Green Planet Profit$

Photo: Erik Sjödin If you’ve heard about duckweed (the pollution-cleaning, climate change-fighting super food) then maybe you’ve also heard of azolla, a family of seven species of edible water-dwelling ferns that grows lightning-fast and is packed full of nutrients. Scientists are now studying azolla’s potential in space agriculture as a super food crop for Mars [...]

Bisphenol A has been used to line cans since the ’50s. But seriously, the Natural Resources Defense Council is tired of waiting for the Food and Drug Administration to deal with Bisphenol A, a possibly endocrine-disrupting chemical. They have filed a lawsuit against the FDA for “its failure to act on a petition to ban [...]

Rice field in Japan, photo: mrhayata via flickr. The new Agricultural Outlook 2010-2019 report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization has been released, warning that the price for many staple food products is projected to rise between 15-45%, adjusted for inflation. Balancing that is the projection that global food production over the next decade [...]

Photo via benketero California is simultaneously in a water crunch and one of the nation’s most important food sources. California is the world’s fifth largest supplier of food and agriculture commodities, and in 2007, California exported more agricultural products by air than 23 other states did by all modes of transport. That says a lot [...]

Leading national organic food market chain Whole Foods has unveiled an interactive online map which lets you learn more information about the producers local to you that make the food you buy in the store. To read the rest of the story, please visit EarthTechling.

Blueberries. Image credit:NH Farmers Market Association. University of New Hampshire researchers have analyzed the economic impact of their State’s locally produced food system. Local food or farm market sales – known as ‘direct marketing’ – accounts for 12 percent of New Hampshire’s farm food sold, compared to just half a percent nationally. In consequence, overall [...]

Image via Local Dirt Buying food locally is a fast way to shed pounds…of carbon, anyway. By cutting down food miles, you’re cutting back on the embodied carbon in the food, as well as helping out local growers. But if you don’t have a farmers’ market nearby or can’t make it on a weekly basis, [...]

Farmers Market, Union Square, New York City: Photo by Lloyd Alter On the pretext of reviewing five books on food and food politics, Michael Pollan writes a long and interesting essay in the New York Review of Books. He writes that “Cheap food has become an indispensable pillar of the modern economy. But it is [...]

Lloyd Alter Local food is popping up everywhere, but in art galleries? That’s what I saw at Partners & Spade in the NOHO district of New York City. It is an exhibition of the packaging of foods made in Brooklyn, and range from the self-conciously designed products to the more traditional designs that have become [...]

Image credit: Good The idea couldn’t be simpler: Instead of trucking food across the country, from distant farms into crowded cities, urban residents could grow their own food, utilizing underused spaces like rooftops and alleys. It’s so simple, in fact, that it has taken decades—if not longer—for the idea to take root. Good talked to [...]