Harnessing the Future
Gina Wertz is a horse and ox teamster. Her animal-powered market vegetables and herbs are grown at Under the Stone Garden on the grounds of Tillers International, a Kalamazoo County working farm and learning center…
Food & Water
Fun with Rain Collection
Do you want to collect and use some of the rain that falls on your roof? Here’s how we do it.
New Water Plan Could Turn New Orleans Into The Next Amsterdam
Last week, Greater New Orleans Inc. — a regional economic development organization — unveiled its Urban Water Plan for Orleans, Jefferson and St. Bernard parishes.
A Dam, Dying Fish, and a Montana Farmer’s Lifelong Quest to Right a Wrong
In the pantheon of river conservationists, few may leave a legacy larger than that of Roger Muggli, a third-generation farmer in eastern Montana.
The Real Dirt: Regenerating Soil Quality To Sustain Life
The current buzzword in production agriculture today is "sustainability." But what does that really mean?
Wild Food: Part 2
Many of the most famous wild foods have domestic equivalents, or have been widely cultivated for use.
The Energy Return on Energy Invested of US Food Production
In this article I apply the idea of energy return on energy invested to food production in the United States, and discuss the relevance of energy efficiency to the local food movement.
Inside the California Food Revolution
Daily menus, open kitchens, and women chefs may seem commonplace in today’s restaurants, but 40 years ago they were downright radical.
Wild Food
All food was wild once, and all the vegetables in rows at the grocers were bred over centuries from what we now call weeds.
Sustainable farming mania is frustrating me
Am I the only office guy in America who spends his leisure time reading into the benefits of no-till agriculture or how cows can improve the land by “mobbing, mowing and moving” over a pasture?
New projection of Peak Phosphorus
A detailed projection of phosphorus production by two Australian researchers indicates that world phosphate rock production will most likely peak in 2027. Phosphorus is a finite resource and cannot be substituted for agricultural uses. Without the use of phosophrus in fertilisers it would be difficult to provide sufficient food for an expanding world population.
Cultivating Values on the College Farm, or, Revisionist History Has No Future
So why did a small college going the extra mile to be humane and sustainable face an orchestrated avalanche of wrath when it planned to slaughter two of its admittedly iconic oxen?
