Bitter Greens

My old college running buddy Tom Philpott, Jr. just launched his own blog, the Bitter Greens Journal, "inspired by your no-nonsense blog," he tells Grits in an email. Another food-named blog inspired by Grits: Outstanding! In college, Tom and I used to co-edit this rag together.

Bitter Greens "will serve as a running critique of industrial agriculture, a clearinghouse for info on sustainable farming, and a working manifesto for a liberation politics based on food." I really like that phrase, "working manifesto"; that's a pretty accurate description for some of Grits postings. Tom did a several-year stint as a financial writer in Mexico City then in New York before moving to North Carolina to launch Maverick Farms to put some of his ideas about agriculture into practice.

For a topic I don't really follow, I must say Tom's first few posts have already piqued my interest. His "Cheap labor, cheap food, fat profits" gives the goods from a Human Rights Watch report on labor and business practices of international food giants. And his post on "The UN and the Genius of Industrial Agriculture" links to an article by UT-Austin economist Harry Cleaver, a teacher we both had back in the day. Tom's late father, Tom Philpott, Sr., was a much-beloved UT-Austin history professor.

This man is a writer's writer, folks, so if you care at all about the topic, bookmark the site and keep checking back with him. Or look for Bitter Greens in Grits' "Friends" column.