Tag Archives: agriculture

KRUGMAN FLUNKS FOOD—AND HISTORY, BY: DENNIS T. AVERY

Paul Krugman is a big deal: Princeton professor, New York Times columnist and Nobel laureate (2008). Krugman wrote last week about the “food crisis, the second one to hit the world in the last three years.” His key statement: “what really stands out is the extent to which severe weather events have disrupted agricultural production. And these severe weather events are exactly the kind of thing we’d expect to see as rising concentrations of greenhouse gases change our climate—which means that the current food prices surge may be just beginning.” Continue reading

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UN MILLENNIUM GOALS FLUNK REALITY CHECK, BY: DENNIS T. AVERY

On the10th birthday of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, officials are lamenting that the world has made little progress in meeting them. No one should be surprised.

Goal # 1 is to cut greenhouse emissions by 50 percent. The UN says this clearly within reach if there’s the “political will.” “Economic death-wish” would be a better term. The UN wants us to give up 85 percent of our energy system, and use expensive, erratic solar and wind that would do little to reduce greenhouse emissions. Continue reading

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PRESIDENTIAL CHEMO-PHOBIA?, BY: DENNIS T. AVERY

“I believe it is time for a new human experiment. The old experiment is that we have sprayed pesticides which are inherent poisons . . . throughout our shared environment. They’re in our amniotic fluid . . . They’re in our mothers’ milk. What is the burden of cancer that we can attribute to these poisons in our agricultural system? We won’t really know the answer until we do the other experiment, which is to take the poisons out of our food chain, embrace a different kind of agriculture, and see what happens.” Continue reading

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HAITI’S DESPERATE FOOD CROP OUTLOOK, BY: DENNIS T. AVERY

CHURCHVILLE, VA—In a normal year, Haiti must start now preparing for the spring planting season, which ends in May.  The spring crop usually produces 60 percent of the country’s food.  Unfortunately, many families have had to eat or share the … Continue reading

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BORLAUG: FEEDING THE HUNGRY, SAVING THE WILDLIFE, BY: DENNIS T. AVERY

CHURCHVILLE, VA—It was 1950. World War II, with its 40 million deaths, was over. Doctors were conquering smallpox with vaccines, protecting millions from malaria and typhus with new pesticides, and treating infections with the miraculous new antibiotics.   Then we … Continue reading

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THE FATAL ERROR IN ORGANIC: FERTILIZER, BY: DENNIS T. AVERY

CHURCHVILLE, VA—Rudolph Steiner, a founder of organic farming in the 1920s, started the “great organic nitrogen swindle” that threatens the world with hunger to this day. Steiner didn’t believe in nutrients, he believed in “vital forces.”  He said a cow … Continue reading

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New Year’s Goals For The Ag Community Focused On A Strong, Prosperous 2008

by Dan Murphy    1/7/2008 1:50:00 PM  As 2008 begins a critical year for all of agriculture, AgNetwork.com reviews the goals and priorities from a select group of advocacy groups and trade associations. Some of those are entirely predictable – … Continue reading

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Has America Already Lost High-Yield Agriculture?

Dennis T. Avery America has had a proud two centuries of world leadership in high-yield agricultural research and technology. It stretches back to George Washington’s farming experiments and Abraham Lincoln signing the Morrill Act to create the land-grant colleges and agricultural … Continue reading

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Engineering A Sustainable–and Sustaining–World Food Supply

Dennis T. Avery This speech was given before the American Society of Agricultural Engineers in Chicago, IL The Declaration for High-Yield Agriculture On April 30, 2002, a new “Declaration in Support of Protecting Nature With High-Yield Farming and Forestry” was … Continue reading

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The World Really Needs High-Yield Ag: It Just Doesn’t Know it Yet!

Alex A. Avery The Rev. Thomas Malthus’ famous question about whether humanity can continue to feed all the people was posed exactly 200 years ago. It has taken us nearly all of that 200 years to be sure of an … Continue reading

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