The people of India have a deep connection with mangoes. Every person claims to have at least one favorite kind but the Alphonso mango is undoubtedly the king. Anyone who has eaten it will attest that its distinctive flavor is hard to forget. However, the last couple of years have spelled trouble for mango farmers in India.

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Zurich-based group designs a rooftop fish farm that can also grow vegetables – is this the future of local, sustainable, seasonal, and organic food?

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This is the official entry of Akhila Vijayaraghavan for the Rio Blogger Prize. The winner of the prize gets to go to Rio to cover the climate talks in June. If you like what you read, please support her and like, share, comment and tweet the original on TckTckTck’s website.  One of the biggest deterrents [...]

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Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood will soon be home to a 100,000 square foot, multi-acre rooftop farm that will produce a million pounds of produce per year – enough to feed 5,000 people – without using any dirt. The farm will be built by BrightFarms, a new company with a unique business model that finances, builds, and operates hydroponic greenhouse farms for supermarkets and other retailers who purchase the produce.

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I’ve been covering the food distribution market over at Software Advice for the last year, and one thing that’s perplexed me is the insistence of U.S. food distributors to stick to a centralized approach to distribution. While a centralized approach to food distribution does offer economies of scale, it has negative impacts on the quality [...]

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WIth Brazil’s global clout comes increased focus on its role as the world’s breadbasket and whether the increasing strain on its land is too high a price to pay.

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Could Americans’ tax dollars be paying for greenwashing by the United States Department of Agriculture? Those who are suspicious about the KYF2 program have every right to be suspicious.

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A transatlantic organic equivalence arrangement has been negotiated between representatives from the US Department of Agriculture and EU Agriculture and Regional Development department, allowing for more market access of organic products certified under both the EU and US organic standards.  This means that although these sets of standards do contain certain variances, the US National [...]

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Ramifications of a defunct food system

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Grist reported on Valentine’s Day that one of the biggest farm communities in California – Monterey County – banned the notorious fumigant methyl iodide. Along with Santa Cruz, Monterey County has taken this step of doing away with this harmful chemical from farmlands. Methyl iodide is the the replacement for ozone-depleting methyl bromide. Methyl bromide [...]

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In India, millets have formed the core of the everyday diet for millenia. However after the Green Revolution, subsidies for wheat and rice, and the food distribution system millets are slowly dying out.

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After a lot of debate, the Indian cabinet finally cleared the National Food Security Bill (NFSB) amidst doubts of whether this would really help create a hunger-free India. According to the Food Security Bill, India will need 60 – 61 million tons of grain to feed people who will be eligible for assistance. This means food [...]

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My recent stay in Detroit and current trip to Doha have opened my eyes to how citizens are taking matters into their own hands and building more sustainable economies.

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Farm Plate is a fantastic sustainable food initiative – it is a rather newly launched website which features a searchable directory of more than 40,000 business listing across the US. Users can search the site by category and by location to find sustainable foods and drinks. Farm Plate links  ”farmers, fishermen, foragers, food artisans, restaurants, markets, [...]

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Applying genetic modification technologies, the company developed plants that can overcome harsh conditions of seawater irrigation. CEO, Amir Avniel: “This experiment is another step towards production of improved plants that will provide farmers with excellent yield even in drought conditions”

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In recent months, Fair Trade USA has caused a ripple in the Fair Trade movement by boldly questioning the status quo and moving in a new direction to significantly increase the effectiveness and reach of the Fair Trade model. President and CEO Paul Rice explains his new strategic vision, Fair Trade for All, which aims to double the impact of Fair Trade by 2015 by innovating the model, strengthening farming communities and igniting consumer involvement.

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Local food is bad for your health, bad for the environment and bad for the economy, not to mention its potential risk for the well-being of billions of poor people worldwide. As strange as you find this description of local food, these are probably the conclusions you would reach from reading Steve Sexton’s Freakonomics article, The [...]

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Morgan Stanley’s Global Investment Committee recently released a report in which it argues that the “perfect storm” of declining water supply and rising demand are likely to make water the critical limiting resource of our time. The report, entitled “Peak Water: The Preeminent 21st Century Commodity Story,” paints a convincing picture of a world that is [...]

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Local, sustainable food has become a regular part of our everyday culture as demonstrated through the growing popularity of school gardens, Community Supported Agriculture, local farmers’ markets, underground dining clubs, and organics in general. This enduring trend in sustainable food reignites a question posed on Triple Pundit two years ago: “Is Sustainable Farming Going Mainstream?” Unfortunately not at all as the sustainable food hype trumps the numbers.

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PepsiCo, has committed to purchasing sunflower oil sourced from farmers in Mexico. The arrangement will also lead to its snack food products becoming more healthier for its customers.

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The United States Department of Labor has proposed an update to child labor regulations.  These regulations are allegedly targeted at improving the safety of young folks working in the area of agriculture.  Are these proposals a step forward for child labor regulations?  Or do these proposals meddle too much with parent and child rights to choose [...]

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During the last part of the 19th century cattle ranchers and farmers battled for supremacy in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Farmers won the battle, and farming has been entrenched in the Valley’s fertile soil ever since. Today another battle is being waged, and this time it is between farmers and those who want to develop [...]

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In all the sustainable industries, none perhaps present such ubiquitous opportunities for entrepreneurs as sustainable food. Clean tech, green building and alternative transportation typically require massive investments and technical expertise, putting the fields out of reach for many aspiring green workers and entrepreneurs. Sustainable food is different in its scale, but it is also different [...]

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Chickpea enthusiasts might be pleased to learn that this super food has the potential to start showing up in many more products. That’s because PepsiCo recently partnered with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the World Food Program (WFP) to institute Enterprise EthioPEA, a program with simultaneous goals of dramatically raising Ethiopia’s [...]

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The Healthy Food, Healthy Planet summit, hosted by The National Journal and the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition, brought together speakers and panelists to discuss healthy eating, lack of access to healthy food, obesity, biofuels, and the agricultural industry. Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Tom Vilsack was the keynote speaker and [...]

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Not so long ago, it seemed that biofuels were assumed to be the best means for us to wean ourselves from our oil addiction, with ethanol, in particular, attracting most attention as a putatively green-fuel. But then it became apparent that growing feed-stocks for biofuel production has some significant downsides – and perhaps now, electric [...]

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Five months out of the year, from November thru March, the California Central Valley experiences a mix of airborne toxins that exacerbate an otherwise natural phenomenon known as Tule Fog: This breathable toxic soup contains the product of ‘development’, such as diesel emission particles (DEP), ammonia, methane, pesticides, herbicides, and other particulate matter trapped in fog.

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Founded by Karl and Cara Rosaen, Real Time Farms (RTF) is a new crowd-sourcing online food guide that is every foodie’s dream, acting as a restaurant guide, local farm source map, and food artisan storytelling hub all wrapped up into one. As their website boasts, “As crazy as it sounds, our vision is to collectively [...]

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What began as the quest for a fresh, juicy, flavorful tomato culminated in a landmark labor rights agreement which is transforming the lives of agricultural workers in the heart of Florida’s tomato land.  Along the way we can learn lessons in stakeholder engagement. I had the opportunity to speak privately with Cheryl Queen, VP of [...]

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Imagine living in a low-income neighborhood, not owning a car, and the closest grocery market that sells fresh fruits and vegetables is 5 miles away.  Meanwhile fast food chains and corner stores like McDonalds, and 7-11 are walking distance.  What would your diet look like then? About 2.3 million American households live in these food [...]

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