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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Florida lawmaker wants to make farm photos illegal
If we just don’t look at what’s going on inside factory farms, everything will be fine. Right? Along with mountains of oranges, tomatoes, and sugar, Florida’s branch of Big Ag Inc. is a reliable producer of bad news. Whether it’s the fight over proto-slavery conditions for its tomato workers, the push to perfect genetically modified […]
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Farming is the new hipster occupation of choice
Twentysomethings don’t know what to do with their lives. Industrial food can’t be trusted. The public image of farmers is (slowly) improving — but the average age is going up and up. These are perfect conditions for a new generation of farmers, people in their 20s and 30s who are starting small farms and joining […]
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Factory-farmed pork: it’s the inspirational other white meat!
Be inspired!: Near a giant hog factory in North Carolina, downed pigs fester while sprayers spread untreated manure onto fields. Photo: Steve WingPork has a new-and-improved slogan. In an announcement that is guaranteed to avoid mockery or satire, the National Pork Board (NPB) has shifted from declaration to exhortation. No longer will pork’s tagline be […]
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The last days of the low-fat diet fad
The low-fat trend finally appears to be on its way out. The notion that saturated fats are detrimental to our health is deeply embedded in our zeitgeist — but shockingly, the opposite just might be true. For over 50 years the medical establishment, public health officials, nutritionists, and dietitians have been telling the American people […]
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World’s dollar menu will now cost $1.50
Image: Bloomberg TV USFood is more expensive than ever, says the U.N. We’re talking revolutions in the Middle East, food riots on The Glenn Beck Show-level expensive. Globally, food prices are up by a third since December 2010, putting them well above their last record high, in 2008, when there were food riots from Bangladesh […]
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Minn. Rep. Collin Peterson’s crusade against climate policy rages on
Collin Peterson — a Democrat even the Koch brothers could love.Photo: Name Your Frame & Photography via Collin PetersonThe sad saga of climate legislation under Obama — its harrowing ride through Congress and final collapse — features many villains. For me, the most maddening isn’t some Tea Party ideologue railing against the “climate conspiracy.” Rather, […]
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Fed-up college kids take food buying into their own hands
Someone’s forming a co-op, my lord: college students organize to create the food system they want. Photo: Kitty BolteSay you’re a college student ready to eschew the standard pizza-burrito-pretzels-beer diet and start eating more whole, sustainably produced foods. Say you want to take it a step further and work to make healthy and ethical food […]
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Time to end the insane practice of lacing chicken feed with arsenic
As a jaded observer of the meat industry, even I’m flummoxed by this fact: It’s standard practice on factory chicken farms to dose those unfortunate birds with arsenic. The idea is that it makes them grow faster — fast growth being the supreme goal of factory animal farming — and helps control a common intestinal […]
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Your healthy alternative food may just be the same crap in different packaging [SLIDESHOW]
Looking to lower your impact? Here’s your cheat sheet. GoodGuide offers greenness and social responsibility ratings, via web or app, for tens of thousands of products, including food, clothing, toys, and cleaning supplies. Obviously, it’s massively useful to be able to look up a brand on your phone and see its health and environment score […]
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When are we going to stop seeing farmers as rubes and hayseeds?
Is this really what farmers look like? Our culture abounds with images of farmers. Sadly, many of them are insulting. Stereotypes tell us that farmers are male, white, uneducated, dirty, backwards-thinking, and talk with a funny accent. Farmers don’t get off the farm much, they like chewing on the ends of long stalks of grass, […]
