Sustainability has become an important attribute for agricultural systems with many activists falsely asserting that extensive farming has a smaller environmental footprint. Now research by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (ICTA), an organization focused on making small farms in developing countries both competitive and sustainable, has issued ratings that favor the larger, intensive agricultural practices of rich countries.
What is notable is that India’s agriculture ranks amongst the least sustainable systems despite being largely vegetarian in consumption and highly incentivized for extensive farming practices. CIAT weighed 20 different factors including greenhouse gas emissions, fair trade, food price volatilit...
What You Need to Know Today: The U.S. and Iran resumed missile strikes after a brief pause in fighting, raising concerns that the five-month conflict could expand across the Middle East. Jordan intercepted Iranian missiles, Kuwait reported a fatal strike, and drone attacks damaged two natural...
The Senate Agriculture Committee will take up the farm bill next week, and a number of amendments targeting the meat industry are expected to be offered. Two of the most potentially damaging are the Schumer amendment, based on his bill, the Family Grocery and Farmer Relief Act, and mandatory co...
Oliver Goldsmith's The Deserted Village, published in 1770, is of a timeless quality. It is a 425-line lament for a disappearing rural world, where prosperous villages give way to larger estates, fewer farmers, and emigration. One passage even follows those leaving for the new colony of Georgia...
