Climate Food and Agriculture

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  • Potato chip advertising is a perfect metaphor for income inequality, says science

    A study just published in Gastronomica proves that appealing to our tribal identifications is hardly the sole domain of liquor and cigarettes. The authors use "the language of food to examine the representation of socioeconomic class identity in contemporary America by comparing the advertising language on expensive bags of potato chips with that on inexpensive […]

    Christopher Mims Agriculture

  • Eating rice raises risk of arsenic exposure

    Sometimes it just feels like we should give up eating, particularly if "we" are "pregnant women." A new study links rice consumption with higher levels of arsenic in the bloodstream, which can increase the risks of infant mortality and low birth weight. Most arsenic exposure comes from water, and the study found that 10 percent […]

    Sarah Laskow Food

  • Sow seeds, not greed: Farmers gather on Wall Street

    Photo: Eddie CrimminsIt’s been a long time since farmers congregated in downtown Manhattan — around 350 years, to be exact. The folks who populate Wall Street and rural America don’t cross paths much these days. It’s easy to forget that Wall Street used to be rural America; in 1644, the area contained so many cows that the […]

    Kerry Trueman Food

  • Hungary destroys 1,000 acres of Monsanto maize

    Genetically modified seeds are banned in Hungary. So when government regulators found that 1,000 acres of maize had been planted with genetically modified seeds, they just plowed the suckers under. You stick it to the Monsanto, Hungary! Leaving aside the fact that this sort of sweep-the-checkers-off-the-board move is always kind of badass, this is also […]

    Jess Zimmerman Food

  • Amazon deforestation decreasing … but not for long

    Despite reports of localized deforestation and violence against rainforest activists, a study on deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon found that the number of square kilometers disappearing each year has hit a record low. But politics has a way of screwing up progress like this, and Brazilian politicians are voting today to weaken the forest code […]

    Sarah Laskow Agriculture

  • Small farmers crave horse power

    Photo: Donn HewesAsk any 5-year-old: Few tools symbolize the farm like a trundling tractor. In fact, you’d have to reach further back in time to find an equally enduring symbol: the horse. And while there’s little doubt that tractors have revolutionized farm labor and made farms much more efficient than they were in past centuries, […]

    Ariana Reguzzoni Agriculture

  • Principled plate: Diners’ Guide helps make eating out ethical

    Photo: Bravo123Restaurants know their customers worry over the source of an heirloom tomato, or the care with which their pork was raised and handled. But when it comes to the treatment of the person who prepared it, few establishments make it a point to be transparent.  Now, there’s a guide for that. For the first […]

    Claire Thompson Food

  • Food Studies: The invisibility of modern hunger

    A scene from Rock Center with Brian Williams.Food Studies features the voices of volunteer student bloggers from a variety of different food- and agriculture-related programs at universities around the world. You can explore the full series here. A couple pulls into a grocery store parking lot at exactly midnight on the first of the month. […]

    Megan Moore Food

  • Fair trade lite: Fair Trade USA moves away from worker co-ops

    Maya Vinic Co-op in Chiapas, Mexico. Photo: Courtesy of Peace CoffeeCompared to so many other purchasing decisions — like which humane meat label to trust, for instance — the “Certified Fair Trade” logo has made buying ethically produced coffee a relatively simple choice. Most of us either buy fair trade or we don’t.   But […]

    Twilight Greenaway Food

  • Farming: A New York state of mind [VIDEO]

    Farms aren’t the first thing that come to mind when one thinks of New York City. But walk along its streets and you will pass hundreds of urban gardens; jump across its rooftops and you might find yourself in the middle of a commercial farm. Heck, drive just 20 minutes from downtown and you could […]

    Daniel Klein Agriculture