Last week, NPR took a deeper look at the natural gas boom in the U.S. The special series, “The Fracking Boom: Missing Answers,” questions what the gas boom is doing to the air and water in communities where fracking has become a household name…
Breaking Exclusive
Factory Farming
Lawmakers Call on FDA for Action on Antibiotics in Ethanol Production
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
05-14-2012
As the letter highlights, and as reported earlier by IATP, antibiotics used in ethanol production are ending up in a byproduct known as dried distillers grains (DDGs) that are then sold as livestock feed, contributing to antibiotic resistance…
It pains me to say it but there are some very real connections between BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, aka “Mad Cow Disease”) and the recent “pink slime” fiasco that need to be aired…
USDA Quarantines Second California Farm in Mad Cow Disease Investigation
Beyond Pesticides
05-07-2012
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has quarantined a second California farm as part of its ongoing investigation into a confirmed incidence of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), first reported on April 24…
The U.S. factory farm model has already been exported to Europe, thanks to the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that has made it very difficult for small farms to thrive. They’re even forced to import genetically engineered soy feed…
More than a quarter of all the meat produced worldwide is now eaten in China, and the country’s 1.35 billion people are hungry for more. In 1978, China’s meat consumption of 8 million tons was one third the U.S. consumption…
Unfortunately, the “faster, bigger, cheaper” approach to food production that the U.S. has mastered is unsustainable and contributing to the destruction of our planet and your health. Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma…
“It’s tough enough when you are trying to examine 140 birds per minute with professional inspectors,” said Stan Painter, a federal inspector in Crossville, Alabama. “This proposal makes it impossible”…
The whole idea of genetically engineering a pig to fit into an unsustainable production model and then dubbing it “enviro” is ridiculous. Given recent industry and consumer backlash, it’s no surprise that funding for this misguided research has dried up…
You know things are bad when USDA meat inspectors join consumer advocates and concerned citizens to protest on the steps of the USDA, which happened on April 2. Among the signs calling on USDA not to put chicken company profits…
Could the public’s outrage over the undisclosed addition of lean finely textured beef (LFTB)—aka “pink slime”—in ground beef be the catalyst we need to bring about the necessary changes in the way we farm and feed ourselves?…
Tug-of-War between Carrying Capacity and Rising Demand—Can We Keep This Up?
Worldwatch Institute
03-27-2012
Population growth combined with rising resource use, heavily tilted toward the world’s wealthy on a per capita basis but growing rapidly among the expanding global middle class, is reflected in rising worldwide resource consumption…
Whether it’s the regular tweets of the big-name food pundits or the countless anonymous contributors to online food discussions, an astonishing amount of advice is now dished out on what food we should buy and where we should buy it…
The EPA attributes 45 percent of phosphorous loading, 35 percent of nitrogen loading and 60 percent of sediment loading into the Bay to agricultural sources. Animal manure accounts for about half of the nitrogen loads. Companies like Perdue are reaping immense profits…
Court Orders FDA to Address Antibiotic Overuse in Livestock
Natural Resources Defense Council
03-23-2012
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, approximately 70 percent of all antibiotics used in the U.S. are given to healthy farm animals at low doses to promote faster growth and compensate for unsanitary living conditions…
Rising Farm Animal Population Poses Environmental and Public Health Risks
World Resources Institute
03-23-2012
CAFOs produce high levels of waste, use huge amounts of water and land for feed production, contribute to the spread of human and animal diseases, and play a role in biodiversity loss. Farm animal production also contributes to climate change…
The UN expert noted that the West is now exporting diabetes and heart disease to developing countries, along with the processed foods that line the shelves of global supermarkets. By 2030, more than 5 million people will die…
When bacteria are routinely exposed to antibiotics, they become resistant and harder to treat. As a result, drug choices for treatment of common infections are diminishing and becoming more expensive. According to…
“Factory fish farms use and deplete wild fish stocks to feed farmed fish. Since these fish farms contain their stocks in free-floating cages, the fish live in close quarters—just like factory farm pens on land—which breeds disease…
Organizers called the Feb. 27 Occupy our Food Supply day of action a resounding success. The day included more than 100 events across the globe, united an unprecedented alliance of more than 60 Occupy groups…
“Occupy our Food Supply is a day to reclaim our most basic life support system—our food—from corporate control. It is an unprecedented day of solidarity to create local, just solutions that steer our society away from the stranglehold of…
After pork producers contacted his supervisors, a U.S. Department of Agriculture microbiologist was prevented from publishing research showing that emissions from industrial hog farms contained antibiotic-resistant bacteria…
Industrial agribusiness corporations like Cargill, Monsanto, ADM and Dupont have gained runaway control of our food systems and to take them back, we’ll need all the collective power we can manifest around the world…
This Sunday, millions of Americans will sit down with friends and family to watch some of the world’s greatest athletes competing in the toughest, most physical sport of all. No one takes health and fitness more seriously than…
The Center for Food Safety (CFS) submitted comments strongly criticizing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) disappointing failure to implement a 2010 settlement agreement it reached with…
EarthEcho International Adds New Resources to the Water Planet Challenge Site
EarthEcho International
01-23-2012
EarthEcho International, a leading environmental education nonprofit organization, is working with the NEA Foundation and Discovery Education to bring educators and students new resources to EarthEcho’s…
As part of a nationwide day of action protesting the legal doctrine of ‘corporate personhood’ enshrined by the controversial Citizens United vs. FEC Supreme Court ruling two years ago, a diverse crowd of…
Forgive me if you don’t see me jumping for joy at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) recent announcement that it intends to limit the use of a specific group of antibiotics in livestock production…
energy
Fracking the Frackers—A Call for a New Pennsylvania Constitution
Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
12-31-2011
For anyone with even the slimmest understanding of the role that the Pennsylvania legislature has played over the past several decades, the recent votes planned in the House and the Senate—to strip communities of their remaining slim authority to regulate fracking…
Much of the pollution in U.S. rivers and streams today comes from the manure generated by CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations), which confine thousands of animals on a single site…
Much of the pollution in U.S. rivers and streams today comes from the manure generated by CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations), which confine thousands of animals on a single site…
