Agricultural Asylum

“Non-GMO corn seeks asylum in France,” read the Agence France Presse headline (more or less, given my rusty French). The article went on to explain that on Tuesday, September 29, “non GMO ears of corn from Spain sought refuge in the arms of the...

Day Out | Sugar in the Raw

IMAGE: Mossman Sugar Mill. All mill photos by the author. Last month, BLDGBLOG and I joined a small group (consisting mostly of wheat farmers on a busman’s holiday) to visit Mossman mill, which is just up the road from Cairns. As it happens, we are apparently on...

Pig Futures

2009 has really not been the year of the pig. Despite the best efforts of the USDA and the EU’s Health Commissioner, the first pandemic of the twenty-first century is commonly known as swine flu – a negative association that hasn’t helped pork sales at...

The Taste of Climate Change

Beer enthusiasts, myself among them, were upset to read this week that our pints of pilsner lager might be the latest casualty of climate change. New Scientist reported the depressing news: it seems that the quality of Eastern European Saaz hops is going downhill each...

Yeast-bursts, seed packs, and extreme agriculture

IMAGE: “Endothelium”, by Philip Beesley Over on BLDGBLOG, Geoff speculates on the agricultural possibilities of “Endothelium”, an organic, automated geotextile designed by architect Philip Beesley, in which “low-power miniature...