EcoFarm Blogs

The EcoFarm Blogs seek to nurture and support sustainable and organic farmers and food system change agents. Through sharing entertaining and informative essays, we hope to promote important voices to a wider audience, create a platform for interactive dialogues on important issues and increase communication among diverse groups.

Federal officials stress the ‘anti’ in antitrust

Posted on August 17, 2009 in the Genetic Engineering Blog

The room was filled. There were Nebraska hog raisers, corn farmers from Missouri, Colorado feed lot owners and ranchers from Wyoming. They were Republicans and Democrats, pro-life and pro-choice, church-goers and agnostics. The one thing they had in common is a belief that the markets for food and agriculture are dominated by a few big companies and, as a result, the prices paid to farmers and charged to consumers aren’t fair.

Monsanto to Charge as Much as 42% More for New Seeds

Posted on August 13, 2009 in the Genetic Engineering Blog

Monsanto Co., the world’s largest seed maker, plans to charge as much as 42 percent more for new genetically modified seeds next year than older offerings because they increase farmers’ output.

‘The perfect weed’: An old botanical nemesis refuses to be rounded up

Posted on August 10, 2009 in the Genetic Engineering Blog

HUGHES, Ark. - At the seasoned age of 54, Willie Cutler figured he’d never be doing this again—swinging a hoe to cut weeds in a field of waist-high cotton. But one recent morning, as the sun crept above the treetops and mosquitoes and dragonflies hovered in the sticky air, there he was, with a dozen or so other laborers, chopping cotton just as he’d last done some 40 years ago.

Antitrust Enforcers Begin Visiting Farm Belt

Posted on August 8, 2009 in the Genetic Engineering Blog

The Obama administration will take an extensive look at concentration in U.S. agriculture as part of its increased emphasis on antitrust enforcement, a Justice Department official said Friday.

Europe prepares for drugs from GM plants

Posted on August 7, 2009 in the Genetic Engineering Blog

Commercial development of plant-derived pharmaceuticals has moved forward today with the publication of the first European guidelines for growing these genetically modified (GM) plants.

The Invasion of Genetically-Engineered Eucalyptus

Posted on August 6, 2009 in the Genetic Engineering Blog

Here’s a great idea: Let’s bring into our country a genetically-engineered, non-native tree that is known to be wildly invasive, explosively flammable, and insatiably thirsty for ground water. Then let’s clone thousands of these living firecrackers and plant them in forested regions across seven Southern states, allowing them to grow, flower, produce seeds, and spread into native
environments.

We often don’t know what we’re doing…

Posted on August 4, 2009 in the Farmer Blog

A just released U. S. Geological Survey report (Professional Paper 1766), assesses past, present and future of our Central Valley’s stored groundwater which yields an astonishing 20% of this nation’s total annual subsurface supplies.

GM sugar beets found in soil mix sold to gardeners

Posted on August 4, 2009 in the Genetic Engineering Blog

In May, genetically modified sugar beet plants were found in a soil mix sold to gardeners at a landscape supply business in Corvallis, Oregon. The contamination incident raises doubts about the ability of the sugar beet seed industry to keep GM sugar beets from contaminating non-GMO sugar beets and related plants.