As the number of US farmers markets has tripled in the past 15 years, numerous food sellers who lie about who they are or what they are selling are worming their way into this niche. You can determine if farmers market swindles are an issue for your audience with a moderate amount of digging.
This growing trend can yield a crop of homegrown food stories with strong environmental angles. Here's a roundup of recent and upcoming urban agriculture issues, as well as some background and resources, to whet your appetite.
Journalism about farm and food is often a key part of the environment beat. To help reporters quickly find sources and resources that can help them cover farm and food, SEJ has compiled on its website a list of some of the best.
"Four large oil companies are committing $1 billion to set up a rapid response system to deal with oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico’s deep waters. The effort is aimed partly at deflecting efforts by some state and federal officials to stop or severely restrict drilling in the gulf in the wake of the BP spill."
The Firestone company, the second largest employer in Liberia, is so powerful in that country that the people there have little recourse when they complain that it is poisoning their water. Firestone's massive rubber plantation there was set up with help from the U.S. government in the 1920s. Firestone is now owned by the giant Bridgestone Americas, a Japanese company.
"A confidential survey of workers on the Deepwater Horizon in the weeks before the oil rig exploded showed that many of them were concerned about safety practices and feared reprisals if they reported mistakes or other problems." Key equipment, such as the failed blowout preventer, had not been inspected in nearly a decade.
"Three out of every four lobbyists who represent oil and gas companies previously worked in the federal government, a proportion that far exceeds the usual revolving-door standards on Capitol Hill, a Washington Post analysis shows."
While federal rules have drastically cut use of asbestos in the U.S., the legacy of decades of use is still killing Americans. As many as 10,000 die of asbestos-related illness each year. Are scientists being paid to bring fraudulent science into court by companies who hope to limit their liability?
"Each year, around a half a million people go whitewater rafting in Colorado, and the industry is a key economic driver in many rural towns. But in recent months, the issue of rafting and who can float through stretches of private property has divided the state."
The release of large amounts of Mississippi River freshwater in an attempt to push oil back out to sea has backfired. The lower salinity is killing the oysters it was meant to save.
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