Climate Food and Agriculture
Climate + Food and Agriculture
EDITOR’S NOTE
Grist has acquired the archive and brand assets of The Counter, a decorated nonprofit food and agriculture publication that we long admired, but that sadly ceased publishing in May of 2022.
The Counter had hit on a rich vein to report on, and we’re excited to not only ensure the work of the staffers and contractors of that publication is available for posterity, but to build on it. So we’re relaunching The Counter as a food and agriculture vertical within Grist, continuing their smart and provocative reporting on food systems, specifically where it intersects with climate and environmental issues. We’ve also hired two amazing new reporters to make our plan a reality.
Being back on the food and agriculture beat in a big way is critical to Grist’s mission to lead the conversation, highlight climate solutions, and uncover environmental injustices. What we eat and how it’s produced is one of the easiest entry points into the wider climate conversation. And from this point of view, climate change literally transforms into a kitchen table issue.
Featured
The people who feed America are going hungry
Climate change is escalating a national crisis, leaving farmworkers with empty plates and mounting costs.
Latest Articles
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Chicken chases its kale: Chik-fil-A attacks artist over leafy-green slogan
Photo: Ellen KFor all of you poor souls who can’t tell kale and chicken apart (lord knows it can be difficult), your troubles may soon be over. Chik-fil-A, the country’s second-largest chain chicken restaurant (after KFC), is pressuring Vermont-based small-business owner Bo Muller-Moore to drop the phrase “Eat More Kale,” which he’s been screen-printing by […]
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Talking vertical farms: An interview with Dickson Despommier
Your classic vertical farm rendering. Rendering: Blake KurasekIf you haven’t seen the slickly rendered architectural models of farms growing in skyscapers, you probably live under a rock. When I first I saw one — this was a few years back, they’ve been making their way around the internet for years — I got a little […]
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Crop insurance: This year’s Farm Bill frontier
2011 was a record year for liability, with drought in Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma, and Hurricane Irene taking out crops along the Eastern seaboard. Photo: Bob Gutowski One of the great battles of the 2012 Farm Bill might concern … (drumroll) … crop insurance! Don’t roll your eyes: At $8 billion, it’s the largest part […]
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Food Studies: Old-world innovation
Le Biancane geothermal park.Photo: Yvone De Zeeuw 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. Pipelines carry steam directly to consumers from the power plant.Vapor escapes through mountains of white rocks. Steam billows […]
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Learning on the half-shell
Photo: Gwendolyn MeyerLuc Chamberland thinks oyster farming is often misunderstood. That’s why the aquaculturist wants to educate the public about the benefits of cultivating bivalves in Tomales Bay, a pristine estuary in West Marin, Calif. A recent, high-profile controversy surrounding a commercial oyster farm in the area has focused on the potentially negative environmental impacts […]
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Eat leftovers, save the world
Photo: Patrick Gage KelleyAs if turkey pot pie and turkey a la king aren’t enticing enough on their own, here’s another reason to eat leftovers this holiday season: About 1 million tons of CO2, 95 billion gallons of water, and $275 million will be thrown away this Thanksgiving in the form of leftover turkey. The USDA […]
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Friend of a farmer: Why small-scale ag needs community
Photo courtesy of the USDA archivesTucked into the end of a recent New York Times article about young farmers were two frank paragraphs about a quiet reality many of us face: Ms. Oakley said young farmers rarely discussed that lack of community, adding that she had seen the isolation break up marriages. At their Three […]
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Don’t look now, but some turkey has antibiotic-resistant superbugs
Not to put a damper on your Thanksgiving or anything, but there are two new studies showing that drug-resistant bugs like MRSA are showing up in farmed meat, including turkey. Farm animals get fed a cocktail of antibiotics, which can create resistant strains of bacteria. It's been hard (though not impossible) to determine whether that's […]
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Turkeyless interlude [VIDEO]
Turkey gets a lot of airtime this week. There a million recipes to brine, baste, smoke, and stuff the bird as well as a plethora of ways to make mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and sweet potato pie. So I decided to do a little twist on our traditional Thanksgiving meal and take a “road less […]
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Pepper spray is also a vegetable now, according to Fox News
In the grand tradition of Michele Bachmann's "carbon dioxide is a product of nature" tactic, Fox News is now calling pepper spray a "food product." Man, first pizza is a vegetable, now this. Pepper spray is "a derivative of actual pepper … a food product, essentially," said Fox News host Megyn Kelly. Seriously guys, it's […]
