Agriculture accounts for 17 percent of worldwide CO2 emissions, but permaculture – growing vegetables in a circular, self-sustaining system — without artificial pesticides or fertilizer, could cut that. a DW video reported by Kiyo Dörrer.
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Almost all the meat we eat today comes from industrialized factory farms, AKA Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations or CAFOs. Globally, 90 percent of the world’s meat supply comes from CAFOs, and in the US, it’s close to 99 percent. CAFOs may be tough on farm animals, but they’re ideal for breeding virus and bacteria mutations new to human immune systems. A Vox video.
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Americans eat four times as many strawberries as they did 40 years ago. A short animation from The Center for Investigative Reporting explains how and why.
Director, Producer, Animator: Ariane Wu
Illustrator and After Effects: Arthur Jones
Narrator: Roman Mars
Reporters: Kendall Taggart, Bernice Yeung, Andrew Donohue
Read more here.
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A fifth of China’s farmland is polluted by industrial effluent, sewage, excessive farm chemicals, or mining runoff. There’s carcinogenic cadmium in the rice. Heavy nitrogen fertilizer use is turning the soil acidic and less productive.
Tom Philpott summarizes recent reports:
“6 Mind-Boggling Facts About Farms in China, Tom Philpott, Mother Jones
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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com. Attention young people: The Good Earth is a novel by Pearl Buck.
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The Environmental Protection Agency is using killer drone aircraft to spy on innocent farmers in America’s Heartland, according to the Daily Caller, Fox News, and Tea Party congressmen. “Send In The Drones: Obama Spies On America” screamed an Investor’s Business Daily editorial.
Just one thing. It isn’t true.
The melons of China are exploding. They’re not bursting with goodness, but with chemicals. Chinese farmers have been speeding the watermelon harvest by treating plants with a little too much Forchlorfenuron (FCF), a growth regulator.
A severe homeland security threat endangers rural America: farm animal video stalkers. A bill introduced in the Iowa State Legislature by Representative Annette Sweeney would forbid taking videos of animals on farms or in abattoirs without permission of the property owners. Getting busted for a first video would be an aggravated misdemeanor; sequels would be Class “D” felonies.
Not to be outdone, Florida State Senator Jim Norman introduced a bill that would make it a first-degree felony to photograph a farm or domestic animal facility without written permission from the owner. No photos from the road, either, just like at any other high-security area. Senator Norman has predictably earned the scorn of reporters, photographers and treehuggers; even right-wing militia members pronounced him a “jackass” and Drovers CattleNetwork observed “When Cameras are Outlawed ….”
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