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Michael Pollan Fixes Dinner
Clara Jeffery, Mother Jones
America’s favorite food intellectual talks about ethanol, the carrot lobby, and secularizing food.
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Mother Jones: What surprised you as you researched In Defense of Food?
Michael Pollan: One surprise is how deeply the food system is implicated in climate change. I don’t think that has really been on people’s radar until very recently. Al Gore didn’t talk about it at all; 25 to 33 percent of climate change gases can be traced to the food system. I was also surprised that those diseases that we take for granted as what will kill us—heart disease, cancer, diabetes—were virtually unknown 150 years ago, before we began eating this way.
… MJ: Obama has praised corn-based ethanol.
MP: I think we’ll see him back off of that because he’s no longer a senator from Illinois, and he has to look at not only the national but the global implications of this folly. It’s an experiment that’s been disastrous. About 30 percent of the increase in grain prices could be attributed to the decision to embrace biofuels, particularly corn-based ethanol. It has done nothing for climate change, and the business is in real trouble now with the collapse of oil prices. It’s completely dependent on subsidies and tariffs. I don’t think it’s proven itself to be of any value except to Archer Daniels Midland. And Obama appointed Steven Chu as secretary of energy, a fierce critic of corn-based ethanol, a physicist, and a Nobel Prize winner. It will be his job to argue the president and Vilsack out of corn-based ethanol.
MJ: Are all biofuels problematic?
MP: Well, we don’t yet know about cellulosic ethanol. You can’t yet do it economically because it takes a lot of energy to break cellulose down. And the kind of refineries that we’ve been building for corn will not work for cellulose. When you use farms to create fuel, you’re going to have to replace that acre of farmland. So people deforest Indonesia, Brazil. It’s very shortsighted and based on the fact that oil companies need a replacement liquid. It’s what they’re good at. And they have gas stations. And the idea that maybe the best way is a sustainably powered electrical grid that we all plug into doesn’t sit well with oil companies; they don’t have a seat at that table. That’s why BP has given half a billion dollars to Berkeley to help develop cellulosic ethanol. I think that Obama will put a lot of money into it to help develop it. I just hope it’s not wasted.
(March/April 2009)
Recession grows interest in seeds, vegetable gardening
Bruce Horovitz, USA TODAY
Hard economic times are acting like instant fertilizer on an industry that had been growing slowly: home vegetable gardening.
Amid the Washington talk of “shovel-ready” recession projects, it appears few projects are more shovel-ready than backyard gardens. Veggie seed sales are up double-digits at the nation’s biggest seed sellers this year.
What’s more, the number of homes growing vegetables will jump more than 40% this year compared with just two years ago, projects the National Gardening Association, a non-profit organization for gardening education.
“As the economy goes down, food gardening goes up,” says Bruce Butterfield, the group’s research director. “We haven’t seen this kind of spike in 30 years.”
(20 February 2009)
Small-Scale Grain Raising
Gene Logsdon, Chelsea Green
An Organic Guide to Growing, Processing, and Using Nutritious Whole Grains for Home Gardeners and Local Farmers
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First published in 1977, this book—from one of America’s most famous and prolific agricultural writers—became an almost instant classic among homestead gardeners and small farmers. Now fully updated and available once more, Small-Scale Grain Raising offers a entirely new generation of readers the best introduction to a wide range of both common and lesser-known specialty grains and related field crops, from corn, wheat, and rye to buckwheat, millet, rice, spelt, flax, and even beans and sunflowers.
More and more Americans are seeking out locally grown foods, yet one of the real stumbling blocks to their efforts has been finding local sources for grains, which are grown mainly on large, distant corporate farms. At the same time, commodity prices for grains—and the products made from them—have skyrocketed due to rising energy costs and increased demand. In this book, Gene Logsdon proves that anyone who has access to a large garden or small farm can (and should) think outside the agribusiness box and learn to grow healthy whole grains or beans—the base of our culinary food pyramid—alongside their fruits and vegetables.
Starting from the simple but revolutionary concept of the garden “pancake patch,” Logsdon opens up our eyes to a whole world of plants that we wrongly assume only the agricultural “big boys” can grow. He succinctly covers all the basics, from planting and dealing with pests, weeds, and diseases to harvesting, processing, storing, and using whole grains.
(February 2009)
Gene Logsdon is a regular contributor to Energy Bulletin.
Feds: Less water for California agriculture this year
Ari B. Bloomekatz, blog, Los Angeles Times
Federal officials announced today that they may not be able to provide the agricultural water supply to more than 200 water districts in the Central Valley for the upcoming growing season “unless things begin to improve.”
It marks the first time in 17 years that the Federal Bureau of Reclamation has announced that it does not have enough water to fulfill its agricultural contracts to parts of the Central Valley, including about 3 million acres of farmland typically irrigated by the agency. In addition to 1992, the agency also announced a zero-percent supply for agriculture in 1977. In both 1992 and 1977, the water supply eventually increased to 25% of the contracts, agency spokesperson Lynnette Wirth said.
“This year is on the heels of two previous critically dry years, and this is the third year in a row,” Wirth said, adding that the zero-percent projection affects only the agency’s agricultural service contractors. Today’s announcement was the agency’s initial water allocation projection for 2009, and Wirth said officials were hopeful the allocations could be increased if there is more precipitation.
(20 February 2009)
Fairtrade Week: smallholders farm a route out of poverty
Harriet Lamb, The Guardian
Times are tough for people in the UK right now. But across the developing world, times are desperate for smallholders, caught between rising food and fuel prices and a credit crunch that sees orders falling and access to loans becoming harder than ever. Yet these smallholders, too often overlooked by companies and policymakers alike, could hold the key to helping solve the food crisis and tackle poverty.
Last week I saw this in action in Rwanda. Just 15 years ago, the country was utterly devastated. They are now rebuilding their economy, with organised smallholders at its heart. Just 15 years ago, Maraba village was one of the country’s poorest, their low-quality coffee was sold straight off the bushes for passing prices to passing middlemen.
Today, the Maraba farmers have organised themselves into a Fairtrade-certified cooperative, have four washing stations – the first stage in processing coffee – have trained the first generation of cuppers, or tasters, who are constantly improving quality, and are commanding record premiums for their prize-winning beans. They are roasting and selling their coffee all over Rwanda as well as exporting it through Union Handroasted to UK shop shelves.
(23 February 2009)
