| Oct 31, 2011 | Food / FarmingObesity has reached epic proportions in the United States and its price tag is soaring. With one-third of adults and more than 12 million children and adolescents obese, the direct and indirect medical costs of this scourge total as much as $147 billion a year. The...
| Oct 3, 2011 | Food / FarmingSeveral lawmakers are proposing a time-out on new regulations to supposedly generate a more job-friendly environment. To some that might sound reasonable given the nation’s entrenched unemployment, but there’s one set of new rules in particular that should...
| Aug 8, 2011 | Food / FarmingThe U.S. food system has a new bedfellow, and it may already be on your plate. Increasingly, the coatings that keep supermarket produce fresh-looking and the chemicals used in pesticide-intensive farming are incorporating nanotechnology — a technology still in...
| Jul 18, 2011 | Food / FarmingThanks to decades of deregulated agriculture, markets for corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and other farm commodities have become high-stakes casinos. If family farmers are to be stewards of the land and safe, nutritious local supplies of food are what we want, then we...
| Feb 14, 2011 | Food / FarmingDespite treating her cows humanely, strictly adhering to milk production regulations, and carefully stewarding her land, a Pennsylvania dairy farmer I know is $70,000 in debt. She has no idea how she’ll repay her creditors or how much longer they will allow her...