Food and Agriculture

GMO sugar beets get the green light

Last week, the USDA fully deregulated herbicide resistant sugar beets. And while the shift isn't a surprise to most advocates, it does hint at larger problems within the system.

Tom Laskawy Agriculture

Cargill recalls over 29,000 pounds of ground beef

Cook your meat, America.

Philip Bump Food

The lesser of two evils: Why food advocates are pushing for a farm bill they don’t love

Sustainable food advocates don't like the farm bills drafted by the House or the Senate, but they're pushing Congress to pass a final bill before the current one runs out Sept. 30 anyway.

Twilight Greenaway Agriculture

How to eat ice cream and end an unjust criminal system at the exact same time

Driving around upstate New York, you see a lot of abandoned dairy farms and a lot of struggling towns with prisons nearby. They’re connected: As milk prices dropped and the state’s dairy industry started suffering, politicians brought prisons upstate as a job-creation programs. Milk Not Jails aims to break that connection by creating economic opportunities […]

Sarah Laskow Food

Why should EPA regulators investigate factory farm pollution when they can go get a beer instead?

The EPA doesn't know where most factory farms are, nor what they're polluting -- and yet it just reversed a rule that would have helped clean water regulators find out.

Stephanie Ogburn Agriculture

For young farmers: No land, but plenty of climate change to go around

While making a documentary about young farmers in New Jersey, a filmmaker noticed that the extreme weather became the star of the show.

Jared Flesher Agriculture

Mapping the government’s local food work as a way to keep it alive

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Compass is more than just a window into the government's local food work. It's also an effort to ensure that work continues.

Tom Laskawy Food

A dry run from hell: Drought hits the smallest farms the hardest

This drought will give small Midwestern farmers lots of practice coping with climate change -- if it doesn’t bankrupt them first.

Christopher Weber Agriculture

Lobbyists spent $173.5 million trying to shape the 2008 farm bill

Food and Water Watch crunched the numbers, revealing both the scale and breakdown of the massive effort to pass the 2008 legislation.

Philip Bump Agriculture

Seven graphs that should make the Obama campaign very nervous

The drought means higher food prices. Higher food prices mean more concern about the economy. And that means trouble for an incumbent president.