by Whitney Pipkin There is no shortage of discussion topics emerging from Josh Schonwald’s relatively new book The Taste of Tomorrow: Dispatches from the Future of Food. If arugula can replace romaine, then what, pray tell, is the salad of the future? Could meat made in a lab instead of a cow be a good thing? What is [...]
by Sam Mitchell Now that the Farm Bill baton has been handed from the Senate to the House of Representatives, it’s worth pausing for a moment to examine the bill’s major features from the perspective of small farmers and the sustainable agriculture movement. Commodity Reform Good: From a policy perspective, the bill’s most significant provision [...]
By Sam Mitchell The Mount Lemmon Marathon–an annual race held outside Tuscon, Arizona–starts in the desert floor and ends in the village of Summerhaven near the top of the highest peak in the Santa Catalina Mountain range. From start to finish, the course’s elevation increases 6,000 feet, all uphill. Two thousand miles to the east, [...]
By Sam Mitchell The road ahead is increasingly bumpy, but the Farm Bill continues to lurch forward, one pothole at a time. After clearing a procedural hurdle last week, the Senate officially began consideration of the bill on Monday, setting the stage for a time-honored Senate practice–the filing, consideration, and disposition of amendments. Under normal [...]
By Sam Mitchell The Standing Rules of the United States Senate officially consist of 44 rules, each with their own sub-rules, caveats, and conditions. They cover everything from the appointment of a presiding officer (Rule I), to the filibuster (Rule XXII), to the jurisdiction and make-up of Committees (Rules XXIV-XXVII); their reach extends even to [...]
by Sam Mitchell This week, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation is hosting its annual Food and Community Conference, a three-day gathering of farmers, advocates, and experts to discuss the importance of promoting healthy lifestyles, in part by increasing community access to fresh food. On Tuesday, the foundation released a poll and trumpeted its results. Among other [...]
by Sam Mitchell Free lunches may be elusive. Unhealthy ones are anything but. Anyone can walk into (or easier yet, drive up to) McDonald’s, and three minutes later, be gorging themselves on a Big Mac, a pile of fries, and a Coke. If getting up from the couch seems like too much effort, a pizza [...]
by Sam Mitchell We’ve got a big problem. Even bigger than the overuse of weight-related puns when talking about the American obesity epidemic. This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention held its second annual “Weight of the Nation” conference — a gathering of political leaders, health professionals, and concerned citizens intended to highlight [...]
by Sam Mitchell When most of us think of pies, our mouths start watering. In the world of farm policy, however, pies are more frequently represented as budget charts–and their impact on the next Farm Bill is likely to leave a bitter taste in our mouths. Last Thursday, after a brief delay, the Senate Agriculture [...]
by Sam Mitchell The cow is finally out of the barn. And it’s a little leaner than it was four years ago. Last Friday, the Senate Agriculture Committee fired the opening legislative salvo in the effort to pass a 2012 Farm Bill when Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan) and Ranking Member Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) released their [...]
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