Climate Food and Agriculture

Irene's damage not 'overrated' for farmers

From apple orchards in New York to sweet corn fields in Massachusetts, we take a look at how farmers are faring after the storm.

Chilean sea bass test yields fishy results

Recent DNA testing revealed that so-called sustainable Chilean sea bass samples were not, in fact, what they were advertised to be.

The triumph of Jamie Oliver's 'nemesis'

Jamie Oliver may have focused the national klieg lights on Huntington, W.Va., but it's local officials who are overhauling school food.

Super-charming sustainable farming video, featuring Willie Nelson

Okay, so this video was sponsored by Chipotle, but if you can ignore a small amount of logo placement and posturing, it's really adorable. Look at the little propane-canister-looking pigs! Listen to Willie Nelson make a Coldplay song sound genuinely emotional! Watch the rotund farmer guy have a change of heart and let his animals […]

Green for greens: Philadelphia subsidizes farmers markets

A new farmers market subsidy program for food stamps recipients makes the City of Brotherly Love a just little healthier.

Run and hide from methyl iodide

Activists gathered in San Francisco to protest the use of methyl iodide, a known carcinogen, as a pesticide on California crops.

In battle between fuel and food, food is losing worse than ever

Despite the backlash against ethanol in the U.S. and biodiesel in the E.U., global production of biofuels was up 17 percent in 2010. That's 27.7 billion gallons of liquid fuel for the year. (For reference, the U.S. uses 137 billion gallons of gasoline per year, though that's not directly equivalent because biofuels include biodiesel, and ethanol contains slightly less energy than regular gasoline.)

Nestle wants you to be scared of organic food

Peter Brabeck-Letmathe trots out tired and debunked arguments against organics, then reveals his company's foray into neutraceuticals, or disease-fighting foods.

On the road for food justice

The Food and Freedom Ride is a 2,000-mile voyage from Birmingham, Ala., to Detroit, intended to spread awareness about food justice issues in the US

Monsanto fail: GMO crops are losing their pest control powers

Monsanto crops bred to thwart western corn rootworms, which love eating corn roots, are no longer are doing their job. The rootworms developed a resistance to the natural pesticide the crops produced and are chowing down.

The alternatives for farmers: buy other genetically modified seeds (which will totally work forever!); spray nastier insecticides; abandon the economic model of monoculture and GMO crops. Guess which one's going to happen. Maybe which two out of three.