Sustainable Agriculture & Food Policy

The USDA should start by requiring farmers who use biotechnology to abide by practices that prevent the spread of transgenic material, said Lisa Bunin, organic policy director for the Center for Food Safety. The group has opposed deregulation of transgenic crops like glyphosate-resistant alfalfa. "Why should the burden be entirely on organic producers?" she said. "The USDA needs to show its commitment to prevent contamination. The time has come for the government to step in."

“The department and its instructional garden are focused primarily on teaching sustainable landscaping and gardening options,” says Michael Gonella, chair of the Environmental Horticulture Department at the college. “This vegetable garden will be a key element in the garden and will demonstrate integration of sustainable principles including organic soil care, composting and use of organic compost, water efficiency and food production.” Read the full story

Speakers at a workshop said here on Friday that substantial and sustainable promotion of conservation agriculture is very vital for making the soil health fit for boosting crop production to ensure food security of the nation. Read the full story

2011 Switzer Fellow Kelsey Jacobsen's research focuses on Chile's Salmon Aquaculture Industry. Hear how she is working with local governments to ensure safe aquaculture practices for years to come.

In South Africa, land occupation is expanding as a strategy for achieving genuine agrarian reform, food sovereignty and climate justice. Since these are all critical issues for people living in cities, land occupations in both urban and rural areas are an important, and often unrecognized, part of global movements. Read the full article

But Beal says he has come up with a better way to grow lobsters in captivity. Through trial and error over several years, he has learned how to grow lobsters in a protected environment until they are several inches long — not big enough to be sold, but big enough to settle to the bottom when they are released and possibly to improve their survival rate. Read the full story

María Fernández-Giménez, a rangeland specialist and associate professor at Colorado State University who has been observing environmental trends in Bayankhongor since 1994, believes that if there is a demonstrated market for "sustainable cashmere,” herders might change their practices. She envisions herders breeding fewer, but higher-quality goats and participating in monitoring to certify their products as organic and fair-trade, which would fetch a higher price for the wool.

Hydrogeographers such as Peter Vorster of the Bay Institute are on one side. KTVU met him along the last stretch of the wild San Joaquin River, arguably the most desiccated -- and desecrated -- major river in California. "This has a lot of salts in it from the agricultural runoff, Vorster remarked. "The water that would have been in here, a lot of it has been diverted to make these fields grow these amazing crops. The San Joaquin Valley is the most productive agricultural region, arguably, in the world."

“We were in Seville last week doing survey work and heard about people getting boil notices when there’s bacteria,” said Balazs, who joined the Community Water Center as a staff scientist after completing her Ph.D at UC Berkeley. “But one of the worst things you can do is boil water when there are nitrates. It just concentrates them.” Read the full story