U.S. Food Policy (Free subscription) | yesterday
... a similar manner. The H1N1 flu in swine has been covered by David Kirby at the Huffington Post , Tom Philpott at Grist , and, just today, the New York Times blog Green Inc .
Gristmill (Free subscription) | 10/29/2009
by Tom Philpott Not hogging the H1N1 spotlight: A “state of the art” pig CAFO in Georgia.Photo courtesy of USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.“When respiratory viruses get into these confinement facilities, they have continual opportunity to replicate, mutate, reassort, and recombine into novel strains…The best surrogates we can find in the human population...
Conservation Value Notes (Free subscription) | 10/28/2009
... ppm. To ignore a massive source of emissions, such as those from land use change -- which Grist's Tom Philpott writes about here -- is to invite failure, likely with extraordinarily expensive consequences . To view the current policy problem we're dealing with here more clearly, let's use the figurative example of a discussion about eliminating a source of cancer-causing pollution from our...
Gristmill (Free subscription) | 10/24/2009
by Tom Philpott Corn harvest in Iowa. Would you like that in your Big Mac, your gas tank, or both?Photo courtesy of USDA NRCS. What do industrially produced meat and corn-based ethanol have in common? Well, they both thrive on the assumption that it’s good idea to devote vast swaths of land to an incredibly resource-intensive crop—corn—and then run that crop through an energy-sucking...
Gristmill (Free subscription) | 10/21/2009
by Tom Philpott As it has come to dominate the agenda for reshaping African agriculture over the years, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been very careful not to associate itself too closely with patent-protected biotechnology as a panacea for African farmers. True, the foundation named 25-year Monsanto veteran Rob Horsch to the position of “senior program officer, focusing on...
Global Warming (Free subscription) | 10/20/2009
... Michael Pollan (left) and Tom Philpott talk food. Celebrated food and ag author Michael Pollan debunked some myths about organic agriculture Tuesday night at a Grist event in San Francisco , in a conversation with Grist food writer Tom Philpott and the audience. In response to a question about whether we can really feed the world without industrialized ag (ah yes, a perennial), Pollan...
Gristmill (Free subscription) | 10/14/2009
by Tom Philpott Hard times aren’t always the worst times for magazines. In 1941, with the economy still depressed and the nation on the verge of war, a magazine called Gourmet hatched. In the years since, Gourmet sprouted into the nation’s most celebrated and influential glossy food magazine. But this week—in the wake of another Great Crash and years into two grinding wars—hard...
Conservation Value Notes (Free subscription) | 10/08/2009
Here's an enjoyable read from Grist detailing comments from Michael Pollan and Tom Philpott about how we can make our food system more sustainable. (S)ophisticated organic ag does exist. Pollan disputed the idea that organic techniques are anti-technology. Philpott agreed, pointing out that renowned farmers Joel Salatin and Will Allen use advanced technology to produce organic food—it’s...
Gristmill (Free subscription) | 10/07/2009
by Lisa Hymas Michael Pollan (left) and Tom Philpott talk food.Celebrated food and ag author Michael Pollan debunked some myths about organic agriculture Tuesday night at a Grist event in San Francisco, in a conversation with Grist food writer Tom Philpott and the audience. In response to a question about whether we can really feed the world without industrialized ag (ah yes, a perennial),...
Gristmill (Free subscription) | 10/07/2009
by Tom Laskawy Tom Philpott has been tracking the rise of so-called “superweeds”—i.e. herbicide-resistant weeds—for a while now. He’s talked about the chemical treadmill—“the situation wherein weeds and other pests develop resistance to poisons, demanding ever higher doses of old poisons and constant development of novel ones.” Due in part to its...
Gristmill (Free subscription) | 10/07/2009
by Tom Laskawy Tom Philpott has been tracking the rise of so-called “superweeds”—i.e. herbicide-resistant weeds—for a while now. He’s talked about the chemical treadmill—“the situation wherein weeds and other pests develop resistance to poisons, demanding ever higher doses of old poisons and constant development of novel ones.” Due in part to its...
Treehugger (Free subscription) | 10/06/2009
Many people have complained that Gourmet Magazine under Ruth Reichl was more about foodies than about cooking. This may be true; I don't cook but I enjoyed reading it. Moreover, it had the pulse of what was happening, not just with recipes but with sustainable sourcing, local food, vegetarianism, it covered them all. TreeHugger posts based on Gourmet go back to 2005, with Sea Change: Gourmet Magazine...
Gristmill (Free subscription) | 10/01/2009
by Tom Philpott “... I will mention that I support organic and sustainable agriculture. In fact, Norman Borlaug , father of the Green Revolution and from my home state of Iowa, is credited for creating a sustainable agriculture system decades ago.” —Sen. Chuck Grassley (R.-Iowa), in a blustery, error-laden attack on Bryan Walsh’s Time Magazine article “ The Real...
Gristmill (Free subscription) | 10/01/2009
by Tom Philpott Professional bloggers operate under pressure to produce a high volume of provocative posts. And there’s also the rule (often honored in the breach) that brevity is best—no one wants to slog through a tome on a computer screen. Thus we sometimes propound our opinions without taking time to tease out (or think through) nuances. Luckily, we have readers—some of...
Gristmill (Free subscription) | 09/30/2009
by Tom Philpott When my info-larder gets too packed, it’s time to serve up some choice nuggets from around the Web. ———————— Get ‘em while they’re hot. • In today’s New York Times, Kim Severson’s got a wonderful report on one New York City school cafeteria’‘s quest to cook as much as possible from...
