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GMO Free Farming in Illinois

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But where does non-GMO food come from? After all, 90 percent of America’s corn and soybeans are genetically modified, and producers of eggs, milk and meat rely on those crops to feed their animals. Soy oil and corn starch are used throughout the industry. Can big food companies really avoid GMOs?

Looking for the answer, I ended up at one of the first links in the non-GMO supply chain: a corn processing facility just north of the small town of Cerro Gordo, in west-central Illinois.

The NPR Report

Urine as Fertilizer

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In 2012, Kim Nace, Rich Earth’s administrative director and partner Abe Noe-Hays collected 600 gallons of urine from friends and neighbors. The next year, the organization brought in about 3,000 gallons from 170 human volunteers. Rebecca Rueter, a board member for Rich Earth, invited members of the local women’s chorus to donate their pee.

Rich Earth hopes to double that amount this year to a round 6,000 gallons — enough to fill a third of an average American swimming pool. “We’ve given volunteers a few things to make it easier — some funnel devices and things like that,” says Nace.

The Modern Farmer Report

NAFTA and Your Diet

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Walk through the produce section of your supermarket and you’ll see things you’d never have seen years ago — like fresh raspberries or green beans in the dead of winter.

Much of that produce comes from Mexico, and it’s the result of the North American Free Trade Agreement — NAFTA — which took effect 20 years ago this month.

In the years since, NAFTA radically changed the way we get our fruits and vegetables. For starters, the volume of produce from Mexico to the U.S. has tripled since 1994.

The NPR Report

Another thing to consider in this discussion is not just the food and its quality, it is how American’s invested in food production in the past 20 years….instead of local improvements to farms and farmland, much capital went to companies investing in Mexican land and industrially managed lands

Color Code Your Food

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Could a little red circle really make me bypass short ribs and mashed potatoes for some cod and rice instead? You’ve got to be kidding.

Well, a team of doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital sure think so — at least sometimes — and they have a study that backs them up.

The NPR Report

Mapping the Seven Deadly Sins in America

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At a time when I’m feeling less than positive about my community and American society, I also notice a LOT of anecdotal information on sin:

1) Pope Francis is encouraging his flock to be more pious in a major church document.
2) Michael Soule, a rigorous scientist and the ‘father’ of conservation biology, is writing a book about sin. He is sincerely distressed at the new thinking in ecology represented by Peter Karieva (TNCs Chief Scientist) and efforts like the Natural Capital Project.
3) This clever (but not very deep) mapping of the seven deadly sins in America.

The Maps

I can’t help but notice that the Mid-Atantic East Coast (DC area) seems to have a corner on the deadly sin market.