Today in Organic: September 1, 2009

Green bell pepper / Mark Andrew Boyer

• "The way we eat is trashing the fragile conditions that make human life possible," writes Grist food writer Tom Philpott, who does a good job synthesizing a couple of groundbreaking studies of pesticides use in conventional food production that were released this summer. Philpott says the debate should be shifted from whether sustainable food can "feed the world" to why conventional ag will end the world.

• "Antique dung is secret element behind lure of organic wines," Bloomberg reports. According to the story, organic wine sales have increased 28 percent since 2004 in the US.

• We thought the aquaponics setup at AquaRanch was revolutionary, but check out these innovations at TreeHugger.com: a hydroponic ferris wheel and a vertical farm from the Paignton Zoo in the UK. 

• On the theme of gardening in tight spaces, EarthFirst.com has a nice post about Mike Lieberman, who set up a self-watering veggie garden on his NYC fire escape (with video).

• "Keep your self-righteous fingers off my processed food," says Manhattan Institute writer Charlotte Allen in a whiny, rambling denunciation of the sustainable food movement (and high-quality things in general). This is the second anti-sustainable food Op-Ed the LA Times has run in as many months.