monkey's uncle

Craig Hadley drew my attention to this terrific piece by Paul Roberts on the complexities of truly sustainable agriculture.  Food for though, as it were…

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So there I was. 23 hundred hours, New Year’s Eve 2008 at my in-laws’ in Corvallis, Oregon. Kids asleep in the other room. Spouse headed in the same direction. Insomniac from lack of activity and feelings of general physical displacement. Not much prospect for a party or other New Year’s antics. [...]

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An opinion piece in the IHT this morning raises the important point that stepped up biofuel production may tax already strained world fresh water supplies.  Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, chairman and former chief executive of Nestlé, suggests that if world biofuel production targets are met, water withdrawals for agriculture can increase by as much as one-third.  Brabeck-Letmathe writes,
Seventy percent of all water [...]

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Yale e360 Magazine has a very interesting interview with author, Michael Pollan ( “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants” ) on what’s wrong with environmentalism. Not surprisingly, much of the conversation surrounds food production and its environmental impacts.  I find the discussion of the energy crisis of the 1970s — and how badly we have fallen away from [...]

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The 2008 Report of the Millennium Development Goals is out today. Seeing this, along with this editorial piece by The Age’s economics editor, Tim Colebatch, drives home the key point that the world food crisis is far from over.  High food prices may drive 100 million more people into extreme poverty this year, eroding the substantial progress that [...]

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Despite the flooding in Iowa earlier this summer, the US is set to harvest its second largest corn crop ever.  Good news for the price of food for hungry people?  Not really, the USDA expects that 34% of the total corn crop will be used to make ethanol for biofuel. They project a price of [...]

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There is a new Rice Outlook report from the Economic Research Service of the USDA.  I was surprised to see a forecast record harvest for the coming year, given the crazy price movements in rice this year and the dire predictions that were the rule earlier this summer.  At Costco in California, they actually rationed [...]

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Wow, a beer that can increase your likelihood of binge drinking, drunk driving, and committing assault?  What more could you want in a beverage?  A fact sheet on alcoholic energy drinks (a.k.a., alcospeed) is here.  Those clever folks in the marketing department of MillerCoors — whatever will they come up with next?!  If only you [...]

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OK, I understand that agricultural diseases are devastating for both the farmers and people who rely on their produce to subsist, particularly in a world where food prices have increased dramatically in part due to agricultural losses from plant pathogens.  I just can’t help but find the names of many agricultural diseases amusing.  The one [...]

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Who knew that vegetables and melons defined a sector?  You learn something new every day when you subscribe to the USDA Economic Research Service – What’s New RSS feed.

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