“Buy local” is gaining prominence in the potato and onion businesses, according to marketing strategists.
“Buy local is an important piece that our industry participates heavily in,” said Tim O’Connor, chief executive officer of the Denver-based U.S. Potato Board. “There’s a lot of effort there. I see it used real well by retailers.”
Of course, the strategy comes with a natural impediment, O’Connor said.
“The challenge is it’s seasonal,” he said. “If a retailer in New York wants to feature New York-grown potatoes, they have a window they’re available (and) then they have to get them from somebody else. So it’s heavily used but is very seasonal in most markets.”

To read the rest of the story, click HERE.

Consumer Reports’ latest tests of canned foods, including soups, juice, tuna, and green beans, have found that almost all of the 19 name-brand foods tested contain measurable levels of Bisphenol A (BPA). The results are reported in the December 2009 issue and also available online. BPA, which has been used for years in clear plastic bottles and food-can liners, has been restricted in Canada and some U.S. states and municipalities because it has been linked to a wide array of health effects including reproductive abnormalities, heightened risk of breast and prostate cancers, diabetes, and heart disease.

After this year’s resurgence of the home veggie food garden, maybe next year’s trend should be home canning of the harvest from those gardens. Click HERE to read Starkman’s article on BPA in canned foods.

Photo credit: ConsumerReports.org

Vegetarianism used to be simple – its protagonists foreswore the flesh of any dead animal. Today there are “veggies” who eat fish, and people who eat no meat but don’t call themselves vegetarians. What happened?
The conversation usually goes something a bit like this:
“Yeah, I’m a vegetarian.”
“But that looks like fish you’re eating.”
“Oh yeah, I eat fish.”
Confusion, perplexity and occasionally heated debate can follow as the “vegetarian” and their interrogator cover the issue of what is an animal and whether fish feel pain.

To read the whole story, click HERE.

Photo credit: BBC News Magazine

With food prices remaining high in developing countries, the United Nations estimates that the number of hungry people around the world could increase by 100 million in 2009 and pass the one billion mark. A summit of world leaders in Rome scheduled for November will set an agenda for ways to reduce hunger and increase investment in agriculture development in poor countries.
What will drive the next Green Revolution? Is genetically modified food an answer to world hunger? Are there other factors that will make a difference in food production?
Paul Collier, economist, Oxford University
Vandana Shiva, activist and author
Per Pinstrup-Andersen, professor of nutrition and public policy, Cornell
Raj Patel, Institute for Food and Development Policy
Jonathan Foley, University of Minnesota
Michael J. Roberts, economist, North Carolina State University

To read the complete New York Times‘ article, click HERE.

Photo credit: Damon Winter/The New York Times

Can you imagine being able to produce enough water in the Sahara to grow crops there? Can you imagine harnessing sufficient quantities of solar power to supply electricity to cities in Africa and cities in Europe? Can you imagine producing a sustainable bio-fuel that doesn’t impact on world food supplies? Charlie Paton, Michael Pawlyn and Bill Watts can and what’s more they can imagine all these happening in the same place at the same time.
This trio of visionaries launched the Sahara Forest Project: their proposal to combine two innovative technologies, Concentrated Solar Power and Seawater Greenhouses, to produce renewable energy, water and food in an area of desert known to be one of the hottest places on earth.
To read the complete article, click HERE. For an update on the project, click HERE.

Graphic credit: Treehugger.com

Desert Hills Dairy of Nevada has joined with Carbon Bank Ireland, an emerging leader in cap-and-trade carbon emissions markets, to build the state’s first biogas facility to convert cow manure into electricity. Along with producing enough sustainable methane to power itself and other equipment at the second largest dairy in Nevada, the high tech digester will produce liquid fertilizer and mulch.

To read the complete story, click HERE.

* In general, the greener the land cover, the cooler is surface temperature.
* Conversion to agriculture results in cooling, while conversion from agriculture generally results in warming.
* Deforestation generally results in warming, with the exception of a shift from forest to agriculture. No clear picture emerged from the impact of planting or seeding new forests.
* Urbanization and conversion to bare soils have the largest warming impacts.

Click HERE for the Purdue University news release/summary of the study. For another summary of the study, click HERE.

Photo credit: ABC News