Civil Eats

Paul Greenberg would have had one less chapter to write in Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food had fellow author Mark Kurlansky’s 2000 best-seller Cod caused a swift change in the way cod are harvested today. Although Kurlansky provided crucial information about the deleterious effects of industrial fishing, we left the responsibility of change to others. Greenberg is now attempting to revive the “bad human behavior of former times” to consciousness. His Pollan-esque investigation into our food chain—by way of salmon, sea bass, cod, and tuna—is as much an exposé on the fishing industry as it is a comment on “Modern” man’s desire to rule a larger food chain than was intended for him.

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The drive from San Francisco to Monterey cuts directly through the heart of commercial California agriculture. The road winds past thousands of acres of coastal crops, industrial-sized sprinklers, and crews of laborers stooping to hand-cut heads of lettuce and pick strawberries. It’s the kind of monocropping known for methyl bromide, nitrate contamination, and a whole range of other environmental problems.

These farms made for a useful comparison, however, when it came time to talk about fish farming at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s recent Sustainable Food Institute.

The panel in question was called “Greening the Blue Revolution” and it brought together experts from a variety of disciplines to discuss the ecological challenges involved in fish farming. The panelists didn’t agree on everything but one thing was clear: many of the principles that apply to farming sustainably on land should also be applied to aquaculture. Read More

It seems like not a week goes by without industrial animal food production somehow making headlines–the H1N1 flu pandemic, astounding meat recalls, high levels of arsenic in chicken feed, or any of a dozen other concerns. One recent story that should have generated some rather large waves, however, has made only a minor splash. Chile’s salmon farming industry, second only to Norway’s, is on the verge of collapse. Read More