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Sub-Topics
Indoor Agriculture
Also TryNewsPapers
- African News for Sustainable Health and Peace (AllAfrica.com)
Provides news related to water, health, agriculture, and biodiversity.
- Brazil Reacts to High Food Prices (New York Times)
"Luciano Alves planted beans, corn and grain on about 7,500 acres of his farm in southern Brazil last year. This year, he is planting 8,600 acres. And he credits Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, with the increase."
" 'The government is helping us finance the purchase of new machinery,' said Mr. Alves. 'They reduced the interest rates we pay and have given us more time to pay off the loans. It’s vital.' " 08-08
- Green Architecture Certification (New York Times)
"On a recent Friday, when the rest of the staff of the architecture firm Beyer Blinder Belle was out of the office enjoying a beautiful August day, about 25 people sat in a windowless room learning about the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification process." 08-08
- Vertical Farming for Sustainability (New York Times)
"IF climate change and population growth progress at their current pace, in roughly 50 years farming as we know it will no longer exist. This means that the majority of people could soon be without enough food or water. But there is a solution that is surprisingly within reach: Move most farming into cities, and grow crops in tall, specially constructed buildings. It’s called vertical farming." 08-09
- -One Last Chance to Save Mankind (TreeHugger.com)
"For those that don’t know who James Lovelock is here’s the one sentence bio: Originator of the Gaia hypothesis, chemist, did work on atmospheric chlorofluorocarbons which eventually led them from being banned, advocate of nuclear power. Which is to say, that when James Lovelock says humanity only has one chance left not to get annihilated by the effects of climate change in the 21st century, it’s worth shutting up and listening to what the man says." 10-10
- A Vacuum Alternative to Pesticides (Science Daily)
"A physical chemist has developed a new technique for ridding harvested produce of insect pests and microorganisms without using pesticides such as methyl bromide. The technique, called Metabolic Stress Disinfection and Disinfestation, suffocates pests by exposing them to cycles of vacuum and pressurized carbon dioxide. Treatment chambers could be easy to develop on a large enough scale for farmers to use." 09-08
- Agriculture Without Tilling (Grist.org)
Farmer David Ausberger "doesn’t just practice no-till farming; he aims for never-till farming, allowing the natural soil biota to build up over the years and form complex communities." 03-14
- Iroquois "Three Sisters" (Cornell.edu)
"Mt. Pleasant studies what traditionally are known as the "three sisters": beans, corn and squash. These staples of Iroquois cropping are traditionally grown together on a single plot, mimicking natural systems in what agronomists call a polyculture. Though the Iroquois technique was not developed scientifically, Mt. Pleasant notes that it is 'agronomically sound.' The three sisters cropping system embodies all the things needed to make crops grow in the Northeast, she says." 11-03
- Program Partners Aspiring Farmers with Aging Pros (MSNBC News)
"He quit his job and drove his wife and their four young daughters across country, a 21st-century pioneer lured to these faraway farm fields by the promise of a life-changing deal with an older stranger." 08-09
- Shiva, Vandana (AsiaWeek.com - Reyes)
Profiles a leader in the field of sustainable agriculture and ecology. She is the director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology. 1-02
- Soil and Industrial Farming (TheGuardian.com)
"Studies suggest that regenerating soil by turning our backs on industrial farming holds the key to tackling climate change." 09-16
- Solar Pumps for Low Income Farmers (Christian Science Monitor)
"What if we could find a way to cut the cost of a 2-kilowatt solar pump system from$7,000 to $2,500? And what if we added a $1,400, 2.5-acre low-cost drip system and used the solar pump/drip system to grow 2.5 acres of diversified off-season fruits, vegetables, and spices? If done correctly, farmers could clear at least $4,500."
"That’s enough to make payments on a three-year loan or lease and make a profit." 06-13
- Sustainable Manufacture (Time.com)
"The San Francisco-based company [Levi's] discovered that over the lifetime of its jeans, from the cotton fields needed to make the fabric to consumers' tossing their dirty dungarees in the washing machine, each pair used up 3,480 L of water, which is the equivalent of running a garden hose for 106 minutes."
"Fashion may seem low impact — after all, consumers don't use electricity or burn gasoline when they put on their khakis — but growing cotton and other fibers involves a lot of water and fertilizer, and a great deal of energy is needed to manufacture, ship and, eventually, wash and maintain the clothes that wind up in your hamper. Some 25% of the world's pesticides, for example, is used to grow cotton, and on average, 15% to 20% of the fabric that goes into producing clothing ends up as scraps. One way to shrink fashion's environmental impact is through efficiency initiatives that reduce the need for water, pesticides and energy in the manufacture of clothes — just as Levi's has done with its new line." 01-11
- The Toxic Consequences of the Green Revolution (U.S. News)
"Four decades after the so-called Green Revolution enabled this vast nation to feed itself, some farmers are turning their backs on modern agricultural methods—the use of modified seeds, fertilizer, and pesticides—in favor of organic farming." 07-08
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