In a creative and sensible rebuke to nuking neighborhoods with pesticides, the state of California has chosen to release sterile hybrids of the light brown apple moth to reduce populations of the marauding insect.

Since its invasion in March 2007 of the United States, the Australian light brown apple moth, or LBAM, has been fluttering up and down the California coast, leaving a wake of fruit and vegetable-munching, leaf-rolling caterpillars behind it. Scary, especially for a state making $32 billion dollars a year from agiculture.

But planned summertime sprayings for LBAM, at least in urban areas in California, were put on emergency hold by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Local governments, including Santa Cruz County (expected to be hardest hit by LBAM), expressed concern over potential human health and environmental side effects from the pesticide - a synthetic pheromone that confuses the moth’s reproductive cycle.

So instead of pesticides, California Department of Food and Agriculture has decided to release tens of thousands of sterile moths into wild populations. The sterile moths will provide an end-of-the-line outlet for many would-be reproducers, shrinking next year’s populations. Released annually, the sterile moths could become increasingly effective at hammering away at LBAMs populations.

Monsanto’s purchasing spree continues. We told you about the biotech firm's success in acquiring dozens of seed companies in the last decade. Today's announcement shows it's on the fast track to gobbling up as many competitors as possible.

The company will acquire Marmot, S.A., owner of Semillas Cristiani Burkard (SCB), the leading Central American seed corn company headquartered in Guatemala City. Monsanto’s control of seed in the region will rapidly expand where SBC already has a market presence: twelve countries throughout North, Central and South America and the Caribbean, including more than 900 dealers in Central America alone. SBC is also a distributor of Monsanto’s Seminis vegetable seeds.

Monsanto says the acquisition will result in expanded seed options for farmers. That's not what history shows us. These acquisitions have resulted in unprecedented concentration in the seed marketplace, resulting in less choice and higher seed prices for farmers. The only expansion we’ll see is in Monsanto’s bottom line.

Source: The Earth Times

Bush uttered the words "local food" not too long ago but his policy decisions are far from aligned with your typical locavore. What if our next president promised to "implement USDA policies that promote local and regional food systems, including assisting states to develop programs aimed at community supported farms?"

A fellow Missoulian scored some answers to timely food and agriculture questions from presidential hopeful Barack Obama recently, including the quote above. Curious to know his take on the Farm Bill, ethanol, and local food? Read up and take note: the interview concludes with his family chili recipe.

We hope you're for real, Senator Obama. We've been hungry for change in U.S. agriculture policy for a long, long time.

Source: The Durango Telegraph

India's livestock industry is burrowing into new terrain by embracing rabbit farming in the aftermath of avian flu outbreaks. Farmers say demand for the low cholesterol meat is growing as people steer away from poultry.

The draw? Well, we all know rabbits reproduce prolifically. They also can be raised in relatively small areas (such as backyards) and don't require expensive feed (many are fed kitchen waste). And, unlike birds, farmers raising rabbits can sell the hide in addition to the meat. (At one point in your life you must have had a lucky rabbit's foot, right?) All of these factors point to low-cost investments and good returns. Plus, in India and the Middle East, rabbit meat is a delicacy.

Yet if avian flu were to pervade U.S. poultry (an Arkansas flock recently tested positive for a less virulent strain), I can't imagine Americans requesting rabbit at their local meat counter. Still, rabbit appears to be a good alternative to meat birds. And the way grain prices and transportation costs are headed, we'll need alternatives, the most logical one being to eat less meat.

Source: Daily India

This week, after 16 states reported salmonella outbreaks attributable to big, sort-of fresh tomatoes, McDonald’s, Whole Foods, Wal-Mart, Chipotle Mexican Grill and multitudes of other grocers and restaurants abruptly pulled the red fruit from their menus and produce displays.

Deja vu? Remember how you avoided spinach like the plague after 20 people died of E. coli infections in 2006? And how ground beef maintains a general aura of sketchiness after the latest February recall of over 143 million pounds? Nearly 60% of Americans say that they have avoided certain foods in the past year because of safety recalls – recalls which are, as of now, often voluntary on the part of the food producers.

This latest "precautionary" tomato dumping is yet more evidence of the lack of our government's ability to trace foodborne diseases to particular sources, or to hold food producers accountable. Even when sources of tainted food can be identified, the FDA and USDA have a history of reluctancy in publicly releasing on whose plates that food ended up - even when it's elementary school kids.

Contaminated industrial food continues to be swept through massive commercial rivers with anonymous tributaries and mouths. Knowing your farmer may be the only solution to food safety issues. It may also be the only way farmers can stay in business as grocers and restaurants - in order to avoid liability issues - pull enormous amounts of food that may or may not truly be tainted.

I’ll be getting my tomatoes from Josh Slotnick of the PEAS Farm in Misssoula, Montana in a few weeks. In a month, I’ll have my own from my garden. Where will you be getting yours?

Via The Wall Street Journal

Oyster lovers, put down the lemon wedge and tabasco for a minute and take note. The molluscan delicacy is all but vanishing from Chesapeake Bay, even after $58 million dollars of federal and state money have been poured into their restoration over the past fourteen years.

If you don’t like factory farms, you should probably move to Delaware - it’s the only U.S. state that doesn’t have a single confined animal feeding operation (CAFO). Of course, the state only covers about 2,000 square miles (about 30 miles by 60 miles).

Conversely, if you live in Nebraska, you as a human are outnumbered by cattle, pigs, and chickens in CAFOs. (Thought it was just sheep in New Zealand, did you?)

The information comes from nonprofit Food and Water Watch’s new interactive map dishing CAFO sites and animal numbers by state. The map was created using USDA definintions of CAFOs and census data.

Envirovore has reported on a variety of environmental catastrophes caused by CAFOs, from declining crab populations in Cheasapeake Bay to massive dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico. For those who are foggy on the general problems associated with CAFOs, a good starting point is the infamous Meatrix video.

Two of us Envirovores were at a Maryland wedding last week, and naturally, there was a softshell crab appetizer - a small square of bread topped with a sauteed half of a crab. Shell and everything. Some of us savored the oily crunchiness, others exclaimed it was “like eating a big cricket.” But David Gracer, a Rhode Island college professor recently interviewed by Discover magazine, says if we want to reduce our food footprint, we should get used to eating exoskeletons.

Of course, the exoskeletons we’re supposed to be eating aren’t crab shells – they’re bugs. Gracer says we should be eating insects, because they can provide us with protein, while using significantly less water in their growth and creating less pollution than cows, pigs or chickens. Gracer has made it his personal mission, through his company Sunrise Land Shrimp, to spread the gastronomic perfection of insects to developed counties.

One hundred grams of water bugs or grasshoppers contain 20 grams of protein, nearly as much as the 27 grams of protein found in 100 grams of beef. Drying insects can increase their protein content to nearly 60% - a potential goldmine for REI as a trendy new power snack.