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Story Archives of 'Agriculture'
Crop Mobbing, a Way of Life
By Deb Baker on Wednesday, March 3, 2010.
Crop mobbing isn’t some kind of agricultural crime; it’s community sourced, collaborative, reciprocal labor for small sustainable farms. In the Triangle region of North Carolina, home to both a growing number of small farms and a local food movement, Crop Mob organizers call on volunteers once a month to help a farmer with labor intensive tasks.
Vertical Farming Gets Real
By Robin Respaut on Monday, February 1, 2010.
Sometimes ideas that seem far out in the future come to pass much faster than we imagined. In late 2008 we talked to Dr. Dickson Despommier about "vertical farming" - urban skyscraper-type greenhouses that would replace traditional farms. Well, our discussion is now a blueprint for a federal project in Portland, Or.
According to The New York Times, the General Services Administration plans to cultivate a 200-foot-high garden on the western side of its main building. Advocates say the GSA building will use 60-65 percent less energy and save an estimated $280,000 dollars annually with the help of solar panels and recycled rainwater. But some Republicans balked at the $133 million price tag. Senators John McCain and Tom Coburn ranked Portland’s retrofit as number 2 on a list of the 100 worst stimulus-funded projects.
You tell us: What do you think of vertical vegetation in your neighborhood?
Dairy Dilemmas Revisited
By Laura Knoy on Monday, January 11, 2010.Last June New England’s dairy farmers were in crisis, losing about three dollars per day per cow. Despite some recent assistance from the government, milk prices this December were at their lowest levels since the 1970's. We’ll revisit the dairy industry’s troubles, look at the progress made and see where it goes from here.
Guests
- Deborah Erb, member of the Dairy Industry Advisory Committee and owner of the Springvale Farms dairy farm and Landaff Creamery in Landaff
- Bob Wellington, Senior Vice President for Economics, Communications and Legislative Affairs for Agri-Mark, a dairy cooperative in New England
We'll also hear from
- Jeff Holmes, co-owner of Holmes Farm, a dairy farm in Langdon and president of the New Hampshire Farm Bureau
- Fergus Cullen, Executive Director of the Yankee Institute for Public Policy and former Chair of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee
Window Farms
By Deb Baker on Sunday, January 10, 2010.As a recent editorial in the Concord Monitor noted, winter is when garden catalogs tempt us with next summer’s bounty.
Eating Animals
By Laura Knoy on Thursday, December 17, 2009.Novelist Jonathan Safran-Foer has jumped between a meat eating and vegetarian lifestyle for most of his life, but when had to make the decision as to how to feed his first child, he took his investigation deep… into what he calls factory farms. The result is his first work of non-fiction and a sharp critique of carnivorous lifestyles. We'll talk with him about the book.
Guest
- Jonathan Safran-Foer, American novelist and author of the 2002 best-selling novel Everything is Illuminated; his new book is called Eating Animals
Community Supported Fisheries Get Underway in New Hampshire
By Amy Quinton on Thursday, September 10, 2009.The state's fishing industry is taking a page out of the local farming book.
For years, consumers looking to buy fresh produce have gone directly to farms through programs called a C.S.A., or community supported agricuture.
Now several organization are popping up on the seacoast giving residents a chance to buy directly from local fishermen through community supported fisheries.
New Hampshire Public Radio's Amy Quinton has the story.
Biodynamics: The Next Green Wine
By Virginia Prescott on Wednesday, September 2, 2009.
U.S. food consumers are becoming more interested in how their food is grown and where it comes from, and that interest is extending to wine, as well.
Last year we talked about higher-end boxed wine coming back into fashion. Its packaging has a lower carbon footprint, and stays fresh longer. There’s now organic, local and sustainablly-grown wine.
The latest buzzword? Biodynamic. It’s a method of farming that fosters a diverse ecosystem, and foregoes chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Corby Kummer writes about biodynamic wine in the new issue of Technology Review. He’s a senior editor at The Atlantic and the author of The Joy of Coffee and The Pleasures of Slow Food.
Technology Review: In Vino Veritas (subscription required)
(Photo by pteittinen via Flickr/Creative Commons)
Redesign Your Farmers' Market
By Avishay Artsy on Friday, August 28, 2009.The good folks at GOOD Magazine have a contest to redesign your local farmer's market, and they've just put out three entries from the bumper crop of submissions they've received.
Plastics Are A Growing Waste Problem For Farmers
By Amy Quinton on Friday, August 28, 2009.Contrary to our bucolic visions of farms in New Hampshire surrounded by natural beauty…farms and nurseries use thousands of pounds of plastic every year.
And every year, most of those plastics end up buried in landfills or burned; not recycled.
As New Hampshire Public Radio’s Amy Quinton reports, recycling agriculture plastics is a growing problem.
