The Back 40

A recent study in the journal, Water Policy, compares the water supply histories of four major cities: San Diego, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Adelaide, Australia. The major conclusion of the report was that urban water conservation, recycling, and desalination can’t nearly come close to the level of water conservation that can be provided by upstream farmers. [...]

Excess manure running off of farmlands into waterways is a significant issue across the nation, negatively impacting the quality of soil, water, and wildlife. In Wisconsin, county conservationists play a major role in working with farmers who wish to develop crop rotation and other nutrient management practices to reduce the runoff. The conservationists also often find [...]

Wisconsin is experiencing some deep budget cuts to land and water conservation efforts, which is being felt by state conservation offices at the county level. As the article below states, cuts at the county level will have an immediate impact on Wisconsin agriculture. Cap Times writer Margaret Krome traveled around Wisconsin, asking farmers how these [...]

Beverly Bell and Tory Field recently wrote an interesting piece for the Huffington Post about the global food market and the impact it has on producers and consumers at the local level. They write that food is a great unifier for the world’s citizens, but control of food production and distribution is increasingly being taken [...]

Unfortunately, it often takes a natural disaster or series of disasters, to make policymakers take notice. Such is the case with the agricultural industry, which has been struggling with severe drought amidst other hardships. On February 14, the Senate Agriculture Committee held a hearing called, “Drought, Fire, and Freeze: The Economics of Disaster for America’s [...]

As the debate rages on over the use of genetically engineered (GE) crops, Greg Jaffe, a writer for “The Atlantic,” addresses some common myths about this phenomenon. His bottom line is that genetically modified foods have the potential to reduce hunger and improve the environment but several factors need to be taken into consideration before [...]