When Hurricanes Hit Industrial Agriculture

Photo by Rick Dove, Waterkeeper Alliance/Flickr   These disasters drag into the light exactly who is already being thrown away. --Naomi Klein, in a tweet about Hurricane Florence Minneapolis, September 26 – In 1831, a powerful hurricane devastated the island of Barbados. Eyewitness accounts reported a “deluge of rain opening huge chasms in the ground [...]

New Sulfoxaflor Insecticide Harms Bees

Minneapolis, September 15 – Several months ago, the European Union banned the three major neonicotinoid (neonic) insecticides, following years of accumulating and convincing evidence that they harm bees and other organisms. Global research with a European emphasis  and research focused on the U.S. meanwhile show that neonics rarely benefit crops in their most prevalent application [...]

The Power to End Hunger

It has become counterintuitive for people that the issue of hunger is almost never one of an absolute lack of food, whether we’re talking cascading harvest failures, war-induced famine, or workaday poverty. From poor and agriculturally de-developed Yemen suffering amidst a catastrophic U.S.-Saudi war, to India under colonial Britain’s Late Victorian Holocausts, if someone is [...]

Rural Movements Are Anything But Dead

Berkeley, June 6--This Spring, thousands of women from around the world arrived in New York City for the 62nd session of the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women. Women gathered to discuss the challenges and opportunities in achieving gender equality and building power among rural women and girls. I was honored, especially now, [...]

Farming and the Opioid Epidemic

St Paul, May 31--According to a recent University of Minnesota Extension study, net farming income in Minnesota has flatlined five years in a row. Farmers here have felt the pinch across sectors: corn, soybean, dairy, and all the major livestock except hog. In its report on the study, the Star Tribune, the agribusinessman-owned newspaper in [...]