Web roundup

Want to know what I’m reading about agriculture, food, and sustainability? Well this periodic post is the place to find out:

  1. Kajabi on the old wise farmer
  2. Treehugger on exploding pig barns
  3. The New York times on the rise of the artisanal food producer
  4. Scientific American on the impracticality of the cheeseburger
  5. Foreign Policy Magazine on commodity induced food price inflation
  6. Popular Science on how feeding antibiotics to pigs is helping to create superbugs
  7. The Guardian on Monsanto being found guilty of poisoning by a French court
  8. Gene Logsdon at The Contrary Farmer on the need for secret crying places
  9. Wake Up World on bus roof gardens
  10. Treehugger on Seattle’s attempt to create the world’s first public food forest

You can also get these kind of links in real time by following me on Facebook or Twitter.

DLH

Readiness advisory

I advise everyone to pay close attention to the economic news over the next several days. From the reading I have been doing over the past 24 hours, the S&P downgrade of the government’s credit rating has the potential to be just the first of several hammer blows to the economy over the next week. This news is coupled with drastically rising wholesale inflation numbers, significantly rising commodity prices,  the specter of rising interest rates, and the potential that S&P may only be the first to downgrade.

The potential outcome of this toxic brew of circumstances is that it could trigger yet another recession (or the second dip if the existing recession). This potential becomes most threatening in that a second recession will further reduce the revenue being collected by the federal government, increasing the size of the deficits at current spending levels just at the time when it became harder for the government to borrow money because of higher interest rates and more credit restraints. In the most extreme circumstance, the government may find itself unable to borrow sufficient amounts, forcing it to defund or reduce funding on programs in mid cycle.

Be ready before it is too late.

DLH