Articles by Tom Philpott
Tom Philpott was previously Grist's food writer. He now writes for Mother Jones.
All Articles
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More hidden costs of our love affair with cheap imported goods
Remember a couple of weeks ago, when a Brazilian soy magnate turned a voracious eye on the Amazon rainforest, marveling at how awesome it would be to raze more of it to plant soy? Blairo Maggi, known as Brazil’s “soy king,” said this: With the worsening of the global food crisis, the time is coming […]
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How should sustainable-food advocates respond to the latest farm bill proposal?
For months now, the 2007 farm bill has been in limbo, tied up in reconciliation negotiations between the House and the Senate. On Thursday, the bicameral Farm Bill Conference Report agreed on a final proposal. The latest version will go to the larger House and Senate next week for approval; if all goes well, it […]
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The NYT on urban farming
Viewed through a wide lens, the world’s troubles seem overwhelming: climate change, pointless war, spreading hunger, surging food and energy prices, etc. There’s a tendency to seek big-brush answers to these vast problems, to ask: what’s The Solution? Failing inevitably to find it — much less implement it — we plunge deeper into despair and […]
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FT: Midwest rains threaten U.S. corn crop
Remember in February, when a fertilizer magnate raised the specter of widespread famine if any of the globe’s big farming regions hit a rough patch this year? Here’s what he said: If you had any major upset where you didn’t have a crop in a major growing agricultural region this year, I believe you’d see […]
