After enormous lobbying efforts, Monsanto’s GMO soybeans, treated with Roundup, became the country’s largest export, as cancer rates and other health issues skyrocketed.
agriculture
Posted inNonfiction
Betting the Farm on the Drought
Farmers like sixth-generation Illinois farmer Ethan Cox can’t wait for policymakers to protect them from climate change. To survive, they have to adapt their operations now, if they can.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Can the world quench China’s bottomless thirst for milk?
In China, milk represents modernity and progress. But the radical plan to triple the nation’s consumption has serious environmental consequences.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Fighting the Vanilla Thieves of Madagascar
Demand for vanilla from Madagascar has skyrocketed in recent years, but the process of exporting the spice to markets around the world is fraught with risk, unpredictability, and — increasingly — violence.
Posted inBooks, History, Science & Nature, Story, Unapologetic Women
A British Seaweed Scientist Is Revered in Japan as ‘The Mother of the Sea’
Kathleen Drew-Baker died never having set foot in Japan, and never knowing what an impact her research would make. Plus, how to build a lazy bed, how to cook Irish blancmange, and other surprising seaweed stories.
Posted inBooks, History, Science & Nature, Story
Taming the Great American Desert
By advocating for agriculture in the arid West, Major John Wesley Powell challenged the way America viewed its right to develop the continent.
Posted inFood, Profiles & Interviews, Story
Farming A Warming Planet: An Interview Nathanael Johnson
How California farmers are planning ahead for climate change while balancing their immediate economic concerns.
Posted inFood, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes, Science & Nature
Farming a Warming Planet
Even if rising sea levels flood many coastal cities, California farmers plan to grow food for a living. So what will the future California grow?
Posted inFood, History, Quotes
Goodness, How Delicious, Eating Goober Peas
Is there anything peanuts aren’t good for?
Posted inBusiness & Tech, Food, Quotes
It Turns Out No One’s in Kansas Anymore
Kansas is great at growing wheat, but growing wheat hasn’t been great for Kansas.