Monthly Archives: March 2012
Of Plants and Particles
“We must cultivate our own garden.” That was the philosophy of a memorable fictional character, but it’s not one that would seem to apply to most conventional fertilizers. For, as we have seen, these animal-based and chemical compounds are not … Continue reading
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Expo Realigns the Natural Channel
Like all seismic events, One Degree’s debut this month at Natural Products Expo West has generated a cluster of metaphorical aftershocks, plus new evidence that the natural foods landscape will never be quite the same. Tens of thousands streamed into … Continue reading
Pathogens 2
A key study by researchers at the University of Minnesota underscores the ease by which use of animal-based fertilizer on agricultural fields may become dangerous to human health. A central finding was that slight deviations in the processing of manure … Continue reading
Pathogens by the Gram
The link between animal-based fertilizer and food-borne illness has always been intuitive, but now scientific research has begun establishing a dangerous cause and effect. There’s a reason that human health improves dramatically wherever sanitation advances remove populations from close proximity … Continue reading
One Degree Rolls Out at Expo
“They’re taking it to the next level.” That was the buzz in Anaheim, California earlier this month as One Degree brought the bold twin messages of veganic cultivation and transparency to Natural Products Expo West, a key industry trade show … Continue reading
Bats in the Belfry
As creatures which seem uniquely able to inspire both fear and myth, bats fly in and out of the popular imagination furtively, darkly. They screech, swoop, agitate trees, clatter in chimneys, sleep absurdly in tightly wrapped capes, and look like … Continue reading
Fertilizer Fraud
In recent blog posts, we’ve seen how simple it is to add a wide array of dangerous and unexpected substances to fertilizer — and to do it legally. Everything from heavy metals, industrial waste, pharmaceuticals and hormones easily find their … Continue reading
Biosolids: A Risky Euphemism
For informed consumers who choose not to avert their gaze from uncomfortable truths, the story of industrial crop fertilization is an unsettling topic. In earlier posts we’ve discovered that both organic and chemical fertilizers frequently come with a host of … Continue reading
Medicated Fields: From Pills to Plants
Have America’s agricultural fields developed hypochondria? Soil, plants and salutary field organisms all show evidence of massive pharmaceutical intake. The real diagnosis points in a familiar direction, however: human and animal sources, with a large share of the animal contribution … Continue reading