta genetically modified seeds for such “vegetables as okra, tomatoes, chilies and eggplant” approved? (Forbes)

The Charlotte Observer is on Day 3 of a stunning six-part investigative series, “The Cruelest Cuts,” on the lives of North Carolina’s 28,000 poultry workers. Editor Rick Thames kicks off the series with a searing editorial that compares these workers, mostly illegal immigrants with few rights, to the South’s most notorious historical underclass. But it is not just the South that profits from this neo-slavery.

The 2008 Ecological Farming Conference kicked off near Monterey, CA, tonight with a talk on sustainability given by Eric Schlosser, whose best-seller “Fast Food Nation” was not really about food, he said, but about this country and its untenable, massive experiment in disposability — not of the obvious packaging, but of its raw materials (living animals) and workers.

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 […]

In-depth, offbeat, or thought-provoking features about aspects of SOLE food, from eating locally to farms marketing to methods of food preservation.

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

In-depth, offbeat, or thought-provoking features about aspects of SOLE food, from eating locally to farms marketing to methods of food preservation.

Editorials and op-eds about sustainable agriculture (or its opposite) from newspapers and websites big and small.

The stinginess and lack of ethics shown by Burger King and its contractors in balking over giving Florida tomato pickers a penny-a-pound raise is outrageous.
Eric Schlosser, the journalist who exposed the dirty underbelly of the fast-food industry in "Fast Food Nation" has a scathing op-ed in the Times today about the injustice. After reviewing […]

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