The increasing, unadvertised research and development of GMO in Napa winemaking is starting to ring alarm bells. In three Napa Valley Register articles published last week, journalist Juliane Poirier Locke points to the genetically modified yeasts and genetically engineered grapevines that are being developed at UC Davis, Cornell, and other universities around the country—or insinuating themselves into the winemaking industry in California and elsewhere.

Posted by Nathalie Jordi on May 8, 2008 at 4:41 PM
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Most of Vanity Fair’s “green” initiatives seem to involve a naked celebrity—or several—on the cover, but a May 2008 article by Donald Barlett and James B. Steele on the history and current state of affairs of international seed-company-and-then-some Monsanto is a string of hard-hitting condemnations meant to raise the ire of VF readers everywhere.

Posted by Nathalie Jordi on May 5, 2008 at 7:27 AM
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It was only a matter of time before the local-food movement made the next logical step: towards native foods. We’re now able to grow kiwi in South Carolina, corn in Provence, and the tomato, technically a New World food, now dominates a number of Mediterranean cuisines. Still, it’s a shame that we’ve given up growing and eating so many of the foods that naturally evolved to suit a particular ecosystem.

Posted by Nathalie Jordi on May 2, 2008 at 9:08 AM
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On my bike ride today I was ecstatic to see cherry, apricot, and apple trees finally in bloom. It’s a rare and beautiful synergy of shades, complemented by the daffodils and tulips on the ground and a sky more optimistically blue than the pale, dead shades of winter.

Posted by Nathalie Jordi on Apr 30, 2008 at 9:58 AM
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In the pastoral ideal that inhabits many people’s minds, small organic farms are places of virtue and light, where the cows all have names, eat clover and poop cleanly. It’s an appealing image, but few people live it, and even fewer can eat it.

Unfortunately, as I hope people are also starting to realize, the large farms that supply most of the organic food in the present-day market seem to inhabit the spectrum’s other extreme. Farmer and writer Andy Griffin, who used to own Riverside Farms, a pioneer in the big-time bagged salad, writes about this in an article that he wrote following the E. coli spinach scare, and the Horizon scandal still lingers in many minds. Basically: if it’s equally at home in a San Francisco Whole Foods and a Miami Publix, you can bet agribusiness made it—even if it’s organic.

Is there anything in between?

Posted by Nathalie Jordi on Apr 24, 2008 at 11:58 AM
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