Conscious Consumption

Sandeep Agarwal didn’t set out to become a self-made butter historian. Of course, Agarwal, who runs a Pure Indian Foods, a company that makes organic, grass-fed ghee, has always been interested in the stuff. Then he saw his first butter churn at flea market auction, and he was hooked. He sunk years of his life and his own savings into a quest to amass butter artifacts.

Canadian farmers have long been dependent on imported seeds from Europe and the USA. The Bauta Family Initiative on Canadian Seed Security, which launched in February, plans to change that.

Welcome to Modern Farmer’s new harvest column, in which we highlight what is seasonal, talk to those who grow it, and share a recipe (or two).This week: sugar beets. Blogger and photographer Molly Yeh talks with her boyfriend Nick – a sugar beet farmer – about the the harvest in Grand Forks, ND; and shares a special latke recipe with us.

Right now, in hundreds of American high schools, teams of eager co-eds, in black and yellow varsity jackets with their names stitched on the back, are training for the big day: the upcoming Milk Quality and Products Career Development Event at the FFA nation convention in Louisville, Kentucky, which runs Oct. 28 to Nov. 2.

First appearing in the U.S. in the 1700s and known as ’slops,’ overalls became the uniform of the working stiff. Over time, their baggy silhouette served as an emblem worn by railroaders and depression era farmers — as recalled in Grant Wood’s American Gothic. Later, they became emblematic of 1960’s hippies, college students of the ’70s, and even rappers, hip hop and other recording artists, who wore them with one shoulder unfastened.

Anyone who can make a pot of tea can dye a skein of wool or yard of plain linen to whatever color they want, using commonly found plants.

We meet the new breed of global growers embracing agriculture.

The continuing journals of dairy farmer W.G. Pope from 1941, as illustrated by his great-grandson. This week: getting low on sweet cider.

The Jacu bird has an excellent eye for coffee beans — which makes its excrement some of the most expensive coffee in the world.