Touch the Soil News #1326 (Feature photo – Chickens –CCA SA 2.0 Generic) Interest in getting food more local is often tied to solving or getting away from an industrial farming problem. Farming chickens in factory settings that require low regular doses of antibiotics and animal cruelty issues surrounding small cages is certainly reason to…
Touch the Soil News #1325 (Feature photo – Greenhouse Tomatoes –CCA SA 4.0 International) Estimates are that 10 percent of the fruits and vegetables grown in the U.S. are left in the field because of insufficient numbers of workers or other challenges to getting workers into the fields. Robotics are rapidly entering the arena of…
Touch the Soil News #1324 (Feature photo – Dairy Products Are Seeing Price Surges – CCA SA 3.0) The globalization of trade has led to the globalization of food trade and food access. Shortages in one part of the world raise prices in other parts of the world. For this reason, following the FAO (Food…
Touch the Soil News #1323 (Feature photo – Palm Oil Plantations in Indonesia –USDA Public Domain) What shows up in our grocery stores is having an increasing negative effect on the world’s rainforests and indigenous peoples. The demand for food and the opportunity for profit are forces driving rainforest destruction and externalization of indigenous people.…
Touch the Soil News #1322 (Feature photo – Pig Farming –USDA Public Domain) City Farmer News brings our attention to the Mid-Ohio Food Bank as it donates $180,000 to 14 different urban farms to help regional food insecurity. One of the farms engages 350 to 400 children every day for 50 days in the summertime.…
Touch the Soil News #1321 (Feature photo – World Food Programme Jets Unloading Emergency Food – Public Domain) Phil Lempert (https://www.supermarketguru.com/) brings us some insights into how the world is addressing food emergency crisis for dislocated populations. While the technology of emergency food vending machines is primarily for crisis situations, the technology may have much…
Touch the Soil News #1320 (Feature photo – Heirloom Tomatoes – CCA SA 2.0 Generic) There was a film made a few years ago called the Future of Food (http://thefutureoffood.com/) that revealed how the few dozen varieties of apples eaten today is the sign of failure from the 6,000 to 7,000 varieties of apples that…
Touch the Soil News #1319 (Feature photo – Community Gardening – CCA SA 3.0 Unported) After decades of industrial farming, it is becoming more common knowledge that much of the food eaten has toxic residues and otherwise disrupted by excessive processing and preservatives. With a typical dinner plate having foods from thousands of miles away…
Touch the Soil News #1318 (Feature photo – Pig Farming –USDA Public Domain) In a stark wake-up call, estimates are that China’s pork producing mother pirgs have fallen by 21 percent over the last year. Due to the African Swine Fever and economic pitfalls, estimates are that China’s pork production may fall 13 million tons…
Touch the Soil News #1317 (Feature photo – James Bay, Victoria, Canada – By Brandon Godfrey from Victoria B.C, Canada – Laurel Point Park in Victoria B.CUploaded by PDTillman, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8831705) Within the historic 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the right to food (access and affordability). While we all…
