Tugging on an ear of (American) corn

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”

–John Muir, U.S. environmentalist, preservationist, author, & founder of the Sierra Club

Environmental News Network (ENN) has a great article about what happens when you tug on an ear of American corn. A scientist with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute has shown that U.S. corn subsidies lead to deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. (Bear with me, I haven’t ranted about corn in a really, really long time. I promise to keep this short and not foamy.)

Safe seeds for 2007

I received my first 2007 gardening catalog yesterday–Select Seeds of Connecticut. I wrote about them in March, so I don’t want to get too detailed about them again except to say that they sell antique and heirloom varieties and it’s a really beautiful catalog. While thumbing through it, this small notice on the inside front cover caught my eye:

The Safe Seed Pledge: We signed the pledge and do not offer genetically altered seeds. Find out more-search for “safe seed sourcebook” on the web.

Ease up on produce farmers

In today’s New York Times. Nina Planck writes a good article about the E.coli outbreak due to eating raw spinach from California. She makes some excellent points, worth discussing here.

Michael Pollan on organic food at Wal-Mart

If any of you have ever read anything by Michael Pollan, you’ll appreciate his recent article in the New York Times on the organic food that’s now available at Wal-Mart. Michael is nothing if not fair–in his inimitable style, he discusses the good, the bad, & the ugly.

Organic food at Wal-Mart

At the Gristmill blog, there's a good article and ongoing discussion about the difference between organic and sustainable agriculture. The genesis of the article is Wal-Mart's pending expansion of its organic food section, which is bound to change the face of organic agriculture (and not for the better.)

The state of the American small farmer

Tom Philpott at the Gristmill blog wrote a few days ago about the implications of the 2007 Farm Bill for small-scale farmers. He discusses two reports recently released by the USDA's Economic Research Service. I haven't read either of the reports yet, but Economic Well-Being of Farm Households and Growing Farm Size and the Distribution of Farm Payments contain findings that can only be described as a wake-up call for small farmers and especially for aspiring farmers.