Industrial agriculture
bcohen | September 7, 2007
While doing some background research on democracy, science, and environmental policy, I found myself reviewing some of the thousands of public comments offered for the 2007 Farm Bill we've referenced at this site several times (here's one, on science). Interesting Stuff.
Farm Bill legislation has been in the works for a few years, with public hearings across the nation and opportunities for input into the process by farmers, farm associations, environmental groups, and agro-business all the while. It was passed by the House this Summer and is now being debated in the Senate.
When I first…
bcohen | August 22, 2007
*This post was also written by intern Kate Lee. See Part I here.
When it comes to practicing what I preach, there is room for a lot of improvement. I am limited by where I live, my current budget, my knowledge, and my bad habits, and I act in a way that goes against my ideals more often than I'd like to admit. I manage to swing big dinners with my housemates and friends several times a week, and that's definitely a great source of joy in my life. One arena in which I feel secure about my behavior is in the YOGURT sector. To finish off this post, I'd like to tell you about why buying…
bcohen | August 21, 2007
*This post was written by intern Kate Lee.
There's been a lot of discussion around the World's Fair lately about food (Food Miles, Chinese Agriculture, Science and the Farm Bill, Subsidies and the Small Farm). Up until about a month ago, I was employed by the food industry, and that position opened my eyes to a number of patterns in human food consumption around Boston. I became very attentive (in and outside of work) to the way people approached their food choices, what they chose, how they asked for it, how they consumed it, and how they exited the experience. I couldn't resist sharing…
bcohen | August 10, 2007Herein, discussion of another recent piece on agriculture and science - the third one, as foreshadowed in my last post - this one an editorial in the Times that touches on Food Miles. (Thanks to Laura for sending it along.) Food Miles are the distance food travels to get to your plate. The author of the commentary, James McWilliams, notes that it has become part of the conversation on organic and local agriculture, referring to the same Barbara Kingsolver book--Animal, Vegetable, Miracle--we just made note of in the Science and the Farm Bill post.
The Food Mile measurement is helpful in…
bcohen | August 9, 2007In our post on Science and the Farm Bill, we might've noted more clearly that such a topic was worth a near-daily accounting. We might, or could, in another incarnation, devote the entire World's Fair to just that topic. Just this week, three stories related to agriculture and science came across our desk.
One was the Subsiidies and Small Farms discussion noted in an earlier post.
A second, which my father actually notified me of in an early morning call--and while I have the em-dash available, let me offer an aside on that matter, which is that parents should never make calls that…
bcohen | August 9, 2007Another post related to the Science and the Farm Bill one.
Image courtesy of Appalachian Sustainable Development (here)
Subsidies come in for a lot of debate. No controversy in saying that -- right wing, left-wing, top-wing, no wing. The controversy is about what the subsidies are for, who pays for them, who gets them, and what else we could've got with that money. It's here that you get a host of critiques about subsidies.
The Heritage Foundation, as we linked to before, is going to fight for reducing taxes under the cloak of fighting for taxpayer rights, not wanting their hard-…
bcohen | August 4, 2007People seem generally interested in books and discussions about food, but less interested in books and discussions about how food is made. Of course, this is changing in recent years, perhaps because the visibility of sustainable practices, GMOs, and other biotechnological and genetically engineered food issues has made such matters part of a global debate. The 2007 Farm Bill in congress has elicited a good deal of interest this year - generally, it does not - perhaps because it touches on both parts of the equation: on the food we eat (the end product) and how food is made (the practices…
bcohen | July 26, 2007"Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) announced [on July 24th] that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has rejected four key Monsanto patents related to genetically modified crops that PUBPAT challenged last year because the agricultural giant is using them to harass, intimidate, sue - and in some cases literally bankrupt - American farmers."
The article "MONSANTO PATENTS ASSERTED AGAINST AMERICAN FARMERS REJECTED BY PATENT OFFICE: PUBPAT Initiated Review Leads PTO to Find All Claims of All Four Patents Invalid" from the Public Patent Foundation, explains recent follow up action in…
bcohen | July 24, 2007This post written by guest blogger Jody Roberts.*
What, you say, how can this be? What could Michigan and Michigan St. possibly be battling over in the middle of summer? No, it's not preseason football; it's not even sport fishing. The battle today, my friends (as highlighted here in The Ann Arbor News and here on UM's website), is about organic farming.
So, in some sense we have a double header: organic farming vs. 'conventional' farming and Michigan vs. Michigan State. At issue: just how competitive is organic farming compared to petroleum-based farming? Well, according to a new study by…
bcohen | June 5, 2007
Notice of a local event, here in central Virginia, and a comment on the idea of local itself.
I'm currently teaching environmental history (summer school), and we're to the point where we're discussing modern food systems. We had a nice trip to Whole Foods last week, with a scavenger hunt for all things so-labeled:
organic (unsurprisingly, almost everything)
"natural" (unsurprisingly with a great range of justification and definition)
local (not so much, but cheese and wine)
non-GMO (only a few volunteered to label as such)
or otherwise.
You know, just to see what's out there.…
bcohen | February 19, 2007More on green campuses and environmental responsibility from higher education. This one's "a high-visibility effort to address global warming by garnering institutional commitments to neutralize greenhouse gas emissions, and to accelerate the research and educational efforts of higher education to equip society to re-stabilize the earth's climate" (from here). (The Chronicle of Higher Ed reported on it as well last week.)
The full "Commitment" paper is here (in pdf), for university and college presidents to sign.
Good P.R.?
Good for the trustees?
Good for the environment?
Opens questions…
bcohen | January 30, 2007"Unhappy Meals," says Michael Pollan. That's the title of his article published in The New York Times Magazine this past Sunday. (As Jonah has already pointed to.) After last year's The Omnivore's Dilemma, about what defines/describes different chains of food production, he is speaking still about food, but now more directly about nutrition. It's a push in the same direction to write about food and ecology, about how what we know of nutrition comes from a lot of scientific research that ignores the ecological relationships between and within food and human systems. Nutrition is a great…
bcohen | October 19, 2006"January 19, 2009: Monsanto announces scientific breakthrough: Genetically Modified Chicken Eggs that will save the world. Patent Pending..."
Speaking of animal biotechnology, I think the sub-text of this video is: which is more frightening? GM chickens run amock? Or a year 2009 with someone called President Cheney? (And, it's in keeping with this other breakthrough.)
Ole Monsanto, maybe the only thing left for them is a Halliburton connect.
bcohen | October 12, 2006Amy Bentley, a Profesor of Public Health at NYU, has this well-done* review of Food, Politics, Food Politics, Morality of Food Production, the Ethics of Foopd Systems, and what not, at the Chronicle.
The books reviewed in her essay are:
Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany, by Bill Buford (Alfred A. Knopf, 2006)
Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food, by Warren J. Belasco (University of California Press, 2006)
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan (The…
bcohen | September 8, 2006But most of it isn't.
You've eatin it, this food they speak of, good or bad or middling. I bet. No no, think again. I'm sure of it. I think later today I'll do it again. Mmmm, foody.
I'll be posting something next week in response to this week's wildly interesting "Ask a Scienceblogger" topic of Organic Food. They query:
What's up with organic foods? What are the main arguments for buying organic? Is it supposed to be better for me, or better for the planet, or what? Are organics, in any sense, worth the higher price?...
For today, this Friday, here's a discussion forum from The Nation…