Food

Against the Grain

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What’s not to like about cutting the costs of a farm enterprise—and boosting its revenues? That, in effect, is Wichner’s pitch for the “beyond organic” farmland management system he plans to scale.

Our current infrastructure was built for a different planet

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It’s easy to forget that every piece of our current infrastructure–roads, rails, runways, bridges, industrial plants, housing–was built with a certain temperature range in mind. Our agricultural system and much of our electrical generating system (including dams, nuclear power stations and conventional thermal electric plants which burn coal and natural gas) were created not only with a certain temperature range in mind, but also a certain range of rainfall.

Carving up Africa’s hunger markets

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In mid-May 2012, the United Nations Development Programme (the UNDP) released its Africa Human Development report for 2012. Entitled ‘Towards a Food Secure Future’, the report is unremarkable for its assessments and language – these have changed but little where Africa is concerned over the last 30 years – and is remarkable for the implications it contains concerning the agriculture and food focus to human development.

World in serious trouble on food front

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The world is in serious trouble on the food front. But there is little evidence that political leaders have yet grasped the magnitude of what is happening. The progress in reducing hunger in recent decades has been reversed. Unless we move quickly to adopt new population, energy, and water policies, the goal of eradicating hunger will remain just that.

Learning from the Drought of ’12

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The news outlets love a good disaster, and we’ve all been informed daily of the mega-drought in the Midwest. Three quarters of the US corn crop is under drought. Corn prices are up over 50% in the last month, soybeans are up almost 30%, and the USDA says they are still assessing the damage. No rain in sight yet and when combined with record low carryover stocks, we’re probably looking at another record spike in prices. What I haven’t heard in the news is any discussion over whether we have other options to avoid these increasingly regular crop disasters.

Gambling with our food

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The drought that is affecting much of the Midwest is scary enough but what makes me even more nervous is the way speculators in the grain futures market are sending grain prices gyrating all over the place as they bet on what will happen next. Betting on the future supply of food is risky business.

Farming Without Machines: A Revolutionary Agricultural Technology

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Originally published in 1974, How to Grow More Vegetables, Eighth Edition: (And Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops) than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land than You Can Imagine) remains a vital resource for farmers, agricultural researchers and planners, sustainability activists and home gardeners, as the world confronts the challenge of feeding a global population of 7-9 billion without access to the cheap fossil fuels that have run “industrial” agriculture for the last century.