Our Food. Our Farms. Our Future. Let's Choose! Peak Soil - Toward Freedom. Source: The New Internationalist.
Perspective: The future of food: balancing the local and global. In June this year, global food prices climbed to an all-time high, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
While consumers in developed countries have been forced to look a bit harder for discounts at their local grocer, the effect on those living in poverty has verged on the catastrophic. In some countries, among them Egypt, Haiti, and even Mexico, the rapidly escalating price of basic cereals and edible oils led to riots. Although prices have declined since June, the crisis nevertheless highlighted an important fact: our global food supply is under pressure from multiple avenues, and the need for a coordinated global approach to food and agriculture is greater than ever. Various factors are responsible for the immediate rise in food prices.
They include the rising cost of petroleum, unseasonable droughts over the last several years, and an increasing demand for a more varied diet in newly prospering nations. Other factors are connected to the problem. The Architect's Newspaper. One of San Francisco’s newest parks measures just 7,000 square feet.
It’s a simple affair: a few sets of café tables and chairs with a row of bollards and planters separating it from a busy intersection. Thanks to the city’s new Pavements-to-Parks initiative, in May this temporary pedestrian plaza replaced a two-way street, where 17th Street intersects with Castro and Market. Two more such plazas, in the Mission and Potrero Hill, are scheduled to be open by the end of September. There are plenty of reasons to cheer for this step on the path to a more pedestrian-friendly city. But what makes these parks truly remarkable are the fast-track way in which they were created—a highly visible experiment in urban planning, where the community can test-drive the design and provide input before it becomes permanent.
Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI) For Small Farms. Farmers Find Unique Forum to Share Experiences Online at cybercoffeeshop. Houston, TX (PRWEB) January 19, 2009 StollerUSA has launched a new blog forum cybercoffeeshop.org where growers, agronomists, researchers, and crop consultants can share experiences and exchange opinions.
Is a blog forum where growers, agronomists, researchers, and crop consultants can share experiences and exchange opinions. Sponsored by StollerUSA, it is designed to promote insightful online chat. The goal is to establish a community of participants who will weigh in and discuss current trends and issues affecting the agricultural industry.
Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education - Publications - Diversifying Cropping Systems - Strengthen Community, Share Labor. Books, videos, top project reports, online courses, fact sheets, and much more!
SARE's Learning Center is a treasure trove of sustainable agriculture information—searchable by type of product and topic. Just click on the product type or topic you're interested in. New agro-food fund funnels innovation from lab to plate. A private Israeli investment fund called Copia Agro & Food (as in cornucopia) aims to address global hunger by finding prominent industry partners to develop and commercialize groundbreaking agro and food technologies from Israeli research institutes.
“In 2050, there will be 10 billion people on earth and a great demand for food, while at the same time natural resources are shrinking, so everything is going toward innovations to generate more food using less energy,” says Eyal Cohen, co-managing partner of Copia. Eyal Cohen, co-managing partner of Copia Agro & Food Fund. Photo: courtesy. Successful Farming. Restoration Harvest - Timothy Egan Blog. Online Magazine & Food Chain Radio. The Future of Farming. How the unlikely field of manufacturing robotics is helping with labour issues in the agricultural food processing sector.
Ely, United Kingdom, January 03, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Farmers have always suffered from labour problems but some of these issues could be solved by the advances in the field of palletising robots. Buffaload, a company leading the stampede have had many successful palletising robot installations for agricultural use and have big plans for the future. Any farmer will know the problems associated with sourcing labour for agricultural work. Ventrac Compact Tractors & Attachments. Ag Weekly. Couple of “food miles” items. Lynne Kiesling One topic that has gotten some attention in 2008 is “food miles”, or the estimate of the environmental impact of the total resource use and transportation required to get food from grower to consumer.
One argument for eating more locally-produced food is that it reduces the transportation impact; however, in making that argument we also have to take into account differentials in total factor productivity. In other words, if your local farmers are less productive than distant farmers, producing and consuming a given amount of food produced locally could increase resource use because the local farmers have less of a comparative advantage and achieve lower yields. That increased resource use mitigates the transportation benefits of local production, and if large enough can outweigh them entirely.
Obama Urged to Revive National Meatless Program. (Vocus) April 15, 2009 With World Health Day and Earth Day both in April, health and environmental advocates are calling on President Obama to take a page from history and proclaim national "meatless" days, as three of his predecessors in office have done.
Watch the Meatless Monday video here. Presidents Wilson, Truman and Roosevelt all instituted national meatless days in order to divert food to troops overseas and alleviate worldwide food shortages. Today, a growing body of experts say that moderate reductions in meat consumption will mitigate climate change, lessen fossil fuel dependence, conserve fresh water and help reduce the chronic preventable conditions that today kill 70 percent of all Americans -- cancer, obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Dr. At December's international summit on global warming in Poznan, Poland, United Nations emissaries cited meat production as a primary source of greenhouse gas. Eating less meat also makes economic sense. Meat: The Consequences. In Land Conservation, May Not Last. The Columbus Dispatch : Green to keep it green. Green to keep it green - RUSHVILLE, Ohio -- Neighbor by neighbor, some Fairfield County farmers are trying to prevent future development by preserving their farmland in permanent agricultural use.
A record 25 farmers from the fast-developing county applied this year to put their land in a state preservation program that pays land owners to keep the property permanently agricultural. PERU: Will Agro-Export Programme Benefit All Farmers? Welcome to Food Alliance. — Food Alliance. Our Farming Future Blog. The Columbus Dispatch : Cash by the acre. Cash by the acre - Search the database of Ohioans who received federal subsidies Ohio farmers who have made millions in business or real estate also have collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in farm-related aid from federal taxpayers. Food, Inc. Sylphium Intro - Home. I-farmtools.org. The Topsoil Crisis: Dirt Isn't Cheap Anymore. “Taking the long view, we are running out of dirt.”— David R. Montgomery, geologist Over the summer, Iran bought a large amount — more than a million tons — of wheat from the U.S. Welcome to Choices Magazine Online! Op-Ed Contributor - A Farm on Every Floor.
Cherokee Farms // Home. The Rural Populist: Rural News and Views » Blog Archive » The Year of Food. Was 2006 the year food went political? PASA - Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture. A farm is an asset to hand over carefully. First genome transplant changes one species into another. Collaborative Agriculture. Social Agriculture - Yahoo Group. Développement Durable Laurentides.