Food

I must start out with a disclaimer. I am biased on this topic. I desperately want the answer to be yes, cooking can save the planet.

That’s because in August, I committed to 365 days of scratch cooking after being inspired by a Michael Pollan article on the decline of cooking and the subsequent rise in the packaged food industry.

America produces a lot of food. So much food, in fact, that it is one of the world’s major food exporters, and so much grain and soy that we turn much of it into ethanol to power our cars.

Even excluding the calories that we export or turn into agro-fuels, per-capita caloric availability was 2,700 calories per person in 2007. That’s plenty of food. [Excel link]. No one should be hungry in a country that produces that much food.

But that doesn’t mean that many aren’t going hungry. The latest USDA survey results show that 14.6 percent of the American population — 17 million households — was food-insecure at some point in 2008. “Food insecure” means that the food consumption of one member of the household, or more, was reduced because they lacked for money or other ways to access food. That number shot up from 13 million households in 2007, 11.1 percent of the population.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has promised to more strictly regulate coal ash, but it's still promoting use of the toxic waste on food crops as a soil amendment.

This month, the EPA and U.S. Department of Agriculture enter the final year of a three-year partnership that's part of a larger effort by the American Coal Ash Association, the Electric Power Research Institute and others to "promote appropriate increased use of" coal ash in agriculture, according to documents released by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

The agencies say coal ash can improve the texture and fertility of soil, but environmental advocates raises concerns about its toxic elements. Created by the burning of coal for power, coal ash contains contaminants including arsenic, lead and mercury.

"USDA should pull out of the coal ash business tomorrow morning," says PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, who obtained the documents under the Freedom of Information Act. "USDA does American agriculture no favors by duping farmers into spreading hazardous wastes across their fields."

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Despite widespread research indicating that growing biofuels on Africa's 'idle' lands could help to starve the continent, the practice remains rampant, according to a new study.

The report is the work of the Washington, D.C.-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a research center funded by 64 governments, private foundations and global organizations.

Researchers revealed that foreign companies are buying or leasing vast chunks of land in Africa and elsewhere for their own use. In fact, up to 50 million acres have been sold off or soon will be. That's equivalent to about 25 percent of all the farmland in Europe.

Much of that land is being bought by emerging nations to raise crops for their growing populations. These countries – China, India, South Korea and oil-rich Gulf states – have land and water constraints at home. They got burned by last year’s global food crisis and are turning to Africa as a food security blanket.

The rest of that land, a quarter or more, will be used by foreign companies to grow first-generation biofuels from crops, such as palm oil and jatropha.

The problems with these energy plants are well known.

Part I of a two-part series on the USDA farm census

The U.S. Department of Agriculture just published its latest census of the nation’s agricultural sector, and it included some strikingly good news. The number of farms, particularly small farms, is increasing, reversing a decades-long trend lamented by agrarian writer Wendell Berry as “The Unsettling of America.”

The census, conducted every five years, showed a sizable jump in the total number of farms—2,204,792 farms in all, 4 percent more than in 2002. It also found a sharp up-tick in the number of micro-farms, those with sales of less than $1,000—from 580,000 to close to 700,000. Farms that small are not chiefly commercial enterprises. They typically feed their owners, and perhaps contribute on a very small scale to local markets.

While this year’s survey made a greater effort to count small farms, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack observed: “I don't think it's just a statistical anomaly that smaller farms have increased in number.” He said much of the growth was likely the result of efforts to promote organic farming and improve per-acre productivity.

Indeed, the sector with the largest growth in percentage and absolute terms was farms with less than 50 acres.

But wait, you say: “What does that have to do with global warming or containing emissions?”

The headquarters of the White House Organic Farm Project is a yellow school bus. It has a second school bus -- turned upside down -- on its roof that's filled with dirt and is growing food. This odd bus is criss-crossing the country in the hope of inspiring the next president to turn the White House lawn into a vegetable garden. Here's the thinking behind the project, the brainchild of Daniel Bowman Simon, 28, and Casey Gustowarow, 27:

If we can show the president that we can grow some good food anywhere and everywhere against all odds -- 60 miles-an-hour wind gusts along the highway; changing climate zones -- one day we're in the desert, one day we're in the mountains -- why not try it again at the White House too?

Again? That's right, again.