Archive | Agriculture

The New York Times has a really good piece on the coming rules regarding the amount of antibiotics that can be given to confinement livestock. Now, after decades of debate, the Food and Drug Administration appears poised to issue its strongest guidelines on animal antibiotics yet, intended to reduce what it calls a clear risk to…

The October 2010 edition of Popular Science landed in my mailbox today with a brief overview of the genetically modified Enviropig.  I would give you a direct link but, for some reason, Popular Science does not publish its magazine articles online.  It’s not that big of a deal because the article isn’t even good enough to carry…

Organic food sales have increased exponentially over the past decade, largely due to consumer perceptions of improved nutritional quality and taste. However, as I’ve explained before, there is scant scientific evidence that growing food organically improves its quality on either front. Since people have a wide array of intellectual biases, some scientists have decided to ask…

Environmentally speaking, eating meat is an awful thing to do. Whether is beef, pork, chicken or fish, meat is costly to our natural world to produce. Forests must be plowed into fields for grazing, even more food must be grown to feed the beasts, which produce more agricultural waste and, by and large, it’s a…

The public’s biggest concern when it comes to GMOs is their safety. There are a lot of misconceptions about genetic engineering. When pressed on science of GMOs, I have often heard people fear that the genetically modified material in the foods they are eating will somehow mutate their DNA too. While logically it sounds like…

My first article on Nutrition Wonderland focused on the food crisis in East and Sub Saharan Africa and how the use of better agro technology and programming could enhance regional food production, through programs like the Backpack Farm Initiative I’m involved with. As this series expands, I want to shift your perceptions of a food crisis away from…

While many GMOs are used for other purposes, the most talked about ones are those that end up on our plates. These are the Frankenfoods, the plants and animals being modified for human consumption. Why are crops and animals being modified? What GMOs are currently on the market? What new GMOs are being created? Good…

When I reviewed FoodSmart, I made a quip about how organic food might not be as good for you as you might think. I promised I’d explain myself, so I am doing so. Just what does organic really mean? In the past year or two, certified organic sales have jumped around 30% to about $52 billion…

You have a lot of choices as a consumer. Those choices alter the marketplace. You influence what kind of movies Hollywood produces when you stand in line to buy tickets, debating between an action thriller and a romantic comedy. You alter what ends up in department stores when you decide to buy a blue dress instead of…

What is the price of food? $3.99 for a gallon of milk? $0.99 for an energy bar? Complex market and policy forces make those prices. Its a process that starts far from the point of sale. Centralizing our food into fast food chains and supermarkets causes the farms that feed the system to scale up…