Articles by Tom Philpott
Tom Philpott was previously Grist's food writer. He now writes for Mother Jones.
All Articles
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After all the fuss, looks like we might get an extension of the 2002 farm bill
Photo: iStockphoto Remember the farm bill — the omnibus federal legislation that generated so much sound and fury last year? Like a downer cow slouching toward its executioner, the farm bill still lives, sort of. The House, Senate, and president are haggling over it, squabbling over the bill’s price tag and how it will be […]
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In North Carolina’s Triangle, a severe drought has leaders stumped
North Carolina’s Triangle — Durham, Chapel Hill, and Raleigh — counts as the state’s economic, educational, and political engine. It’s also very quickly running out of water, parched by a severe drought. Are the area’s leaders doing anything constructive to respond to the situation? So far, the signs aren’t encouraging. I’ve been following the story […]
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More trouble with ethanol waste as cow chow
In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat industry. Remember the good old days, when gigantic meat and dairy producers stuffed cows into feedlots and fed them corn? Sure, cows evolved to eat grass, and corn wears out their livers (and makes their digestive tracts friendly to E. coli 0157, a […]
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With wheat stocks at all-time lows, a fertilizer magnate utters the F-word
Famine. For us Americans, the word conjures images of heart-rending scenes from distant shores: the kind of images a sad-eyed Sally Struthers busts our chops about on late-night cable TV. Famine is an abstract concept, a specter haunting not us, but distant ancestors and exotic-looking people in faraway lands. Of course, as Richard Manning drives […]
