The retail giant last year unveiled an ambitious sustainability index for its suppliers, and now the company has announced that it plans to double the sales of fresh produce sourced from local farms in U.S. locations by the end of 2015.READ»
Chocolate lovers, rejoice. A research team led by scientists at Mars
Inc., the U.S. Department of Agriculture--Agricultural Research
Service (USDA-ARS), and IBM this week sequenced the genome of the cacao tree. Best of all, the ...READ»
Product manager, ag management solutions, John Deere
Urbandale, Iowa
Hayes, 27, develops and markets John Deere's GreenStar products, which allow farmers to automate their work.
"I grew up on a farm, and my dad would never let ...READ»
Co-owner, Martin Farm; chairperson, Cotton Board
Courtland, Alabama
Martin, 47, relies on GPS technology to improve efficiency and trim fertilizer use on her family's large cotton operation.
"Our GPS-equipped harvesting ...READ»
The latest industry to get clobbered by climate change is coffee, according to the International Coffee Organization (ICO). The organization, which represents 77 coffee-producing countries, says that the temperature has risen half a ...READ»
TransFair U.S.A., which certifies fair-trade goods in the U.S., is venturing beyond edibles for the first time with a pilot project for cotton bed linens, towels, and apparel. The cotton farmers as well as the factory workers will be ...READ»
H&M got in trouble late last year for destroying unused clothing instead of giving it away to charity; now the clothing giant is under fire again for selling certified organic cotton clothing that isn't actually organic.READ»
Sure, the cotton industry wants us to think that the material is the fabric of our lives. But maybe it actually is--in more ways than one. Cotton can usually only be eaten by cattle, which have stomachs that can break down ...READ»
In news that will surprise, well, almost everyone, researchers from Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research say that it's possible to feed the world sustainably by 2050, when the planet's population is expected to ...READ»
Remember that roll-out vegetable mat we looked at this week? Turns out it makes harvesting fruits and vegetables look like hard work compared to the National Physical Laboratory's (NPL) intelligent harvesting machine. The proposed ...READ»
Complain all you want about Starbucks taking over the world--the company is at least trying to do some good in the process. The company announced plans last year to become the largest purchaser of Fair Trade coffee in the world. ...READ»
Only a month after Cadbury announced its plan to buy fair-trade cocoa from Ghana, rival candy giant Mars has promised to source all chocolate products from sustainable suppliers by 2020. The move, which means the company will only buy ...READ»
Admit it: you don't pay always attention to whether the products you buy contain organic cotton or regular cotton. Neither do I, so it's a good thing that major companies are taking it upon themselves to use organic ...READ»
Calling all fingerlings, russets, and Yukon Golds: This is your
moment. This spud-promoting congress celebrates rising potato
production in developing countries and continued carbfests in developed
ones. And while four days may ...READ»
Surprisingly, when it comes to making OJ, it's not the packaging or the trucks--growing the fruit produces the single greatest proportion of the carbon footprint of Tropicana orange juice, as PepsiCo just hired an outside consultant ...READ»
According to “Bio: Biotechnology Industry Organization,” only 10% of the world’s land is arable. They also state that by 2050, 50% of that land will be used for other purposes and the global population will have increased by ...READ»
I am glad to join this group. I an agronomist who has been involved in one way or another in US and world agriculture since 1984.
Please send me a note and introduce your self.
READ»
Executive Director: William F. Foote
www.ecologicfinance.org
Grade: B+
Winner's Statement
That $4.25 you laid out this morning for a venti latte? The farmers who harvested the beans won't see much of it. Many cash-strapped ...READ»
Here's a question: Are "baby" carrots, the tasty, two-inch orange snacks in little bags, really baby carrots? The answer is a lesson in getting new growth from old products.READ»
Cotton farmers in Africa work their fields by hand, without the tractors and irrigation systems of their wealthier Western counterparts. If there's a drought, there's no cotton. If monkeys or worms destroy their crops, there's no ...READ»
In a world where non-profits are urged to thrive using enterprise, and corporations are cajoled to build customer loyalty by demonstrating social responsibility... who's playing in the middle ground?
One little operation of note is ...READ»
Remember Juan Valdez, the donkey-toting cafetero (that's coffee farmer to the uninitiated) and official representative of the Columbian Coffee Federation? Well, the famed fictitious character, created in 1959, has finally returned. ...READ»
