Agriculture

Biodiversity loss threatens ecosystems

From ClickGreen:
Loss of biodiversity appears to affect ecosystems as much as climate change, pollution and other major forms of environmental stress, according to results of a new study by an international research team.
The study is the first comprehensive effort to directly compare the effects of biological diversity loss to the anticipated effects of a host [...]

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Where the GMOs Grow | The Fine Print

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Organic farmers are trying their hardest to retain at least some portion of our food in its natural state, with DNA unmutilated. This isn’t the fight many are familiar with, or at least expecting.
In a way, this is the stereotypical “little guy vs. massive corporation” fight. But the “little guy” here includes more than just [...]

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Hungary Destroys All Monsanto GMO Corn Fields « Earth First! Newswire

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Hungary has taken a bold stand against biotech giant Monsanto and genetic modification by destroying 1000 acres of maize found to have been grown with genetically modified seeds, according to Hungary deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar. Unlike many European Union countries, Hungary is a nation where genetically modified (GM) [...]

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Eat Local: California citrus

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The California Report looks at the season’s bounty of citrus. I want to try some of those orange limes!
At this time of year, many Californians are buried in citrus. Trees in yards all over town are covered with ripe fruit. In the market, heaping piles of green, yellow and orange tempt us to buy more [...]

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Hog factory farms explode

Is there any more we need to know to end this practice?
Kali Dingman of the Minnesota Daily reports:
A few years ago, hog farmers throughout the Midwest noticed foam building on top of their manure pits. Soon after, barns began exploding, killing thousands of hogs while farmers lost millions of dollars.
A team of University of Minnesota [...]

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Are trees worth more living or dead? National Tree Benefit Calculator

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What drew me to Gainesville? The lovely tree canopy and respect the city showed for its trees. Now they want to slash and burn these living lungs that clear our air and cool our breezes…. find out the value of trees in your neighborhood:
The Tree Benefit Calculator allows anyone to make a simple estimation of [...]

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John-Paul Maxfield aims to put nutrients from food waste back into the soil – CSMonitor.com

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The United States has a topsoil problem.
About 75 percent of it is gone, primarily because the large, single-crop farms that dominate American agriculture rely on chemicals and synthetic fertilizers to produce their harvests, depleting natural soil systems in the process.
John-Paul Maxfield thinks compost can help solve this problem. Environmentalists love compost for several reasons, including [...]

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Monsanto takes GMOs further to 2,4-D

Tom Laskawy writes for Grist:
When I wrote recently about the next generation of genetically engineered seeds, I was in truth referring to the next next generation. The fact is that the next actual generation of seeds is already out of the lab and poised for approval by the USDA.
And I’m not talking about Monsanto’s recently approved [...]

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Monsanto biopiracy

India’s Environmental Support Group on Monsanto:
If you missed watching Al Jazeera’s The Stream special on Monsanto’s biopiracy in India while advancing Bt Brinjal, and its implications, you can catch it on You Tube. Its about 45 mins. long).  The programme covers many diverse issues, in addition to biopiracy.
The programme was hosted by Derrick Ashong, musician [...]

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Pollinators play a critical role

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Grist reports:
Anyone who’s been stung by a bee knows they can inflict an outsized pain for such tiny insects. It makes a strange kind of sense, then, that their demise would create an outsized problem for the food system by placing the more than 70 cropsthey pollinate — from almonds to apples to blueberries — [...]

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GMO corn leading to pesticide resistant bugs

Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) – Monsanto Co. corn that is genetically engineered to kill insects may be losing effectiveness against rootworms in four states, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said.
Rootworms in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Nebraska are suspected of developing tolerance of the plants’ insecticide, based on documented cases of severe crop damage and reports from [...]

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Get your fresh eggs from free hens

Blogger Happy Homesteader writes:
If you are of a certain age, you will remember the 1980’s anti-drug advertisement where they fry the egg and opine “This is your brain on drugs”.  Well folks this yolk is your body on drugs.  It comes from a chicken that eats sub-standard food and a pharmaceutical soup of antibiotics and [...]

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Occupy the Food System

Willie Nelson appeals to everyone who eats to support small farmers and save the food system:
Thanks to the Occupy Wall Street movement, there’s a deeper understanding about the power that corporations wield over the great majority of us. It’s not just in the financial sector, but in all facets of our lives. The disparity between [...]

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Major retailers capitulate to Monsanto

Ronnie Cummins of Organic Consumers Association takes the issue on:
“The policy set for GE alfalfa will most likely guide policies for other GE crops as well. True coexistence is a must.”   -  Whole Foods Market, Jan. 21, 2011
In the wake of a 12-year battle to keep Monsanto’s Genetically Engineered (GE) crops from contaminating the nation’s [...]

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Building The Midnight’s New Edible Wall Garden | Gainesville Compost

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By Chris Cano
Check out the Midnight garden, a canvas of “living art” powered by compost produced from the food waste of the Gainesville local restaurant community, including The Midnight’s fruit and vegetable scraps which we collect each week via bicycle.
via Building The Midnight’s New Edible Wall Garden [Photo Story] | Gainesville Compost.

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Antibiotic restriction is a first step

Tom Philpott of Mother Jones looks at the numbers:
For a few months now, President Obama’s FDA has been showing zero appetite for standing up to the meat industry on factory-farm livestock use. In two key decisions (here and here), the agency declined to impose real restrictions on farm drug use, promoting a “voluntary” approach instead.
But [...]

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FDA restricts anitibiotic use in farm animals

The New York Times reports:
WASHINGTON — Federal drug regulators announced on Wednesday that farmers and ranchers must restrict their use of a critical class of antibioticsin cattle, pigs, chickens and turkeys because such practices may have contributed to the growing threat in people of bacterial infections that are resistant to treatment.

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Veronica [...]

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Michael Pollan’s food classes

Joe Fassler  writes in The Atlantic about Edible Education 101.  Joe Fassler, a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, teaches creative writing at the University of Iowa. In 2011, his work for TheAtlantic.com was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award in Journalism. He hosts The Lit Show on KRUI radio and litshow.com.
This fall [...]

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Organ damage linked to GMOs

HuffPo reports:
In a study released by the International Journal of Biological Sciences, analyzing the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers found that agricultural giant Monsanto’s GM corn is linked to organ damage in rats.
According to the study, which was summarized by Rady Ananda at Food Freedom, “Three varieties of Monsanto’s GM corn [...]

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Town aims for food self-sufficiency

Vincent Graff -of the Daily Mail reports, dailymail.co.uk, on the town that is growing its own:
Admittedly, it sounds like the most foolhardy of criminal capers, and one of the cheekiest, too.
Outside the police station in the small Victorian mill town of Todmorden, West Yorkshire, there are three large raised flower beds.
If you’d visited a few [...]

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Climate change affects turf

Carol Brzozowski reports in Turf Magazine:
Plants are blooming and experiencing leaf budding earlier in public gardens throughout the United States and some plant species, including weeds, are growing in areas they never grew before. Ominously, plant pests are also being seen in new areas.
You won’t find details of these phenomena in the National Oceanic and [...]

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