Category: Agriculture50
-
Agriculture and its Discontents: Greenhouse Gas Emissions
In 1943, Norman Borlaug began his research into new varieties of wheat that could feed the burgeoning population of Mexico. Invited by the Mexican government and funded largely by international philanthropic organizations, Borlaug’s research began what we now refer to as the Green Revolution. Over the next 13 years, Mexico became agriculturally self-sufficient, and in…
-
Changing the Urban Relationship to Food
With an Italian background, from a culture of food, as biologist and one time theatre producer, to me it makes sense to work with a research group that has the courage to break many taboos and re-discuss academic assumptions in an open and innovative way.
-
Assessing Global Metrics for Agriculture
On October 1, I attended a symposium entitled “Going Beyond Rhetoric: Metrics for Assessing Global Agriculture,” hosted by the Earth Institute and convened at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. Fifteen stories in the air, we were surrounded by miles of urban landscape — Queens to the east, Manhattan to the west, and no…
-
Food Security Under Climate Change
In 2008 the world faced one of its most severe food crises in recent history. Around the world riots broke out in otherwise food-secure nations — places like Egypt, Russia, Mexico, and Brazil. The world’s governments responded — a major U.N. conference was held in Geneva. What they discussed there was the fundamental issue of…
-
Visit to Millennium Villages in Mali and Senegal
Thursday, June 25, 2008, six intrepid Earth Institute supporters – Joy Tartar of the Lenfest Foundation and her husband George Hall, Nancy Best, Diane Troderman and Harold Grinspoon, and Bonnie Potter – joined Earth Institute Funding Initiatives staff and 200 project staff for the third annual Millennium Villages retreat in Bamako, Mali. The group participated…
-
Designers at Columbia and MIT Promote “Foodshed” Concept
Contributed by Richard Plunz and Michael Conard On September 10th, Michael Pollan, author of “In Defense of Food” and “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” highlighted the work of designers at the Earth Institute’s Urban Design Lab (UDL) in his Op-Ed Contribution to the New York Times, titled “Big Food vs. Big Insurance.” Since 2007, researchers at the…
-
The Stuff of Sustainability
Recently, New York Times reporter, Leslie Kaufman wrote an excellent story on an interesting and important video called “The Story of Stuff”. Kaufman writes that: “The video is a cheerful but brutal assessment of how much Americans waste, and it has its detractors… The video was created by Annie Leonard, a former Greenpeace employee and…
