Articles by Tom Philpott
Tom Philpott was previously Grist's food writer. He now writes for Mother Jones.
All Articles
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I loathe the farm bill but can’t bring myself to accept the Bush administration’s party line
People keep asking me what I think about the new farm bill — the one that will soon likely become law, since both houses of Congress passed it with majorities that would withstand Bush’s threatened veto. I hate it; it fails utterly to make the investments we need to rebuild local and regional food systems […]
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Why that organic label on your milk doesn’t tell the whole story
Tastes great, but who’s paying the health-care bills? As a writer, one of my goals is to demystify farming for non-farmers — to remind people that their food comes from somewhere, grown by someone, often drawing down finite resources. Less than 2 percent of Americans farm, yet all of us eat. Whether you’re scarfing a […]
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One big corpration dominates the soon-to-be-prized potash market
Industrial agriculture currently stands as humanity’s big plan for "feeding the world" as global population moves toward 10 billion and the earth warms. Increasingly, as oil supplies tighten and prices rise, we’re looking to industrial ag to fill our gas tanks, too. Unhappily, this relatively new form of farming relies utterly on three elements — […]
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Higher food prices likely mean more health problems for low-income folks
I doubt if many people really believe that the recent spike in food prices will, as a New York Times piece put it, “make organic food more accessible” and force people into healthier eating patterns. (I wrote about this topic in a recent Victual Reality column.) For those who do, I offer this remark from […]
