The thing to always keep in mind about farming is that it is almost never a money-making business. Not without help, anyway. So does it matter that urban farms will probably never be economically self-sufficient? Tom Philpott at Grist asks a great question: Does it matter that conventional farms aren’t? Critics of things like urban farming and environmentally sustainable, organic agriculture like to make fun of such initiatives by arguing... 

Rarely have I seen the kind of commercial paranoia that pervades the corn-ethanol industry. If you want a peek at the pathology, just check out the industry’s recent assemblage of an enemies list . That’s not rhetoric: They’ve actually assembled an enemies list and are explicitly calling it that, taking a cue from our most paranoid president . One difference is that they’re acting out their psychodrama in full view of... 

Congratulations, opponents of high fructose corn syrup : Your campaign appears to be working. Sales of the sticky substance are down in the United States, and the industry acknowledges that all the bad publicity is to blame, despite strained efforts to counter it. Sales fell 11 percent between 2003 and 2008, the Associated Press reports. It seems likely that the trend has continued, and even increased, since then, given the greater volume of... 

It’s hard to believe that it’s already time for a new farm bill, but lawmakers, lobbyists, and activists are already preparing for the next one, slated for a vote next year. The last bill (which was supposed to be completed in 2007, but wasn’t passed until 2008) was a major disappointment for many food and environmental activists, mainly because it left intact so many of the subsidies and general support for industrialized... 

The Cato@Liberty blog today bemoans something it has decided is a meaningful milestone: that the federal government last week added its 2,000 th subsidy program (and then its 2,001 st ). There is one such program “for every year that has passed since Emperor Augustus held sway in Rome,” writes blogger Chris Edwards. “We’ve gone from bread and circuses to food stamps, the National Endowment for the Arts, and 1,999 other hand-out...