Articles & Take Action Alerts

Obama Honors Industrial Ag's Greatest Critic, Wendell Berry

Article by: Tom Philpott -- Grist.org

A year and a half ago, I complained that President Obama's food and ag policy was "giving me whiplash," because the administration seemed to keep zigzagging between progressive change and the agrichemical status quo.

Since then, a definite pattern has emerged: The administration puts real policy power behind the status quo -- see, for example, the recent deregulation of controversial genetically modified crops -- and deploys what the political scientists call "soft power" (usually through Michelle Obama) to hector people to eat a little better and chide corporations to clean up their junk food a bit.
Two events last week offered a nice snapshot of what might be called Obama's dual policy on ag. Full Article »

Debunking the Stubborn Myth That Only Industrial Ag Can 'Feed the World'

Article by: Tom Philpott -- Grist.org

I've written about it once already, but I want to return to The Economist's recent special series about how industrial agriculture is the true and only way to feed the 9 billion people who will inhabit the world by 2050. The framing, I think, is extremely interesting.

The widely revered magazine identifies two strains of thought on the food system's future: one serious and one frivolous.

The serious one -- made up of "food companies, plant breeders, and international development agencies" -- is "concerned mainly with feeding the world's growing population," which it plans to do "through the spread of modern farming, plant research and food processing in poor countries." Full Article »

Glenn Beck Says 350.org is a Communist Plot

Article by: Bill McKibben -- 350.org

Say this for Glenn Beck: He works fast. Less than 48 hours after we at 350.org launched our campaign to let businesses say that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce doesn't represent them, Beck hit back. A true friend of Chamber (here's a picture of him broadcasting from the group's roof -- certainly worth the $10,000 he donated from his $32 million annual earnings), he put little old 350.org up on his notorious board Friday night next to a hammer and sickle. We were part of a communistic conspiracy that also included the Apollo Alliance and the Service Employees International Union.

In some sense, I guess, this pleased us. Right back to J. Edgar Hoover and his attacks on Martin Luther King, "communist" has always been the epithet of choice for any organizers who've shown signs of being effective. (Tea Partiers are obviously chagrined that actual working people in Wisconsin are upstaging them.) In another sense, it's just sad: Confronted with the hard choices posed by physics and chemistry, Beck (like too many others) tries to find some specter to blame. Read Bill McKibben's (satirical) Response »

Stop GMO Contamination of Organic!

Herbicide-loving alfalfa and sugar beets, Monsanto's new GMOs (genetically modified organisms), have been blocked by the courts because Bush's USDA failed to consider their environmental impacts, including whether they would contaminate organic crops. Obama's USDA has a plan to get Monsanto's new GMOs out of the courts and into the fields. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, former biotech governor of the year, calls the plan "coexistence." The Organic Consumers Association calls it "contamination" and we say, "Hell no! No new GMOs!" The USDA is currently accepting public comments on an Environment Impact Statement that would be the basis for the commercialization of Monsanto's "RoundUp Ready" GMO alfalfa, the first-ever genetically engineered perennial. The USDA should put a hold on the agricultural use of genetically modified organisms until health and environmental safety can be assured. Thus far, regulation of agricultural GMOs has been so lax that instances of contamination and environmental destruction are the norm rather than the exception.
Take Action »