A recent study conducted on behalf of the Aid by Trade Foundation has assessed the ecological footprint of the Cotton made in Africa Initiative as being considerably smaller than cotton grown elsewhere in the world.

Chipotle Mexican Grill has announced that effective this month, 100 percent of the fast casual chain's sour cream and 65 percent of the chain's cheese will come from milk made exclusively by pasture-raised cows. To qualify as pasture-raised, every cow has daily access to outdoor pastures, and is never fed any hormones, just a vegetarian, plant-based diet, according to the company.

Called "selective breeding," Australian researchers are looking into ways of using genetic modification on cattle and sheep so that they produce less methane as part of a new sustainability initiative called target100.

Promising new research coming out of France shows that a dramatic reduction in pesticide use can be achieved without a negative impact on crop yields, according to the Pesticide Action Network of North America.

The 2012 GRAMMY Awards airing this Sunday, February 12th will be a night of firsts (and not just because Skrillex has 5 nominations). Chipotle, the fast casual Mexican-inspired restaurant chain will run its first national television advertisement during the awards ceremony and the longest commercial to air during a GRAMMY awards ceremony.

If you lump all fast-food restaurants into the same profit-driven-pushers-of-unhealthy-food category, you may want to delineate a new group: Sustainable farming advocates.

The next generation of organic farmers are hitting the road on an Organic Valley sponsored 3-week tour of the Pacific Northwest in the Generation Organic 2011 "Who's Your Farmer" campaign aimed at connecting people with their food, their local growers and to discuss how personal diet choices affect not just our own health, but the health of the planet and of future generations.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has announced that he will only eat animals he actually kills himself this year in a self-imposed 'personal challenge."

Many consider sustainable farming a boutique industry, unable to compete with conventional farming and produce enough food to supply populations outside their local communities. And that pesticides and modern food processing technology is the only way to meet the world's demand for food.

But Mark Bittman, New York Times contributor and author of The Food Matters Cookbook, claims advances in sustainable farming now make it a viable solution to world hunger. He also points out that today's industrial farming practices aren't the savior they appear, citing record highs in the global food price index. And that conventional farming takes too heavy a toll on the environment.