Two statements in western Tuscan farm-direct foods (which also provide insight into ingredients you discover on restaurant menus) can be found at Macelleria Franchi and, across the narrow Via Vittorio Emanuele, the fruit and vegetable store La Cerreta.

FORBES: The Other Tuscany

" He said boosting farm income through direct payments will help stabilize the agriculture economy yet "not encourage excess production.

CNN: By GEORGE ANTHAN/DES MOINES REGISTER

After Shnider made a mint in the shrimp business, he started Farm 2 Market, his direct-to-consumer oyster company.

FORBES: A Giant Shucking Sound

Introduce a system of direct subsidies to farm households, thereby encouraging persons desiring to enter agriculture to do so without great risk.

FORBES: Reforming Japan's Socialized Agriculture (2)

Although it is not clear what a House version of the farm bill will look like, direct payments will certainly go.

ECONOMIST: Agriculture

Finally, once the biofuel crops have been planted, grown and harvested -- often with the direct involvement of fossil fuels in the form of fertilizers, pesticides and petrol to power farm equipment -- they then have to go through a distillation and fermentation process to actually turn them into fuel.

CNN: Biofuel: Green savior or red herring?