agriculture definition

On May 22, Walmart announced its new policy on animal welfare and antibiotic use,  Walmart U.S. Announces New Animal Welfare and Antibiotics Positions:  Company Outlines Expectations for Suppliers to Walmart U.S. and Sam�s Club U.S., as Part of Commitment to Sustainable Supply Chain . As the world's largest food retailer, Walmart often sets the standards for the supply chain. This has been cast in terms of lowering the bar for production standards as a means of lowering costs. Sometimes, however, as in this case, Walmart can also decide to raise the bar. The announcement includes Walmart's support for the "globally recognized ' Five Freedoms ' of animal welfare." For example, included in the announcement is a call to suppliers to "[f]ind and implement solutions to address animal welfare concerns in housing systems. . . " The announcement also takes on the pervasive use of antimicrobials in livestock and poultry production. It supports the elimination...

The (edited) article below from today�s Los Angeles Times (May 20, 2015) is by Jared Stone, a television producer and author of Year of the Cow : How 420 Pounds of Beef Built a Better Life for One American Family (Flatiron Books, 2015). Although I am not an omnivore, presumably the vast majority of readers are omnivorous, in which case this should be of some interest. If you�re going to eat cattle, let them eat grass . �Stories about impending environmental apocalypse circulate almost daily, especially in drought-ravaged California. Many of these stories tend to blame agriculture � and specifically, beef � for gobbling up our resources. Though numbers vary widely and are hotly contested, some researchers estimate that it takes 1,800 gallons of water to produce each pound of beef. The real problem, however, isn�t cattle. It�s industrial feedlots, where more than 70% of U.S. cattle eventually live.   In an industrial feedlot, potentially thousands of animals are packed together in an...

Last summer, Missouri voters narrowly approved a right to farm amendment to the Missouri Constitution. It appears that the supporters' expectation is that the amendment will ban the state from putting any environmental, animal welfare, health, etc. (read: costly) restrictions on their farming practices. While the actual effect of the amendment is still unclear, supporters spent over $1 million dollars toward the passage of the right to farm. Having freedom to farm is all well and good, but what good is a right to farm without the demand for farm products? The upturn in U.S. agriculture correlates not with any recognition of a right to farm, but rather with an international recognition of the right to food . The combination of World War I and the great depression saw a large downturn in U.S. agriculture and the subsequent creation of federal farm subsidies . On the one hand, the federal farm subsidies helped U.S. farmers continue to farm. On the other hand, these farmers were...

The title of this compilation is a mouthful, but its content can be chewed with leisure and is easily digestible. I hope it also proves both nutritious and a gustatory delight. The Sullied Science & Political Economy of Hyper-Industrial Agriculture (Or: �Toward Agroecology & Food Justice�) � A Basic Bibliography