Fueled by cherry tomatoes and lemonade, three-dozen bikers (this blogger included) hit the pavement last Saturday afternoon for a seven-mile tour of seven great community gardens in East Baltimore. We started the ride at the 22-year old Duncan Street Miracle Garden, a one-acre fruit and vegetable haven. Along the ride I was searching for secretes [...]

Grist.org recently invited bloggers through it’s Grist Talk: Food Fight series to respond to an August 20th op-ed piece, “Math Lessons for Locavores,” by Stephen Budiansky in the New York Times.  What follows is my response:
“I agree with Mr. Budiansky that freight is by some measures cheap, and that the interstate system and trains [...]

Citizens descended on the small town of Wye Mill, Maryland at Chesapeake College Thursday, August 5th to attend the final public comment period for Maryland’s sweeping new oyster policies. The overcast and muggy weather provided a sober backdrop for intense discussions on how Maryland will manage the future of the Eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica)— a [...]

By my estimation, seventy-five-year-old author Dr. Sylvia Earle has spent more than 1% of her life underwater. If her dives were connected in time, it would be as if she slipped into the ocean on New Year’s Day and did not re-emerge until some time after Labor Day.
Her book chronicles her experiences as a 1960s [...]

The Deepwater Horizon/ BP oil rig has been leaking for seven weeks and counting, and is already responsible for one of the worst environmental disasters in our nation’s history. The spill, among other things, highlights our intimate connection to aquatic ecosystems.
Last week, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) expanded the Gulf of Mexico [...]

Over a hundred Baltimore residents gathered on Saturday night for the 4th edition of an innovative fundraising event called STEW. STEW is a joint project of Baltimore Development Cooperative and Red Emma’s Bookstore Coffeehouse, where attendees pay $10/person for the opportunity to share a multi-course locavore meal and listen to the financial needs of three [...]

This past Saturday, the Baltimore Food Makers held their monthly potluck in Northeast Baltimore at the home of an urban chicken farming couple. Our hosts distilled a lifetime of farming know-how into a short tour of their backyard chicken coop, and fielded questions about their three hens, poultry health, nutrition, and productivity. Apparently, three hens [...]

The Meat Industry* hosted a Congressional briefing on Tuesday (2/23/2010) in Washington D.C. on antibiotics in livestock and poultry production. The purpose of the briefing was to uncover, in the moderator’s words, the ‘true science’ on antibiotics. Contrary to his assertion, there was very little science presented.
Instead, the briefing featured anecdotes from two veterinarians (Dr. [...]

I’d like to expand a little on my recent interview for a CNN piece by Elizabeth Landau entitled “Farmed or wild fish: Which is healthier?”
At face value, this question can partialy be answered by comparing the nutritional content in farmed and wild fish and weighing the health benefits of fish consumption against the risks of [...]

Alan Goldberg, Ph.D., is a former commissioner of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production and is a guest blogger today for Livable Future.
The largest pork producer in the world, Smithfield Foods Inc., says it can’t afford to go through with one of its much-ballyhooed animal welfare improvement plans. The company said that [...]