“COVID and the Anti-Vaxxers”   JK, it’s a 13th-century image of hell from the Florence Baptistery. Europe has suffered through many plagues and pandemics over the centuries — and in the Middle Ages (before they had the miracle of vaccines), they thought it was God’s anger or the devil that was making their lives miserable. They had no science to ignore — unlike today, when many in our society insist on bringing this avoidable misery upon our community.  Back then, life was “nasty, brutish, and short,” leaving medieval people obsessed with what came after: Will I go to heaven or hell?…

Transfarmation is an organization helping former factory farmers move from debt-laden, environmentally damaging practices toward a sustainable future. Transfarmation is a finalist for the 2024 Food Planet Prize. ANSON County, North Carolina, USA – There is a sweetness to Tom Lim’s caress while he cradles his pet rooster, Cuti. It’s another irregular winter season in North Carolina, but a cold front just rolled in the night before. Cuti is shivering. Lim finds a sunbeam outside his garden chicken coop and carries the rooster into the warm light, petting the glistening feathers until he becomes still and comfortable. A water pump…

  I believe a regular does of travel memories can be good for the sou. Here’s one of my favorites — and I’d love to hear some of your most memorable travel tales, as well.  It’s the summer of 2008, and I’m hanging out in the living room of my B&B in the Amsterdam suburb of Haarlem with my hosts Hans and Marjet. Reaching for my Heineken, I notice it sits on a handbook the Dutch government produces to teach prostitutes about safe sex. Thumbing through it, I say to Hans, “It’s both artistic and explicit.”  “It’s Victoria without the secret,” he whispers…

Could an all-natural steam seed treatment replace mainstream agricultural chemical treatments? ThermoSeed, a finalist for the 2024 Food Planet Prize, thinks so. UPPSALA, Sweden – When Bjørn Stabbetorp, CEO of the Agricultural Division of the Norwegian agriculture co-op Felleskjøpet, began approaching farmers in southern Norway in the late 2000s to convince them to use an all-natural steam seed treatment coming from their Swedish neighbors, he was met with mixed responses. “Some farmers bought the argument that it would be good to use less chemical products,” he says. “But others were more skeptical about ‘natural treatments.’ They wanted to stick with…