Touch the Soil News #1293 (Feature photo – Greenhouse Farming – CCA SA 3.0 Unported – Goldlocki) While controlled indoor vertical agriculture is not a new concept, it has reached the imagination of several Russian entrepreneurs that want to build automated vertical greenhouses for locations around the world. The plan is to not only provide…
Worthy of Note
Touch the Soil News #1292 (Feature photo – Soybeans – Public Domain) The largest U.S. soybean customer is China. The trade wars constricted that trade to a point where U.S. soybean stockpiles began growing, prices declined and Midwest farm bankruptcies began rising. With recent trade tensions going down with China, soybean sales to China have…
A New Battle Brewing Over GMOs
Touch the Soil News #1291 (Feature photo – A Field of GMO Corn – Public Domain) Now that GMO labeling has finally reached the food products on the shelves, the new labels are not forthcoming in their full disclosures. Phil Lempert (https://www.supermarketguru.com/) brings us some of the early news about reactions to the new GMO…
Working Towards A Real Future of Food
Touch the Soil News #1290 (Feature photo – The World’s Nations Supporting the FAO – By Alinor at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18346607) According to the latest report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the future of food is not a system prone to compromise eco-systems, food security, land,…
The Battle for Electric Range
Positive Future #425 (Feature photo – Smart Fortwo & Tesla Model 3 (CCA SA 4.0 International) InsideEVs journalist Mark Kane reports that there are 29 different models of cars now available in the U.S. that are strictly battery-electric. Manufactured by 12 different automakers, they have no internal combustion engines. Kane’s report looks like a scoring…
Colorado and the Social Cost of Carbon
Positive Future #424 (Feature photo – Jared Polis. Governor of Colorado – Public Domain) In agriculture, the cost of shouldering extreme weather events almost always exceeds the re-imbursements that come from crop insurance or federal disaster monies. In modern times, farming is one of those things that carries the cost of carbon in the atmosphere…
Interested in Fish Farming?
Touch the Soil News #1289 (Feature photo – Tilapia – CCA SA 3.0 Unported) AgFunder News recently highlighted a new startup called BioFishency. BioFishency builds water treatment appliances that eliminate ammonia buildup and oxygenate the water. This substantially reduces the amount of water needed to farm fish. It improves the health of fish and potentially…
Must See Movie – If You Plan to Raise Chickens
A Big Change Looming?
Positive Future #423 (Feature photo – Electric Car Chargers – CCA SA 2.0 Generic) Recently, news portal Autoline Daily discussed how the development and building of new internal combustion engines has come to an almost complete halt among the major automakers. With the looming electrification of transportation, automakers are deciding to just stick with the…
Brexit, Food and 1 Million People Marching in London
Positive Future #422 (Feature photo – Great Britain (orange) and the larger European Union (blue) – CCA SA 4.0 International) Great Britain is in the throes of uncertainty. In 2016, they voted to leave the European Union with a nominal majority of 51.7 percent. Problem is that they have been in the European Union for…