The concept of "land-grab universities" was so polarizing in 2021 that I was unable to research the actual history of the land-grants...

Monsanto advertised Krilium as a way to make soils "friendly." But did it work? Organic matter was really big in the early 1950s. Even...

From 1948 to 1950, the fertilizer industry encouraged farmers to build organic matter - and use fertilizer. “Organic matter is the life...

First prize for the fertilizer industry-sponsored soil conservation essay contest was a 1949 Buick Super 4-Door Sedan How would you like...

Bromfield dreamed of aging cheeses in caves at Malabar--but would any of them have been suitable? One of the hardest things about writing...

Getting a behind-the-scenes tour of Malabar Farm in 2015 started my career as a writer. I can’t believe it’s already been ten years since...

Being invited to speak on the topic of "Finding Common Ground" is a dream come true for me. I was thrilled when the Ohio Ecological Food...

The glaciers in Glacier National Park are melting. Will the park still be worth visiting and preserving once they're gone? I love...

Although Aldo Leopold feared they were going extinct, sandhill cranes are now a common sight in rural Michigan. I heard them first—that...

Inevitable future catastrophe - or lesson of hope from the past? Environmentalism today is very pessimistic. There’s a constant sense of...

Fertilizer Review magazine called organic farmers "witch doctors" in 1951. When I was teaching an introductory writing class at the...

Raw peach pits and moldy peanuts contain toxic chemicals. But does that mean pesticides are safe? By the 1970s, Americans were bombarded...

One definition of "organic" is "a carbon-containing molecule." But is that the only definition? As I mentioned in my post “How Health...

In the 1970s, organic food was attacked by nutritionists as a dangerous "food fad" Throughout history, most people have wanted to be...

Finally, a book that covers the connection between the counterculture and organic farming! What’s the connection between organic farming...

The Nearings made compost using an all-plant-based version of the Indore Method. Countless members of the counterculture first saw...

Helen and Scott Nearing grew all the vegetables they ate at their Vermont and Maine homesteads--all year round. When Helen and Scott...

Helen and Scott Nearing traded labor with their neighbors to build a sugar house on their Vermont homestead and made a living selling...

I appreciate Hannah Ritchie's optimism, but disagree about whether organic farming can feed the world. I’m always on the lookout for new...

This graph implies that it's impossible to feed the world with organic farming. But what data is it really based on? “Without the...