Environmental Working Group – Agriculture Posted by Kari Hamerschlag For too long, funding provided by the United States’ most far-reaching food and farm legislation has primarily benefited agri-business and large scale industrial-scale commodity farms that aren’t growing food. Instead, they’re growing ingredients for animal feed, fuel and highly processed food — at a high cost… Read more »
Search Results for: GMO
Facing Budget Pressure, Colleges Cut Farm Programs
The Bulletin – Bend, OR By Carla Rivera / Los Angeles Times LOS ANGELES — The cattle, sheep and horse herds are smaller these days on the 700-acre farm operated by Cal Poly Pomona in the rolling foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Buildings and equipment need updating, and the farm and ranch depend more… Read more »
Long-time Organic Farmer and Researcher Kevin Brussell Tragically Killed
Kevin Brussell, 56, a long time organic activist, researcher and working organic farmer, was tragically killed on Saturday, June 11. Kevin’s wife, Juli, has established a scholarship fund in memory of her husband. The scholarship fund will support beginning farmers. Kevin was the superintendent of Organic Dairy Research at the University of New Hampshire, overseeing… Read more »
A Flash Point in the Raw Milk Fight
The Wenatchee World By Jeremy Roebuck, The Philadelphia Inquirer PHILADELPHIA — In the predawn fog of an April morning last year, armed federal agents fanned out across darkened Lancaster County, Pa., pastures in search of contraband. Months of investigation had led to this point. Strong evidence suggested that Rainbow Acres — a small Amish farm… Read more »
States Look to Ban Efforts to Reveal Farm Abuse
The New York Times By A. G. SULZBERGER Undercover videos showing grainy, sometimes shocking images of sick or injured livestock have become a favorite tool of animal rights organizations to expose what they consider illegal or inhumane treatment of animals. Made by animal rights advocates posing as farm workers, such videos have prompted meat recalls,… Read more »
Watchdog Claims Organic Valley, Herbruck’s Violating Federal Organic Standards
Factory Farm Egg Production, without Mandated Outdoor Access, Challenged CORNUCOPIA, Wis. The Cornucopia Institute announced it has filed a formal legal complaint with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), alleging that one of the nation’s largest industrial egg producers, Michigan-based Herbruck’s Poultry Ranch, is violating the federal organic standards by confining their laying hens… Read more »
‘Lunatic Farmer’ to Preach the Word at Sustainable Food Conference
The Union Liz Kellar Joel Salatin doesn’t mind being thought of as a lunatic. He revels in it, giving lectures on “The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer.” Now, Nevada County audiences can share in the lunacy when Salatin speaks at the Sustainable Local Food and Farm Conference on Jan. 22, an event organized… Read more »
The Deadstock Dilemma: Our Toxic Meat Waste
The Atlantic By James McWilliams For all the environmental angst being expressed over livestock, we rarely mention its counterpart: deadstock. Most of a slaughtered farm animal cannot be transformed into edible flesh. About 60 percent of it — offal, bones, tendons, blood, and plasma — becomes abattoir waste and, as such, has to be either… Read more »
On organic coffee farm, complex interactions keep pests under control
Science Centric Proponents of organic farming often speak of nature’s balance in ways that sound almost spiritual, prompting criticism that their views are unscientific and naive. At the other end of the spectrum are those who see farms as battlefields where insect pests and plant diseases must be vanquished with the magic bullets of modern… Read more »
Crop Mobs’: Local-Food Movement Plus Social Networking
Sacramento Bee By KIM PALMER, Star Tribune (Minneapolis) MINNEAPOLIS — It was a rainy Saturday – a perfect day for sleeping late or lingering over a latte. But graduate student Sarah Burridge of Minneapolis was in a farm field getting wet and dirty with a bunch of people she didn’t know. They got a quick… Read more »
