Teaching Kids Where Their Food Comes From

February 7, 2010 Farming & Agriculture

Hannah Wallace writes in The New York Times,
About 20 high school students stood behind the butcher counter, staring at a 160-pound piece of meat from a recently slaughtered cow.
“All of our meat comes from local farms, and we get it all whole,” said Tom Mylan, 33, one of three butchers at the Meat Hook, a [...]

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While Global GMO Acreage Surges, Herbicide-Resistent Weeds Thrive

February 7, 2010 Farm/Garden Politics

Tom Philpott writes on grist.org,
Global acreage of genetically modified crops jumped 12 percent in 2007 — “the second highest increase in global biotech crop area in the last five years,” gushes a report from the pro-GMO International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA).
Farmers planted an additional 30 million acres of GM crops in [...]

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Growing Power Inspired—Sweet Water Organics

February 7, 2010 Aquaponics

James Godsil and business partner Josh Fraundorf founded Sweet Water Organics one year ago in a large, vacant industrial building in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Inspired by fellow Milwaukee resident and Growing Power founder Will Allen, the two men are using an method of raising perch in tanks at ground level and feeding vegetables growing in well [...]

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Morning Star Fishermen

February 7, 2010 Aquaponics

Morning Star Fishermen is a Christian organization based near Tampa, Florida. It has a training facility there with a main hatchery and over 110,000 gallons of tank space, wet labs and classrooms. Other facilities include 60,000 gallons of enclosed exterior tanks as well as fully integrated “model” solar and wind powered aquaponics systems. Morning Star [...]

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US Supreme Court To Hear Monsanto GMO Case

February 7, 2010 Farm/Garden Politics

The outcome of this case involving genetically modified alfalfa may be more important for what it means to another biotech crop, gmo sugar beets which is the subject of another court case.
Monsanto petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court decision that prohibits the planting of Roundup Ready alfalfa until regulators complete a more [...]

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Flower Petal Nanoridges Attract Bees

February 7, 2010 Flowers

According to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, tiny structures form on the surface of the plant, called nanoridges. Researchers found that the ridges are made of “cutin polyester,” a material in the waxy outer layer of plants that helps protect them from drying out.
While their exact function is still [...]

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