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Don Graham / CC BY-SA 2.0

A Call for the Food Movement to Rally Behind the Green New Deal

By Ronnie Cummins

"The Green New Deal we are proposing will be similar in scale to the mobilization efforts seen in World War II or the Marshall Plan … Half measures will not work … The time for slow and incremental efforts has long past [sic]." - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, then-candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, Huffington Post, June 26, 2018

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Animals
April Joy Farm

This Is the First Farm in the Pacific Northwest to Be Animal Welfare Approved

By Lauren Turner

April Joy Farm is also the first Clark County farm to be approved by the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries to offer an apprenticeship program to train aspiring farmers.

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Insights/Opinion

PeopleImages / DigitalVision / Getty Images

Soil Health: The Next Agricultural Revolution

By adopting three practices—no-till farming, cover crops and diverse crop rotations—farmers worldwide can help preserve the world's soils, feed a growing global population, mitigate climate change and protect the environment.

This was the key message of a presentation by David Montgomery, professor of geology at the University of Washington, at the Iowa Organic Conference in November.

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Food
A worker carries a bunch of African oil palm fruit at a plantation in Guatemala. Victor J. Blue / Bloomberg

Why Is Palm Oil Cultivation Replacing Subsistence Farming in Guatemala?

Palm oil production is exploding in Guatemala and is helping to fuel migration to the U.S. while creating poor labor conditions on the ground, Reuters reports. Palm oil production in Guatemala has exploded nearly sevenfold over the past ten years as subsistence farmers in the forested province of Raxruha are selling their land to palm oil companies—some to help pay for smugglers to help them cross the border into the U.S.

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Food
Kangaroo Island Spirits / Facebook

Farm-to-Table Spirits Are Blossoming in Southern Australia

By Sarah Treleaven

On an expansive property on the gloriously wild Kangaroo Island, near the western shore of the island's Eastern Cove, I stood in the middle of a large garden and practically inhaled a clipping of olearia (also known as wild rosemary). The scent was unmistakable: freshly split, perfectly ripe passion fruit.

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Food
Ann Summa

This Spirulina Is Straight From the Farm and Ready for Your Smoothies

By Jeff Spurrier

It's been a cold and rainy fall in San Miguel de Allende in central Mexico. Ten miles out of town, in the mesquite-covered campo next to the Rio Laja, Francisco Portillo and Katie Kohlstedt, the owners of Spirulina Viva, are keeping a close eye on their crop. Spirulina doesn't like the cold, said Portillo, or excessive heat, too much sunlight or if the pH is too high or too low. It's a wild algae that has been around for more than 3.5 billion years and learned what it likes.

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Popular
Women gather chestnuts in Spain's Genal Valley. Gary John Norman / Photodisc / Getty Images

How a Tiny Wasp With Invisible Eggs Is Wreaking Havoc on Spain's Chestnut Harvest

The Genal Valley in Southern Spain is famous for its sweet chestnuts, and that could give the economically struggling region a huge boost as vegans and vegetarians in Northern Europe develop a taste for Castanea sativa. But a new threat is putting the valley's reputation, and future, at risk, BBC News reported Tuesday.

"We've lost at least 30% of our usual production," farmer Julio Ruiz told BBC News. "It is all the fault of a small wasp."

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Climate
sharply_done / E+ / Getty Images

Midwestern Farming Is in Danger From Climate Change

By Dan Nosowitz

From cranberry bogs in New England to citrus groves in California, soybeans in the plains states and cotton in Texas, few facts hold true about American agriculture across the board. A new study from Cornell University indicates that even climate change may not affect all regions equally.

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Hundreds gathered in San Francisco with the youth-led Sunrise Movement on Dec. 11. Peg Hunter / Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0

Could a Green New Deal Boost the Farm and Food Justice Movement?

By Eric Holt-Giménez

Over eight decades ago, the Dust Bowl devastated over 100,000,000 acres of agricultural land and the Great Depression threw 15 million Americans out of work. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt instituted the New Deal with sweeping national programs for work, agriculture, food, and land conservation.

Today, the plan for a Green New Deal recently announced by congressional representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders is facing down even greater crises.

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