As bemoaned in this editorial, immigration law in Colorado leads to food waste by reducing the number of workers.
When there aren’t enough laborers, or “pickers”, the harvest is often squandered (unless it’s not a great year). Commercial orchards resemble the scene underneath your neighbor’s fig tree, as apples, pears, peaches, etc. “go to ground.”
I’m not […]

I was talking to a animal waste engineer (it’s a long story) about getting energy from manure. He mentioned gasification–not the most pleasant topic–as a means to convert dead animals to energy.
When I asked him about what percentage of a flock or herd dies on the farm, the researcher gave me ballpark figures. Chicken raised […]

Happy Hanukkah! (or Chanukah, if you prefer)
In the spirit of “The Festival of Light,” I thought I’d illuminate the Orthodox Jewish practice of Shmita/Shemittah. This biblical law holds that the land of Israel must lay fallow every seventh year. No planting or pruning of crops–it’s like a sabbath for the land.
Practical Talmudic scholars, though, have found dogmatically-acceptable ways […]

In case you haven’t read it, check out this incredibly sensible Michael Pollan op-ed on the farm bill. He argues that the long-standing federal farm policy subsidizes fats and sugars, increasing obesity rates and making processed foods cheaper.
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An employee at Panera Bread blogged about sandwich shop food waste. OK, so maybe I requested she […]

Maui is facing a food waste crisis. A local pig farmer who took 3 tons of restaurant and hotel garbage daily lost his lease, forcing the island’s hospitality industry to find an alternate destination for their food waste.
The stakes are high, as
the county-operated Central Maui landfill cannot safely accept the combination of liquid and solid […]

Today’s post is a sad one: 500,000 lambs will be killed in Scotland and Wales with none of the animals being used as food. Sending lambs to the slaughter is sad enough when it’s done to feed people. When it’s done for no real reason…
From what I understand, foot and mouth regulations prevent much movement of flocks. Many […]

I can’t remember the last time it really rained here in North Carolina. We got a few drops last week, but that was all. While it’s not as bad as this Aral Sea photo, there’s an “exceptional” drought in much of the Southeast.
There was an interesting article in The News & Observer today about how […]

In addition to funding family farmers, this month’s Farm Aid also helped the hungry.
How? The good people at City Harvest held a food drive and, more germane to this site, recovered food from the backstage caterers. While the canned food drive collected 2,000 pounds, City Harvest gathered an additional 5,000 pounds of primo food, the same stuff […]

Last week I visited Ag Against Hunger, a food recovery operation in Salinas, Calif. What makes their operation unique is that it receives donations primarily from the large-scale farms.
In Salinas, known as “Salad Bowl of America,” most of the big farms are packers and shippers, too. The majority of the donations Ag Against Hunger receives come […]

For those of you new to the site, I’ve been researching the food wasted in America’s food chain for more than two years. The work has its highs (food donation research at a Bob Dylan show) and lows (working in a supermarket produce section), but seldom gets boring.
That’s because there’s so many areas in our food chain where […]