Period: Winter 2023 | |
Instructor: Pierre Desrochers | Office: Davis Building, DV3273 |
Lectures: Thursday 3-5 PM | Lecture room: MN 2110 (in person) |
Phone: (905) 828-5206 | E-mail: pierre.desrochers@utoronto.ca |
Lecture 1 (Jan. 12): Introduction
Lecture 2 (Jan. 19): Historical Perspective I
Lecture 3 (Jan. 26): Historical Perspective II
Lecture 4 (Feb. 2): Commodities I (Deadline for written assignment 1)
Lecture 5 (Feb. 9): Commodities II
Lecture 6 (Feb. 16): Commodities III
Reading Week – No class (February 23)
Lecture 7 (March 2): Commodities IV
Lecture 8 (March 9): Commodities V
Lecture 9 (March 16): Agricultural Inputs, Technologies and Food Additives I
Lecture 10 (March 23): Agricultural Inputs, Technologies and Food Additives II
Lecture 11 (March 30): Policy Controversies I
Lecture 12 (April 6): Policy Controversies II (Deadline for written assignments 2 and 3)
REQUIRED VIDEOs
IFPRI Millions Fed – Proven Solutions
BBC 4. 2010. “Hans Rosling’s 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes – The Joy of Stats.” (November 26).
Worldwrite. 2006. “I’m a Subsistence Farmer get me out of Here!”
Breakthrough Institute. 2016. “Precision Agriculture: Visualizing Agricultural Innovation.”
College Humor. 2018, “Buy Food Ethically, Unless It’s Too Hard.”
REQUIRED READINGS
• COVID-19 and the Food Supply Chain
Boudreaux, Donald J. 2020. “The Economy Is Not a Series of Supply Chains.” AIER (April 13).
Lusk, Jayson. 2020. “Time for Food Resilience.” City Journal (August 7).
• Overviews
Our World in Data – Topic: Food and Agriculture (Browse, the point here is to familiarize yourself with this website).
Smil, Vaclav. 2019. “Good Eats.” Inference 5 (1).
von Braun, Joachim et al. 2021. “Food Systems: seven priorities to end hunger and protect the planet.” Nature (August 30).
Bailey, Ron. 2020. “Is Farm-Free Food the Future? The end of agriculture draws nigh.” Reason (January 16).
• Critics
People’s Food Policy Project. 2011. Resetting the Table: A People’s Food Policy for Canada (Executive Summary).
Garza, Ron. 2020. “Bringing Biodiversity Back To Farming.” Vertical Farm Harvest (February 17).
Fairbank, Viviane. 2020. “Food for Thought. Eight billion mouths and counting.” Literary Review of Canada (May).
• Defenders of modern agriculture and agri-business
Jen. 2014. “Top Myths in Agriculture and Food Production with Dr. Cami Ryan.” Canola (Manitoba Canola Growers) (December 3).
Laudan, Rachel. 2015. “A Plea for Culinary Modernism.” Jacobin (May).
Laudan, Rachel. 2016. “In Praise of Artificial Food.” Aeon (January 28).
Bailey, Ron. 2020. “It’s Possible To Cut Cropland Use in Half and Produce the Same Amount of Food, Says New Study.” Reason (April 17).
Nordhaus, Ted and Alex Smith. 2021. “The Problem With Alice Waters and the “Slow Food” Movement.” Jacobin (December 3).
SUGGESTED READINGS
• COVID-19
Upton, William. 2020. “Make America Autarkic Again.” American Mind (March 13).
Lusk, Jayson. 2020. “Ruminations on Solutions to the COVID-Related Food Disruptions.” Jayson Lusk Blog (May 12).
Wright, Robert E. 2020. “How to Stop Food Shortages.” AIER (May 6).
Sorman, Guy. 2020. “The Modern Food Miracle. Science and commerce feed the world.” City Journal (July 10).
Glauber, Joseph et al. 2020. “COVID-19: Trade restrictions are worst possible response to safeguard food security.” IFPRI Blog (March 27).
Bedford, Christopher. 2020. “How And Why America’s Food System Is Cracking.” The Federalist (May 14).
Lincicome, Scott. 2021. “America’s Ports Problem Is Decades in the Making. Systemic problems and bad policy have exacerbated pandemic‐related shipping delays.” Cato Institute Commentary (September 22).
Roca, Maria. 2020. “Viewpoint: COVID-19 food shortages-Why the pandemic is a warning to embrace agricultural technology.” Genetic Literacy Project (May 4).
Lusk, Jayson and Glynn Tonsor. 2020. “America’s Indispensable Industry: Long-term strategies are needed to keep the nation’s meatpacking plants open and its food supply chain moving.” City Journal (May 5).
• Overviews
Short contributions
– “How to Feed a Hungry World.” Nature 466 : 531-532 (July 29, 2010).
Cowen, Tyler. 2012. “World Hunger: The Problem Left Behind.” The New York Times (September 15).
Sharp, Philip A. and Alan Leshner. 2016. “We Need a New Green Revolution.” New York Times (January 4).
Timmer, Peter C. “A World without Agriculture? The Historical Paradox of Agricultural Development.” AEI Outlook May 2009.
– “2050: A third more mouths to feed.” FAO, September 23, 2009.
Substantial References
World Resources Institute. 2019. World Resources Report: Creating a Sustainable Food Future – A Menu of Solutions to Feed Nearly 10 Billion People by 2050. WRI, UNEP, UNDP, CIRAD and INRA.
Coclanis, Peter A. 2019. “Field Notes: Agricultural History’s New Plot.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 50 (2): 187–212.
FAO. 2019. The State of Food Insecurity and Nutrition in the World (Scroll down).
Starling, Shane. 2014. “World’s Most Obese Nation? Kuwait (and the next four are Middle Eastern).” Food Navigator.com (November 3).
Charlebois, Sylvain et al. 2018. Canada’s Food Price Report 2018. Dalhousie University and University of Guelph (Executive Summary).
Smil, Vaclav. 2016. “Harvesting the Biosphere.” The World Financial Review (January – February): 46-49.
Beddington, John. 2010. “Global Food and Farming Futures.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (Biological Sciences) 365 (1554) (September): 2767.
Godfray, H. Charles J. 2010. “Introduction: The Future of the Global Food System.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (Biological Sciences) 365 (1554) (September): 2769-2777.
Kearney, John. 2010. “Food Consumption Trends and Drivers.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (Biological Sciences) 365 (1554) (September): 2793-2807.
Johnson, D. Gale. 2000, “Population, Food, and Knowledge,” American Economic Review 90, 2000, p. 1-14.
Wimberley, Ronald C. et al. 2003. Food from Our Changing World: The Globalization of Food and How Americans Feel About It, North Carolina State University.
Roser, Max and Hannah Ritchie. “Food Supply.” Our World in Data.
• Critics
Rausser, Gordon, David Zilberman, and Gabriel Kahn. 2015. “An Alternative Paradigm for Food Production, Distribution, and Consumption: A Noneconomist’s Perspective.” Annual Review of Resource Economics 7: 309-331.
Poux, Xavier and Pierre-Marie-Aubert. 2018. An Agroecological Europe in 2050: multifunctional agriculture for healthy eating Findings from the Ten Years For Agroecology (TYFA) modelling exercise. IDDRI Study #9.
Clapp, Jennifer et al. 2021. An IPCC for Food? How the UN Food Systems Summit is being used to advance a problematic new science-policy agenda. IPES FOOD (July).
Roberts, Paul. 2009. “Spoiled: Organic and Local is so 2008.” Mother Jones (February).
Pollan, Michael. 2008. “Farmer in Chief.” New York Times Magazine (October 9).
Bittman, Mark, Michael Pollan, Ricardo Salvador and Olivier De Schutter. 2014. “How a National Food Policy could save Millions of American Lives.” Washington Post (November 7).
• Defenders of modern agriculture and agri-business
Harris, Rob. 2007. “Let’s Ditch this ‘Nostalgia for Mud’.” Spiked, 4 December.
Hurst, Blake. 2009. “The Omnivore’s Delusion: Against the Agri-Intellectuals.” The American, July 30.
Paarlberg, Robert. 2010 “Attention Whole Food Shoppers.” Foreign Policy (May-June).
Smith, Kyle. 2013. “The Greatest Food in Human History.” New York Post (July 29).
Tucker, Jeffrey. 2014. “Life without the McDouble.” (August 5).
Stier, Jeff and Henry I. Miller. 2013. “How Much of Food Activism Is Nonsense?” Regulation (Summer): 8-10.
Driessen, Paul. 2020. “Keeping Africa On the Brink of Starvation.” Townhall.com (February 22).
Hurst, Blake. 2015. “The End of Farming?” The American (April 3).
Finn, S. Margot. 2019. “Food Injustice: What the Food Movement Misses About Poverty and Inequality.” Breakthrough Journal 11 (Summer) (July 15).
DeGregori, Thomas R. 2009. “The Green Washing of the Green Ideological Agenda: In Defense of Modern Agriculture, Technology and Life.”
Nordhaus, Ted and Dan Blaustein-Rejto. 2021. “Big Agriculture Is Best. The United States’ industrialized food system moved millions of people out of poverty and is better for the environment, too.” Foreign Policy (April 18).
Paarlberg, Robert. 2021. “Straight Talk About Modern Farms and Rural “Decline,” Pt. 1.” Human Progress (February 25).
Human Progress Podcast. 2021. “Rachel Laudan explains how food, and the way we eat it, has changed over time.” The Human Progress Podcast Ep. 10 (Transcript).
Hodgson, Fergus. 2018. “Walmart a Boon for the Hungry.” AIER (July 2).
Ozersky, Josh. 2011. “In Defense of Industrial Food. It’s almost impossible to extricate the way we eat from the means of mass production.” Time (October 26).
Cunningham, Brent. 2011. “Pastoral Romance.” Lapham’s Quarterly (Summer).
Kotkin, Joel. 2010. “America’s Agricultural Angst.” Forbes (January 19)
Cowen, Tyler. 2006. “Can You Really Save the Planet at the Dinner Table? – An economist’s critique of The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” Slate.com, November 1st.
Hurst, Blake. 2021. “A Perennial Genius and Me.” Substack (October 31).
Lusk, Jayson. 2016. “Why Industrial Farms Are Good for the Environment.” New York Times (September 23).
Tupy, Marian L. 2020. “The Battle to Feed All of Humanity Is Over. Humanity Has Won.” Quillette (February 11).
Ashbach, Jonathan. 2022. “A Limited Defense of Factory Farming. The Ethics and Politics of Consuming Intensively Raised Animals.” The Independent Review 26 (4): 601–621.
SUGGESTED LINKS
Eames-Sheavly, Marcia. Discovering the Food System: An experiential learning program for young and inquiring minds. Cornell University.
World Bank. 2007. World Development Report 2008: Agriculture and Development, Policy Briefs.
– Growth
– Poverty Reduction
– Climate Change
– Gender
– The ‘Three Worlds’ of Agriculture Briefs
Foodspan (Johns Hopkins University).
AUDIOS
“Farmers: What do you think of Pollan’s Ideas?” Talk of the Nation (National Public Radio), Oct. 8, 2009.
VIDEOS
IFPRI – Millions Fed, Proven Solutions
“Pollan and Hurst Debate the Future of Agriculture” Market to Market (Iowa Public Television), July 16, 2010.
Gapminder. Hans Rosling on 200 countries, 200 years, 4 minutes
REQUIRED VIDEOs
LECTURE 2
“Ancient Farmers of the Amazon” Evolution Library (PBS), 2001 (video).
Video – Chimps Use Tools to Hunt Mammals – National Geographic
Duet of a Sumerian Drinking Song (Hymn to the Beer Goddess) (Background: Main, Douglas. 2014. “What Did Ancient Babylonian Songs Sound Like? Something Like This.” Newsweek (December 14).
LECTURE 3
General Electric. Date Unknown. General Electric Effects on Farm Life – 1930s Dairy Farms Cows Milk Tractors Behind the Scenes.
FreeThink. 2017. “We’re All Gonna Starve!“
Free To Choose Network | Johan Norberg’s New and Improved – Borlaug (October 26).
REQUIRED READINGS
LECTURE 2
• Insect Agriculture
“Herding Aphids: How ‘Farmer’ Ants Keep Control Of Their Food.” Science Daily, October 11, 2007.
“Termites Create Sustainable Monoculture Fungus Farming.” Science Daily, Nov. 22, 2009.
• Fire, Tools and Early Diets
Jones, Steve. 2009. “Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham.” The Guardian, October 17.
Forbes, Peter. 2010. “Review of The Artificial Ape: How Technology Changed the Course of Human Evolution by Timothy Taylor.” The Guardian, September 4.
Gibbons, Ann. 2019. “Ancient Switch to Soft Food Gave Us an Overbite-and the ability to pronounce ‘f’s and ‘v’s.” Science (March 14).
Geddes, Linda. 2022. “Oldest cooked leftovers ever found suggest Neanderthals were foodies. Pancake/flatbread with a ‘nutty’ taste is first evidence of complex cooking and food culture.” The Guardian (November 23).
Kwon, Diana. 2022. “Our ancestors ate a Paleo diet. It had carbs. There is no one prehistoric meal plan. A modern hunter-gatherer group known as the Hadza has taught researchers surprising things about the highly variable menu consumed by humans past.” Knowable Magazine (September 28).
• Early Agriculture
(Note: This issue is addressed in much more detail in my course GGR329: Environment and the Roots of Globalization)
Loehrlein, Marietta. 2010. “Horticulture.” In Cutler J. Cleveland (ed.) Encyclopedia of the Earth.
Prakash, C. S. 2001. “The Genetically Modified Crop Debate in the Context of Agricultural Evolution.” Plant Physiology 126 (1): 8-15.
Wallace, Eric J. 2019. “The Moroccan Food Forest That Inspired an Agricultural Revolution. These ancient forest gardens may be more relevant than ever.” Atlas Obscura (April 1).
• Transition towards the Modern Era
Craig, Lee. A. 2009. “Creating Abundance: Biological Innovation and American Agricultural Development.” (Review of Alan L. Olmstead and Paul W. Rhode, Creating Abundance: Biological Innovation and American Agricultural Development. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008) EH.Net Book Reviews.
Stuart, David. 2019. ““Truck Farming” Was the Path into Agriculture.” Soundings Journal (May 16).
White, William J. 2008 “Economic History of Tractors in the United States.” Eh.Net Encyclopedia of Economic and Business History.
Moore, Sam. 2019. “International Harvester’s Red Baby Truck.” Farm Collector (July 9).
Johns Hopkins Center for a Liveable Future. Undated. “Food System Primer – Industrialization of Agriculture.”
LECTURE 3
• Modern Agriculture and the Green Revolution
– Big Picture
Goklany, Indur M. 2001. “The Pros and Cons of Modern Farming.” PERC Reports. March: 12-14.
Paarlberg, Robert. 2021 “Straight Talk About Modern Farms and Rural “Decline,” Pt. 1” Human Progress (February 25).
Paarlberg, Robert. 2021. “Straight Talk About Modern Farms and Rural “Decline,” Pt. 2” Human Progress (March 8).
Kline, Jesse. 2021. “The Capitalist Manifesto: The miracles that allowed us to feed the world (and those who would have us return to a time of famine).” Financial Post (December 23).
Energypedia. “Energy within Food and Agricultural Value Chains.”
– Specific Issues
Ades, Gary, Craig W. Henry, and Faye Feldstein. (2011/2012). “The Food Safety Challenge of the Global Food Supply Chain.” Food Safety Magazine (December/January).
Kunkel, Phillip L., Jeffrey A. Peterson, Jessica A. Mitchell. 2009. “Agricultural Production Contracts.” University of Minnesota Agricultural Extension Service.
– Green Revolution
Perkins, John. 2010. “Green Revolution” in Cutler J. Cleveland (ed.) Encyclopedia of the Earth. National Council for Science and the Environment.
Miller, Henry I. 2012. “The Father of the Green Revolution.” Defining Ideas (February 17).
Bloch, Sam. 2020. “Norman Borlaug is Hailed for “Feeding the World.” So why is there still so much hunger?” The Counter (April 21).
Cremer, Justin. 2020. “Norman Borlaug Saved Millions of Lives, Would his Critics Prefer he Hadn’t?” Cornell Alliance for Science (April 24).
Note: You do not need to cover the following readings and websites in your short written assignment, but you should familiarize yourself with these resources.
CANADA
Canadian Encyclopedia on Agriculture
– History of agriculture
– Agriculture and food
– Agriculture and food policy
– Fisheries
– Aquaculture
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. 2022. Overview of Canada’s agriculture and agri-food sector. (Read the abstract and the highlights.)
SUGGESTED READINGS
• General
Philipps, Lynne. 2006. “Food and Globalization.” Annual Review of Anthropology 35: 37-57.
von Braun, Joachim and Eugenio Díaz-Bonilla. 2008. Globalization of Food and Agriculture and the Poor. Oxford University Press and International Food Policy Research Institute, Chapter 1: Globalization of Agriculture and Food, Causes, Consequences, and Policy Implications.
Malden C. Nesheim, Malden, C., Maria Oria, and Peggy Tsai Yih. Authors: Committee on a Framework for Assessing the Health, Environmental, and Social Effects of the Food System; Food and Nutrition Board; Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources; Institute of Medicine; National Research Council. 2015. A Framework for Assessing Effects of the Food System. Washington (DC): National Academies Press.
• Insect Agriculture
Bernhard Stadler and Anthony F.G. Dixon. 2006. “Ecology and Evolution of Aphid-Ant Interactions.” Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 36: 345-372.
Mueller, Ulrich G and Christian Rabeling. 2008. “A breakthrough innovation in animal evolution.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105 (14): 5287-8.
• Cannibalism
Peter Foges. 2011. “What Does It Taste Like?” Lapham’s Quarterly (Summer).
• Cooking and Early Agriculture
“The American Association for the Advancement of Science – What’s cooking?” The Economist, February 17, 2009.
Mason, Daniel. 2011. “Balanced Diets.” Lapham’s Quarterly (Summer).
Nathan Nunn and Nancy Qian. 2010. “The Columbian Exchange: A History of Diseases, Food and Ideas.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 24 (2): 163-188.
Pringle, Heather. 1998. “Reading the Signs of Ancient Animal Domestication.” Science 282 (5393): 1448.
Pringle, Heather. 1998. “The Slow Birth of Agriculture.” Science 282 (5393): 1446.
Smith, Bruce D. 2006. “Eastern North America as an Independent Center of Plant Domestication.” Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences of the United States 103 (33): 12223-12228.
Chapter 7: Biodiversity and the Technology of Cooking: Uncultivated foods and the technology of cooking / Chapter 8: Uncultivated Greens – the Nutritional Values / Chapter 9. Uncultivated foods and daily diets in Farhad Mazhar, Daniel Buckles, P.V. Satheesh, and Farida Akhter. Food Sovereignty and Uncultivated Biodiversity in South Asia: Essays on the Poverty of Food Policy and the Wealth of the Social Landscape. Academic Foundation/IDRC International Development Research Centre, 2007.
Ferguson, Donna. 2021. “How early humans’ quest for food stoked the flames of evolution.” The Guardian (March 7).
Thadeusz, Frank. 2009. “Alcohol’s Neolithic Origins: Brewing Up a Civilization.” Spiegel Online, December 24.
University of Sheffield. “Why did hunter-gatherers first begin farming?” Phys.org (May 16).
McHugo, Gilles P., Michael J. Dover and David E. MacHugh. 2019. “Unlocking the Origins and Biology of Domestic Animals Using Ancient DNA and Paleogenomics.” BMC Biology volume 17, Article 98.
• Transition towards the Modern Era
Adams, Edward Francis and Louis Adelbert Clinton. 1899. The Modern Farmer in his Business Relations: A Study of Some of the Principles underlying the Art of Profitable Farming and Marketing, and of the Interests of Farmers as Affected by Modern Social and Economic Conditions and Forces. San Francisco: N.J. Stone Company, pp. 11-17.
Crowley, Terry. 2004. ‘[Victorian] Agriculture‘ and ‘Rural Labourers in the Victorian Era‘ in James Eli Adams, Tom Pendergast and Sara Pendergast (eds). The Encyclopedia of the Victorian Era. 4 vols. Grolier Academic Press.
Eh.Net Encyclopedia of Economic and Business History
– Stead, David. 2004. “Agricultural Tenures and Tithes.”
– Stewart, James I. 2008. “The Economics of American Farm Unrest, 1865-1900.”
– Law, Marc T. 2004 “History of Food and Drug Regulation in the United States.”
• Green Revolution (History)
– General
Science Direct – Green Revolution
Wikipedia – Green Revolution
Pingali, Prabhu L. 2012. “Green Revolution: Impacts, Limits, and the Path Ahead.” PNAS 109 (31) 12302-12308.
“Fueling the Green Revolution.” U.S. Department of Agriculture & Agricultural Research Service, October 10, 2003.
Hazell, Peter B. R. 2002. Green Revolution: Curse or blessing? IFPRI.
Borlaug, Norman E. 1970. “The Green Revolution, Peace, and Humanity.” Nobel Lecture, December 11.
– Norman Borlaug
by Norman Borlaug
Borlaug, Norman E. 2002. “Feeding a World of 10 Billion People: Our 21st Century Challenge.” Inaugural lecture, Borlaug Lecture Series, Iowa State University, October 15.
Borlaug, Norman. 2000. “Ending World Hunger. The Promise of Biotechnology and the Threat of Antiscience Zealotry“. Plant Physiology 124: 487–90.
about Norman Borlaug
“Norman Borlaug” Wikipedia
“Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Norman Borlaug.” Medal of Freedom.com.
Zeyen, Richard. “Yaqui Valley Farmers Provide Eternal Resting Place for Their Friend and Our Colleague, Norman Borlaug.”
Zeyen, Richard, Carol Ishimaru, Marty Dickman & Christine Richardson. “Norman Borlaug: Plant Pathologist/Humanitarian.”
Conko, Greg. 2009. “The Man Who Fed the World.” OpenMarket.org, September 13.
Hesser, Leon. 2006. The Man Who Fed the World. Durban House Publishing.
Miller, Henry I. 2006. “History and Culture: The Man Who Launched the Green Revolution.” Hoover Digest, no 4.
Murray H. Milford and ECA Runge. 2008. “Beachell and Borlaug: Two Giants of the American Society of Agronomy’s First Century.” Agronomy Journal 100 Supplement 3: S-1-S-3.
Phillips, Ronald L. 2013. Biographical Memoirs: Norman E. Borlaug 1914–2009. NAS Online.
– Critics
Brzezinski, Bartosz. 2022. “‘Time’s up’: Critics call for end to Western-funded food program in Africa.” Politico (September 13).
Mutsvangwa-Sammie, Eness Paidamoyo and Emmanuel Manzungu. 2021. “Unpacking the narrative of agricultural innovations as the sine qua non of sustainable rural livelihoods in Southern Africa.” Journal of Rural Studies 86” 181-188.
Vidal, John. 2014. “Norman Borlaug: humanitarian hero or menace to society?” The Guardian (April 1).
Philpott, Tom. 2011. “Book Review: Why the “Green Revolution” Was Not So Green After All.” Mother Jones (August 5).
Leonard, Andrew. 2009. “The Paradox of Norman Borlaug.” Salon, Sept. 14.
Rosset, Peter, et al. 2000. “Lessons from the Green Revolution.” Food First – Institute for Food and Development Policy, March/April.
FAO. 1997. Women: The Key to Food Security. Chapter “Women and the Green Revolution.”
Shiva, Vandana. 1991. “The Green Revolution in the Punjab.” The Ecologist, Vol. 21, No. 2, March-April.
– Supporters
DeWitt, Jack. 2021. “The Green Revolution’s ripple effect on other crops.” AgDaily (September 8)
Orr, Alastair. 2012. “Why were So Many Social Scientists Wrong about the Green Revolution? Learning from Bangladesh.” Journal of Development Studies 48 (11): 1565–1586.
Hazell, Peter. 2009. “Think Again: The Green Revolution.” Foreign Policy (September 22).
DeGregori, Thomas R. 2004. “Green Myth vs the Green Revolution.” Butterflies and Wheels (February 5).
• Recent Controversies
Potrykus, Ingo. 2005. “Missing a Golden Rice opportunity.” The Economic Times, December 26.
Taverne, Dick. 2007. “The Real GM Food Scandal.” Prospect Magazine, November.
Ropeik, David. 2014. “Golden Rice Opponents Should Be Held Accountable for Health Problems Linked to Vitamin A Deficiency.” Scientific American (Blog) (March 15).
Bailey, Ronald. 2019. “Life-Saving Golden Rice Finally Gets to Poor Farmers Despite Environmentalist Opposition.” Reason (March 7).
• Modern Agriculture
“Agricultural Mechanization.” Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century. National Academy of Engineering. 2000.
USDA Economics Research Service. 2010. Agricultural Productivity in the United States.
USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. 2010. Family Farms Overview.
GB Tripletta and Warren A Dick. 2008. “No-Tillage Crop Production: A Revolution in Agriculture!” Agronomy Journal 100 Supplement 3: S153-S165. (Abstract, Introduction, History).
Otsuka, Keijiro, Yuko Nakano, Kazushi Takahashi. 2016. “Contract Farming in Developed and Developing Countries.” Annual Review of Resource Economics 8: 353-376.
Spielman, David J., and Rajul Pandya-Lorch. 2009. Highlights from Millions Fed: Proven Successes in Agricultural Development. IFPRI. (Full text and other documentation available at Millions Fed: Proven Successes in Agricultural Development IFPRI).
Dimitri, Carolyn, Anne Effland, & Neilson Conklin. “The 20th Century Transformation of U.S. Agriculture and Farm Policy.” U.S. Department of Agriculture, Electronic Information Bulletin Number 3, June 2005.
SUGGESTED LINKS
• General
Agropolis Museum – Food and Agricultures of the World
Animated Stats. 2021. The World’s Largest Food Exporters (By Value in U.S. Dollar).
• Transition to Modern Era
Wessels Living History Farm (York, Nebraska)
• Green Revolution
A short video in which Norman Borlaug explains his work and the future of agricultural science.
The Norman Borlaug Heritage Foundation
American Experience. 2020. “The Man who Tried to Feed the World.”
REQUIRED VIDEOs
LECTURE 4
Wheat
– BBC Scotland. 2012. How to Grow a Planet – Episode 3: The Challenger (Göbekli Tepe and the domestication of wheat).
– USDA. Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution
University of Queensland. 2019. “Wheat Myth Debunked.” EurekAlert (June 17).
Corn (maize)
– Iowa State University Research Foundation. 1991. The Hybrid Corn Miracle
Ryan, Cami. 2019. “Farmers Grow More with Less and That’s Good News for Everyone!” (July 27).
CIMMYT. 2016. “From Mexico to the World.” (May 20).
LECTURE 5
Rice
– Riso Amaro (1949)
– Allow Golden Rice Now. 2013. “Allow Golden Rice Now!“
Potatoes
– Hill Tribe TV. 2012. QV Foods: Growing Potatoes, from Field to Supermarket.
– 4000 Types of Potatoes in Peru – Peruvian Potatoes – Vicky The Gastronaut: Peru – Ep 06 – Mistura (Related videos here, here and here)
LECTURE 6
Soybean
-. 2007. Forgotten Genius: Percy Lavon Julian, NOVA (Video here from 1:24:19- 1:30:53)
Atlas Pro
– Geography of Fruits I
– Geography of Fruits II
– Geography of Livestock
– Geography of Spices
Fruits – General Overview
Atlas Pro. 2018. The Geography of Fruit
Tomato
– Tomato sorter
Orchards
British Pathé – Home Drive For Food – Britain’s Harvest 1947 (1947).
WPSU. 2009. Apple Grafting.
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. 2019. “Exploring the Origins of the Apple.” Frontier Science News (August 28).
Grapes and Wine
Discovery News. “What Ancient Wine Tasted Like.” (June 11, 2013).
LECTURE 7
Entomophagy
– BBC Four. 2013. “Can Eating Insects Save the World.” (March 13).
– The Economist. 2014. Why eating insects makes sense.
Livestock
British Pathé – Horse Meat Scandal (1948).
Honeybees
Wrong. 2017. What Happened to the Beepocalypse?
LECTURE 8
Fisheries
Breakthrough Institute. “Plenty of Fish on the Farm.”
Fortune. 2018. Made-in-China Caviar.
Recap
LindyBeige. 2011. “What is Wrong with this Picture?“
Cotton
PYCO – Cottonseed: The Inside Story.
REQUIRED READINGS
Canadian Food Inspection Agency
LECTURE 4
• Commodity Markets
Kearns, K. S. 2013/2006. Commodity Trading. Canadian Encyclopedia.
• Plants
-Overview
Maxham, Amanda. 2018. “Who should we thank for all those wonderful fruits and vegetables? ‘Not Mother Nature’” Genetic Literacy Project (October 2).
– Interactive Websites (browse)
CIAT (International Center for Tropical Agriculture). Where our Food Crops Come From.
Canada Food Inspection Agency. Varieties of Crop Kinds Registered in Canada.
GRAINS
“About Good in Every Grain” (Grain Farmers of Ontario).
– Wheat
Mejia, Paul. 2018. “Found: 14,400-Year-Old Flatbread Remains That Predate Agriculture. The burned crumbs shed light on prehistoric hunter-gatherers’ diets.” Atlas Obscura (July 16).
Leech, Caleb. 2016. “Survival and Adaptation: Bonnefont’s Corne Field.” The Met (June 23).
Gary M. Paulsen and James P. Shroyer. 2008. “The Early History of Wheat Improvement in the Great Plains.” Agronomy Journal Vol. 100 No. Supplement_3, p. S-70-S-78.
Fedak, George. 2015. “Marquis Wheat.” Canadian Encyclopedia.
“Fueling the Green Revolution.” U.S. Department of Agriculture & Agricultural Research Service, October 10, 2003.
– Corn
Behrens, David. 2021. “Yields for Corn and Other Crops Show Steady Improvement.” Human Progress (February 2).
(Browse) National Corn Growers Association (USA. World of Corn).
International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. “Maize.”
LECTURE 5
– Rice
UCL Rice Project. “Debating the Origins of Rice.”
Aschaiek, Sharon. 2016. “UTM Professor Discovers New Origins for Farmed Rice.” UTM News (June 22).
Ewbank, Anne. 2018. “How Killer Rice Crippled Tokyo and the Japanese Navy.” Atlas Obscura (February 22).
May, Paul. 2017. “Vitamin B1 (Thiamine). Deficiency of this causes beriberi.” Molecule of the Month.
The World Food Prize
– 1996: Beachell and Khush
– 2004: Jones and Yuan Longping
Zagado, Ronan. 2022. “Vitamin-A enhanced Golden Rice seeds distributed for planting for the first time in the Philippines.” Philippine Rice Research Institute (May 4).
PULSES
Alliance Grain Traders, “History of Pulses.”
Ewbank, Anne. 2018. “Why Beans Were an Ancient Emblem of Death.” Atlas Obscura (May 25).
ROOT & TUBER CROPS
– Potato
Foodland Ontario (Food Facts)
– Potatoes
Mann, Charles. 2011. “How the Potato Changed the World.” Smithsonian Magazine (November).
Jula, Megan. 2017. “The Ancient Andean Tradition of Eating Clay May Have Helped To Protect Health.” NPR.org (November 28).
Nunn, Nathan and Nancy Qian. 2009. “Potatoes, the fruit of the earth.” Vox (August 5).
Fine, Julia. 2019. “In India, the British Hyped Potatoes to Justify Colonialism.” Atlas Obscura (April 9).
– Sweet Potato
Fox, Alex. 2018. “Sweet Potato Migrated to Polynesia Thousands of Years before People Did. Vegetable’s travels deepen mystery about timing of first contact between people in Americas and the South Pacific.” Nature News (April 20).
ArgenPapa. 2018. “China: China and the Sweet Potato.” (November 13).
LECTURE 6
OILSEEDS
The Canadian Encyclopedia
– Oilseed crops
– Soybeans
Cloutier, Jeannine. 2017. “VISTA on the Agri-food Industry and the Farm Community. Soy Story: A Short History of Glycine max in Canada.” Statistics Canada (March 3).
Coughlin, Alison. 2020. “Why Brazil Has Grown as a Soybean Producer.” Seeking Alpha (July 28).
USDA Foreign Agricultural Service. Soybean 2022World Production: 391,169 (1000 MT).
– Canola
The Canadian Encyclopedia
– Canola
FRUITS & VEGETABLES
Katinka Weinberger and Thomas A. Lumpkin. 2005. Horticulture for Poverty Alleviation. The Unfunded Revolution. AVRDC (The World Vegetable Center) Working Paper #15 – Executive Summary.
Tonie Fitzgerald. 2005. Pollination of Fruit Trees. Washington State University – Spokane County Extension.
– Cucurbits
Foodland Ontario (Food Facts)
– Greenhouse cucumbers
– Apples
Atlas Obscura. “The Last Wild Apple Forests. Granny Smiths, Fujis, and Pink Ladies can all be traced back to Kazakhstan, where apples still grow wild.”
Flaccus, Gillian. 2020. “10 Pioneer-era Apple Types Thought Extinct Found in US West.” AP News (April 15).
Wallace, Eric J. 2021. “Meet the Appalachian Apple Hunter Who Rescued 1,000 ‘Lost’ Varieties.” Atlas Obscura (June 3).
Foodland Ontario (Food Facts)
– Apples
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs – Recommended Apple Varieties for Ontario
– Bananas
Facts and Details. 2011. Bananas: Their History, Cultivation and Production.
Vézina, Anne. 2017. “The Hidden Side of Banana Diversity.” Pro Musa (October 24).
Mayyasi, Alex. 2019. “When New Yorkers Were Menaced by Banana Peels.” Atlas Obscura (July 24).
Ploetz, Randy C. 2005. “Panama Disease: An Old Nemesis Rears Its Ugly Head. Part 1. The Beginnings of the Banana Export Trades.” Plant Health Progress (August).
Thompson, Stuart. 2019. “The Quest to Save the Banana from Extinction.” The Conversation (April 18).
Admin. 2014. “Attack of the Killer Bananas? Hardly.” ACSH News (July 2).
OTHERS
– Sugar
Sugar Association – History of Sugar
Tupy, Marian L. and Gale Pooley. 2021. “Life Has Gotten Sweeter – Literally!” Human Progress (July 1).
Silcoff, Sean. 2012. “Bitter battle rages over Canada’s sugar industry.” The Globe and Mail, June 24.
– Palm Oil
Poku, Kwasi. 2002. Small-Scale Palm Oil Processing in Africa, Chapter 2: Oil Palm.
– Oaks
“The oak forest on Visingsö.” JKPG.com.
Leggett, Ben. 2015. “Understanding Oak Barrel Maturation – Part 3: Location, Location, Location.” Distillery Trail (June 30).
LECTURE 7
• Animals
Domesticated Land Animals
– Cannibalism
Jennifer Viegas. 2010. “First Cannibals Ate Each Other for Extra Nutrition.” Discovery Channel News (August 26).
– Entomophagy
BBC News. 2013. “Insect diet: Fancy Cricket Risotto or Mealworm Cake?” (August 23).
FAO. 2013. The Contribution of Insects to Food Security, Livelihoods and the Environment. (May 12).
– History
Breeds of Livestock – Oklahoma State University
Avery, Dennis. 2010. “When Sheep didn’t have Wool.” CFACT News, November 26.
Phelan, Benjamin. 2012. “The Most Spectacular Mutation in Recent Human History – How did milk help found Western civilization?” Slate (Oct.23).
Melletti, Mario. 2016. “Cattle Domestication: from Aurochs to Cow.” Fifteen Eighty-Four (February 18).
Steak School. “What’s the Difference Between Beef Taurus and Beef Indicus?“
Howard, Jacqueline. 2014. “Chickens Look Way Different Today, And Here’s The Reason Why.” Huffington Post (October 21).
Smil, Vaclav. 2019. “How Chicken Beat Beef in America. It was deemed the healthier alternative, and it was undoubtedly cheaper.” IEEE Spectrum (December 26).
– Recent Trends
Ritchie, Hannah et al. 2019. Meat and Dairy Production – Our World in Data.
Dowding, Heather. 2008. “Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation.” In Cutler J. Cleveland (ed). Encyclopedia of the Earth.
FAO. 2007. “Industrial livestock production threatens animal diversity – UN.” UN News (June 14).
Zielinski, Sarah. 2014. “Bees and Wasps in Britain Have Been Disappearing For More Than a Century.” Smithsonian Magazine (December 11).
Miller, Henry. 2015. “Viewpoint: The new bee crisis is just like the old one: Phony.” Genetic Literacy Project (May 13).
Nelson, Daniel. 2018. “Lab Grown Meat May Soon Be Available To General Public.” Science Trends (September 24).
LECTURE 8
Fisheries, Seafood and Aquaculture
– Overview
Ritchie, Hannah and Max Roser. 2021. Fish and Overfishing – Our World in Data.
– Fisheries
Pauly, Daniel and Dirk Zeller. 2010. “Marine Fisheries.” In Cutler J. Cleveland (ed). Encyclopedia of the Earth.
GDAE, Jonathan M. Harris and Anne-Marie Codur. 2008. “Economics of Fisheries.” In Cutler J. Cleveland (ed). Encyclopedia of the Earth.
– Aquaculture
Encyclopedia Britannica. 1911. “Pisciculture.”
Smil, Vaclav. 2021. “Farming Fish.” IEEE Spectrum (May): 20-21.
SUGGESTED READINGS
• Overview
Foodland Ontario, Food Facts
Kluyver, Thomas A., Glynis Jones, Benoît Pujol, Christopher Bennett, Emily J. Mockford, Michael Charles, Mark Rees and Colin P. Osborne. 2017. “Unconscious Selection Drove Seed Enlargement in Vegetable Crops.” Evolution Letters (1-2): 64-72.
• Commodity Trading
Eh.Net Encyclopedia of Economic and Business History
– Santos, Joseph. 2008. “A History of Futures Trading in the United States.”
• Plants
-Wheat
J. M. Prescott, P. A. Burnett, E. E. Saari, J. Ranson, J. Bowman, W. de Milliano, R. P. Singh, G. Bekele. Wheat Diseases and Pests: A Guide for Field Identification. International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center.
Olmstead, Alan L., & Paul W. Rhode, “Biological Globalization: The Other Grain Invasion,” in Timothy J. Hatton, Kevin O’Rourke, & Alan M. Taylor, (eds.), The New Comparative Economic History: Essays in Honor of Jeffrey G. Williamson (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007), pp. 115-140.
University of Nebraska–Lincoln. 2010. Wheat Disease Management.
Lupton, F. “Advances in work on breeding wheat with improved grain quality in the twentieth century.” The Journal of Agricultural Science (2005), 143: 113-116.
Symko, Stephan. 1999. From a single seed Tracing the Marquis wheat success story in Canada to its roots in the Ukraine. Web Publication of Research Branch Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
Guarino, Ben. 2018. “Scientists Have Discovered The Earliest Evidence of Bread, And It’s Much Older Than We Expected.” Washington Post (July 17).
US National Park Service. Wheat Farms, Flour Mills, and Railroads: A Web of Interdependence (Teaching with Historic Places).
Breahaut, Laura. 2022. “How a single Ukrainian grain made its way to Canada and launched Canadian wheat. ‘The entire development of Canada’s wheat industry, the most renowned in the world, is due mainly to a single Ukrainian grain of wheat.’” National Post (May 22).
Symko, Stephan. 1999. From a single seed: tracing the Marquis Wheat success story in Canada to its roots in the Ukraine. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
Kovak, Emma et al. 2022. “The World’s First Genetically Engineered Wheat Is Here. Argentina’s new genetically engineered, drought-tolerant wheat could have large environmental benefits.” The Breakthrough (April 4).
-Corn
Claudia Reinhardt and Bill Ganzel. 2003. “The Science of Hybrids.” Living History Farm (York, Nebraska).
Learn Genetics. Date Unknown. “Evolution of Corn.” University of Utah.
Briggs, Rachel V. 2015. “Everything You Ever Needed to Know About Nixtamalization But Didn’t Know to Ask.” All Things Hominy (October 8).
Ongu, Isaac and Emma Kovac. 2022. “Limits to Adoption of Genetically Engineered Maize in Africa. Farmers can’t grow what they can’t afford.” The Breakthrough (March 2).
– Rice
Wu, Shellen X. 2021. “Yuan Longping (1930–2021). Crop scientist whose high-yield hybrid rice fed billions.” Nature (June 24).
– Soybeans
Gibson, Lance, and Garren Benson. 2005. “Origin, History, and Uses of Soybean (Glycine max).” Iowa State University, Department of Agronomy.
“How Soybeans are Used.” North Carolina Soybean Producers Association, Inc.
“Trends in U.S. Agriculture – Oats and Soybeans.” National Agricultural Statistics Service, United States Department of Agriculture.
– Potato
McNeill, William H. 1999. “How the Potato changed World History.” Social Research 66 (1): 67-83.
Earle, Rebecca. 2019. “A Brief History of That Most Noble Tuber, the Potato.” Lit Hub (March 28).
– Sweet Potato
Perez Garcia, Manuel. 2018. “Challenging National Narratives: On the Origins of Sweet Potato in China as Global Commodity During the Early Modern Period.” In Manuel Perez Garcia and Lucio De Sousa (eds). Global History and New Polycentric Approaches. Europe, Asia and the Americas in a World Network System. Springer, pp. 53-80.
– Brassica
Cheng, F., Wu, J., Cai, C. et al. 2016. “Genome resequencing and comparative variome analysis in a Brassica rapa and Brassica oleracea collection.” Scientific Data 3, 160119.
– Apple
Warren, Emily. 2020. “How Former Samurai and Farmers Cultivated the First Japanese Apples. Famous fruits, including the Fuji apple, were the result of decades of effort.” Gastro Obscura (August 14).
– Grapes
Curry, Andrew. 2017. “Oldest Evidence of Winemaking Discovered at 8,000-Year-Old Village.” National Geographic (November 13).
– Bananas
Mihm, Stephen. 2017. “The Bananapocalypse Is Nigh. The failure to diversify makes the world’s favorite fruit vulnerable to a wipeout.” Bloomberg Opinion (December 21).
Solly, Meilan. 2019. “A Banana-Destroying Fungus Has Arrived in the Americas.” Smithsonian Magazine (August 13).
Frost, Natasha. 2018. “A Quest for the Gros Michel, the Great Banana of Yesteryear.” Gastro Obscura (February 28).
– Sugar
Galloway, Jock. H. The Sugar Cane Industry: An Historical Geography from its Origins to 1914. Cambridge University Press (Introduction).
Galloway, Jock. 2000. “Sugar.” In Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas (eds). The Cambridge World History of Food, Cambridge University Press, pp. 437-449.
-Tea
Sonnad, Nikhil. 2018. “Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea.” Quartz (January 11).
-Cotton
Brazeau, Marc. 2018. “Edible Cotton: How genetically modified cottonseed could revolutionize food and feed production.” Genetic Literacy Project (November 14).
-Grasslands
Hopkins, A., and R. J. Wilkins. “Temperate grassland: key developments in the last century and future perspectives.” The Journal of Agricultural Science (2006), 144: 503-523.
• Animals
– Entomophagy
Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO). 2013. Edible Insects – Future Prospects for Food and Feed Security. FAO Forestry Paper.
Bryce, Emma. 2014. “Foodies Unite: Insects Should Be More Food Than Fad.” The Guardian (May 20).
Orlowski, Andrew. 2021. “Let Them Eat Bugs: The elites’ war on meat has taken a disgusting turn.” Spiked (December 30).
Hunter, Gina Louise. 2021. Edible Insects: A Global History . Reaktion Books.
– Domesticated Land Animals
-Overview
Ahmad, Hafiz Ishfaq et al. 2020. “The Domestication Makeup: Evolution, Survival, and Challenges.” Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 8: 103.
Smil, Vaclav. 2002. “Eating Meat: Evolution, Patterns and Consequences,” Population and Development Review 28 (4): 599-639.
Thornton, Philip K. 2010. “Livestock Production: Recent Trends, Future Prospects.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (Biological Sciences) 365 (1554) (September 27): 2853-2867.
– Pigs
Giuffra E. et al. 2000. “The Origin of the Domestic Pig: Independent Domestication and Subsequent Introgression.” Genetics 154: 1785–1791.
Ontario Federation of Anglers & Hunters. Undated. Wild Pigs in Ontario.
Newcomb, Tim. 2023. “Highly Intelligent and Possibly Invincible Super Pigs Are Invading America Don’t say we didn’t warn you.” Popular Mechanics (February 21).
Marshall, Sage. 2023. “Population Explosion of Canadian “Super Pigs” Could Spread Into the Northern U.S. A cross between wild boars and domestic pigs, these feral swine can survive cold climates and could create a whole new pig problem for northern states.” Field and Stream (January 18).
– Dairy Products
Hart, Amalyah. 2021. “Toasting a big week for ancient gastronomy. Gourmet goodies found in centuries-old Austrian and Byzantine sites.” Cosmos (October 14).
-Taurus and Bubalus
Hubbell, Diana. 2022. “The Once-Extinct Aurochs May Soon Roam Europe Again. After a decade, scientists are getting close to bringing back the massive wild cattle.” Gastro Obscura (January 26).
Schulz, Matthias. 2010. “Neolithic Immigration: How Middle East Milk Drinkers Conquered Europe.” Der Spiegel (October 15).
Critchell, James and Raymond Joseph Troubridge. 1912. A History of the Frozen Meat Trade: An account of the development and present day methods of preparation, transport, and marketing of frozen and chilled meats. London: Constable & Company Ltd., pp. 1-17.
Hamad Minervino, Antonio Humberto et al. 2020. “Bubalus bubalis: A Short Story.” Frontiers in Veterinary Science 7: 570413.
Zhang, Y. et al. 2020. “Asian water buffalo: Domestication, history and genetics.” Animal Genetics 51 (2): 177-191.
Naveena B. Maheswarappa, Naveena B. et al. 2022. Asiatic Water Buffalo: A Sustainable and Healthy Red Meat Source. Springer.
-Livestock and Environmental Issues
UN FAO 2010. The State of Food and Agriculture 2009: Livestock in the Balance.
Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production. 2008. Final Report: Putting Meat on The Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America.
– Chicken
Bower, Bruce. 2022. “Domestic chickens’ origin story may have begun about 3,500 years ago.” Science News (June 6).
-Bees
Randal R. Rucker and Walter N. Thurman. 2012. Colony Collapse Disorder: The Market Response to Bee Disease. PERC Policy Series: PS-50.
– Honeybees
ACSH News. 2014. “Jon Entine Debunks Theory Linking Neonic Pesticides to Honeybee Collapse.” (November 26).
Zielinski, Sarah. 2014. “Bees and Wasps in Britain Have Been Disappearing For More Than a Century.” Smithsonian Magazine (December 11).
Roberts, Owen. 2017. “Beepocalypse not now: Canada’s honeybee colonies up 10% in 2017 to record high.” Toronto Star (June 29).
Regan, Shawn. 2017. “How Capitalism Saved the Bees. A decade after colony collapse disorder began, pollination entrepreneurs have staved off the beepocalypse.” Reason (August/September).
Entine, Jon. 2018. “Honeybee Population isn’t ‘Crashing’ and Seed Pesticides are not Driving Health Problems-and Here’s Why.” Genetic Literacy Project (April 17).
Porterfield, Andrew. 2018 “Viewpoint: No, wild bees haven’t been decimated by neonicotinoids, glyphosate.” Genetic Literacy Project (September 18).
– Fisheries, Seafood and Aquaculture
– Fisheries
* Overview
UN FAO. 2004. The State of the World Fisheries
Welcomme, Robin L. et al. 2010. “Inland Capture Fisheries” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (Biological Sciences) 365 (1554) (September): 2881-2896.
Bostock, John et al. 2010. “Aquaculture: Global Status and Trends.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (Biological Sciences) 365 (1554) (September): 2897-2912.
GreenFacts.org. 2014. “Fisheries and aquaculture.” In Cutler J. Cleveland (ed). Encyclopedia of the Earth.
FAO. 2020. The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2020. In brief. Sustainability in action. Rome. (Note: The full report and an interactive website are also available).
* Problems and solutions
OECD. 2010. While Stocks Last?
Burnett, H. Sterling. Ph.D. 2007. “Ocean Fisheries: Common Heritage or Tragic Commons?” Brief Analysis No. 581, National Center for Policy Analysis, February 27.
Ellis, Richard. 2008. “The Bluefin Tuna in Peril.” Scientific American, June 24.
Garcia, Serge M. and Andrew Rosenberg. 2010. “Food Security and Marine Capture Fisheries: Characteristics, Trends, Drivers and Future Perspectives” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (Biological Sciences) 365 (1554) (September): 2869-2880.
Gissurarson, Hannes. 2000. Overfishing: the Icelandic Solution. London: Institute of Economic Affairs.
Hannesson, Rögnvaldur. “The Privatization of the Oceans.” The Independent Review, Vol. 11 No 3, Winter 2007.
Leal, Donald R. 2002. “Fencing the Fishery – A Primer on Ending The Race for Fish.” Property and Environment Research Center (PERC).
Safina, Carl. 2009 “A Future for US Fisheries” Issues in Science and Technology 25 (4), (Summer).
Marra, John. 2005. “When will we tame the oceans?” Nature 436: 175-176, 14 July.
– Aquaculture
* Historical Perspective
Geoffrey Kron. 2005. “Possible Evidence for the Aquaculture of Tilapia in GrecoRoman Antiquity.” Revue d’histoire comparée de l’environnement.
Herminio R. Rabanal. 1988. “History of Aquaculture.” FAO.
Whit Richardson. 2011. “The Mastery of Fish.” Lapham’s Quarterly (Summer).
* Overview and controversies
AIMS & CAI. 2006. Aquaculture: The Blue Revolution. Autumn 2006.
Halweil, Brian. 2008. “Farming Fish for the Future.” WorldWatch Report 176.
FAO – IIRR – World Fish Center. 2001. Integrated agriculture-aquaculture – A primer. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper #407.
Alder, Jacqueline, Brooke Campbell, Vasiliki Karpouzi, Kristin Kaschner, and Daniel Pauly. 2008. “Forage Fish: From Ecosystems to Markets.” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 33: 153-166.
Naylor, Rosamond & Marshall Burke. 2005. “Aquaculture and Ocean Resources: Raising Tigers of the Sea.” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 30: 185-218.
Rosamond L. Naylor et al. 2009. “Feeding Aquaculture in an Era of Finite Resources.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106 (36): 15103?15110.
“Half Of Fish Consumed Globally Is Now Raised On Farms, Study Finds.” ScienceDaily, Sep. 8, 2009.
– Canada fisheries and aquaculture
Bavington, Dean. 2010. Managed Annihilation. An Unnatural History of the Newfoundland Cod Collapse
Introduction and chapter 1
Young, Nathan and Ralph Matthews. 2010. Aquaculture Controversy in Canada. UBC Press.
Introduction and chapter 1: aquaculture in global context
Neill, Robin. 2006. “It Is Farming, Not Fishing: Why Bureaucrats and Environmentalists Miss the Point of Canadian Aquaculture.” How to Farm the Seas (Paper # 4), Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS), April.
SUGGESTED LINKS
• Plants
– General
USDA. National Agricultural Library Plants and Crops
– Potato
International Year of the Potato
International Potato Center (CGIAR center)
The Potato Museum
Ontario Potato Board
– Ontario Potatoes
– Growing Potatoes
– Potato Varieties
– FAQs
– Corn
Dolan DNA Learning Center (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
– Explosives Origins of Corn
– Maize (Corn) Genome Completed
National Corn Growers Association (USA)
– Rice
Allow Golden Rice Now
– Pulse
Pulse Canada
• Chocolat
Smithsonian.com “Chocolate Week”
• Animals
– Entomophagy
UN FAO on Edible Forest Insects
– Land Animals
USDA. National Agricultural Library Animals and Livestock
Pew Commission on Industrial Animal Farm Production
Oklahoma State University – Breeds of Livestock
– Fisheries, Seafood and Aquaculture
USDA. National Agricultural Library. Aquaculture
UN FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department
The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy
Breakthrough Institute. “Plenty of Fish on the Farm.”
• Videos
Sushi and the End of the Southern Bluefish Tuna (2009)
Required Videos
LECTURE 9
Video: USDA (World War II): Victory Garden (watch from 10:20 to 12:45; 13:56 to 16:50).
ACSH. 2014. Enjoy your Holiday Dinner – Chemicals and All! (November 25).
CSIRO. 2018. “Rust: The Fungi that Attacks Plants.”
British Pathé
– The Locust Battle (1930) (Palestine)
– Morocco – Locusts Invasion (1954)
DW News. 2020. “India and Pakistan face worst locust plague in 30 years.” (May 29, 2020).
LECTURE 10
- Fertilizers
Johan Norberg’s New and Improved – Artificial Fertilizers. 2022. Free to Choose Network (April 27).
Human Progress. 2020. Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch: The Inventors of the Haber-Bosch Process | Heroes of Progress | Ep. 2 – YouTube.
- Food waste
CBC News. “Canadians get creative in solving food waste problem.” (August 29, 2018).
Intermarche. 2014. “Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables.”
Required readings
LECTURE 9
• Overview
Douglas, David and Linus Blomqvist. 2016. Undated. “Is Precision Agriculture the Way to Peak Cropland? The Unsung Hero of Agricultural Innovation.” Breakthrough Institute.
Bryce, Emma. 2018. “Sustainable Intensification is no Longer an Oxymoron. It could be the future.” Anthropocene (September 7).
• Water
Cowen, Richard. Essays on Geology, History and People. (Under contract with Johns Hopkins University Press), Ch 17 (“Ancient Irrigation”).
Molden, David, Charlotte de Fraiture and Frank J. Rijsberman. 2007. “Water Scarcity: The Food Factor.” Issues in Science and Technology 23 (4) (Summer).
• Refrigeration
“Yakhchals – Ancient structures used to make and preserve ice in the deserts of Persia.” Atlas Obscura.
Mirza, Meher. 2018. “The British Couldn’t Take India’s Heat, So They Imported Ice From New England.” Atlas Obscura (September 12).
Tenner, Edward. 2014. “The Refrigerator’s Cool Century.” The American (July 3).
• Animal Reproductive Technologies
Traverso, Vittoria. 2019. “The Egyptian Egg Ovens Considered More Wondrous Than the Pyramids. A hatching system devised 2,000 years ago is still in use in rural Egypt.” Atlas Obscura (March 29).
USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Animal Reproduction: Research in Assisted Reproductive Technologies.
Poultry Hub. “Incubation.”
• Veterinary Medicine
(Browse) World Organisation for Animal Health “Animal Disease Information Summaries.”
– Rinderpest
OIE (World Organization for Animal Health)
– Overvie
– Eradication
– Post-eradication
– World disease-free status
– International Collaboration
– Resources
FAO. 2017. Rinderpest Factsheet: Maintaining Global Freedom from Rinderpest
Normile, Dennis. 2010. “Deadly Cattle Disease Eradicated.” ScienceNOW, October 14.
• Seeds
Hurst, Blake. 2010. “Green Menace: To Saddle Hungry Haitians with American Romanticism about Agriculture is the Worst Kind of Imperialism.” The American (July).
Malhotra, Bharti. 2021. “Global vegetable seeds market is increasingly fragmented and diversified.” IHS Markit (November 3).
Karlsson, Ida. 2016. “Climate-Resistant Beans Could Save Millions.” ISP News (December).
• Pest Management
Unsworth, John. 2010. “History of Pesticide Use.” IUPAC.
Roser, Max. In Progress. “Pesticides.” Our World in Data.
U.S. Department of Agriculture. 2013. “Pesticide” in In Cutler J. Cleveland (ed.) Encyclopedia of the Earth.
Nelson, Douglas, and Alexander Rinkus. 2011. “The Hi-Tech Agriculture Imperative.” The American Magazine (November 8).
• Soil fumigation
USDA ARS. Soil fumigation.
Douglas Agricultural Services. Undated. Soil Fumigation: How it Works.
Soil Fumigants Website. About Soil Fumigants.
Government of Canada. Safety Measures for Soil Fumigant Products.
LECTURE 10
• Fertilizers
– General
Cornell, Joseph. D. 2010. “Fertilizer” In Cutler J. Cleveland (ed.). Encyclopedia of the Earth.
Fertilizer – The Canadian Encyclopedia.
Roser, Max and Hannah Ritchie. In progress. “Fertilizers.” Our World in Data. (Browse)
McGuire, Andrew. 2017. “Can Manure Supply Nitrogen and Phosphorus to Agriculture?” CSANR (Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources), Washington State University (September 7).
– Nitrogen
Cowen, Richard. Essays on Geology, History and People. (Under contract with Johns Hopkins University Press), Ch. 16 (“Guano,” “Nitrates”)
FitzGerald, Emmett. 2016. “Guano Mania.” 99% Invisible (December 6).
Morley, Tony. 2019. “Stuff of Progress, Pt. 1: Nitrogen.” Humanprogress.org (October 11).
– Potash
Potash – The Canadian Encyclopedia
– Phosphate
Van Kauwenbergh, Steven J. 2010. World Phosphate Rock Reserves and Resources. International Fertilizer Development Center (Executive Summary, pp. 11-12).
– Pesticides
Hurst, Blake. 2016. “So Many Regulations to Write, So Many Groups to Offend.” Agri-Pulse (June 17).
Burns, Carol J. 2019. Pesticide Facts: Farmers, Pesticides and Cancer (June 26).
Morley, Tony. 2019. “Stuff of Progress, Pt. 5: Chemical Pesticides.” Humanprogress.org (December 8).
• History of Greenhouses
Kohlstedt, Kurt. 2017. “Fruit Walls: Before Greenhouses, Walled Gardens Created Urban Micro-Climates.” 99% Invisible (October 23).
• Plasticulture
CIPA (Comité International des Plastiques en Agriculture). “Plasticulture: Definition.”
• Food Additive and Fortification
BASF. 2009. The Fortification of Food Staples.
Science Museum (UK). 2019. “Food: A Chemical History”
• Food waste
– Food waste is a serious problem
Institute of Mechanical Engineers. 2013. Global Food Waste Not, Want Not. Feeding the 9 Billion: The Tragedy of Waste.
Gustavsson, Jenny, Christel Cederberg, Ulf Sonesson, Robert van Otterdijk and Alexandre Meybeck. 2011. “Global Food Losses and Food Waste: Extent, Causes and Prevention.” FAO (Executive Summary).
Committee on World Security. 2014. “Food Losses and Waste in the Context of Sustainable Food Systems.” (Read the Policy Recommendations; Full Report available here.)
Jansen, Tiffany R. 2019. “Food Sharing Apps Won’t Solve Our Massive Food Waste Problem – Apps to help consumers divert leftovers from landfills may cut down on wasted food, but fail to address the societal norms at the heart of the issue.” Undark (July 2).
Taber, Sarah. 2019. “Farms aren’t tossing perfectly good produce. You are.” Washington Post (March 8).
– Food waste is exaggerated
Fassler, Joe. 2017. “We’ve all heard the staggering statistics about food waste. A new study says they’re wrong.” The New Food Economy (June 21).
Historian Rachel Laudan on food waste
– Isn’t It Crucial to Have Some Food ‘Waste’? (March 15, 2016)
– Why I Happily ‘Waste’ Food (March 30, 2017)
Lusk, Jayson. 2013. “Economically Optimal Food Waste.”
Bellemare, Marc F. 2017. “On the Measurement of Food Waste.”
Lieber, Chavie. 2019. “A Scientist on the Myth of Ugly Produce and Food Waste. Startups Misfits Market and Imperfect Produce say they’re rescuing food that would otherwise be wasted. Sarah Taber is calling bullshit.” Vox (February 26).
– Related issues
Prior, Matthew. 2019. “The Fat of the Land: Estimating the ecological costs of overeating.” Frontier Science News (August 23).
Splitter, Jenny. 2019. “What The Ugly Produce Debate Gets Wrong And What It Gets Right.” Forbes (March 27).
Suggested readings
• Fertilizers
Wikipedia
– Night soil
– Fertilizer
Brunt, Liam. 2007. “Where There’s Muck, There’s Brass: The Market for Manure in the Industrial Revolution.” The Economic History Review, Vol. 60 No. 2, pp. 333-372.
Frink, Charles R., Paul E. Waggoner, & Jesse H. Ausubel. “Nitrogen fertilizer: Retrospect and prospect.” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA Vol. 96, Issue 4, pp. 1175-1180, February 16, 1999.
Martinez, Ibsen. 2008. “Reflections from Latin America – Guano.” Library of Economics and Liberty, August 4.
Smil, Vaclav. 2012. “Jeremy Grantham, Starving for Facts.” The American Magazine (December 5).
Smil, Vaclav. 2005. “Nitrogen in modern European agriculture.” In: Scholliers, P., L. Van Molle and C. Sarasua, eds. Land, Shops and Kitchens: Technology and the Food Chain in Twentieth-Century Europe. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, pp. 110-119.
Fitzsimmons, Alex. 2016. “Will Humans Run Out of Fertilizer? It helped people spread and multiply. Now critics worry it’s destroying the planet. An Object Lesson.” The Atlantic (December 14).
• Pest Management
– Overview
Hayes’ Handbook of Pesticide Toxicology (Third Edition).
Sparks, Thomas C. 2013. “Insecticide Discovery: An Evaluation and Analysis.” Pesticide Biochemistry and Physiology 107: 8-17.
Insects and Other Arthropods, ARS Image Gallery.
Savage, Steven. 2016. “Ten Thousand New Reasons Not To Worry About Pesticide Residues.” Forbes (May 1).
Real Farm Lives. Undated. Five Common Pesticide Myths: Debunked.
– Historical perspective
Arnoult, Matthieu H. and Martin Lukac. 2018. “Food and Pesticides—A Brief History of Pesticides.” Conference: The Royal County of Berkshire Show 2018.
E.-C. Oerke. 2006. “Centenary Review: Crop Losses to Pests.” Journal of Agricultural Science 144: 31-43.
P.E. Russell. 2005. “Centenary Review: A Century of Fungicide Evolution.” Journal of Agricultural Science 145 (1): 11-25.
Matthews. G. A. 2018. A History of Pesticides. Cabi.
– Current practices and issues
National Research Council (Committee on Comparative Toxicity of Naturally Occurring Carcinogens). 1996. Carcinogens and Anticarcinogens in the Human Diet. A Comparison of Naturally Occurring and Synthetic Substances. National Academy Press.
Entine, Jon. 2011. Scared to Death. How Chemophobia Threatens Public Health. A Position Statement of The American Council on Science and Health. American Council on Science and Health.
Fernandez-Cornejo, Jorge et al. 2014. Pesticide Use in U.S. Agriculture: 21 Selected Crops, 1960-2008. USDA Economic Information Bulletin #124 (May).
Castellano-Hinojosa, Antonio et al. 2022. « Impact of fumigants on non-target soil microorganisms: A review. » Journal of Hazardous Materials 427: 128149.
– Organic pesticides
Avery, Alex A. 2006. Organic Pesticide Use: What we Know and don’t Know about Use, Toxicity, and Environmental Impacts. Crop Protection Products for Organic Agriculture. Washington, DC: American Chemical Society. pp. 58-77.
Bahlai, Christine A, Yingen Xue1, Cara M. McCreary, Arthur W. Schaafsma and Rebecca H. Hallett. 2010. “Choosing Organic Pesticides over Synthetic Pesticides May Not Effectively Mitigate Environmental Risk in Soybeans.” Plos One 5 (6).
– Locust Swarm in East Africa (2020)
Tren, Richard and Jasson Urbach. 2020. “The West’s Role in Africa’s Day of the Locust.” CapX (January 28).
Tren, Richard. 2020. “Green Colonialism in Africa Led to the Locust Plague.” Wall Street Journal (February 24).
BBC News. “In Pictures: Hundreds of billions of locusts swarm in East Africa.” (March 10).
Driessen, Paul. 2020. “The Real Reasons Africa Has Another Locust Plague.” Townhall.com (March 21).
World Food Programme. 2020. “‘The Locusts are a Moving Target and We are Racing against Time.” World Food Programme Insight (March 19).
Njoroge, James. 2020. “East Africa faces two plagues: Once-in-a-generation insect infestation and swarms of European activists trying to block the only effective tool, pesticides.” Genetic Literacy Project (February 18).
• Animal Diseases
(Browse) Cattle Diseases on CattleInfo.com
“Laying a global cattle killer to rest” BBC News, 20 May 2011.
“World declared “free” from deadly cattle disease” United Nations Radio, 28 June 2011.
“Global Rinderpest Eradication Programme” FAO.
“Disease Facts – Rinderpest” Institute for Animal Health.
Cattle Diseases and Conditions on TheCattleSite.com
• Seeds
Boudreaux, Karol. 2006. “Seeds of Hope: Agricultural Technologies and Poverty Alleviation in Rural South Africa.” Policy Comment No. 6, EnterpriseAfrica!, September 8.
Canadian Seed Trade Association. 1995. The Merchants of Seeds: A History of the Canadian Seed Industry.
A brief history of the UK seed producer Suttons
A brief history of the Gallatin Valley Seed Company
Tripp, Robert. 2002. Seed Provision & Agricultural Development: The Institutions of Rural Change. Overseas Development Institute.
Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. 2004. Report of the Seed Sector Advisory Committee.
Bonny, Sylvie. 2017. “Corporate Concentration and Technological Change in the Global Seed Industry.” Sustainability 9 (9: 1632).
Mordor Intelligence. 2021. Seed Market – Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2021 – 2026).
• Water
Salzman, James. 2006. “Thirst: A Short History of Drinking Water.” Duke Law School Faculty Scholarship Paper Series. Paper 31.
Smith, Fred. 2016. “Manage Water Like Oil To Increase Supply.” Forbes (July 7).
Wanzala, Justus. 2016. “Irrigation on Rise in Africa as Farmers Face Erratic Weather.” Thomson Reuters Foundation (September 9).
• Refrigeration
Campbell, Sophie. 2017. “Britain’s hidden ice houses offer a glimpse of a world before refrigeration.” The Telegraph (December 12).
Book, Joakim. 2020. “Ice was once only available to society’s wealthy elites.” Human Progress (June 15).
Krasner-Khait, Barbara. 2000. “The Impact of Refrigeration.” History Magazine (February-March) (excerpts).
Hammons, Alexander C. R. 2018. “The Icebox Cometh: How capitalism brought luxury to everyone.” CapX (January 10).
Heap, Robert. 2003. Refrigerated Transport: Progress Achieved and Challenges to be Met. 16th Informatory Note on Refrigerating Technologies. International Institute of Refrigeration, August.
• Food waste
– Overview
Smil, Vaclav. 2016. “Food Waste.” IEEE Spectrum (February): 25.
Huang, Ching-Hsu et al. 2020. “Understanding Global Food Surplus and Food Waste to Tackle Economic and Environmental Sustainability.” Sustainability 12 (7): 2892.
– Food Waste Hierarchy
US EPA. Food Waste Recovery Hierarchy.
Papargyropoulou, Effie et al. 2014. “The food waste hierarchy as a framework for the management of food surplus and food waste.” Journal of Cleaner Production 76 (1): 106-115.
– Policy Proposals and Controversies
Lau, Matthew. 2018. “End Food Waste, Starve a Dumpster Diver.” C2C (June 4).
Mull, Amanda. 2019. “The Murky Ethics of the Ugly-Produce Business. America’s wonkiest fruits and vegetables have ignited a food war.” The Atlantic (January 25).
Holtam, Phil. 2019. “Ugly Produce and Food Waste on Farms. There is an overwhelming concentration of power at the buyer end of our food system.” Feedback.
WWF. 2020. Driven to Waste: Global Food Loss on Farms.
Marchant, Natalie. 2021. « The world’s food waste problem is bigger than we thought – here’s what we can do about it.” WEF (March 26).
Smart Prosperity Institute. 2021. Background Materials for Circular Economy Sectoral Roadmaps: Agri-food (February).
Smart Prosperity Institute. 2021. Circular Food Solutions in Canada: A Coast to Coast Landscape Scan (October).
Smart Prosperity Institute. 2021. A Circular Agriculture and Agri-food Economy for Canada. A Report of the Clean Growth in Agriculture and Agri-food Project. (December).
– Technical Issues
UN FAO
- Global Food Losses and Food Waste – Extent, Causes and Prevention (2011)
- Food Loss and Waste Database
Bellemare, Marc F. et al. 2017. On the Measurement of Food Waste (Working Paper).
WRAP. 2018. UK food surplus and waste measurement and reporting guidelines.
Suggested links
• Animal Reproductive Technologies
USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Animal Reproduction
• Seeds
BBC4 and the British Museum. “Seed Industry Dodder Counting Machine.” A History of the World in 100 Objects.
Smithsonian Institutions Library on The American Seed and Nursery Industry
• Pest Management
American Phytopathological Society “Common Names of Plant Diseases“
Arthropod Pesticide Resistance Database
CBC News In Depth – The Pesticide Debate
Insecticide Resistance Action Committee
USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Pest Management
Weis, Judith. 2008. “DDT” In Cutler J. Cleveland (ed.) Encyclopedia of the Earth.
• Fertilizers
International Fertilizer Development Center
Global Phosphorus Research Initiative
• Overview
Breakthrough Institute. “Is Precision Agriculture the Way to Peak Cropland.”
• Nitrogen
Breakthrough Institute. “Fixing Nitrogen.”
• Food Waste
Food Systems Lab
Econtalk. 2017. “Rachel Laudan on food waste.” (December 4).
- The “policy controversies” lectures rotate a few topics from semester to semester. This time we will cover agriculture and the environment, meat production and biotechnologies (colloquially known as GMOs). I have left the lectures on “food security” at the end of this section for your information, but the topic will not be discussed this semester.
Required Videos
LECTURE 11
Environment
Noack, Rick. 2014. “Watch: How Europe is Greener now than 100 Years Ago.” Washington Post (December 4).
Meat
Meat the Truth. 2007 (Full video; Trailer).
Angus TV. 2012. “I Am Angus: Dr. Jude Capper, Washington State University.”
Tony Weis. 2012. “What are the Possible Solutions to Environmental Problems posed by Industrial Livestock Production?“
LECTURE 12
Biotechnologies and Organic
Stossel. “Would you Feast on Genetically Engineered Food?” (November 19, 2010).
Breakthrough Institute. 2018. “Fixing Nitrogen.”
Mangan, Mary. 2018. “‘Well Fed’: Dutch documentary challenges rich countries’ anti-GMO views.” Medium (April 10) (2:00 – 6:00).
Only Organic 2015. New MacDonald.
Human Progress. 2020. Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch: The Inventors of the Haber-Bosch Process | Heroes of Progress, episode 2.
Not covered in 2023
Locavorism and food security
Friend of the Earth Europe. 2014. Feeding Europe: food sovereignty and agro-ecology.
Hellmanns – Buy Canadian Local Food Commercial. 2012.
Marginal Revolution University. 2015. Are We Better Off If We Buy Local?
PBS Newshours. 2015. “What Cuba can teach America about organic farming.” (January 19).
UK Ministry of Information and Ministry of Agriculture. 1942. Dig for Victory.
National Film Board. 1943. “He Plants for Victory.”
Required readings
LECTURE 11
Note: Exceptionally this week, you can select either “agriculture and the environment” or “meat” to write your short assignment.
Agriculture and the Environment
– Long-term Historical Perspective
Cleveland, Cutler J. (ed). Encyclopedia of the Earth – Pidwimy, Michael. 2013. “Soil Erosion and Deposition.”
Cunfer, Geoff. 2004. “The Dust Bowl.” Eh.Net Encyclopedia of Economic and Business History.
McGreevy, Nora. 2020. “Ancient Roman Mosaic Floor Unearthed Beneath Italian Vineyard. The intricate, multi-colored tiles likely date to the third century A.D.” Smithsonianmag.com (May 27).
Ellis, Erle C. 2011. “Forget Mother Nature: This is a World of our Making.” New Scientist 2816 (June 14).
Parenti, Christian. 2019. “Saving the Planet Without Self-Loathing.” Jacobin (October 3).
– Overview
Ritchie, Hannah and Max Roser. 2020. “Environmental impacts of food production.” Our World in Data.
Searchinger, Tim, Richard Waite, Craig Hanson, Janet Ranganathan and Emily. 2019. Creating a Sustainable Food Future. A Menu of Solutions to Feed Nearly 10 Billion People by 2050. World Bank, World Resources Institute, UN Environment, UN Development Programme, CIRAD and INRA. (Read the Executive Summary, pp. 1-3) (A longer Synthesis Report is also available).
Ritchie, Hannah. 2022. “After millennia of agricultural expansion, the world has passed ‘peak agricultural land.’” Our World in Data (May 30).
Perspectives and Challenges
– Optimistic
Avery, Dennis T. 2010. “Sustaining people and planet: The moral challenge of the twenty-first century.” Religion & Liberty 14 (1).
Rockefeller University Newswire. “Changes in Population Growth, Consumption and Farming begin to Return Former Farmlands to Nature.” December 21, 2012.
English, Cameron. 2022. “Despite gloomy headlines, our planet is getting greener.” Big ThinK (December 20).
– Pessimistic
Soule, Judy et al. 1990. Ecological Impact of Modern Agriculture. McGraw-Hill, pp. 165-188.
Ritchie, Hannah. 2019. “Food Production is Responsible for One-quarter of the World’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” Our World in Data (November 6).
Biodiversity and Monocultures
– Biodiversity (General)
Bailey, Ron. 2010. “Invasion of the Invasive Species! Local Biodiversity is Increasing Because of Man, not Despite Him.” Reason (November).
Avery, Dennis. 2010. “Biodiversity: Losing which Species?” CFACT, November 9.
Carrington, Damian. 2017. “Earth’s sixth mass extinction event under way, scientists warn.” The Guardian (July 10).
– Pros and Cons of Monocultures
DeGregori, Thomas. 2003. “The Anti-Monoculture Mania.” Butteflies and Wheels.
Singh, Aradhana. 2011. “Diversification in agriculture.” In Cutler J. Cleveland (ed). Encyclopedia of the Earth.
McGuire, Andrew. 2015. “Monoculture vs. Polyculture Part I: “Straight up” beats “cocktails” for cover crop productivity.” CSANR (Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources – Washington State University) (June 8).
Bailey, Ronald. 2018. “High Yield Modern Farming Better for the Environment, Says Nature Study. Low yield organic farming uses up lots more land and harms biodiversity.” Reason (September 20).
Bryce, Emma. 2021. “To feed the world and protect nature, should we share agricultural land or spare wild habitat?” Anthropocene (October 15).
Meat
– Overview
Ritchie, Hannah et al. 2019. Meat and Dairy Production – Our World in Data.
Miltimore, Jon. 2022. “Destroying Food to Fight Climate Change Is Madness—and a Conceit That Could Prove Fatal.” Fee.org (May 2).
Blaustein-Rejto, Dan. 2021 et al. The Clean Cow: Cutting the Carbon Footprint of US Beef Production. Breakthrough Institute. (Read the Executive Summary).
– Human Physiology and Meat Consumption
TOI Staff. 2021. “For 2 million years, humans ate meat and little else — study. Tel Aviv University researchers says Stone Age humans were apex predators, only moved to more plant-based diet 85,000 years ago.” Times of Israel (April 4).
Ede, Georgia. 2019. “The Brain Needs Animal Fat. Why humans can’t thrive on plants alone.” Psychology Today (March 31).
Knight, Meredith. 2019. “Evolution, the human diet and the meat vs. plant conundrum.” Genetic Literacy Project (September 20).
– Meat Industry
Canadian Encyclopedia on Agriculture
– Ranching history
– Beef cattle farming
Canadian Cattlemen’s Association
– Beef production 101
– Cow-calf production
– Backgrounding and finishing
– Feedlot operation
– Feed
– Feedlot health management
Lusk, Jayson. 2021. “Beef, Chicken, and Carbon Emissions.” Jayson Lusk (blog) (June 18).
– Critics of Meat Production
Ritchie, Hannah. 2020. Less meat is nearly always better than sustainable meat, to reduce your carbon footprint – Our World in Data.
Monbiot, George. 2010. “Strong Meat.” The Guardian, September 7.
Holmes, Bob. 2022. “How much meat can we eat — sustainably?” Knowable magazine (August 18).
Monbiot, George. 2022. “The most damaging farm products? Organic, pasture-fed beef and lamb.” The Guardian (August 16).
Harari, Yuval Noah. 2015. “Industrial Farming is One of the Worst Crimes in History.” The Guardian (Sept 25).
– Defenders of Meat and Modern Production Methods
-Overview
Beef Cattle Research Council. 2019. “Isn’t Beef Canada’s Ultimate Plant Based Protein?” (April 22).
Cooper, David. 2012. “Capper: Efficiency the Key to Beef Sustainability.” Progressive Cattleman (January 23).
Hayes, Shannon. 2012. “Meat – not Grains – to Live Sustainably.” Robb Wolf (November 15).
Hurst, Blake. 2010. “In Defense of Chewers of Cud.” Today’s Farmer Online.
Avery, Dennis. 2009. “Giving Up Meat to Save the Planet?” CFACT News (August 20).
-Production technologies and challenges
“The Truth about Gestation Stalls.” Hoosier Farm Babe Tell Tails (August 8, 2012).
Chinn, Chris. 2014. “PEDV – Here’s your sign!” ChrisChinn.
-Against veganism
Wilkinson, James. 2017. “How the rise of veganism could ruin America: Study warns if every person went meat-free there would be a public health disaster.” Daily Mail (November 18) (original study).
– Meat Production and the Environment (Non-climate change)
The Breakthrough Institute
– The Meat Problem
– The Pasture Problem
– Achieving Peak Pasture
Committee on World Food Security. 2016. “Sustainable Agricultural Development for Food Security and Nutrition: What roles for livestock?” (Read the Policy Recommendations; Full Report available here.)
– Meat Production and Climate Change
Overview
FAO. 2014. Tackling Climate Change through Livestock.
Marginal Impact
Bailey, Ronald. 2019. “Why Giving Up Meat Won’t Have Much of an Effect on Climate Change. Going vegetarian would reduce a person’s greenhouse gas emissions by around 2 percent.” Reason (July 29).
Mitloehner, Frank M. 2018. “Yes, Eating Meat affects the Environment, but Cows are not Killing the Climate.” The Conversation (October 25).
Significant Impact
Tandon, Ayesha. 2022. “Rich nations could see ‘double climate dividend’ by switching to plant-based foods.” Carbon Brief (January 10).
Hart, Amalyah. 2021. “More “meat-free Mondays” needed to sustain future populations. UNSW professor warns current consumption cannot continue if we want to reduce world hunger and save the planet.” Cosmos (August 17).
Hamblin, James. 2017. “If Everyone Ate Beans Instead of Beef. With one dietary change, the U.S. could almost meet greenhouse-gas emission goals.” The Atlantic (August 2).
Stanford. 2022. “Replacing animal agriculture and shifting to a plant-based diet could drastically curb greenhouse gas emissions, according to new model. Science News (February 1).
Plant-based meat and other alternatives
IPES Food. 2022. REPORT: The Politics of Protein (read the Infosheet).
Bailey, Ronald. 2022. “The Slaughter-Free Future of Cultured Meats.” Reason (May 26).
Hurst, Blake. 2023. “Opinion: Are you ready to bet on lab grown meat?” Agri-Pulse (January 17).
LECTURE 12
For your short written assignment, select either the category “Biotechnologies and Organic” or “Locavorism and Food Security.”
Biotechnologies and GMOs
– Overview and Historical Context
Royal Society (UK) How does GM differ from conventional plant breeding?
WHO (World Health Organization) on
– Food, Genetically Modified
– 20 Questions on Genetically Modified (GM) Food
Genetic Literacy Project. 2014. “What would Food Look Like without Modifications?” (June 19).
Kastrinos, Amanda. 2016. “Delicious mutant foods: Mutagenesis and the genetic modification controversy.” Genetic Literacy Project (June 13).
Katiraee, Layla. 2017. “Infographic: Why single out GMOs-one of many forms of crop modification-for labeling?” Genetic Literacy Project (August 24).
Savage, Steve. 2018. “Mother Nature? More like ‘Mad Scientist Mama’-creator of chemicals good and bad for humans.” Genetic Literacy Project (October 19).
English, Cameron and Kayleen Schreiber. 2020. “Where are GMO Crops Grown? GLP infographics document the global growth of agricultural biotechnology innovation.” Genetic Literacy Project (April 28).
Ehrenberg, Rachel. 2019. “Will the Food of the Future be Genetically Engineered or Organic?” Knowable (May 9).
– Critics
Friends of the Earth. 2014. Who Benefits from GM Crops? (Executive Summary).
Trillium Asset Management. 2018. The Case against Genetically Modified Crops: An Environmental Investor’s View of the Threat oto our Global Food Systems (January).
– Supporters
Walton, Dave. 2015. “GMO Myth: Farmers “drown” crops in “dangerous” glyphosate. Fact: They use eye droppers.” Genetic Literacy Project (January 22).
Ventura, Luis. 2020. “Viewpoint: Why GMOs? 4 farmers make the case for biotech crops, challenging ‘clueless’ activists to embrace science.” Genetic Literacy Project (March 10).
Fedoroff, Nina. 2020. “Low-hanging Fruit: How the first generation of GMO crops yielded massive economic and environmental benefits.” Genetic Literacy Project (April 15).
Ridley, Matt. 2022. “The unnatural nature of food.” Science for Sustainable Agriculture (August).
– Specific Crops
De Steur, H. et al. 2015. “Status and Market Potential of Transgenic Biofortified Crops.” Nature Biotechnology 33 (1): 25-29.
Philpott, Tom. 2016. “WTF Happened to Golden Rice?” Mother Jones (February 3).
Ridley, Matt. 2020. “Viewpoint: At least 200,000 people die every year GMO Golden Rice is kept off the market.” Genetic Literacy Project (January 9).
Organic
– Definition and controversies
Overview
The Soil Association (UK)
– What is organic
* Organic Farming
* Organic Animals
Canada Organic Trade Association
– Health Benefits
– Environmental Benefits
– Organics and GMOs
FDA. 2020. Am I eating foods that come from GMO crops?
The Breakthrough. 2018. The Synthetic-Organic Debate.
Ritchie, Hannah. 2017. “Is organic really better for the environment than conventional agriculture?” Our World in Data.
Dourson, Michael and Bernard Gadagbui. 2020. “Toxicology: Is Organic Food Safer to Eat?” ACSH (April 24).
Klotins, Kim. 2005. “Antibiotic Use For Growth Improvement – Controversy And Resolution.” OMAFRA.
AFP. 2022. “Sri Lanka to pay $200m compensation for failed organic farm drive.” Al Jazeera (January 26).
– GMOs and organic foods
Charles, Dan. 2014. “Why The ‘Non-GMO’ Label Is Organic’s Frenemy.” NPR (The Salt) (February 28).
Moore, Patrick and Mischa Popoff. 2014. “Organic Activists Need GMOs Now more than Ever.” Daily Caller (April 1).
Ongu, Isaac. 2015. “Death of British journalist after eating organic peanuts highlights absurdity of GMO safety scare.” Genetic Literacy Project (March 18).
Bailey, Ronald. 2019. “E.U. Regulators Can’t Detect the Gene-Edited Crops They Banned. The difference between two identical genes-one edited and the other a natural mutation-is entirely metaphysical.” Reason (July 23).
Popoff, Mischa. 2015. “There’s no Reason Why GMOs shouldn’t be Considered Organic.” The Daily Caller (November 4).
– Supporters
Berezow, Alex B. 2014. “The Lies that Whole Foods Tells.” Real Clear Science (June 16).
Finz, Stacy. 2009. “Bill would restrict antibiotics in food animals.” San Francisco Chronicle (July 30).
Kovac, Emma. 2022. “The Environmental Case for Genetically Engineered Crops. Genetically engineered crops can help raise agricultural productivity and reduce emissions.” The Breakthrough Institute (February 10).
– Critics
– Overview
Cerier, Steven. 2021. “Part 1: The organic food industry’s rejection of modernity.” Genetic Literacy Project (November 16)
Cerier, Steven. 2021. “Part 2: The hypocrisy of opponents of genetic engineering of food.” Genetic Literacy Project (November 17)
Temple, James. 2019. “Sorry—organic farming is actually worse for climate change.” MIT Technology Review (October 22)
English, Cameron. 2021. All-Organic Agriculture? Sri Lanka Cripples Farmers and Sparks Food Shortage.” ACSH (September 9)
Porterfield, Andrew. 2020 “Organic fungicide copper sulfate poses dangers to humans, animals, insects-how does it compare to conventional pesticides?” Genetic Literacy Project (November 16).
Lusk, Jayson. 2014. “Organic Vs Conventional Crop Yields.” JaysonLusk.com (May 5).
Zaruk, David. 2017. “Viewpoint: 12 ways organic activists mislead consumers.” Genetic Literacy Project (December 6).
Porterfield, Andrew. 2017. “Vitamins, nutrients can be harder to find in organic, non-GMO foods.” Genetic Literacy Project (August 4).
Wittevrongel, Krystle. 2022. “Organic food during a famine?” Montreal Economic Institute (May 10).
Sri Lanka and Organic Food
Navdanya International. 2021. “Sri Lanka’s shift towards organic farming.” (June 16)
English, Cameron. 2021. All-Organic Agriculture? Sri Lanka Cripples Farmers and Sparks Food Shortage.” ACSH (September 9)
Torrella, Kenny. 2022. “Sri Lanka’s organic farming disaster, explained. A shift to better farming practices is possible, but Sri Lanka’s abrupt switch to organics offers a bitter lesson in how to change food systems in a sustainable way.” Vox (July 15)
De Guzman, Chad. 2022. “The Crisis in Sri Lanka Rekindles Debate Over Organic Farming.” Time (July 13)
Riddle, Mary. 2022. “How Sri Lanka Became Embroiled in an Organic Farming Crisis.” Triple Pundit (July 12)
Jason Hickel on Sri Lanka (Twitter).
This material will not be covered this semester.
Locavorism and food security
– Historical perspective
BBC News. 2012. “Groceries ‘cheaper’ now than in 1862, Grocer magazine finds.” (January 6).
– Overview of the issues
Bellemare, Marc F. 2008. “Why Africa’s Food Markets Are Thin.” The News & Observer (Raleigh). April 25.
Mosby, Ian. 2015. “Victory Gardens.” Canadian Encyclopedia.
2016. “Victory Gardens – Editorial.” Canadian Encyclopedia.
Bryce, Emma. 2020. “A Global Crop Reshuffle Could Reduce Agricultural Land by Half.” Anthropocene (April 24).
– Current debates
– Supportive
Frerick, Austin. 2021. “The Outsourcing Of America’s Food: They used to grow apples in Iowa; now the apple juice comes from China and it’s just corn and soy as far as the eye can see.” American Conservative (June 2).
Rees, William. 2019. “Why Place-based Food Systems? Food security in a chaotic world.” Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 9 (1).
Ikerd, John. 2019. “Place-based Food and Farming Systems: Reconnecting people with purpose and place.” Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 9 (1).
– Critical
Bailey, Ronald. 2008 “The Food Miles Mistake – Saving the Planet by Eating New Zealand Apples,” Reason, November 4.
Gray, Nathan. 2013. “Frozen Fruit and Vegetable might be more Nutritious than Fresh: Research.” Food Navigator (October 11).
Sexton, Steven, 2009. “Does Local Production Improve Environment and Health Outcomes?” ARE Updates 13 (2): 5-8.
“Balanced diet includes local and imported food, say IIED, Oxfam” IIED (Press Release), December 3rd, 2009.
Ritchie, Hannah. 2020. “You want to reduce the carbon footprint of your food? Focus on what you eat, not whether your food is local.” Our World in Data (January 24).
Bellmann, Christophe. 2020. “Privileging Local Food is Flawed Solution to Reduce Emissions.” Chatham House (April 23).
– Hunger and Food Security
World Food Programme. 2018. 2018 Global Report on Food Crises (Key Messages).
– Famine and Its Eradication (Historical Perspective)
Carmody, Pádraig. 2009. “Famine: A Short History.” Policy & Practice: A Development Education Review 9 (Autumn): 82-85.
Tupy, Marian L. 2018. “How Humanity Won the War on Famine.” CapX (August 16).
– Food Sovereignty or Trade Liberalization?
– Overview
Clapp, Jennifer. 2015. Food Security and International Trade. Unpacking Disputed Narratives. (Read the Executive Summary) FAO.
Philip D. Roberts. 2013. What is the Evidence of the Impact of Agricultural Trade Liberalisation on Food Security in Developing Countries? A Systematic Review. London: EPPICentre, Social Science Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London (Abstract and Executive Summary).
– Food Sovereignty
Food Secure Canada. What is Food Sovereignty?
Edelman, Marc. 2002. “Price of Free Trade Is Famine.” Los Angeles Time (March 22).
Patel, Raj. 2008. “Food Sovereignty: A Brief Introduction.” Food Magazine.
Patel, Raj. 2008. “A man-made famine.” The Guardian (April 15).
– Trade Liberalization and Food Security
Peron, James. 2000. “Food, Famine, and Free Trade. Ehrlich Fails to See That Incentives Change Behavior.” Fee.org (April 1).
DeCapua, Joe. 2011. “Trade Barriers Impede Food Security.” VOA (May 15).
Bryce, Emma. 202. “Supporting food security in climate stricken world requires a geographically diverse palate.” Anthropocene Magazine (July 9).
Glauber, Joseph et al. 2020. “COVID-19: Trade restrictions are worst possible response to safeguard food security.” IFPRI Blog (March 27).
Upton, William. 2020. “Make America Autarkic Again.” American Mind (March 13).
Suggested Videos
Agriculture and Environment
More to come
Meat Production and the Environment
Stossel. “Why Grass-Fed Beef is Worse for the Environment.” (November 19, 2010).
CAST. 2013. Animal Feed vs. Human Food: Challenges and Opportunities in Sustaining Animal Agriculture Toward 2050. CAST Issue Paper#53 (Video).
Meat News Network. 2015. “Myth: The Use of Modern Technologies to Raise Animals has done More Harm than Good (with Jayson Lusk).”
Tony Weis. 2012. “What is the Ecological Hoofprint?”
Biotechnologies and Organic Production
Grocery Store Wars
Mercola. 2015. “The Organic Life” (trailer).
Prager University. 2015. “Are GMOs Good or Bad?“
Monsanto Company. 2018. “Making a GMO Revealed.”
Locavorism and Food Security
Marketplace. 2017. Farm Fresh?
Green State TV
– “The idea that you can grow more food by reverting to local production is ludicrous.” (August 18, 2014)
– “Food from a small, local farm isn’t safer than conventionally grown food.” (August 11, 2013)
– “Why Local Grown Food Makes Us Less Food Secure.” (August 4, 2014)
– “What are the Environmental Drawbacks to Buying Local Produce?” (July 21, 2014)
– “Does Buying Local Produce Reduce My Carbon Footprint?” (July 14, 2014)
– “Doesn’t buying local grow the local economy?” (July 7, 2014)
– “How can ‘grow local’ movements hurt a nation’s economy?” (June 30, 2014)
– “Does buying local produce help grow the local economy?” (June 25, 2014)
– “Does ‘growing local’ lead to a smaller food supply?” (June 18, 2014)
“Food Myths: The Locavore’s Dilemma.” Stossel (Fox Business Network: May 29, 2014; Fox News Network: June 1, 2014). (30 :27-34-27).
Suggested Readings
Agriculture and Environment
– Agriculture and the Environment (non-climate related)
Our World in Data
- Environmental Impacts of Food Production – Our World in Data
- Land Use – Our World in Data
- Deforestation and Forest Loss – Our World in Data
- Biodiversity – Our World in Data
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. 2009. Impact of Agricultural Management Practices on the Environment.
Erle Ellis and Navin Ramankutty. 2009. “Anthropogenic biomes.” Encyclopedia of Earth.
McNeill, J.R. and Verena Winiwarter. 2004. “Breaking the Sod: Humankind, History, and Soil.” Science 304 (5677) (June 11): 1627-1629.
Dahl, Thomas E. and Gregory J. Allord. 1997. “History of Wetlands in the Conterminous United States.” United States Geological Survey Water Supply Paper 2425.
Angelson, A. and D. Kaimowitz (edited by). 2001. Agricultural Technologies and Tropical Deforestation. CABI Publishing in association with Center for International Forestry Research.
Avery, Dennis T. 1997. “Saving Nature’s Legacy Through Better Farming.” Issues in Science and Technology 14, no. 1.
– Soil Erosion and Degradation
Cutler J. Cleveland (ed). Encyclopedia of the Earth
– Buonanduci, Michele. 2009. “Dust Bowl.”
Avery, Dennis T. 2010. “Muddy Rivers: Don’t Blame Farmers.” CFACT, November 18.
Center for Consumer Freedom. 2010. “‘Chef Pollan’s Daily Special: Lousy Advice” January 19.
Meat
– Meat Industry
Smith, Alex. 2022. “The Coming “Meat Vortex.” Meat Is the Third Rail of Climate Politics; Here’s How to Break the Cycle.” The Breakthrough 15 (Winter)
Reed, Lawrence. 2013. “Of Meat and Myth.” Fee.org (February 8).
– Meat and the Environment
Mario Herrero, Stefan Wirsenius, Benjamin Henderson, Cyrille Rigolot, Philip Thornton, Petr Havlík, Imke de Boer, Pierre J. Gerber. 2015. “Livestock and the Environment: What Have We Learned in the Past Decade?” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 40: 177-202.
Nierenberg, Danielle. 2005. “Happier Meals: Rethinking the Global Meat Industry.” Worldwatch Paper #171 (September).
UN FAO. 2006. Livestock Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options.
Lomborg, Björn. 2019. “Vegetarianism as Climate Virtue Signaling.” Wall Street Journal (August 8).
– The Livestock Long Shadow Controversy
UN FAO. 2006. Livestock Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options, Executive Summary (pp. xx-xxiv).
Mitloehner, Frank. 2018. “Cows are getting a bad rap and it’s time to set the record straight: Giving up meat won’t save the planet.” The Conversation (December 25).
Maday, John. 2019. “The Scientist who Debunked Livestock’s Long Shadow.” Drovers (April 18).
– Critics
Motavalli, Jim. 2008. “The Meat of the Matter: Our Livestock Industry Creates More Greenhouse Gas than Transportation Does.” E Magazine (July-August).
Belli, Brita. 2008. “Fixing the Animal Farms: An Interview with Robert Martin” E Magazine (July-August).
Colleran, Brian. 2008. “Think Before You Eat: The Widespread Effects of Factory-Farmed Meat” E Magazine (July-August).
Gerber, P.J., Steinfeld, H., Henderson, B., Mottet, A., Opio, C., Dijkman, J., Falcucci, A. & Tempio, G. 2013. Tackling climate change through livestock – A global assessment of emissions and mitigation opportunities. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome.
Morgan, Nathan. 2010. “The Hidden History of Greco-Roman Vegetarianism.” Advocacy for Animals (August 10).
Katz-Rosene, Ryan M. and Sarah J. Martin (eds). 2020. “Green Meat? Sustaining Eaters, Animals, and the Planet.” McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Shapiro, Paul. 2020. “One Root Cause of Pandemics Few People Think About: It’s our seemingly insatiable desire to eat meat.” Scientific American (March 24).
Jackson, Randall. D. 2020. “A vision for agriculture: We know how to replace toxic, intensive livestock raising with beautiful, efficient grasslands. Do we have the will?” Aeon (March 17).
Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production. 2008. Final Report: Putting Meat on The Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America (Executive Summary).
UN FAO. 2010. The State of Food and Agriculture 2009: Livestock in the Balance (Read Summary).
Lamey, Andy. 2020. “The Libertarian Case for Rejecting Meat Consumption.” Quillette (January 27).
Martin, Sarah and Ryan Katz-Rosene. 2017. “Meat.” I-PEEL (International Political Economy of the Everyday).
IPES Food. 2022. REPORT: The Politics of Protein (Executive Summary; Full Report)
Mottet, Anne et al. 2017. “Livestock: On our plates or eating at our table? A new analysis of the feed/food debate.” Global Food Security 14: 1-8.
Steinfeld, Henning et al. 2010. Livestock in a Changing Landscape, Volume 1: Drivers, Consequences, and Responses. Island Press; Gerber, Peter et al. 2010. Livestock in a Changing Landscape, Volume 2: Experiences and Regional Perspectives. (Island Press) (Read “New Report Reveals the Environmental and Social Impact of the ‘Livestock Revolution’.” Stanford Report, March 16, 2010.)
Shepon, Alon, Gidon Eshel, Elad Noor, and Ron Milo. 2018. “The opportunity cost of animal based diets exceeds all food losses.” PNAS 115 (15) 3804-3809.
Molina Vale, Petterson. 2014. “Book Review: The Ecological Hoofprint: The Global Burden of Industrial Livestock by Tony Weiss.” LSE Review of Books (March 4).
Bryce, Emma. 2021. “Small strategic dietary changes yield surprisingly large health and environmental returns.” Anthropocene (September 3).
– Defenders
“Eating Less Meat and Dairy Products won’t Have Major Impact on Global Warming, Expert Argues” Science Daily, March 22, 2010.
Avery, Dennis T. 2010. “Confined Livestock Better for the Planet.” CFGI Blog, July 6.
Jamieson, Alastair. 2010. “UN admits flaw in report on meat and climate change. The UN has admitted a report linking livestock to global warming exaggerated the impact of eating meat on climate change.” Telegraph (MARch 24).
Hayes, Shannon. 2012. “Meat – not Grains – to Live Sustainably.” Robb Wolf (November 15).
Taylor, Peter Shawn. 2016. “Next on the carbon hit list: Meat.” C2C (December 30).
Radke, Amanda. 2018. “Researchers conclude livestock have no detectable effect on climate.” Beef (December 5).
Stossel, John. 2010. “Busting Another Food Myth.” Fox News (November 18).
Archer AM, Mike. 2011. “Ordering the Vegetarian Meal? There’s more Animal Blood on your Hands.” The Conversation (December 15).
Tree, Isabella. 2018. “If you want to save the world, veganism isn’t the answer.” The Guardian (August 25).
Laframboise, Donna. 2019. ” War Against Meat: the Continuum.” Big Picture News.
Levy, Janet. 2021. “The Great Reset of Beef Consumption.” American Thinker (September 21).
Watson, Keir. 2018. “The Case for Sustainable Meat.” Quillette (April 5).
Blanton, Tom. 2021 “Raising Beef Cattle.” Quillette (March 19).
– Plant-based meat and other alternatives
Howard, Phil. 2022. The Politics of Protein (ipes-food.org) (March).
Brehaut, Laura. 2022. “Meat prices are up, but plant-based alternatives still cost way more, study finds.” National Post (April 28).
***
Biotechnologies
Genetic Literacy Project. Does Big Ag dominate crop research and the global seed supply, controlling the world food market?
Fumento, Michael. 2021. “Fish, Rice and What the Green Movement Really Stands For.” AIER (June 4)
Bennett, A.B., C. Chi-Ham, G. Barrows, S.E. Sexton, and D. Zilberman. 2013. “Agricultural Biotechnology: Economics, Environment, Ethics, and the Future.” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 38 (2013): 249-279
Barrows, G., S.E. Sexton, and D. Zilberman. 2014. “Agricultural Biotechnology: The Promise and Prospects of Genetically Modified Seed.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 28 (2014): 99-120.
Andrew, Toby. 2002. “Lost in the Maize.” Spiked Online.
Brazeau, Marc. 2014. “The 10 Minor Realizations That Flipped My Thinking About GMOs.” Daily Kos (April 15).
Cayford, Jerry. 2003. “Breeding Sanity into the GM Food Debate” Issues in Science and Technology, Winter.
Committee on the Impact of Biotechnology on Farm-Level Economics and Sustainability; National Research Council. 2010. “Impact of Genetically Engineered Crops on Farm Sustainability in the United States.” National Academies Press.
Gruère, Guillaume P., Purvi Mehta-Bhatt and Debdatta Sengupta. 2008. “Bt Cotton and Farmer Suicides in India: Reviewing the Evidence.” IFPRI Discussion Paper 00808.
Prakash, C. S. and Gregory Conko. 2004. “Technology for Life: How Biotech Will Save Billions from Starvation.” The American Enterprise (March): 16-20.
Haruko Okusu. 2009. “Biotechnology Research in the CGIAR: An Overview.” AgBioForum 12 (1).
Herdt, Robert W. 2006. “Biotechnology in Agriculture.” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 31: 265-295 (November).
Kathage, Jonas and Matin Qaim. 2012. “Economic impacts and impact dynamics of Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) cotton in India.” Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences 109 (29): 11652-11656.
McWilliams, James E. 2009. “Could Frankenfoods be Good for the Environment?” Slate, January 28.
Miller, Henry I. 2005. “The UN’s Biotech for Food Scandal.” Tech Central Station, September 28.
Susman, Megan M. 2000. “Biotechnology in Food and Agriculture – Facts and Fears.” Progressive Policy Institute, May 1.
Trewavas, Anthony. “A Critical Assessment of Organic Farming-and-Food Assertions With Particular Respect to the UK and the Potential Environmental Benefits of No-Till Agriculture.” Crop Protection 23 (2004) 757-781.
Woodall, Jack. 2006. “Our Food is Dying – Infectious Agents are Threatening the World’s Crops.” The Scientist, March, Vol. 20, Issue 3, p. 62.
World Bank. 2007. World Development Report 2008: Agriculture and Development, Policy Briefs
– Science and Technology
– GMOs
Miller, Henry. 2015. “Out of his depth, Nassim Taleb bungles risk assessment of GMOs.” Forbes (July 21).
Tagliabue, Giovanni. 2015. “Nassim Taleb’s Precautionary Principle nonsense and warped “GMO” pseudo-category.” Genetic Literacy Project (October 7).
Bailey, Ronal.d 2016. “GMO Alarmist Nassim Taleb Backs Out of Debate. I Refute Him Anyway.” Reason (February 19).
Miller, Michelle. 2017. “Farm Babe: Monsanto vs. organic: the hypocrisy of shill campaigns.” Farm Babe (December 5).
English, Cameron and Kevin Folta. 2017. “The Real Story Behind the Dicamba Controversy.” Real Clear Science (December 12).
Genetic Literacy Project. 2018. “Nassim Taleb: Financial risk analyst turned anti-GMO propagandist.” (July 17).
Späth, Beat. 2018. 2018. “BLOG: Misinformation is the only poison: the end of the Seralini Affair?” GMO Info (December 13) End of Seralini affair.
Bailey, Ronald. 2008. “Are Farmers Stupid, or Deluded, or Both? – Friends of the Earth Misinforms on Crop Biotech Again.” Reason Online, February 19.
Ridley, Matt. 2011. “Africa Needs Biotech Crops.” Rational Optimist (December 12).
Gepts, Paul. 2004. “Who Owns Biodiversity, and How Should the Owners Be Compensated?” Plant Physiology 134 (4): 1295-1307.
National Research Council (Division on Earth and Life Studies, Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources). 2010. “Genetically Engineered Crops may Benefit Many Farmers, but the Technology Needs Proper Management to Remain Effective.” News from the National Academies (April 13).
Kaskey, Jack. 2013. “Breeding Mutant Crops Widespread: Seeds, genetically changed by radiation, face no regulatory hurdles, despite safety concerns.” Bloomberg News/Vancouver Sun (November 16).
Taleb, Nassim Nicholas et al. 2014. “The Precautionary Principle (with Application to the Genetic Modification of Organisms).” Extreme Risk Initiative (New York University).
Beyer Beware. “What you Need to Know about Monsanto and GMO Feed.” (May 21, 2013).
Entine, Jon. 2014. “The Debate about GMO Safety is Over, Thanks to a New Trillion Meal Study.” Forbes (September 17).
English, Cameron. 2017. “There Is Nothing Unnatural About GMOs.” Real Clear Science (November 25).
Cowen, Tyler. 2012. “GMOs and pesticide use (an email from Greg Conko)” Marginal Revolution (October 26).
Ibrahim, Abdulrazak. 2014. “Africa On GMOs: Scientific Response To Anti-technology NGOs.” Leadership (August 17).
Suresh, Arvind. 2014. “Kenya’s Maize Famine underscores Need for Africa to Confront GMO Fears.” Genetic Literacy Project (December 8).
Ongu, Isaac. 2017. “Hidden hunger: How anti-GMO activists are blocking humanitarian biofortification in Africa and Asia.” Genetic Literacy Project (September 12).
Ridley, Matt. 2017. “Beware the Fall Armyworm.” Rational Optimist (November 27).
Ridley, Matt. 2015. “Genetic Modification Raises Yields and Cuts Pesticide Use.” The Rational Optimist (January 20).
England Marketing Ltd. 2022. “How “Natural” is our Food, and What Does Natural Mean Anyway?” Science for Sustainable Agriculture (July).
– The Seralini Affair
Elsevier. 2013. “Elsevier Announces Article Retraction from Journal Food and Chemical Toxicology.” (November 28).
Organic
Intelligence2 USA on Organic Food Debate (February 2010) – Briefing Paper.
About.com – An Overview of Some Common Organic Pesticides
Alan D. Dangour, Sakhi K. Dodhia, Arabella Hayter, Elizabeth Allen, Karen Lock and Ricardo Uauy. 2009. “Nutrional Quality of Organic Foods: A Systematic Review.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 93 (6): 680-685.
Center for Consumer Freedom
– “Eco-Unfriendly Organic?” June 17, 2010
– “Spraying Context on Organic Pesticides Claims,” May 27, 2010
– “Organic’s Nutritional Superiority (Still) Nonexistent,” May 27, 2010
Brian Dunning. 2007. “Organic Food Myths.” Skeptoid Podcast. Skeptoid Media, Inc., (January 5).
Byrne, Jay, Gregory Conko, Jon Entine, Tony Gilland, Thomas Jefferson Hoban, Patrick Moore, Andrew S. Natsios, Martina Newell-McGloughlin, Robert L. Paarlberg, C.S. Prakash, & Carol Tucker Foreman. Let Them Eat Precaution. How Politics Is Undermining the Genetic Revolution in Agriculture, Edited by Jon Entine. AEI Press (Washington) January 2006.
Leonard, Andrew. 2006. “Save the Rain Forest – Boycott Organic?” Salon, December 12.
Popoff, Mischa. 2012. “Time to Deregulate Organic.” bigthink.com (January 13).
-, “Organic Agriculture Can Contribute to Fighting Hunger – But Chemical Fertilizers Needed to Feed the World.” FAO Newsroom, 10 December 2007.
Report from the Bichel Committee (Danish Government). 2001. Organic Scenarios for Denmark.
Rosenthal, Elisabeth. 2011. “Questions About Organic Produce and Sustainability.” NYTimes.com (December 30).
Soupcoff, Marni. 2012. “Stanford study shows organic food no safer or healthier than conventional food.” National Post (September 5).
Winter, Carl K. and Sarah F. Davis. 2006. “Organic Foods.” Journal of Food Science 71 (9): R117-R124.
Suresh, Arvind. 2014. “Kenya’s Maize Famine underscores Need for Africa to Confront GMO Fears.” Genetic Literacy Project (December 8).
Miller, Henry. 2014. “Why Organic Isn’t ‘Sustainable’.” Forbes (November 19).
Fedoroff, Nina, Ken Cassman and Marshall Matz. 2014. “Americans Need to Rethink their Concern on GMO vs. Organic Crops on Organic Food.” DesMoines Register (November 22).
Hanson, Mark. 2013. “A Political Hot Potato.” C2C (January 21).
Remington, Jess. 2014. “The Truth About Who Owns Organic Food Companies, In One Chart.” Policy.Mic (February 20).
Perrone, Joseph. 2017. “Chipotle’s problems are bigger than its messaging.” The Hill (July 25) (summary available here).
Lynas, Mark. 2017. “Organic farming can feed the world – until you read the small print.” Cornell Alliance for Science (November 22).
Zambrano, Sierra. 2017. “Viewpoint: Anti-GMO scare tactics show need for scientific literacy.” Sierra Genetic Literacy Project (December 1).
Mangan, Mary. 2018. “Viewpoint: Anti-GMO activists crave a return to ‘simpler times’ in farming. Here’s why that would be disastrous.” Genetic Literacy Project (July 3).
Novella, Steven. 2018. “The Science Behind the Roundup Lawsuit. A jury has awarded a man $289 million for allegedly contracting cancer from exposure to Roundup, but the science is not on their side.” Science-Based Medicine (August 15).
Novella, Steven. 2018. “More Evidence Organic Farming is Bad.” Neurologica blog (December 14).
Shennan, Carol, Timothy J. Krupnik, Graeme Baird, Hamutahl Cohen, Kelsey Forbush, Robin J. Lovell, Elissa M. Olimpi. 2017. “Organic and Conventional Agriculture: A Useful Framing?” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 42: 317-346.
“Is Organic Food Worth the Expense?” Room to Debate – The New York Times (September 10, 2012).
Colwell, Brian. 2017. “A Giant-Sized History of Biotechnology.” Brian D. Colwell Blog (June 1).
Government of Canada. Canadian Organic Standards.
Zaruk, David. 2021. “Viewpoint: Here’s why activist environmentalists’ promotion of a ‘binary organic vs conventional/good vs evil dichotomy’ is bad for sustainable agriculture.” Genetic Literacy Project (July 14).
Porterfield, Andrew. 2021. “Organic pesticide copper sulfate—unlike glyphosate—is a carcinogen, kills beneficial insects, decimates soil, pollutes water. It also works. Here are political and science reasons why regulators give it a free pass .” Genetic Literacy Project (July 13).
Miller, Henry. 2021. “Viewpoint: Stanford is a world-class science institution … except when it comes to critical thinking about the ‘sustainability myth’ of organic agriculture.” Genetic Literacy Project (July 27).
Paarlberg, Robert. 2021. “Only eat organic? You’re paying too much, and it’s not worth it, author says.” Harvard Gazette (February 2).
Meemken, Eva-Marie and Qaim Matin Qaim, 2028. “Organic Agriculture, Food Security, and the Environment.” Annual Review of Resource Economics 10: 39-63.
Baggini, Julian. 2022. “The big idea: has organic food passed its sell-by date?” The Guardian (December 12).
– Critics
Miller, Henry H. 2015. “Chipotle: The Long Defeat Of Doing Nothing Well.” Forbes (December 14).
Savage, Steven. 2016. “Why I Don’t Buy Organic, And Why You Might Not Want To Either.” Forbes (March 19).
Lomborg, Bjørn. 2016. “Think Organic Food is Better for You, Animals, and the Planet? Think again.” Telegraph (June 12).
McDivitt, Paul. 2018. “Does GMO corn increase crop yields? 21 years of data confirm it does-and provides substantial health benefits.” Genetic Literacy Project (February 19).
Hurst, Blake. 2018. “CRISPR will Make GMOs Ubiquitous.” National Review (March 19).
Miller, Henry I. 2018. The Organic Food Hoax. Hoover Institution.
Avery, Dennis. 2012. “Where’s the Case for Organic Foods?” Canada Free Press.
Porterfield, Andrew. 2018. “Sustainability advantage: ‘High-yield’ intensive agriculture outpaces organic farming, large study shows.” Genetic Literacy Project (October 1).
Afedraru, Lominda. 2018. “Why Ugandan banana breeders say it’s critical to add genetic engineering to their toolbox.” Genetic Literacy Project (October 10).
Schaefer Riley, Naomi. 2014. “The Tyranny of the Organic Mommy Mafia.” The New York Post (April 19).
Brandt, Michelle. 2012. “Little evidence of health benefits from organic foods, Stanford study finds.” Office of Communications & Public Affairs – Stanford University School of Medicine (September 3).
Iltan, Cigdem. 2010. “Organic Pesticides can be Worse than Synthetic: Study.” The Globe and Mail (June 22).
Porterfield, Andrew. 2017. “Winemakers abandoning organic status for sustainability, improved taste.” Genetic Literacy Project (June 9).
Berezow, Alex. 2017. “What Good Is Whole Foods If Its Food Is Poisoned?” ACSH (January 25).
Israel, Brett. 2017. “Heavily used pesticide linked to breathing problems in farmworkers’ children.” Berkeley News (August 14).
Njoroge, James. 2021. “Viewpoint: ‘Green neo-colonialism’ — Utopian visions of organic farming promote starvation in Africa.” Genetic Literacy Project (September 24).
Hurst, Blake. 2012. “Organic Illusions.” The American Magazine (October 1st).
Miller, Henry I. 2018. “The Organic Food Industry Gets Fat on Lies.” Real Clear Science (September 29).
Porterfield, Andrew. 2019. “Viewpoint: Organic farmer’s New York Times opinion piece perpetuates ‘fantasy’ of small growers feeding the world.” Genetic Literacy Project (July 23).
Kloor, Keith. 2014. “The GMO-Suicide Myth.” Issues in Science and Technology 30 (2) (Winter).
***
Food Sovereignty
Edelman, Marc, Tony Weis, Amita Baviskar, Saturnino M. Borras Jr, Eric Holt-Giménez, Deniz Kandiyoti & Wendy Wolford. 2014. “Introduction: Critical Perspectives on Food Sovereignty.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 41 (6): 911-931 (Global Agrarian Transformations Volume 2: Critical Perspectives on Food Sovereignty).
McCorriston, Steve, David J. Hemming, Julien D. Lamontagne-Godwin, Janice Osborn, Martin J. Parr and FAO. 2013. Food Security and Sovereignty (Base Document for Discussion).
Desmarais, Annette Aurélie, Nettie Wiebe, Hannah Wittman (eds). 2011. Food Sovereignty in Canada: Creating Just and Sustainable Food Systems. Fernwood Publishing. Chapter 1: Nurturing Food Sovereignty in Canada.
Patel, Raj. 2009. “Food Sovereignty.” Journal of Peasant Studies 36 (3): 663-706.
Pimbert, Michel. 2009. “Towards food sovereignty: reclaiming autonomous food systems.” IED (International Institute for Environment and Development).
Trade and Food Security
Please look the various readings listed in GGR 489: LONG DISTANCE TRADE AND FOOD SECURITY.
Kym Anderson, Anderson. 2014. “The Intersection of Trade Policy, Price Volatility, and Food Security.” Annual Review of Resource Economics 6: 513-532.
Headey, Derek D. and William J. Martin. 2016. “The Impact of Food Prices on Poverty and Food Security.” Annual Review of Resource Economics 8: 329-351.
Martin, Will. 2017. Agricultural Trade and Food Security. ADBI Working Paper Series No. 664 (February).
Orford, Anne. 2015. “Food Security, Free Trade, and the Battle for the State.” Journal of International Law and International Relations 11 (2): 1-67.
Brooks, J. and A. Matthews. 2015. Trade Dimensions of Food Security. OECD Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Papers, No. 77, OECD Publishing, Paris.
FAO. 2003. Trade Reforms and Food Security.
Anderson, Kym. 2001. “Trade Liberalization and Food Security.” Asia-Pacific Social Science Review 3 (1) : 1-51.
Chandra, Alexandra C. and Lucky A. Lontoh. 2010. Regional Food Security and Trade Policy in Southeast Asia: The Role of ASEAN. Series on Trade and the Food Security – Policy Report 3. International Institute for Sustainable Development.
Urban Agriculture
Satthertwaite, David, Gordon McGranahan and Cecilia Tacoli. 2010. “Urbanization and its Implications for Food and Farming.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 365 (1554): 2809-2820.
FAO
– 2010. Fighting Poverty and Hunger: What Role for Urban Agriculture? Policy Briefs, August.
– 2007. Profitability and Sustainability of Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture, Agricultural Management, Marketing and Finance Occasional Paper, Executive Summary (xi-xii).
– 1999. “Issues in Urban Agriculture” FAO Spotlight
Eames-Sheavly, Marcia. Discovering the Food System: A Primer on Community Food Systems (Linking Food, Nutrition and Agriculture), Cornell University.
Despommier, Dickson on “The Vertical Farm“
Avery, Dennis T. 2010. “City Farming – Pigs in the Sky?” CGFI , October 19th.
Robert Kunzig. 2011. “The City Solution – Why cities are the best cure for our planet’s growing pains.” National Geographic Magazine (December).
Charles W. Lesher. Urban Agriculture: A Literature Review, USDA.
Mark Redwood. 2008. Agriculture in Urban Planning. Generating Livelihoods and Food Security. Earthscan/IDRC.
Luc J.A. Mougeot. 2005. Agropolis: The Social, Political, and Environmental Dimensions of Urban Agriculture. Earthscan/IDRC 2005.
Maria Caridad Cruz and Roberto Sánchez Medina. 2003. Agriculture in the City: Key to Sustainability in Havana, Cuba. Ian Randle Publishers/IDRC
Olanrewaju B. Smith. 1999. Urban Agriculture in West Africa. Contributing to Food Security and Urban Sanitation. IDRC/CTA
Auxumite G. Egziabher, Diana Lee-Smith, Daniel G. Maxwell, Pyar Ali Memon, Luc J.A. Mougeot, and Camillus J. Sawio (eds). 1994. Cities Feeding People. An Examination of Urban Agriculture in East Africa. IDRC.
Houser, Kristin. 2021. “Inside Europe’s largest vertical farm. The “plant factory” may foreshadow the future of agriculture.” Freethink (October 10).
Sri Lanka and Organic Food
– Facts and Overview
AFP. 2022. “Sri Lanka to pay $200m compensation for failed organic farm drive.” Al Jazeera (January 26).
– Sri Lanka doesn’t prove the failure of organic food
Zhang, Suzie. 2022. “Interpreting Sri Lanka’s Organic Farming Failure.” Brown Political Review (November 14)
Perera Bathige, Nethmi S. and William G. Moseley. 2022. “Drawing the wrong lessons from Sri Lanka’s organic farming experience (commentary).” Mongabay (August 12)
“Why We Cannot Blame the Sri Lankan Crisis on Organic Farming.” Organic without Boundaries (June 2)
Dutt, Bahar. 2022. “Sri Lanka Faces Food Crisis – No, It’s Not Due to Organic Farming
A new IPCC report wants the world to decarbonise. Sri Lanka was doing just that, albeit with shoddy planning.” The Quint World (April 5)
Joy. Steena. Undated. “Sri Lanka’s Food Crisis: Don’t blame it on Organic.” The Organic Magazine
– Sri Lanka proves the failure of organic food
English, Cameron. 2022. “Anti-GMO Groups Deflect Blame For Sri Lanka’s Organic-Only Disaster.” ACSH (July 13).
Nordhaus, Ted and Saloni Shah. 2022. “In Sri Lanka, Organic Farming Went Catastrophically Wrong. A nationwide experiment is abandoned after producing only misery.” Foreign Policy (March 5).
Cohn, Haleh. 2022. “Sri Lanka and Organic Farming? Did Sri Lanka’s ban on synthetic fertilizers plant the seed for the country’s current economic crisis?” McGill Office for Science and Society (July 29).
Follett, Chelsea and Malcolm Cochran. 2022. “The country’s economic collapse is a grim preview of what can result from distorting markets in the name of utopian priorities.” Human Progress (July 15).
The Editors. 2022. “Sri Lanka Collapse a Failure of Leftism.” National Review (July 12).
Pueblos, Monique. 2022. “Green dreams: How going organic helped spark Sri Lanka’s crisis.” SBS News (May 17).
Lomborg, Bjorn. 2022. “How to Alleviate the Looming Global Hunger Crisis.” AIER (June 6).
Swanson, Shea. 2022. “Sri Lanka’s Organic Experiment Went Very, Very Wrong.” Modern Farmer (March 26).
Locavorism
– Substantial Reports
Rai Chi, Kelly, James McGregor and Richard King. 2009. Fair Miles: Recharting the Food Miles Map. IIED and Oxfam.
Desrochers, Pierre and Hiroko Shimizu. 2008. “Yes We Have No Bananas: A Critique of the Food Mile Perspective.” Mercatus Policy Series, Policy Primer No. 8.
Garnett, Tara. 2008. Cooking Up a Storm: Food, Greenhouse Emissions and our Changing Climate, Food Climate Research Network (University of Surrey).
McIntyre, Lynn, and Kristen Rondeau. 2011. “Individual consumer food localism: A review anchored in Canadian farmwomen’s reflections.” Journal of Rural Studies 27 (2) (April): 116-124.
Saunders, Caroline, & Peter Hayes. 2007. “Air Freight Transport of Fresh Fruit and Vegetables.” Research Report No. 299, Lincoln University.
Saunders, Caroline, Andrew Barber and Greg Taylor. 2006. Food Miles – Comparative Energy/Emissions Performance of New Zealand’s Agriculture Industry, Lincoln University, Agribusiness and Economics Research Unit (AERU), Research Report 285. Chapters 1-6, 8.
Watkiss, Paul et al. 2005. “The Validity of Food Miles as an Indicator of Sustainable Development.” DEFRA Report ED50254.
Halweil, Brian. 2002. “Home Grown: The Case for Local Food in a Global Market.” WorldWatch paper #163, Worldwatch Institute.
Steve Martinez, Michael Hand, Michelle Da Pra, Susan Pollack, Katherine Ralston, Travis Smith, Stephen Vogel, Shellye Clark, Luanne Lohr, Sarah Low and Constance Newman. 2010. Local Food Systems: Concepts, Impacts, and Issues. Economic Research Report #97. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Economic Research Service.
Roosevelt, M. 2006. “The Lure of the 100-Mile Diet.” Time, June 11.
USDA. Know your Farmer, Know your Food
– Support Local Farmers
– Strengthen Rural Communities
– Promote Healthy Eating
– Protect Natural Resources
USDA. 2010. “Beans are Bullets” and “Of Course I Can!” War-Era Food Posters
Ronald G. McCormick. 2010. “An Insider’s Account of Walmart’s Local Foods Program.” The Atlantic (November 17).
Leeder, Jessica. 2009. “Debunking our ‘Fetish of the Fresh‘” The Globe and Mail, Nov. 24.
Zezima, Katie. 2010. “Push to Eat Local is Hampered by Shortage” The New York Times, March 27.
– Critical
Nolan Brown, Elizabeth. 2016. “Five Years and $500 Million Later, USDA Admits That ‘Food Deserts’ Don’t Matter. You can lead people to Whole Foods, but you can’t make them buy organic kale.” Reason (June 13).
– Varia
“History of Urban Agriculture.” Sprouts in the Sidewalk.
Sanderson, Allen R. 2007. “De Minimis.” The Library of Economics and Liberty, September 3.
Sellick, Karen. 2008. “The Buy Locally-Owned Fallacy.” Library of Economics and Liberty, November 3.
Econtalk (audio)”Boudreaux on the Economics of Buy Local,” April 16, 2007.
-. “Food Movement ‘Harms Environment‘.” BBC News, July 15, 2005.
Averill, Victoria. 2007. “African Trade Fears Carbon Footprint Backlash.” BBC News, February 21.
Bennett, Drake. 2007. “The localvore’s dilemma.” The Boston Globe, July 22.
Cowen, Tyler. 2010. “The Economics of Air Freight” Marginal Revolution, April 18.
Desrochers, P., & Hiroko Shimizu. 2008. “Buy Global – The ‘Food Mile’ Perspective Severely Distorts the Environmental Impacts of Agricultural Production.” National Post, November 7.
Edwards-Jones, Gareth. 2006. “Food Miles don’t go the Distance.” BBC News Viewpoint, March 16.
Foster, Peter. 2008. “Just Plain Bananas.” National Post, November 7.
Freakonomics » The Inefficiency of Local Food
Walmart’s Agriculture Heritage Program
Urbanization and the Environment
Rifkin, Jeremy. 2006. “The Risks of Too Much City.” The Washington Post, December 17.
Bailey, Ronald. 2006. “The Lingering Stench of Malthus – Debunking Jeremy Rifkin’s Beef with Cities.” ReasonOnline, December 22.
Suggested links
Environment (General)
Anthromes: The Global Ecological Patterns Created by Humans
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Urban Agriculture
USDA on
– Community gardening
– Urban agriculture
– Community food systems and civic agriculture
Locavorism
IATP | Local Foods
The Locavore.ca (Sarah Elton’s blog)
PlanetGreen.com on the 100 mile challenge
Special issue “Local Food – Perceptions, Prospects and Policies” of Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farms, and Resource Issues 25 (1) 2010.
Twigs Way and Mike Brown. 2010. Digging for Victory: Gardens and Gardening in Wartime Britain. Sabrestorm Publishing.
Video: USDA (World War II):Victory Garden
Food Security
Global food security index
Food Sovereignty
La Via Campesina on food sovereignty
Canadian Federation of Agriculture 2017. Towards a National Food Strategy.
– Indicators (Overview)
(Browse) OECD. 2008. Agri-Environment Indicators (Key points)
Meat Production and the Environment
Mitloehner, Frank. 2009. Clearing the Air: Livestock’s Contribution to Climate Change (Power Point Presentation)
Pitesky, Maurice E., Kimberly R. Stackhouse and Frank F. Mitloehner. 2009. “Clearing the Air: Livestock’s Contribution to Climate Change.” Advances in Agronomy 103: 1-40.
Toronto Vegetarian Association. 2007. Meat’s Production Environmental Toll.
IPES food | Homepage (ipes-food.org)
- IPES food | Topics Agribusiness (ipes-food.org)
- IPES food | Topics Climate (ipes-food.org)
- IPES food | Topics Agroecology (ipes-food.org)
- IPES food | Topics Meat & Protein (ipes-food.org)
- IPES food | Topics Urban food systems (ipes-food.org)
Biotechnologies
The Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology
A debate on the future of GM technologies, Spiked-Science Debates.
Council for Biotechnology Information
“Frankenfood” Frenzy on ReasonOnline. A pro-technology Website, but with several links to GM opponents.
“Harvest of Fear,” a 2001 Nova (PBS) documentary.
WHO (World Health Organization) on
– Biotechnology (GM Foods) and Nanotechnology
“Transgenic Plants for Food Security in the Context of Development: Proceedings of a Study Week of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.” New Biotechnology 27 (5): 2010.
Organic Production
– International
International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements
International Organic Inspectors Association
Organic Materials Review Institute
– Canada
OMAFRA. Organic Agriculture (in Ontario)
Public Works and Government Services Canada. Organic Agriculture
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Organic Production
Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Organic Products
Canadian Consumer Information Gateway – Organic Food
Dalhousie University. Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada
– Debates
Intelligence2 USA (February 2010): Is Organic Food Marketing Hype?
Debate surrounding movie Food Evolution (Letter of complaint; Reply).