Commodity Corner
Views on commodities and energy
Michael Pollan: “What’s in the beef?”
Where does your burger come from? Journalist and food writer Michael Pollan has traced back the source of much of what we eat, and says that the ultimate answer is oil. Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, argues that it takes massive amounts of petroleum-derived fertilizers and pesticides to run industrial farms and feed lots, with dire consequences for human health and the Earth’s climate.
Check out Pollan’s multimedia presentation below, from the Poptech conference in Camden, Maine last month.
[Editor's note: After some Reuters fact-checking, Pollan withdrew his Poptech assertion that "A vegan in a Hummer has a smaller carbon footprint than a meat-eater in a Prius," and his statement has been edited out of the video. The erroneous meme has nevertheless continued to spread on Twitter]
Click here for Reuters Poptech coverage
Click here for more Poptech videos
More on the Future of Food:
Is Monsanto the answer or the problem?
The fight over the future of food
Is Africa selling out its farmers?
India’s food dilemma: high prices or shortages
Blanche Lincoln and her committee of chairmen
On the congressional scale of measurement, Blanche Lincoln got a plum of a birthday present — the gavel as Senate committee chairman. She is the first woman to head the Agriculture Committee. Amid the congratulatory banter on Sept 30, Lincoln’s 49th birthday, were reminders of the enduring power of its members, past and present.
As Lincoln noted, her committee includes the chairmen of four other committees — Budget, Judiciary, Finance and Health. It is a higher number of sitting chairmen than most Senate committees and allows a useful melding of interests.
