By Michael Colby Not so long ago, summers at Vermont’s Lake Carmi didn’t mean fighting for water quality. And it was only about 100 years ago that Lake Carmi was called Silver Lake, a reflection of its purity at the
Not so long ago, summers at Vermont’s Lake Carmi didn’t mean fighting for water quality. And it was only about 100 years ago that Lake Carmi was called Silver Lake, a reflection of its purity at the time. But those
Originally published in Counterpunch by Michael Colby. It was twenty years ago last month that Food & Water published our report on Vermont’s atrazine addiction, a toxic herbicide that is banned in Europe but continues to be used in abundance
Also published in Alternet. The proposed remarriage of two agrochemical giants with dark histories promises more bad things. Fifty years ago, the Monsanto and Bayer corporations were forced to separate in order to avoid violating basic antitrust regulations. U.S. courts
Also published in the VTDigger By Will Allen and Michael Colby It’s no secret that the conventional dairy industry is in a deep, downward spiral, decades in the making. This is largely the result of a commodity-based pricing scheme that
By MICHAEL COLBY & WILL ALLEN Vermont agriculture exists in what seems to be two parallel universes, one in our minds and the other in reality. When people are asked to think about or imagine Vermont farming, they’ll inevitably mention
By Michael Colby The State of Vermont is on the verge of implementing “Phase One” of its plan to clean up Lake Champlain and the dozens of other impaired waterways throughout the state. In some of the most polluted areas
By Will Allen and Michael Colby The great divide between the well-marketed image of Vermont dairy farming and its stark and toxic realities is becoming harder and harder to ignore. The marketing shows healthy cows grazing on lush pastures. But
The battleground over industrial agriculture has, understandably, been centered around GMOs for the last two decades. In the U.S., the GMO debate has largely revolved around labeling, both nationally and, more successfully, on a state-by-state basis. Vermont, of course, was
The history of Vermont’s heavy adoption of industrial – or degenerative – forms of agriculture is also the history of its failure and decline. At every stage, beginning with chemical agriculture in the post-WWII era, the new techniques being promoted
