Home/Posts Tagged ‘farming’
Posts Tagged ‘farming’
Climate Change, Science & Technology, Videos & Documentaries, Apr 6th, 2012,
In some coastal areas climate change means a rise in sea levels, leading to an increase in water salinity, which in turn means a high salt content in soil. Increasing salinity in fresh water and soil poses problems for agriculture and fish farming. This is a particularly tricky aspect of climate change adaptation, but coastal communities as well as scientists are finding ways to cope. Hardy varieties of rice, wheat and vegetables are one way, as is shifting from freshwater fish farming to raising saltwater species such as crabs. In Sri Lanka, rice farmers, together with the United Nations Development…
Tags: australia, Bangladesh, farming, fish, India, rice, salinity, salty soil, water, wheat
Green living, Jan 11th, 2012,
Honey from Newcastle, vegetables grown in Nottingham and London cheese are just a few examples of urban produce now being grown and sold in British cities. All across the country, people are increasingly choosing to grow their own food for reasons of economics, health and in order to feel a connection to their food and the land. Sustain, a UK alliance for better food and farming, has launched an online project called City Harvest for ‘demonstrating and promoting the benefits of Urban Agriculture’. Sustain’s scheme Capital Growth, funded by the Mayor of London, includes some 1,500 growing spaces in London…
Tags: agriculture, farm, farming, food, london, sustain, UK, urban
Climate Change, Conservation, Pollution, Dec 27th, 2011,
The original Green Revolution was essentially a Cold War tactic of the United States to win over Third World countries by supplying them with agricultural technology, thereby dramatically increasing their food production. The main recipients of Green Revolution techniques were India, Mexico and the Philippines, as well as some African countries (with markedly less success). Although the Green Revolution increased food production, it has its drawbacks and criticisms: unsustainable population growth – leading to mass starvation; genetically weak and less biodiverse monoculture farming – meaning crop failures are more likely, requiring more chemical pesticides to compensate for this risk. Monoculture…
Tags: biodiversity, Brazil, Cerrado, farming, Green Revolution, monoculture
Climate Change, Green living, Mar 2nd, 2011,
Rice farming in its present state is water intensive and greenhouse gas producing – from methane released by bacteria and from fuel burnt during farming and shipping. The production of rice is also often destructive to crucial natural resources like mangrove forests, which function as carbon sinks and natural flood defenses. Since the cultivation of rice contributes to environmental degradation and climate change it is – ironically – a threat to itself. Changing temperatures and more extreme weather threaten the livelihood of farmers, food production and human safety. Scientists at the International Rice Research Institute, or IRRI, in the Philippines…
Tags: Climate change, cultivation, farming, Guyana, methane, Philippines, rice
Science & Technology, Weird Stuff, Aug 18th, 2010,
In Monday’s Guardian George Monbiot slams the concept of ‘vertical farming’ in a piece, entitled ‘Greens living in ivory towers now want to farm them too’. His main beef is that a Columbia University parasitologist named Dickson Despommier has been getting a lot of support in the green media for his idea to create skyscraper farms in densely populated urban areas like New York City, which might be a brilliant idea, but it’s a fanciful one as well. This immediately reminded me of stories about an underground indoor rice farm in Tokyo’s financial district, which turned out to be an…
Tags: crazy, crops, Despommier, Detroit, expensive, farm, farming, food, gardens, Manhattan, Monbiot, urban, vertical
Climate Change, Green living, Aug 2nd, 2010,
As an alternative to cutting meat consumption in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is considering the promotion of insects as a food source. The idea comes from a UN policy paper by a Belgian scientist at the University of Wageningen named Arnold Van Huis, who points out that most of the world already eats insects. In meat-rich Western diets – which are growing throughout the rest of the world and thereby causing emissions to increase – eating insects is somewhat taboo, but eating shrimp, which are very similar to insects, is considered…
Tags: beetle, citrus, emissions, farming, food, gas, greenhouse, insects, livestock, longhorn, meat, shrubs, trees, UK, UN, Van Huis
Climate Change, Green living, Health, Jul 23rd, 2010,
Two rather informative articles from Mother Jones go over the environmental benefits/drawbacks of a vegetarian diet vs. one that includes lots of meat. Kiera Butler’s ‘Steak or Veggie Burger: Which is Greener?’ – aka ‘Get Behind Me Seitan’ – may tread some familiar ground for those well versed on the relationship between diet and the environment, but it offers up some pretty important details, especially about processed meat substitutes. A processed ‘pea-burger’ requires as much energy as a pork chop, Butler claims. I don’t know what a pea-burger is, but I’m guessing she is referring to the bulk of industrially…
Tags: burger, Butler, diet, eat, eating, environment, factory, farm, farming, gluten, hexane, Kiera, meat, processed, seitan, vegetarian, veggie, wheat
Green living, Health, Jul 16th, 2010,
A recent piece for The Ecologist, entitled ‘Biomass Britain: do fields of energy crops spell an end to grazing livestock’, explores the possibility of a revolution in the UK’s land use. 70-80% of land in the UK is used by the British livestock industry. The possibility of a near-complete shift from livestock farming to the growing of food crops and biomass for energy production may sound revolutionary to some and catastrophic to others. It would mean the de-industrialization of Britain’s meat industry and a 60-70% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, according to The Ecologist article. It’s a revolutionary vision that…
Tags: biomass, British, carbon, change, diet, emissions, energy, farming, forestry, industry, livestock, meat, Peel, plant, Scotland, Scottish, UK, wood
Climate Change, Green living, Health, Politics, Apr 11th, 2010,
Is American-style industrialized livestock farming coming to Europe? There are plans to open a massive ‘feedlot’ dairy farm in Lincolnshire, England where some 8,100 cows would be housed and fed a mix of alfalfa and maize instead of grazing on grass in open pastures as is customary in the UK. The industrial factory farm would be the first of its kind in Western Europe. It may seem like a surprising development at a time when food and environmental awareness is so strong. Intensive farming is generally seen as bad for both human and animal health as well as for the…
Tags: animal, dairy, England, environmental, Europe, factory, farm, farmers, farming, farms, intensive, Nocton, UK, welfare
Climate Change, Green living, Videos & Documentaries, Feb 2nd, 2010,
The UK’s All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Agriculture and Food for Development issued a report criticizing the British government for cutting aid for agriculture in developing countries. An article from OneWorld UK describes the APPG report as detailing the link between food and security, especially in the developing world. Population growth, disease and climate change present challenges to keep up with global food production, yet so far the number and percentage of people going hungry are growing. The report stated that with the global population set to rise at 6 million per month and almost double from 1 billion…
Tags: agriculture, australia, Climate change, emissions, farming, food, global, production, UK
Climate Change, Politics, Jan 7th, 2010,
Britain must grow more food, while using less water and reducing emission of greenhouse gases, to respond to the challenge of climate change and growing world populations, the environment secretary, Hilary Benn, said yesterday. –Guardian U.K. environment secretary Hilary Benn has called for a change in how Britain consumes and produces its food. The British government’s 20 year plan highlights research, technology and sustainability, and is consumer-led, with the onus on the public to buy green, waste less and grow more. The idea is that if the buyers demand greener products, then British businesses will follow suit and produce them….
Tags: Britain, Climate change, environment, farming, food, Green, Hilary Benn, plan, secretary, sustainability, U.K.
Climate Change, Videos & Documentaries, Dec 11th, 2009,
Many of Brazil’s ultra-poor survive by recycling in the cities or farming in the Amazon in underground economies that both harm and help local and global ecology. A similar dichotomy is reflected in Brazil’s legitimate energy and farming markets. ‘If the desecration of the rainforest is Brazil’s carbon footprint, it is ethanol and hydro that ensure that 50% of the country’s energy usage rates as renewable.’ –John Snow, ITN ITN’s John Snow reports from Brazil on the South American country’s contrasting urbanization and farming; illegal logging, rainforest preservation, deforestation and renewable energy production; waste and recycling; and rich and poor….
Tags: Brazil, CNN, farming, ITN, rainforest, Recycling
Climate Change, Nov 9th, 2009,
Just when you quote a source about how much livestock farming contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, it gets worse. A lot worse. According to a recent article in the London Times, methane – the second most important greenhouse gas produced by human activity – has an even more powerful effect on climate change than previously believed by scientists. ‘Methane’s impact on global temperatures is about a third higher than generally thought because previous estimates have not accounted for its interaction with airborne particles called aerosols, Nasa scientists found.’ –London Times Faster and more powerful Instead of being 23 times more…
Tags: carbon emissions, climate, co2, farming, greenhouse gas, methane
Uncategorized, Sep 24th, 2009,
While writing about Colony Collapse Disorder (the disappearance of the world’s honeybee population) I came across an article by Canadian investigative journalist Alex Roslin about monocrops and their detrimental effects on world hunger, biodiversity, nutrition, food supplies, water toxicity and soil quality. A sweeping change from traditional farming, with its fallow fields, crop rotation and varied selection of produce, monoculture techniques are not just linked to the transition from subsistence farming to commercial agriculture, but to the widespread shift from family-owned farms to massive industrial farming complexes driven by large corporations. “peak food is actually related to four other intertwined…
Tags: agriculture, farming, Green Revolution, India, millet, monocrop, monocropping, monoculture
Videos & Documentaries, Wildlife & Flora, Sep 5th, 2009,
“Industrial farms are super-incubators for viruses,” -Bob Martin, former executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Animal Farm Production (from wired.com May 1, 2009) The modern, industrialized American pig lives for about six months from birth to slaughter, during which it spends its entire life eating in a cramped steel and concrete enclosure, paradoxically sterile and yet separated by a steel floor of steel grating, only a few centimeters above a cesspool of the pigs’ own excrement. The scent is so bad that some residents who live downwind from pig farms have tried to get laws passed to protect…
Tags: farming, GMO, pigs, pork, pork industry, swine flu
