In 2003, Mike Fortune left a budding career as a stockbroker and moved to Asheville to start an urban farm. He eventually found a willing landowner on Greenhill Avenue, in the city’s west end, with a large backyard that slopes down to railroad tracks. Several adjacent neighbors volunteered their backyards and soon Fortune had nearly […]

Last week, the largest egg producer in the United States issued a dire financial report. The company, Cal-Maine Foods, suffered a net loss in the most recent quarter. They cited an “extreme drop” in egg prices, and the numbers back that up. So what’s going on? In the past year, the average price of a […]

Life without food is impossible, and life without beer and wine is pretty unappealing. But while we depend on agriculture to survive and thrive, it is becoming increasingly clear that many current farm practices are untenable. According to a global review of agriculture from the United Nations, 80 percent of municipal wastewater discharged into water […]