Tag Archives: agribusiness
FREE RANGE: FOOD, NATURE, PLACE, AND MORE
Re-wilding the monocultural self
While reading the recently published Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World, by Emma Marris, I found myself simultaneously cheering and exclaiming with a steely squint: Hey! Real conservationists can’t think this! You’re just giving ammunition for them to … Continue reading
Posted in Nature
Tagged agribusiness, climate change, environmentalism, farming, Madroño Ranch, nature, nineteenth century
3 Comments
Dorothea Brooke, Big Ag, and Betty Friedan
I’m a lousy housewife, which, in my initial phase of housewifery, is exactly what I aspired to be. Not for me the bourgeois passion for clean baseboards and orderly closets, especially after graduate school in literature in the mid-1980s, in … Continue reading
Posted in More
Tagged agribusiness, farming, feminism, George Eliot, Harper's, Wendell Berry
2 Comments
Tragic waste: some thoughts on the s-word
Michael Pollan notes in The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Mealsthat industrial agriculture has taken an elegant solution—crops feed animals, whose manure in turn fertilizes crops—and “divide[d] it into two new problems: a fertility problem on the farm… … Continue reading
Posted in Nature
Tagged agribusiness, bat guano, chickens, Lent, Madroño Ranch, manure, Michael Pollan, Nuclear Boy, Wendell Berry
Leave a comment
Stubbing the giant’s toe: thoughts on Midwestern agribusiness
Corn. Soybeans. Corn. Soybeans. Corn. Soybeans. Corn. Soybeans. Corn. Soybeans. Corn. Soybeans. Corn. Soybeans. Corn. Soybeans. And did I mention corn? We drove last week from Austin to Gambier, Ohio, to deliver our youngest to college, and then back to … Continue reading
Posted in Food
Tagged agribusiness, agriculture, Boggy Creek Farm, chickens, corn, Joel Salatin, Midwest, Will Allen
3 Comments
Double vision: prophets, tribalism, eugenics, and the environment
As I dog-paddle through the sea of books threatening to drown not just me but the overwhelmed shores of my bedside table, I found these sentences: “For those who draw near and offer themselves before God, satisfaction of hunger is … Continue reading
Posted in Nature
Tagged agribusiness, Austin, Bible, Ellen Davis, environmentalism, Orion, prophets, Texas Hill Country, Theodore Roosevelt, Wendell Berry
2 Comments
Adventures in Business-Land
This week, during a solo trip to Madroño, Heather spent much of her time knocking on doors in Kerrville, Bandera, Medina, Tarpley, and vicinity, hoping to convince chefs and restaurateurs to buy locally raised, grass-fed bison meat from the ranch. … Continue reading
Posted in More
Tagged agribusiness, Austin, bison, farming, Madroño Ranch, meat, Texas Hill Country, Thunder Heart Bison
Leave a comment
Sorry, Dad: wilderness and government regulation
Harmonic convergences have ordained that I’m not done pondering wilderness yet. For my recent post on “Mapping the geography of hope: our place in the wilderness,” I once again used a quotation without having read its source. My latest hit-and-run … Continue reading
Posted in Nature
Tagged agribusiness, Aldo Leopold, John Muir, Permian Basin, regulation, Sherwood Anderson, Stewart Udall, Wallace Stegner, wilderness
3 Comments
Growing hope
This summer we attended a screening of Fresh, a documentary that highlights the efficiency and productivity of organic farming and the casual cruelty and hidden costs of industrial agriculture. Along with about a hundred others, we watched the film under … Continue reading
Posted in Food
Tagged agribusiness, agriculture, Boggy Creek Farm, Edible Austin, Fresh, organic farming, Rachel Carson, Will Allen
Leave a comment