-
Recent Posts
Archives
Categories
Meta
-
Join 231 other subscribers
Author Archives: GDS
In Defense of Roundup©
This week a presidential executive order declared the herbicide glyphosate “crucial to the national security and defense” because it allows “farmers and ranchers to maintain high yields and low production costs while ensuring that healthy, affordable food options remain within … Continue reading
Black Swans, Processed Food, and Eugenics in the Blue Ridge
To hikers in Shenandoah National Park, Corbin Hollow is a procession of forested hillsides, copperheads, and collapsed chimneys. But the hollow is filled with ghosts. In collaboration with documentary filmmaker Richard Robinson, I have just published an article in Southern … Continue reading
Posted in Food
2 Comments
The Most Deceptive Graph Ever Made?
A Famous Graph of the Triumph of Science Actually Shows Just What is Wrong with Our Agriculture It’s the most reproduced chart in anything ever written on agriculture. It shows a triumph of science: the meteoric rise in US corn … Continue reading
Good Luck with the Corn, RFK You A-hole
The point is that hundreds of businesses, laws, political allegiances, rural landscapes, and even the American palate have been shaped by this history for a century now. Our national integration of agriculture is the country’s biggest and most dysfunctional case of path dependence. Bummer that HFCS makes us fat and diabetic, but it’s part of a system that long ago metastasized throughout our economy. Poor RFK, that’s what he’s up against: its deep history. Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Food, Industrial Agriculture, Public Health
Tagged agriculture, farming, food, sustainability, sustainable-agriculture
2 Comments
Bonus Eventus and Childless Cat Ladies
Interested in how the government spends your taxes? Well in the case of the US, I’m flattered to say the federal government has been spending it on me. But it does it in two very different ways. First, it pays … Continue reading
Posted in Food
2 Comments
Bt Cotton in Africa: What Happened in Burkina Faso?
As stories about GM crops in developing countries unfold, I continue to be struck by how very different each case is. Despite the desire for simple global narratives of success or failure, the crops differ, the transgenic traits differ, the … Continue reading
Posted in Africa, Agriculture, Biotechnology
Tagged agriculture, biotechnology, cotton, genetically modified, Monsanto
12 Comments
CRISPR and the Monsanto Problem (GMO, be some other name!)
‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou art thyself, though not a GMO. What’s GMO? it is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Biotechnology, CRISPR
18 Comments
Golden Rice: Bringing a Superfood Down to Earth
May 2016: The article “Disembedding grain: Golden Rice, the Green Revolution, and heirloom seeds in the Philippines,” by Dominic Glover and me, has been published in the journal Agriculture & Human Values and is available here. This blog post is … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Biotechnology, Food, Philippines
40 Comments
Unload DDT
What a bloodbath on Wall St — XOM down 5%, UNH down 5%, DIS down 4%. But the biggest loser this week was DDT. DDT featured prominently in the recent blog highlighting the ongoing studies by Berkeley’s Barbara Cohn. Despite … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Industrial Agriculture, Public Health
8 Comments
GM Foods: A Moment of Honesty
As the latest controversy over GMO’s unfolds – this time it’s about a House Bill that would ban labeling laws – it’s time for a moment of honesty about science and safety. Of course safety is hardly the only bone … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Biotechnology, Food, Public Health, Regulation
Tagged agriculture, biotechnology, endocrine disruptors, environmental toxicology
57 Comments
fieldquestions 