(OH) Cleveland Plain Dealer – Despite the clamor for local food, only about 1 percent of the food eaten in Ohio is grown in Ohio. And of the 14 million acres farmed in our state, 8 million produce corn and soybeans. Those crops are subsidized by the government, shipped out of state to make processed food, then shipped back for sale.

By Sarah Coefield
Coefield@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
Sept. 23, 2009
Countless deer descend on crops in the Great Lakes region, leaving in their wake torn corn silks, leafless soybeans, devastated orchards and millions of dollars in damage.  It’s a drop in the bucket for the agriculturally rich region but nonetheless painful for individual farmers.
“In the grand scheme of things, it’s a minor amount, but it can be your entire crop,” said Paul Zimmerman, the public affairs executive director for the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation.
While damage may be little noticed on large farms, it can …

By Rachael Gleason
rachaelkaygleason@gmail.com
Great Lakes Echo
Sept. 22, 2009
Lousy weather and increased farming mean fewer pheasants in Minnesota grasslands this year.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources reports a 27 percent decline in the pheasant population from last year. The number of birds also fell below the 10-year average.
A harsh winter and a cool, wet spring made it hard for baby pheasants to survive, said Dennis Simon, a wildlife chief at the state agency.
“We finally had a normal winter and there was a loss of birds,” Simon said.
At the same time more than …

(MI) Battle Creek Enquirer – A countywide ban on phosphorus use on lawns would prevent unwanted algae growth within lakes and streams, said Christine Kosmowski and Cheryl Vosburg, representatives of the Lake Allegan/Kalamazoo River Watershed TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load) Implementation Committee.

(WI) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – Health care as we know it didn’t exist 3,000 years ago. But along the Georgia coast, the Pacific Northwest, and coastal Brazil, people grew tall and strong and lived relatively free of disease. They ate game, fish, shellfish and wild plants.

(WI) Indian Country Today – In olden days, Clarissa Welds, an elder of Lake Superior, as she calls herself, never worried about how many fish she ate.

(MN) Minneapolis Star Tribune – Two green transit projects in Minnesota are among 43 nationwide receiving $100 million in funding from the Economic Recovery Act, the Obama administration announced Monday.

(MI) Lansing State Journal – It’s been 16 years since then-Editorial Page Editor Mark Nixon’s battle cry for riverine improvement. And, to the credit of many, much has been done to improve Lansing’s river.

(MI) The Holland Sentinel – The most effective way for the United States to fight global warming is for Congress to put a price on carbon, either through a cap-and-trade system or, as we’d prefer, a carbon tax that rebates the revenue to taxpayers.

(IL) Chicago Tribune – Visitors can study nearly 200 plant scientists in their natural habitat through the windows that line both sides of a main hall in the Chicago Botanic Garden’s gleaming new research center.