Sustainable Agriculture

Chipotle, please add some farmworker justice to my burrito

Many of us on staff at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy enjoy an occasional Chipotle burrito. Compared to other casual dining options, the company has done an outstanding job of sourcing antibiotic-free meat from farmers committed to the humane treatment of animals.

Waste to worth

The issue of food waste is a hot topic these days.

Defining our terms: Agroecology and sustainable agriculture in the context of Rio+20

Earlier this month as the U.N.

Top 10 ways Walmart fails on sustainability

This blog post was originally published April 17 by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR).

Financing food with integrity

What is the “glue” that connects the farm and the fork? With “direct-market” channels like farmers markets and CSAs, we have the privilege of literally shaking the hand that feeds us.

Building markets for Ag in the Middle

Farming is a tough way to make a living and no segment of the American farm community has been harder hit in recent decades than the farmers known as Ag in the Middle (AITM).  These are the producers of fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy and meat products that are too big to sell directly to consumers and too small to effectively compete with agri

Feeding the world, or not

Need versus greed at Rio+20

Over the last month, U.N. agencies, Member States and civil society groups have been busy: they made well over 600 contributions toward Rio+20, the next United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (U.N. CSD), to be held in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012.

A hell of a way to write a Farm Bill

If you want to see what political dysfunction looks like, take a look at how Congress is bungling the nation’s most important food and farm policy—the Farm Bill. The sprawling Farm Bill sets policy for the next five years and is directly relevant to our 2 million farmers, the 43 million people on food assistance and the more than 900 million acres in farmland.

Toward Rio+20: Will it create more than words?

Earlier this month, not far from the site of Occupy Wall Street at Liberty Plaza in New York, a small group of people gathered; they too were engaged in a conversation about systemic change in the face of some of the challenges faced by the world today, specifically global food and water insecurity, financial crisis and climate change.