December 21: As the winter solstice, today is the shortest day of the year, the beginning of winter. Hopefully this period of quiet and dark is a time time of rest and rejuvenation. If you look out the window, the rain is pounding down and the sky dark and gray. Here is a poem by...
Editor of the New York Times Re: “Can We Grow More Food On Less Land? We Must”, 12/6/18 pg. A8 To the Editor: While Mr. Searchinger is correct in stating that 25% of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions are from agriculture, he does not advocate the simplest, least technological solution to the problem. Research has shown...
Earlier today, November 27, 2018, the New York Times Magazine released a feature titled “The Insect Apocalypse Is Here – What does it mean for the rest of life on Earth?” (link provided below). Key threads running through this superb article include the crucial role of insects to all life on Earth, the role of...
NOFA-NJ Comment: The following article, published November 25, 2018 by National Geographic, offers a hopeful, reasoned view of why conventional farmers are shifting to organic practices. The personal stories shared by farmers, along with utterly spectacular photography by George Steinmetz, make this a must read. Of particular importance are descriptions of the challenges faced by...
A French study published in JAMA Internal Medicine, followed 70,000 adults for five years to gather evidence on whether eating organic foods lowered participant’s risk of developing cancer. Most volunteers where women in their mid-40s who provided information about how frequently they consume 16 different types of organic foods. Those who ate the most organic...
It begins with how we live our lives every moment of every day. Source: Opinion | Stopping Climate Change Is Hopeless. Let’s Do It. – The New York Times
Agricultural choices must be made by these inescapable standards: the ecological health of the farm and the economic health of the farmer. Source: Opinion | Wendell Berry’s Right Kind of Farming – The New York Times
New studies show that bees prefer to forage on untreated or pesticide-laced food sources. Over time, individual bees who have visited treated flowers develop a preference for the taste. This creates a growing risk to their long-term health and colony success. Specifically neonicotinoids have been shown to affect bee nerve receptors triggering addictive behavior. Neonicotinoids...
On Wednesday, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) introduced bill S-3404 “The Food and Agribusiness Merger Moratorium and Antitrust Review Act of 2018.” This bill would enact an 18 month merger moratorium on national agribusiness, grocery, and food/beverage manufacturing and establish a federal commission to study ways to strengthen antitrust oversight. According to Booker, consolidation of chemical...
It took 200 scientists from 20 countries and $75 million dollars, over 13 years to sequence the genome of bread wheat. The wheat genome was complicated to sequence since genetically it is three species in one. This means that there are three pairs of every chromosome, totaling 16 billion genetic letters or nucleotides. Scientists have...
