California’s drought is expected to cause food prices to soar across the U.S. Sharon Ona explains, and gives us a meal options that won’t tax the tap Continue reading
Category Archives: Agriculture
Leaving the Garden | Urban Farming
I have seen this space go from manicured lawn to mixed fruit and vegetable patch in just a few short months at my alma mater, Lake Forest College. I planned and advocated for the garden because I saw food as the best environmental topic for everyone to come together around and celebrate the fruits of the earth. I worked with students to release praying mantis nymphs and later to find an adult. I have photographed the beauty of tomatoes, sprouted corn, and tendrilling peas with a macro lens, and, just yesterday, I began to say goodbye. I have just passed the reins. Conceiving of, founding, managing, and nurturing this garden has been my job. My job here is coming to a close, so I am now sending off my garden into capable hands.
How Sweet it is: Notes from a DC Roundtable on Sugar Policy
On January 30, 2012, the Southern Food and Beverage Museum and the American Beverage Association sponsored a food policy roundtable discussion at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington, D.C., on the topic of the state of U.S. sugar policy and possible changes in the Farm Bill. Continue reading
In Search of Collards
The strong pungent smell of collard greens cooking are assertive in their identity. They say, “I’m here and won’t be denied.” It’s an aroma that wafts through the late autumn and winter air of my North Carolina house and is the price I pay (with my vent) for the feast that is about to be at hand. Continue reading
Growing a Better Future: Edwin Marty and Urban Farming in Montgomery, Alabama
Urban farming operations exist throughout the South, but their stories often go unreported. I’ve read newspaper articles about Brooklynites whose roosters annoy their neighbors, and I’ve read about Berkleyites who have dinner parties using only ingredients grown locally by the attendees, but local agriculture in the South does not make headlines. If I tell you people are growing things in Alabama, you’ll likely shrug, knowing that melons and peaches grow just as easily as peanuts and cotton, that greens thrive in our mild winters, that pecan trees are as commonplace in backyards as Labrador retrievers. Even in Birmingham, Alabama’s largest urban area, you need only drive 15 minutes in any direction to be surrounded by farm and field. Agriculture is everywhere, so it seems unnecessary to focus on the agriculture that now exists within city limits. Continue reading
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