Food

Peak phosphorus goes viral

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Phosphorus is one of the three elements critical for modern agriculture, and hence the survival of human beings.

In 2007, Energy Bulletin published the first report in which Hubbert analysis was applied to mined phosphorus supplies, highlighting the oncoming shortage. In recent months, articles on the subject have been published by Scientific American, Spiegel, Foreign Policy and Miller-McCune. Several institutes are beginning to look at the problem.

(Excerpts from these articles, plus prescient comments by Aldous Huxley, author of “Brave New World.”)

Farming is cultural as well as agricultural

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I am sometimes asked why I spend my time writing about farming and gardening when, it is suggested, there are more important topics to which to apply my talents. That, in one sentence, indicates one of the most troublesome cultural problems that modern society faces today: the notion that food-getting is not an important enough subject to merit the close attention of all of us.

Tipping point: near-term systemic implications of a peak in global oil production

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We currently live within an integrated complex globalised economy. We have framed the process in which this occurs as a catastrophic bifurcation, driven by a series of reinforcing positive feedbacks. The final point will be a de-globalised (localised) economy of much reduced complexity.

Live from Cochabamba – the alternate climate conference

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Welcome to the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth—a massive meeting organized by the Bolivian government in response to the resounding failure of the United Nations-sponsored climate talks in Copenhagen last year.
– Video clips
– From Buenos Aires to Cochabamba (Guardian)
– Changing the Climate for Justice (ColorLines)
– “People’s climate conference” in Bolivia kicks off with ambitious aims (Grist)
– What Evo Morales wants

Dandelions: Miracles in your front yard (plus dandelion tincture recipe)

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The dandelion is a much maligned meadow plant, a native of Europe. Americans fiercely and defiantly dig out and poison this miracle plant, for no obvious reason other than they think they should. I started thinking for myself, and I have found out quite a bit about this miracle plant.

Food & agriculture – April 18

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– Inside Cuba’s urban agriculture revolution (video)
– Flight ban could leave UK short of fruit and veg
– Beating obesity
– The trouble with Brazil’s much-celebrated ethanol ‘miracle’
– ‘Biggest problem you’ve never heard of’: Peak phosphorus
– Phosphorus famine: The threat to our food supply (Scientific American)

A prominent political reporter digs into the obesity epidemic

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Political reporter Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic has a new must-read piece on the obesity epidemic. Ambinder comes at the issue from the perspective of a former obese person, though he himself notes that his “cure” of bariatic surgery is risky, expensive, and one that can’t be considered a blanket solution for the general population.

Food & agriculture – Apr 16

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-How world rice trade sparked price riots
-Our £17bn waste mountain: Annual bill for throwaway Britain
-Resistance to Weedkillers a Growing Problem for Engineered Crops, NAS Report Says
-In India, Wal-Mart Goes to the Farm
-What it will take to feed the world
-Report Says Contaminated Meat Is In Supermarkets
-Crop Diversity Pays Off

Back to the Land!

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Get back to where you once belonged. Get your hands dirty, with this week’s grow-op on Radio Ecoshock. We’ll hear from the young farmers movement, with film maker and dirt farmer Severine von Tscharner Fleming of Greenhorn Radio. Community supported agriculture, organic, getting out, or grow where you are, feed the city, from the city. Our second guest, Sharon Astyk, says we need a nation of farmers…Radio Ecoshock digs in.