Food and Farming
Afghanistan’s Poppy War
For a symbol of how America’s decade-long war is going in faraway Afghanistan, look at the beautiful fields of red poppies flowering so bountifully there. Unfortunately, that bounty symbolizes the failure of an ambitious Western initiative against Taliban forces.
Alabama’s Immigration Aftershock
Ever since Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley signed the nation’s strictest immigration measure into law, he’s faced criticism from religious leaders and immigrant advocates.
Resolve to Keep Science Experiments off Your Dinner Table in 2012
Here’s one resolution for all you consumers hoping to improve your health and the environment: Starting in 2012, avoid genetically engineered foods.
Engineered Foods
Cereal Crimes
Consumers purchasing Mother’s, Kashi, Whole Foods’ 365, and other leading “natural” breakfast cereals are routinely subjected to deceptive and abusive marketing practices, according to a recent report from the Cornucopia Institute, the organic food and farming industry watchdog organization I codirect.
Occupy the Food System
Farmers have been through this before — our lives and livelihoods falling under corporate control. It has been an ongoing process: consolidation of markets; consolidation of seed companies; an ever-widening gap between our costs of production and the prices we receive. Some of us are catching on, getting the picture of the real enemy.
Catering to the Frozen Pizza Lobby
How small-minded is Congress? How tangled-up in a right-wing ideological knot is it? How subservient to corporate lobbyists is it? The answers to these three questions are: pizza, tomato paste, and spuds.
Vegan Misgivings
Thanksgiving is upon us. I once loved this holiday above all others — but no more.
The Skinny on Farm Subsidies and Obesity
The nation’s increasingly poor diet, packed with processed and fast foods, is driving the obesity epidemic. This is leading many media commentators to blame government subsidy payments to farmers who grow crops like corn and soybeans. But this just isn’t true.
Food System Pays Dearly as Wall Street Occupies Washington
Despite the Occupy Wall Street movement’s now month-long direct challenge to corporate and financial industry power, the machine keeps rolling along.
