2013 Year in Review

Congratulations. If you're reading this, you've made it through the worst of the holiday season, and have moved on to that no-man's land between Christmas and New Year's where you can relax a little bit, take down decorations, put up new calendars, and indulge in one good, shameless listen to "Long December" by The Counting Crows before you face the daunting challenge of making 2014 the Best Year Ever.

While you do that, shall we take a look at what happened in the sustainable agriculture world in 2013?

• My home state of Connecticut became the first state to sign a GMO labeling law.

I'm don't think the idea of genetic engineering is all bad, but the idea that corporations have put millions of dollars into suppressing information about them makes me wary.

• They actually made and ate an in vitro hamburger.

You can read my thoughts on that story here. Suffice to say I won't be lining up any time soon.

• China started rejecting imports of U.S. corn. Also A strain of GM wheat that was tested, but never approved, randomly showed up on a farm in Oregon.

On an otherwise slow news day you can always find a new disappointment to blame on Monsanto.

• Books!

Mark Bittman's VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6:00 to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health...For Good, (which I reviewed on the blog earlier this year) Michael Pollan's Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation (which I did not review (yet?) because the draft just never seems finished, and Michael Moss's Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us (which I admit I have not (yet?) read, but am assured is very informative and interesting, contributed to raising awareness of both the importance of eating whole foods, and the importance of choosing a maddeningly lengthy title for your work of nonfiction.

What did I miss? What are you excited about for the new year? On a large or a small scale? Do you think 2014 is the year GMOs in stores actually start getting labelled? What do you think the government biggest priority should be when it comes to agriculture?