Sustainable Agriculture & Food Policy

"Our paper takes an in-depth look at the challenges faced by honey bees and other pollinators, and we look at organic as a model for supporting pollinator populations," said Dr. Jessica Shade, Director of Science Programs for The Organic Center. "We hope this report acts as a tool to educate policymakers, growers and consumers. Bee-friendly practices being used by organic farmers can be adopted by all producers to foster healthy pollinators."

The Merced County Department of Public Health, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service, will host an event next week for local farmers to become authorized to accept CalFresh. CalFresh, federally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, offers nutrition assistance to eligible, low-income families. ...

Let’s face it: Gardening ain’t for sissies. It’s tough work, squatting and kneeling as you water, plant and wrest stubborn weeds from the soil for hours under the hot, relentless sun. It can ravage your muscles and joints, and cause throbbing knee and lower back pain. Now, you can ditch the soreness, sweat and dirt, and garden from your sofa in your comfy, air-conditioned living room. And the only muscles you need to move are in your fingertips as they glide across your tablet or smartphone.

The food-systems collaboration between UVM and South Andros High is based on reciprocity. In January, Walter Poleman, senior lecturer at the Rubenstein School and GreenHouse faculty director, took students from his service-learning course to the Bahamas to help build an aquaponics system at the school’s farm. In the system, waste from freshwater tilapia provides nutrients for assorted vegetables, which in turn remove excess nitrogen, a waste byproduct. Last summer, South Andros students assisted with a garden project at UVM.

You may have seen the videos – swirling masses of plastic and other garbage, including drinking straws, floating around the ocean and choking sea creatures who think these items are food. Soon Mainers could have an alternative – a biodegradable “straw straw,” made from stalks of winter rye.

In high school, Professor Elizabeth Hoover wanted to be a farmer. Instead, she became an anthropologist who studies the relationships between farming, environmental contamination and food. This story is part of "Learning and Doing" - a series on engaged scholarship at Brown University that tells the stories of faculty and students partnering with the community to advance scholarship and benefit the world beyond Brown.

California's sauce tomatoes are never harvested by hand. Meet the machine that changed an industry, practically overnight.

Maine Fare 2015 and the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance will present a Seafood Throwdow. In this Iron Chef-like event, Chefs Michele Levesque of El El Frijoles in Sargentville and Tom Sigler of Comida in Rockland will have an hour to cook a mystery fish; they will each be supplied with a box of local produce and pantry staples, and are allowed to bring three of their favorite ingredients.

“The longer the supply chain, the weaker the connection between the farmer’s management information and the ultimate consumer,” said Daniel Mountjoy of Sustainable Conservation, which led a recent tour of [Chris] Willoughby’s fields. Inexact water use data is more of a problem in fragmented supply chains such as Willoughby’s, where each link acts independently and contracts are subject to change. Read more