Just prior to the January 2011 electronic release of “Emerging Infectious Diseases”, the Centers for Disease Control’s monthly journal that contained the story “Foodborne Illness Acquired in the United States—Major Pathogens”, the CDC issued a press release on December 2015 highlighting the new estimates of the number of foodborne illnesses occurring per year in the U.S.
Today is Food Day, a day to promote "healthy, affordable food produced in a sustainable, humane way." This I support. But some of the lofty ideas, biased language and unsupportable premises offered by the promoters I do not support.
For example, the 6 Food Day Principles strive to both limit subsidies to agribusiness and alleviate hunger, even though you need the first to first to accomplish the second. The official Food Day cookbook, Eat Real, is described as a collection of delicious, healthful, easy-to-prepare recipes, yet includes "Braised Kohlrabi with Fennel & Leeks" and "Yogurt Panna Cotta with Cranberry Pear Sauce," which just don't sound real enough for most people I know.
Today the average meal has traveled thousands of miles before reaching the dinner table. How on earth did this happen? In fact, long-distance food is nothing new and, since the earliest times, the things we eat and drink have crossed countries and continents. Through delightful anecdotes and astonishing facts, Moveable Feasts tells their stories.
For the ancient Romans, the amphora—a torpedo—shaped pot that fitted snugly into the ship's hold—was the answer to moving millions of tons of olive oil from Spain to Italy. Napoleon offered a reward to anyone who could devise a way of preserving and transporting food for soldiers. (What he got was the tin can.) Today temperature-controlled shipping containers allow companies to send their frozen salmon to China, where it's thawed, filleted, refrozen, and sent back to the United States for sale in supermarkets as "fresh" Atlantic salmon.
By the year 2050, Earth's population will double. If we continue with current farming practices, vast amounts of wilderness will be lost, millions of birds and billions of insects will die, and the public will lose billions of dollars as a consequence of environmental degradation. Clearly, there must be a better way to meet the need for increased food production.
Written as part memoir, part instruction, and part contemplation, Tomorrow's Table argues that a judicious blend of two important strands of agriculture—genetic engineering and organic farming—is key to helping feed the world's growing population in an ecologically balanced manner. Pamela Ronald, a geneticist, and her husband, Raoul Adamchak, an organic farmer, take the reader inside their lives for roughly a year, allowing us to look over their shoulders so that we can see what geneticists and organic farmers actually do. The reader sees the problems that farmers face, trying to provide larger yields without resorting to expensive or environmentally hazardous chemicals, a problem that will loom larger and larger as the century progresses. They learn how organic farmers and geneticists address these problems.
People believe a lot of things that we have little to no evidence for, like that vikings wore horned helmets or that you can see the Great Wall of China from space. One of the things I like to do on my blogs is bust commonly held myths that I think matter. For example, I get really annoyed when I hear someone say sharks don’t get cancer (I’ll save that rant for another day). From now onward, posts that attack conventionally believed untruths will fall under a series I’m going to call “Mythbusting 101.”
When 50 aspiring farmers gather at the Future Farmers of America's annual "New Century Farmer" conference next week, what they will learn goes way beyond crop rotation, tractor engines and how to get more milk out of old Bessie.
They will learn to cut costs using GPS technology and how to network with global marketing organizations; how to negotiate hefty bank-financing packages and how to keep huge $250,000 tractors running almost nonstop to grow more crops. It's a big leap from the plowing, planting, livestock-feeding and welding skills the FFA taught aspiring farmers 40 years ago.
The human population, now approaching 7 billion, may top 10 billion by 2100. Agronomists predict food shortages in our future, and it doesn’t take an advanced degree to understand why: When food production fails to keep pace with population grow, billions go hungry, including many Americans. To avert disaster, we must find a way to squeeze more grains, fruits and vegetables from ever less farmland.
While I am an environmentalist, I am convinced that transgenic crops should be part of the solution. However, unless we can improve their development and distribution, we will fail to realize their potential.
CIUDAD OBREGÓN, Mexico — The dun wheat field spreading out at Ravi P. Singh’s feet offered a possible clue to human destiny. Baked by a desert sun and deliberately starved of water, the plants were parched and nearly dead.
Dr. Singh, a wheat breeder, grabbed seed heads that should have been plump with the staff of life. His practiced fingers found empty husks.
