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Obama seems to understand part of the nature of the energy problem (unlike the morons in the "drill, baby, drill" crowd), with a recent interview with Time touching on some of the problems with industrial agriculture - Swampland. I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollan about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it's creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they're contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs. That's just one sector of the economy. You think about the same thing is true on transportation. The same thing is true on how we construct our buildings. The same is true across the board.

"One more piece of information supporting how important your personal dietary choices are in dealing with climate change: New research published in the journal Global Environmental Change shows that by reducing the amount of meat and dairy eaten and changing farming practices, by 2055 we could reduce emissions of methane and nitrous oxide--two greenhouse gases far more potent than carbon dioxide--from agricultural sources by more than 80%. Summing up the research, study lead author Alexander Popp of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research says, "Meat and milk really matter. Reduced consumption could decrease the future emissions of nitrous oxide and methane from agriculture to levels below those of 1995." "

Private company investment brings total to nearly $1.3 billion for 19 biorefinery projects to create jobs and new markets for rural America Washington, D.C. - U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced the selection of 19 integrated biorefinery projects to receive up to $564 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to accelerate the construction and operation of pilot, demonstration, and commercial scale facilities. The projects - in 15 states - will validate refining technologies and help lay the foundation for full commercial-scale development of a biomass industry in the United States. The projects selected today will produce advanced biofuels, biopower, and bioproducts using biomass feedstocks at the pilot, demonstration, and full commercial scale. The projects selected today are part of the ongoing effort to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, spur the creation of the domestic bio-industry and provide new jobs in many rural areas of the country. "Advanced biofuels are critical to building a cleaner, more sustainable transportation system in the U.S." said Secretary Chu. "These projects will help establish a domestic industry that will create jobs here at home and open new markets across rural America."

Private company investment brings total to nearly $1.3 billion for 19 biorefinery projects to create jobs and new markets for rural America Washington, D.C. - U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced the selection of 19 integrated biorefinery projects to receive up to $564 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to accelerate the construction and operation of pilot, demonstration, and commercial scale facilities. The projects - in 15 states - will validate refining technologies and help lay the foundation for full commercial-scale development of a biomass industry in the United States. The projects selected today will produce advanced biofuels, biopower, and bioproducts using biomass feedstocks at the pilot, demonstration, and full commercial scale. The projects selected today are part of the ongoing effort to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, spur the creation of the domestic bio-industry and provide new jobs in many rural areas of the country. "Advanced biofuels are critical to building a cleaner, more sustainable transportation system in the U.S." said Secretary Chu. "These projects will help establish a domestic industry that will create jobs here at home and open new markets across rural America."

How the world is fed and fueled will in large part define development in the 21st century as one that is increasingly sustainable or a dead end for billions of people. A new and hard-hitting report concludes that dramatically reforming, re-thinking and redesigning two sectors -- energy and agriculture -- could generate significant environmental, social and economic returns. Current patterns of production and consumption of both fossil fuels and food are draining freshwater supplies; triggering losses of economically-important ecosystems such as forests; intensifying disease and death rates and raising levels of pollution to unsustainable levels."

Four Federal agencies today released a Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (Final PEIS) proposing to designate more than 6,000 miles of energy transport corridors on Federal lands in 11 Western States. The Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Departments of Energy, Agriculture, and Defense (the Agencies) prepared the Final PEIS as part of their work to implement Section 368 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The proposed energy corridors would facilitate future siting of oil, gas, and hydrogen pipelines, as well as electricity transmission and distribution facilities on Federal lands in the West to meet the region's increasing energy demands while mitigating potential harmful effects to the environment.

Currently in the news, the producers of ethanol are pressing their thumbs to the government, asking them to overturn the 25-year rule limiting the mix of ethanol which can be added to gasoline from its current 10 percent to as much as 15 percent. In the meantime, the Agricultural Department is in discussions with the EPA on raising the current ethanol blend percentage in order to help protect the ethanol industry, which has been deemed a key contributor to the "new energy future". Okay, that sounds just great. But a recent study is warning that the corn-based ethanol produced in the US, may in fact be more harmful and costly than helpful and clean... (read on)

How important is it to eat organic? Is it a fad, a craze or is it a warning against chemical fertilizers and GMO crops, which will help protect the next generation? Organic farming is natural farming, that means no chemical fertilisers, no genetic modification for either food crops or feed crops. Commercial farming pushing demand for agricultural produce forced a shift towards chemical fertilisers and farming methods to maximise output, for maximum profit, unaware of the significantly unnatural processes being used can be harmful. At the consumer level organic produce is a relatively new phenomena. On the supermarket shelves we are finding products labelled 'organic', most of us think it means 'natural' or 'cruelty free'. When you buy organic you are buying a green product . That means methods such as green fertilisers, crop rotation and biological pest controls are used instead of toxic chemical fertilisers and genetically modified organisms which are harmful to the land. Organic farming composes about 2% of all farming on the planet.

Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman and Secretary of Agriculture Edward T. Schafer sent a letter on June 11, 2008 to Senator Jeff Bingaman addressing a number of questions related to biofuels, food, and gasoline and diesel prices. Read the letter.