Love it or hate it, you can’t deny that whatever the giant retailer, Walmart, does sends shock waves through their supply chain. Lately they’ve introduced some bold initiatives in greening their supply chain. Are the efforts real or are they marketing? Will they help the environment, consumers, workers and producers – or harm them? The answer is: All of the above.

Walmart has been busy developing a sustainability index for every product it sells. I could argue (and others have) that flimsy, cheap plastic consumer goods people don’t actually need are not sustainable by definition.

But what about food and household cleaners? Those are not recreational purchases.

And many people, in many parts of the country, need to shop at Walmart because, frankly, there are no other options or they simply can’t afford the local stores.

According to Change.org, opening Walmarts in areas known as “food deserts” is really just a band-aid that masks the underlying causes of poverty and inequality.

This is true and there’s no doubt it is a complicated issue. Similarly, many commenters pointed out in this article by Marc Gunther that the entire model of how Walmart builds and spreads across the landscape is flawed. Again, indisputably true.

But Walmart isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon. Is it possible to look at some of their initiatives in a positive light?

For example, the recent news that Walmart is partnering with the leading green cleaning product brand, Seventh Generation, was widely lauded for its potential to bring truly green products to a larger audience. But on the other hand, as this Treehugger piece asks, does the partnership simply lend undeserved credibility to the retailer’s green efforts?

And what of the retailer’s local food initiatives?

In the midst of a highly entertaining grocery smackdown in The Atlantic in which a bunch of foodies choose Walmart produce over Whole Food’s in some aspects of a blind tasting, there’s a little tease about Walmart’s Heritage Agriculture program. The program encourages farms within a day’s drive of one of the company’s warehouses to grow crops that would normally be trucked from far-away states.

The three-tiered strategy of the Heritage Agriculture program is to create a transparent supply chain of local and regional sources, support women and minority businesses, and reinvigorate historic growing areas for produce that is popular with the United States’ growing minority communities.

This all sounds great. On the surface, it could be a powerful way to re-regionalize the food system, keep farmers on their land, and increase the diversity of crops grown in different parts of the country. A regional, diverse food system is better for the environment than monocropping and more likely to result in increased accessibility to better quality food for consumers.

The problem is that Walmart doesn’t do anything without a compelling business reason. And often when a whale as large as Walmart moves an inch, it displaces everything around it. In Walmart’s case, the business reason is always to obtain products at the lowest price possible and pass that savings on to consumers. This could end up being a problem for the very farmers Walmart supports with the initiative. In 2006 farmers received just 19 cents of every dollar consumers plunked down for food. That’s a pretty small margin to work on, and with Walmart in the mix, it could get worse.

Walmart has a reputation for squeezing suppliers. Consider if Walmart, with its immense power, offers to buy a small, regional farmer’s entire harvest. The farmer, already squeezed by the system, may jump at the chance to sell all her output. If the farm no longer had sufficient supply to continue to sell to its local mom and pop and co-op stores (assuming any exist) then those stores would have to find other suppliers and try to compete with Walmart on price.

Competing with Wal-Mart on price is impossible. Those stores would likely go out of business, taking with them the only other outlets that small farmers have for their products, putting people out of work, and decreasing choices for community members. Once all other buyers are gone, Walmart could pretty much pay the farmer as little as it wants. In this way, we could end up with the control of our food system concentrated in the hands of one corporation, killing any chance we might have of rebuilding community based food systems that are more democratic in nature.

And it’s not just the farmers. Walmart squeezes entire communities economically. Once Walmart is one of the only employers in an area it can effectively keep wages down and unions out. When the farmers don’t make enough money to live on and neither do the employees of the only game in town, you can bet everyone is dependent on the always low prices that Walmart offers.

It’s true we need affordable, accessible, high quality food in all communities, but wouldn’t it be better to fix it from the ground up systemically instead of leaving it to one company?

Maybe Walmart’s grand plan to green and localize its supply chain will remove XX amount of carbon from the atmosphere. But some things can’t be quantified. Like the pleasure of talking to your neighbors and connecting with the people who grow your food. It just makes for stronger communities and relationships. This article makes the point that no matter how much local food Walmart buys, it can never replace the deeply human interactions that happen in a farmers’ market.

I would also add that it’s within these interactions that democratic change happens and, while we may cautiously applaud Walmart’s efforts for the great impact they might have, it’s not time to roll over yet. I think a more democratic food system is worth fighting for. As long as I have a choice, I will continue to shop for seasonal produce at my local farmers’ market.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: Monochrome Flickr

The New York Times reports that federal regulators rejected the idea of mandating egg farmers to vaccinate their hens against salmonella, ruling that there was insufficient evidence to support such a stance (hat tip to The Daily Beast for the link). The vaccination would have only cost a penny per dozen eggs and was introduced in Britain a decade ago, with resounding success.

Given the serious consequences of salmonella and the low cost of vaccination, this seems like a sensible precaution. However, it’s far from the root cause of the problem.

To me the most shocking thing about this outbreak is that we’re talking about a recall of more than half a billion eggs from just two producers in Iowa. Half a billion eggs; two producers. Doesn’t that seem wrong?

The egg producers in question have been linked to a string of past abuses, ranging from environmental to worker rights, according to a Democracy Now story I heard on PBS Radio this week. (Unfortunately, there’s no link online yet). It seems to me that salmonella is the natural outcome of factory farming – producing eggs in a relentlessly profit-driven industrial environment. A vaccine would reduce salmonella, and that would be a darn good thing, but it wouldn’t fix all the other problems associated with battery egg farming, from chicken welfare to water contamination to worker safety. Europe has already banned battery egg farms and California is now doing the same. But perhaps Iowa is the state that really needs to act?

Small-scale free-range or organic egg farming is far less likely to foster the environment for outbreaks like this. And if an outbreak does occur, the resulting recall would involve thousands of eggs, not half a billion.

To me, the moral of the story is clear: Cheap food makes you ill.

Photo credit: Boiled egg photo by Craig Hatfield on Flickr, licensed for commercial use under Creative Commons.

Dubai, Kwait, Qatar, et al: a Disneyworld of senseless “innovation.” Don’t they have the world’s tallest buildings over there now? Or was it the largest? Neon aquatic hotels? Indoor skiing in the outdoor desert? I suppose the fact Kuwait is about to get a new restaurant that grows its own produce in its dining room shouldn’t be mind-blowing news. But it is a delightful idea, sitting down on the farm in the Arabian Desert, dining in an organic oasis. (Is it also not absurdly ironic that the world’s largest oil-producing countries are leaders in so many things green?)

Dubai-based restaurant consultancy, Thomas Klein International and its Chicago architectural office, PS Studio, have been contracted by Prime & Toast to adapt the vertical farming concept for its new outlet in Kuwait. The release attributes the idea to American professor Dr. Dickson Despommier, who has brought some cred to the idea of farming in crowded urban areas (see our story, “Encouraging City Growth: Urban Farming Grows Up“).

The Prime and Toast’s farm is pretty green for its desert venue. It will be watered with condensation from the restaurant’s air conditioning system. (I suppose if you require a cooling system that has to be fired up pretty much around the clock, you might as well get some offset benefit.) The hyperlocal organic herbs and vegetables will be used to feed what’s promised to be a healthy menu “based on the fresh produce available on a particular day.”

The “farming section” (and the kitchen, as well) will do more than actually feed patrons; it will also be designed into the place so that diners will have a true eating out experience with “direct views into the production area.” In keeping with the sustainable approach, all wood used the restaurant’s furniture will come from sustainable forests.

While hardly a true urban farm benefiting a local community, or a back-to-the-land movement for desert dwellers, the restaurant is good example of how the approach’s novelty can actually fit into a marketing scheme. Says Daniel During, TKI Managing Partner, “The main feature of the restaurant is … the vertical farming section, and the rest of the restaurant was designed around this unique and innovative concept.”

Green jobs are energizing us in almost all fields – from gentle dry cleaning to sustainable urban farming, city planning and specialized recycling. And when you can’t locate the right opening, Go Green, Live Rich author David Bach strongly recommends the entrepreneurial path: “Pause in whatever you’re doing today and ask yourself whether there’s a smarter, better, greener way to do it. You might just come up with a million-dollar idea.”

Not all green job seekers equate success with great wealth. In fact, many purists eschew the notion that a revitalized economy means red bullish consumerism – three cars in every garage and fully booked far-off resorts. No, you can surely locate or create the kind of pro-active eco career that meets your ethical standards – ones that pay back in a way you deem responsible. Here are a few to consider:

Farming

Fictional Oliver Douglas of Green Acres sitcom fame had the right idea when he abandoned the urban jungle for the urban garden. Fifty years later, trained geologist Catherine Gockley found her own plot, and according to Uprooted, she will soon be able to support herself completely on the land and bees she has cultivated at her Fire Mountain farm and Apiary.

Today, the country has two million farmers whose average age is 55. Food guru Michael Pollan emphasizes that there is a growing demand for new age farmers and small-scale, local and organic methods to replace the widespread, petroleum-based industry. Being adept as a small businessperson is an advantage. Related jobs in this field include food producing, cheese making, farmers markets and communal farms and markets.

Tips on how to get started: Catherine Gockley, Owner of fire Mountain Farm and Apiary

Recycling

Specialized companies are needed to meet new laws and regulations for recycling and repurposing construction waste, clothing, plastic storage and many other materials that could be useful. There are more than one million recycling jobs around, including scrap metal recycling as our need for steel increases (most steel comes from U.S. recycling). Recycled steel makes up some 35 percent of total steel output and saves up to 75 percent of the energy required for producing virgin steel. This is a growth industry worldwide. Pacific Steel and Recycling is an employee-owned corporation with 38 branch offices in the Northwest. It is developing green technology for industrial salvaging, including the Shredder, a machine that is 99 percent accurate at separating out materials reducing the need for mining for additional virgin metals and saving energy and other natural resources.

Tips on joining the industry: Pacific Steel and Recycling Blog; Careerbuilder Job Posts

Wind Turbine Fabricating

China is a huge producer of steel as well as one of the biggest markets for wind turbines, and the need in the U.S. continues to grow as well. The fastest-growing source of alternative energy, wind employs some 300,000 workers worldwide, including 50,000 Americans. Since turbines are mostly metal by weight, fabricating is a good way to redirect autoworkers and other manufacturers in hurting industries. However, the U.S. government needs to get on board to protect this important industry. Wind energy advocates are now pushing for a Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) in the U.S. Senate energy bill, noting that wind power installations are dropping from 2008 and 2009 levels because there has not been enough government support.

For tips on jobs and to see the kinds of positions available, visit the American Wind Energy Association Job Board.

Images: Lara604, New Bedford 360

When I first started hearing the term “urban farming,” I’d think about either my grandparents’ stories about war-time “victory gardens” or of some crumbling dystopian city full of hungry citizens doing whatever they could to endure society’s epic demise. The former image was one of coming together for the cause, growing cukes in city lots to support “our boys” “over there.” The latter was all sci-fi survival, doing what you can with what you got, staving off impending doom.

Turns out, the advent of today’s urban farming movement is in very much in response to both of these veins. Consider that by mid-century, the human population will increase by about three billion people and nearly 80 percent of us will live in urban centers. It’s been estimated that if farming practices continue as they are, the amount of “new” land needed to grow food to feed all these people would have to be 20 percent larger than the size of Brazil. Already, parts of the developing world are facing of water and land shortages, so we’re talking pretty high stakes here. As we recently pointed out, the push for urban farming is here, and it’s here to stay. And the movement continues to grow up. Literally.

The idea for “vertical farming” resulted from a classroom challenge made to students by a Columbia University teacher of environmental sciences and microbiology. Professor Dickson Despommier asked his class to figure out how many Manhattanites they could feed a 2,000-calorie daily diet to – growing food on the island’s 13 acres of usable rooftops. When the answer came back to be about two percent of the 50,000 city dwellers, Despommier posited growing food vertically, inside multi-story and high-rise buildings. The students took it from there, eventually creating Verticalfarm to spread the idea.

Though the project began in 2000 (we actually gave it some coverage a couple years back), the concept’s finding some new traction in the media, at least, with a recent piece in Smithsonian magazine’s 40th Anniversary issue, and Despommier’s new book, The Vertical Farm: The World Grows Up, soon to be released.

There are many advantages to this approach, according to Despommier and his team. For starters, there’s year-round crop production, no weather-related failures, all food can be grown hydroponically with no herbicides, pesticides or fertilizers, and you get the elimination of agricultural runoff by recycling black water. As for its impact on regular old “horizontal” farming, the method would provide for the return of existing farmland to nature, which is always a plus. Add fossil fuel-free food production and even feeding methane from composting back into a city’s electrical grid and, well, maybe they have something here.

Not everyone’s convinced that such an approach makes sense, and some say that cost and resource issues make the efficiency of such grand-scale endeavors to be no more than pie in the sky thinking. But the facts on the ground remain regarding populations, pollution and climate issues being on a collision course scheduled to meet up sometime in the not-too-distant future. It’s never too early for creative thinking. Especially when we’re going to need some unique solutions to, perhaps, get us off the ground.

When potato farmers won’t eat the very potatoes they are farming and instead have a small backyard garden to grow a separate stash for their own personal consumption, something is clearly not right. This came to light when I read Michael Pollan’s section on potatoes in The Botany of Desire. The description of the farmer’s potato plants as “doused with so much pesticide that their leaves wear a dull white chemical bloom and the soil they’re rooted in is a lifeless gray powder,” is what really got me.

Like anyone with a concern for personal health and that of our environment, I strive to buy organic. However, this can add up to an eye-popping, hefty bill at the grocery store register. The question is, what food is most important to buy organic?

It seems the American’s love of the French fry, the perfect French fry, no less, created what’s become a disastrous need for the perfect potato. The resulting bumper-to-bumper monoculture crops of russet potatoes have in turn resulted in the intense overuse of pesticides.

What does this mean for the consumer? Most likely, any non-organic potato you buy has been repeatedly sprayed with harmful, poisonous chemicals. Still in the mood for those mashed potatoes? Reach for the stack of organic!

Image: adactio

Can you imagine swapping your cute shoe collection for a few pairs of work boots, giving up weekly nights out with the girls to shovel manure and mend fences, or foregoing frequent trips to your favorite take-out restaurant in favor of making all of your own meals? Trading Sex in the City for Little House on the Prairie might seem extreme and even frightening, but “˜ruralpolitans’ tend to think the benefits outweigh the sacrifices.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported the increasing ranks of city and town dwellers that are moving their families to the countryside. Sure, they’re giving up a long list of perks that come with city living – like public transportation, walkability, nightlife, shopping and diverse cultural experiences.

But with a shaky job market and no guarantees, the peace and security of living the simple life on your own piece of land can be awfully alluring – hence the new generation of surprisingly young urban refugees aiming for rural self-sufficiency.

“Most of these kids say they’ve just saved and want to put their money someplace that won’t go away,” Montana real estate agent Tom VanHoose told WSJ. “They see General Motors go down and AIG go down and they are asking, ‘Gee, can my company go down?’ There’s a lot of angst and anxiety.”

Considering that land in some areas of the country costs as little as $1,000 an acre and off-grid green homes can be built for a pittance, it’s possible to be debt-free and have extremely low living expenses when you own your own land. And you don’t necessarily have to become a farmer, depending on your crops for your income – access to high-speed internet makes it possible for people to keep their jobs and telecommute while hobby-farming or raising just enough food for themselves.

It’s not for everyone – nor should it be, considering that high demand for a rural farming lifestyle could encourage sprawl. But it also might be more possible than you think, even if you’re an unmarried city chick who’s never planted a seed in her life: many “˜ruralpolitans’ are single, and femivorism is an intriguing new trend as well. Or, perhaps you could have the best of both worlds with an urban homestead a la the Dervaes family’s “˜Path to Freedom’ house in Pasadena.

So, could you become a “˜ruralpolitan’? Do you think keeping your own chickens, growing your own food and raising your kids on a farm would be worth it? What would you miss most about urban life?

Image: hipiotix

Triscuit and Urban Farming are encouraging the widespread interest in local and homegrown food by helping people start 50 community-based “home farms” around the country.

Article by Katherine Gustafson and image by OakleyOriginals via Flickr. First published March 2010 at Tonic.com.

Triscuit, the Nabisco brand of crackers, is teaming up with the Detroit-based nonprofit Urban Farming to capitalize on widespread interest in local and homegrown food by supporting home farming. Triscuit’s campaign is, in fact, called “Home Farming Movement,” as if grassroots can be planted by a corporate foodwashing campaign.

While a true movement it is not, a laudable attempt at moving the country toward healthy, local food it certainly is.

The campaign aims to create 50 community-based “home farms” across the country this year. To help them, Nabisco will enclose packs of basil and fill seeds in four million packages of Triscuit crackers.

The interactive website tells you everything you need to know, including how to grow vegetables at home, a guide to crops and expert advice from Paul James, the “Gardener Guy.” The first step, though, is to enter your zip code at the “start your home farm” page, which will help you figure out what you need to know.

Taja Sevelle, founder of Urban Farming and a former pop star who once wrote songs with Prince, recently told me that gardening is about something much deeper than simply being able to supply the tomatoes for the dinner salad.

“Gardening is a fairly addictive and therapeutic activity,” she said. “There’s something about getting your hands in the soil and planting and seeing things grow that touches a human chord within everybody.”

Editor’s note: Article by Katherine Gustafson and image by OakleyOriginals via Flickr. Originally published by our friends at Tonic.com. Tonic is a digital media company and news source dedicated to promoting the good that happens each day around the world. Tonic tells the stories of people and organizations who are working to make a difference, by inspiring good in themselves and others. Be sure to visit them and say hi, and follow Tonic on Twitter, too!

Is summer fresh produce from Chile growing on you? Are you grateful to be able to buy grapes, plums, peaches and other August fruit in the dead of winter because of that 2004 free trade agreement?

That mindset is what the earthquake-ravaged country is cultivating in a new Cornucopia television ad campaign reaching out to American consumers who buy produce at Safeway, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Winn Dixie and other outlets that peddle an array of both imported and locally harvested fruits and vegetables.

The buy local mantra of the eco movement threatens international growers whose livelihood depends upon the plastic sealing and heavy fuel shipping of fresh foods to markets throughout the United States, including rich agricultural states like California, Arizona and Texas.

That threat has been worsened by the recent 8.9-magnitude quake which damaged roads, bridges, harbors and other key infrastructure while hampering communication lines used by processors and packaging plants.

The 30-second ad, tells us “right now it is summer in Chile” where vast natural resources allow it to grow produce, dairy, meat products, olive oil, wine, seafood and more. What swank menus don’t feature Chilean sea bass? The buttery male voice asks you to experience the abundance of the central American’s country’s harvest, “in season now at Winn Dixie.”

It has been pretty good so far with nearly half of all fruit in the U.S. coming from Chile.

The Stats

The California and American Chambers of Commerce report Chile is our 25th largest export partner, sending us $1.3 billion in fresh fruits in 2003, and packaged food exports worth a whopping $1.5 billion in 2008. The Philadelphia Inquirer tells us the bulk of the crops shipped to U.S. shores (65%), enter Philadelphia to be directed to stores east of the Mississippi River. The rest comes through Los Angeles. California, alone, lists Chile as its 22th largest export buddy. This graph shows countries that imported fresh fruits from Chile in 2008-2009.

Are We Also Buying the Image?

The primary world exporter of grapes, Chile controls 24 percent of the global grape market. Raisins, our favorite dried fruit, are produced at home, but we also imported 42.5 million pounds in 2008, mostly from our partner, Chile. Chilean wine, also threatened by the quake, has also been a popular choice here with trendy reds and subtle whites, and Chile has enjoyed the status of being fourth in the world for wine exports. The country is the world’s larges plum supplier with 36 varieties grown annually. It is the second largest exporter of kiwifruit, another gourmet staple, and after the 2004 trade agreement, it upped its peach exportation greatly, shipping over 60 percent of its peaches and nectarines to the U.S.

We also buy Chilean farmed salmon which has boosted the country’s seafood industry. The USDA reports salmon exports exploded from 1.2 million pounds in 1989 to 50 million in 1996, not a welcomed increase by our own salmon farmers who have sought legislation to reduce the surplus.

All About Image

The cornucopia ad, funded by the Chilean exporters Association (Asoex) and The Export Promotion Bureau (ProChile) and fielded by the Chilean Fresh Fruit Association (CFFA), is designed to promote Chile as not just a country with plentiful resources, but a country you can trust to put the healthiest food on your table.

Fruitnet tells us retailers were offered five-second tags at the end of the spots in exchange for in-store promotions. That is why one of the ads says “now in season at Winn Dixie.”

“We have many creative promoters among our partners in retail,” says Tom Tjerandsen, North American managing director of CFFA. “We marvel at the multitude of ways that retailers choose to ensure that they take full advantage of our television support.”

In deciding for yourself, you might want to consider the issue of pesticides in fresh foods, one of the main concerns of the local food movement. According to Consumer Health, residues of the toxins are present on many of our favorite fresh foods, including grapes, peaches, apples and celery. But surprisingly, research shows the crops we import from Mexico and Chile are not more contaminated than domestic foods, despite what is commonly believed.

A reason for the belief is that Chilean farmers in the past have been pressured to use pesticides like Dormex even though exposure has proven to harm the health of growers and their unborn children. Chile imports some 15, 000 tons of the chemicals each year and experts say there are some 928 registered pesticides in use there, including 39 prohibited or severely restricted by the United Nations and governments of the world. Grapes grown in the Copiapo Valley are heavily sprayed, and grapes showed high traces of residue on the Consumer Health study.

And if you are buying Chilean salmon, you should know last year the FDA stepped up its scrutiny of the glut when the New York Times reported on the spread of infectious salmon anemia (ISA) plaguing the Chilean farming industry, as well as unsanitary, overcrowded salmon pens and poor environmental conditions. Stores like Safeway restricted imports, and Chile responded by promising to tighten its control by tripling inspections and reducing antibiotics.

Looks like we have to do some policing at home, as well. Consumer Health says 11 of the 12 highest contaminated foods recently tested were U.S. grown, including peaches, pears, apples, winter squash, and green beans. The key is to know what you are eating, and to properly wash and peel fruits and vegetables before eating.

Still, buying locally raised, organic food is the best way to avoid exposure to toxins. And buying locally grown, organic fare also is the best way to promote and support local farmers who are stepping up to the green plate. Will Chile suffer greatly if we refuse to buy what the country is selling?

I suppose that is a risk we must take in considering our future. When I was a child, we only bought peaches, plums and grapes in the summer – that is – when it was summer in sunny California.

Images: athrasher, CFFA/USA

You gonna eat that? Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that once planted in the wild, genetically modified organisms, such as bio-engineered fruit, grain or vegetables can change native, wild plant neighbors’ DNA. In the future, food activists worry, you might not even have a dietary choice.

A flurry of news stories, blog posts and Tweets have “cropped up” in recent weeks around this study and related events. Even teenagers are dialed into the debate over the merits and dangers of GMOs, says Jenny Kessler, who founded and directs the Garden Program at The Automotive High School in Brooklyn, New York.

Kessler teaches English, ESL and a class called “Food, Land and You.” Through this coursework or participation in the Garden Program, Automotive students learn about farming and industrial agriculture and gain hands-on experience cultivating and cooking food.

“Some of my students agree with economist Jeffrey Sachs that genetically modified crops should be used to alleviate world hunger now, since they can grow on depleted land in bad conditions,” Kessler says, “but most are concerned that GMOs aren’t tested enough before they enter our mainstream food supply. Or they worry that modified seeds and cross-pollination will make natural products scarce and expensive, or even extinct.”

The Garden Program group (as seen on Flickr.com/autogarden) wishes for – after a personal visit from Anna Lappe or Michael Pollan – better information about the effect of modified crops on human and plant health, and to inspire Americans to buy more locally produced food.

Basic reading:

“A report by a team from the United States and China appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, [where] researchers point out that gene flow between crops and their wild relatives is common and difficult to contain. They note concerns that wild plants could, as a result, gain genetically engineered resistances. And these could affect the natural balance in their environment.” -US News And World Report feature

“Bayer CropScience AG is responsible for financial damage sustained by Missouri farmers when their rice crops were contaminated by genetically modified seeds, the growers’ lawyer told a federal court jury in St. Louis”¦Testing of one of the “˜LibertyLink’ [rice] strains at Louisiana State University was completed in 2001. While there has never been a specifically identified contamination event”¦studies suggest an event of cross-pollination with ordinary rice or a mixing of regular and genetically modified seed occurred then.” -BoingBoing.net opinion, discussion

“The debate over genetically modified crops has flared up in India, where critics have stalled the commercial release of insect-resistant eggplant, despite recent approval from the country’s biotechnology regulatory committee.” -

Economist Jeffrey Sachs’ official bio, including recent news by and about him

EcoMeme, a column featuring eco news, tech and business highlights by new EcoSalon writer and columnist Lora Kolodny.

Image: liangjinjian