Agriculture | ModeShift

Before Grassoline, Settling A Dispute Among Experts

by Keith SchneiderAugust 23, 2007August 24, 200718

David Pimentel, an ecologist who spent all of his career at Cornell University after earning his doctorate in entomology in 1951, is one of the most respected environmental scientists of his generation. He was among the select group of young ecologists who in the 1960sÂ first identified the environmental and public health hazards of farm chemicals, and helped build the scientific case forÂ healthier, more environmentally-sensitive agriculture practices. The fact that organic cropsÂ are the fastest growing sector …

Flip: Interactively Documenting Factory Farms

by Keith SchneiderJuly 31, 2007August 1, 20073

Â Among the priority hazards of joining capital and technology the way we doÂ in the 21st CenturyÂ is that it can blow upÂ the ordinary and familiar — a farm, for instance — into shapes and sizes that are extraordinary. That is what’s happening in Michigan and in many other states in animal agriculture. American meat, poultry, and milk, increasingly, are produced on immenseÂ sites that have come to be known as “factory farms.”Â For those who haven’t followed …

Two Conversations on Energy in America; and Everything Else

by Keith SchneiderJune 27, 20072

You may have missed this little note out of Wall Street last week but many of the renewable and alternative energy funds are doing very well. The New Alternatives fund is up nearly 37 percent the last 12 months and 20 percent so far this year. The Guinness Atkinson fund is up 17 percent and 27 percent while the Wilder Hill funds, which launched last fall, are each up about 11 percent this year. By …

Flip: Markets Are Key To Farmland Conservation

by Keith SchneiderJune 9, 20072

Here’s a great example of how to deploy Internet technology and interactivity to conserving farmland. The Michigan Land Use Institute just posted the latest version of our Taste The Local Difference Web site, which links buyers of local farm products to sellers. Here’s a new facet of the site that enables wholesale suppliers and buyers to connect very quickly on the Web, an online wholesale market as it were.Â Â Just great work by the Institute’s …

Big Green’s Silent Spring For Rachel Carson — Take Two

by Keith SchneiderJune 7, 2007June 7, 200714

On the day late last monthÂ that Rachel Carson would have turned 100 years old I posted a piece on Mode Shift that focused on the surprising failure of the nation’s major environmental organizations to defend the mother of modern environmentalism. The free market right has set out on a deliberate path to diminish Carson, and by extension the American environmental community, as credible in responding to theÂ consequences of industrial technology. The attack on Carson is …

Pangea’s Biodegradable Package; Just Plant and Grow

by Keith SchneiderMay 30, 2007May 31, 20071

Here’s a name worth paying attention to in the space whereÂ sustainable business practices and the non-profit sector cross.Â He is Joshua Scott Onysko, a 30-year-old native of Rhode Island who turned a bonding experience with his mother making organic soap into Pangea Organics, a very successful Boulder-based manufacturer of organic body and skin care products. I first learned of Onysko and Pangea Organics from a friend in Saugatuck who was as enthusastic about the company’s all …

No More $125 An Acre Stuff

by Keith SchneiderFebruary 8, 2007February 9, 20071

Bill Bobier, who’s a progressive Republican from Oceana County on Michigan’s west side, once represented four Lake Michigan counties in the state Legislature.Â At the time, in the mid-1990s, he was one of the rare good guys in a Legislature swinging soÂ hard right that even Michigan Republicans didn’t recognize their own kind.Â What made Bobier especially distinctive was his farm, where he and his wife raised vegetables and beef.Â I once spent the day out there watching Bill …

Michigan’s Great Farm Statesman

by Keith SchneiderFebruary 8, 2007February 8, 20073

Every now and again you cross paths with someone who just vibrates differently than the ordinary Joe.Â It’s more than superior intelligence, or charisma, wisdom,Â energy, and experience.Â It’s howÂ rare people draw those gifts together in a way that is so graceful and encompassing and fearless.Â A statesman, if you will. Michigan is in desperate need of more of these kind of people. Michigan’s farm sector, fortunately,Â is graced byÂ an authentic leader, aÂ Nigerian-born agriculture economist named Soji Adelaja, who leads …

Seeds of Prosperity

by Keith SchneiderFebruary 8, 2007February 9, 20070

In Lansing today to cover the events and presentations during the day long Seeds of Prosperity Conference. Among all ofÂ the states, there is arguably none experiencing a greater economic struggle than Michigan.Â Measured inÂ standard indicators of economic performance — joblessness,Â number of young adults departing the state,Â home foreclosures,Â and rates of childhood poverty Â — Michigan ranks at the top or near the top. PersonalÂ income has fallen 5 percent below the national average, the first time that’s occurred since …