Musings on sustainable food systems, agriculture vs. agroecology, and more!
Yesterday, we visited a pig farm which also had a ‘genetic bank’ with pigs of particularly desirable characteristics. While those pigs looked fairly healthy, it still brought the issue of breeding livestock animals to the forefront of my mind. In our agricultural economics classes, we often talk about ‘technological progress’ and ‘efficiency increases’, which in … Continue reading How Far Should Breeding Go?
Hi again from Budapest! Sorry for the lack in posts but we are pretty busy here and internet is few and far in between. Nevertheless, I found another interesting article for your viewing pleasure here: “Experiments reveal that crabs and lobsters feel pain“, a new article in the Nature News Blog. Generally, it is considered … Continue reading Do Crustaceans Feel Pain? New Evidence
Hi from Budapest! I am here in summer school and have only sporadic internet access, but didn’t want to leave you without any news of what is going on in the food policy and food tech world – guess what? The taste-testing of the first in-vitro burger finally took place in London! The verdict? “The … Continue reading The First Lab-Burger Was Eaten!
I’ve been a vegetarian for 10 years, out of ethical and increasingly environmental considerations – and we have talked about the environmental impact of livestock production in abundance. However, I realize that the probability of most people switching towards an herbivore lifestyle is rather low, whether they want to maintain protein intake or plainly like … Continue reading Lab-Grown Meat – the Future of Farming?
Yesterday, I went to a talk by a rep of Germanwatch, a German NGO, on European Agricultural Policy and its relationship to climate change. As part of the presentation, the presenter gave a great overview of how European agricultural policy evolved and I thought I’d reproduce it here for all the non-Europeans (and Europeans!) who … Continue reading A Brief History of European Agricultural Policy
Environmental economics might be one of the most curious and demanding disciplines, since it tries to combine two fields at the opposite ends of the ideological spectrum – environmentalists on the one hand and economists on the other, the one trying to preserve every last bug for the benefits of biodiversity while the others coolly … Continue reading Is Taxing Meat a Viable Green Policy Option?
One of the first writers that got me (as so many others, I presume) interested in food politics was Michael Pollan. His book “In Defense of Food” , along with “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “A Botany of Desire”, really flipped the switch in my mind on what kind of politics I wanted to specialize in. Well, today … Continue reading The Biography of a Cow
If you live in the US, you may have heard about the recent proliferation of regulations in around a dozen states that opponents call “ag-gag laws”. These laws make it illegal to covertly videotape livestock farms or to apply for jobs without disclosing ties to animal welfare organizations. Such undercover taping however is often crucial … Continue reading "Ag-Gag" Laws – What Stands Behind Them?
One thing that I cherish about academia is the plurality of opinions and the richness of debate on any topic people care about. This is also translated into research, where facts are as quickly uncovered as they are disputed with alternative figures, making things even more complicated (as well as more interesting) with each and … Continue reading MORE Facts About Livestock – Let the Debate Begin!
The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) recently wrote two blog posts about one of their papers called “The Roles of Livestock in Developing Countries“, in which their authors argue that the livestock sector needs to be studied and assessed in a much more disaggregated manner in order to acknowledge the roles and impacts of livestock … Continue reading Livestock: The Good, the Bad, and the Facts