Category: Food

Sustainability’s Biggest Issue

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Reading about all the different issues related to our ability to sustain life on Earth as we know it can become bewildering. One day we read about lead poisoning in our water systems and the next about failing power systems. It’s fair to ask, at some point, “What do I do about all this?”

In developing a Net Zero sustainable community, I’m finding that providing solar power involves little more than adding sufficient photovoltaic panels to our roofs – including power for cars.… Keep reading

Crop Loss

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Here’s a research report about the impact that global warming is having on crops. It’s brief, and also a solid piece of research.  Comments afterwards.

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Warming, crops,

and insect pests

Crop responses to climate warming suggest that yields will decrease as growing-season temperatures increase. Deutsch et al. show that this effect may be exacerbated by insect pests (see the Perspective by Riegler).

Insects already consume 5 to 20% of major grain crops.… Keep reading

Global Warming Urgency

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Here’s a solid piece of research about what’s beginning to be seen as just another “same ole problem that we’ve been hearing about forever, but that hasn’t stopped me from living well.” For me, it’s a bit like being warned that our boat is heading for a waterfalls that we can’t yet see.  So we act a bit like MAD’s Alfred E. Neuman … “What? Me Worry?”  But by the time we do see the actual waterfalls, it’s then too late to do anything about it.… Keep reading

Pesticide Alternative

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Here’s practical new research – or “re-discovery,” as it probably goes back to ancient times – that everyone can use in their own garden to reduce the costs of buying pesticides as well as increase yields and improve the health of your garden … and the food you’ll be eating.

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These Farms Are Testing A Low-Tech Pesticide Alternative: Flowers

 

 To make sure more beneficial bugs come to their fields

to feed on pests, farmers are planting their homes in the

middle of their fields.

… Keep reading

For the Birds and the Bees

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Here are some guidelines about commonly-used pesticides that are proving quite harmful to birds and bees and, consequently, food production.

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These Popular Pesticides

Are Really Bad for the

Birds and the Bees

And farmers are about to deploy them on a

land mass nearly twice the size of California.

 

Tom Philpott

MOTHER NEWS

 

As spring approaches, US farmers are gearing up to plant about 180 million acres in corn and soybeans—a combined land mass nearly twice the size of California, mostly in the Midwest.… Keep reading