As farms increase to the load of particulate pollution, it’s time to talk about how industrial agriculture can reform its practices to protect the environment.
Particulate pollution and industrial agriculture
Tag: farming
Women of the fields
Consumers play a vital role in industry reforms in a variety of settings — they’re the ones with the power to push for change, as seen for just one example in the arena of food labeling. It’s consumers who demanded ‘organic’ food and got it. It’s consumers who pressured for a number of other changes […]
The return of the draft horse
I have a deep and abiding love for horses, and I particularly love draft horses, as these gentle giants are so lovely to look at, and so strong, and so pragmatic. In recent years in the US, they’ve been kept primarily as show animals or beloved riding animals, but we’re seeing a growing return to […]
So much for committing to fewer antibiotics on farms
In recent years, humans have faced an explosion of antibiotic-resistant disease and some really excellent investigative journalism exploring the causes, including not just the overuse of antibiotics in medical treatment, but also their applications in farming, where they’re used to treat and prevent infection and as growth promoters. This has created problems ranging from chicken […]
Can we all agree that copyrighting seeds is bizarre?
The purpose of copyright law is to protect an invention or innovation, ensuring that people who put substantial energy into developing something receive some sort of return — it would be hardly fair to spend millions on a technology, for example, only to have other companies promptly start selling it and undercutting your price. They’d […]
Don’t you dare lecture me about organic superiority
‘Well, if they’d rather buy cheap crap from Walmart than healthy organic food,’ he said, leaning over and glaring furiously, ‘that’s their problem.’ I was somewhat taken aback by the vehemence, and I struggled to come up with an adequate response. Somehow the conversation had gone from zero to extremely tense in about three seconds, […]
How Radical Is Radical Farming?
Is farming a radical act? The back-to-the-land movement of the 1970s certainly thought so, with the disillusioned hippies of the 1960s evaporating into the rural communities of the United States in an attempt to find themselves through the earth. Today, a new farming movement is surging again, branding itself as standing in defiant opposition to […]
When Economic and Environmental Conservation Meet
Sometimes a rare synergy occurs and making the right environmental choices also happens to result in making the right economic choices. For those who want to promote a capitalism-driven method of environmental conservation, these instances of dovetailing interests and actions are incredibly useful arguments to be able to bring out when confronted with claims that […]
When Big Ag Claims to Be Helping ‘Small Farms’
When big corporations, especially groups and trade associations of big corporations, appear to be lobbying for small businesses, I always get deeply suspicious. I see no particular reason why these firms should support smaller rivals in the industry, even if they are small and unlikely to ever threaten the larger company’s market share, because this […]
Why We Preserve Heirloom Cultivars
‘Are these apples?’ she says, opening a box of heirloom tomatoes. I stand flabbergasted in the entryway to the kitchen, trying not to feel like a judgmental food snob and failing miserably. Later, I will hiss to someone in a corridor that the caterers didn’t know what an heirloom tomato was, and she will gasp […]