The Food Chain - What's Eating What Radio

Once upon a time we fueled our engines the with energy we grew on farms. But then along came Prohibition and we have been fueling our engines with petroleum ever since. This leads us to ask:

It is a fact! Agriculture, like most all industries, is growing in two directions: very big or very small. This leads us to ask: Which provides for the greatest security: many small farms or few big farms?

If we were as clever as a green plant, we could turn that dirty greenhouse gas Carbon Dioxide into clean energy and fresh air! That thought leads us to ask: Can we make clean energy from greenhouse gas?

On his deathbed Louis Pasteur, the father of germs, is said to have said, “The germ is nothing, the terroir is everything.” Pasteur’s famous recant leads us to ask:

There is a wide-open space filled with incentive to grow right in front of our eyes, but we simply have not trained ourselves to see it. And so we ask:

We’ve cooked ourselves up a lot of problems in 2020. Perhaps we should set all those problems aside for a moment to ask:

It is a $700 billion dollar a year business, and Americans spend about 2% of their lives shopping in them. Their story leads us to ask:

It kills weeds, which makes the farmer who applied it happy. But then it rises up from the fields and drifts off to settle on another field down wind, making that field’s farmer unhappy. And so we ask:

Some say the Green Revolution saved the lives of millions of people. But others say the Green Revolution ruined the lives of millions. And so we pause to ask:

The coronavirus pandemic has forced many of us to rely on others to deliver food to the front door. And that leads us to ask: What kind of food does Amazon want to deliver?

There are two cannabis industries in the United States. One is legal, the other is illegal. Both industries generate a huge amount of income. And so we ask:

Given what we see transpiring in the nation’s big cities, it makes a lot of sense to move out and start something new. And so we ask

It does not take long for weeds to take over one’s garden. The same can be said for how quickly fast food can displace good food in one’s diet. And so we ask:

In her book The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett writes, “If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” That thought leads us to ask: How should we tend our earthly garden?

Some scientists say hydroxychloroquine is an effective way to stop the Covid 19 coronavirus. Other scientists say hydroxychloroquine is not effective in stopping Covid 19. And so we ask:

The industrialization of America’s agriculture has made it possible for a very few farmers to grow most all of the nation’s food. But some say America’s agriculture is bound to collapse. And so we ask:

Agriculture uses many types of machines to grow, harvest, process and distribute the nation’s food. Among the most important of ag’s machines are the aircraft of general aviation. And so we ask:

The consolidation of the poultry industry into a few giant corporations has turned chicken farmers into serfs with a mortgage. The thought of what kind of chickens they have to offer leads us to ask:

People spend $250 Billion dollars a year on pills and potions they believe will help them avoid growing old. And so we ask: What can we feed our body to grow young, again?

Bayer spent $63 billion buying Monsanto, and another $12.5 billion settling Monsanto’s legal claims. All that money leads us to ask: Should we bet the farm on Bayer stock?

Bayer spent $63 billion buying Monsanto, and another $12.5 billion settling Monsanto’s legal claims. All that money leads us to ask: Should we bet the farm on Bayer stock?

Glyphosate is ubiquitous. That is to say, glyphosate is in the ground, in the plants, in the water, in the air and in us. That glyphosate is ubiquitous leads us to ask: Is there a connection between glyphosate and the effects of the Covid-19 coronaviru

A quick glance around the big box store told me something was wrong: Most everyone in the store was bursting at the seams with excess weight. And so we wonder:

During the coronavirus pandemic panic, the big box stores were open for business, but the little Mom and Pop’s were shut down. That being the way things were, we wonder: How does big business bully small business out of business?

During the coronavirus pandemic panic, all the big stores were open for business, while all the Mom’s and Pop’s were forced to close. At least, so it seemed. And so we ask: