From Reason TV, a look at how a tradition of rules and regulation is killing the French wine industry, while the more agile California continues to take market share.
Author Archive
10 Dec
Food Gov.
We’ve heard of Food Inc., (which I have a review of coming soon) well how about Food Gov? It turns out that the USDA has less stringent testing standards for the food sent to school lunch programs than do the private testing regimens of most fast food chains.
In the past three years, the government [...]
4 Dec
Yes, I’m Let Loose From The Noose
It’s been more than a month since I left for Virginia, since then I’ve toured Polyface, shook hands with Joel Salatin, and saw what sorts of agriculture are possible when you jump off the commodity rails and strike out in your own direction. But once I got home I found myself with a broken [...]
14 Oct
Mecca Here I Come
It’s cold and dreary here. The rain has held up the wheat sowing, but there’s still time to get it in. In fact being a bit late gives you an edge when it comes to avoiding pest problems, and the ever threatening April freeze. But that’s not my big news, the big [...]
14 Sep
Coming to a town hall near me…
So it turns out I may be meeting the Secretary of Agriculture and attending a town hall style meeting which he’s giving this Wednesday, and it begs the question, “What would you ask the Secretary given the chance?”
4 Sep
Because I’m One Lazy Blogger…
… more Salatin!
The fact is, when the government gets between my mouth and my stomach, that’s a pretty intrusive government. The only reason our founding fathers did not give us the right to food freedom, is because they could not have foreseen the day when a neighbor could not get a t-bone steak [...]
27 Aug
Can alternative farming feed the world (ie the downtrodden poor folk) ?
It can, but you’ll have to buck and take some initiative, as well as some personal responsibility. Oh, and the bureaucrats are going to have to get out of the way, all according to Joel Salatin.
Eating well does not require you to eat organic
tomatoes shipped air freight from Peru in January. You can eat [...]
26 Aug
Some folk just don’t get it, or Craig Newmark for president….
Excuse my tired fingers, I’m taking a shift break from my annual evening of hand grape crush/watching Firefly DVD’s.
The latest issue of Wired has a great piece on the success of craigslist, and it’s supposed deficiencies, despite being the leading job search site, and the leading real estate site, among others. The author can’t [...]
18 Aug
Grape Harvest
We harvested and crushed our first crop from the Syrah grapes we planted three years ago. You’ll see our vineyard, plus the teaching vineyard where we took the grapes to be crushed. The university pics are the ones with the old church in the background. This is really the wife’s project, so most of [...]
10 Aug
Ironic Capitalism
The other day a friend and I had a quick email discussion of the Blake Hurst piece that I pointed out in my last posting. His position was in line with Hurst’s, that organic food is crap, and that modern conventional farming practices are the optimal use of agricultural resources. That has [...]
