The Christmas Tree Industry is One More Reason To Address Climate Change
by Andrew Jones
— November 27, 2004 —
One of my family’s favorite things to do this time of year is to journey into the mountains near Leicester to fell a Fraser fir at the farm of Anthony and Kay Cole. I met the Coles through their 5-year-old son Eli, who went to preschool with our daughter, Annabelle. If you have bought [...]
A Sane System Wouldn’t Have Mad Cows
by Elizabeth Sawin
— January 20, 2004 —
Well, now we can rest easy.
New safeguards against mad cow disease are in place, and our confidence in the safety of the meat supply has been restored. That’s what the headlines are proclaiming, anyway. But at least among my family and friends, confidence in the multi-billion-dollar beef industry isn’t rising very quickly.
Instead of being [...]
Sustainable Agriculture for Midsized Farms
by Hal Hamilton
— August 2003 —
How can sustainable agriculture gain greater traction, particularly for midrange farmers?
Although small farms, particularly those around metropolitan regions, are enjoying resurgence in recent years, the midrange of agriculture is stuck in conventional commodity production. These midrange farms are usually too big to market products directly to consumers and too small to compete in commodity markets.
In [...]
A Different Kind of Green Revolution in Cuba
by Hal Hamilton
— March 24, 2003–
I recently returned from a research trip that challenged all conventional assumptions about progress and feeding the world.
Usually conversations about agricultural productivity begin with the Green Revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. During those years farmers of rice, wheat and a few other globally traded crops increased their yields with new seeds and chemicals. Green [...]
Why Are Agricultural Trade Disputes Trapped in Biotechnology?
by Hal Hamilton
— March 1, 2003 —
The weed-killer Roundup and “Roundup-Ready” biotech crops have become dominant features of U.S. crop farming as well as the subject of trade disputes with the rest of the world. Do we really want our negotiators promoting the products of a few chemical companies? Shouldn’t they be promoting a wider range of solutions for agriculture [...]
