Climate Food and Agriculture

The Counter
Amelia K. Bates / Grist
Special Series

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.

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Featured

Grist / Eva Marie Uzcategui / The Washington Post via Getty Images; Joe Raedle / Getty Images; Getty Images
Grist / Eva Marie Uzcategui / The Washington Post via Getty Images; Joe Raedle / Getty Images; Getty Images

The people who feed America are going hungry

Climate change is escalating a national crisis, leaving farmworkers with empty plates and mounting costs.

Ayurella Horn-Muller Staff Writer

Latest Articles

  • 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 […]

    Kristin Wartman Food

  • 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 […]

    Christopher Mims Food

  • 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, […]

    Tom Philpott Agriculture

  • 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 […]

    Twilight Greenaway Agriculture

  • 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 […]

    Tom Philpott Agriculture

  • 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 […]

    Jess Zimmerman Agriculture

  • 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, […]

    Steph Larsen Food

  • How to cook and eat a whole duck [VIDEO]

    Nose-to-tail eating sounds like a trend, but it’s really just good practice. Indeed, even before British chef Fergus Henderson made “whole beast” cooking popular, the whole animal was getting used. Slaughterhouses big and small make sure to use every bit of every animal — that’s how they make their money: livers go into dog food, […]

    Daniel Klein Agriculture

  • The Economist dismisses organic ag, while also making the case for it

    This isn’t the only way.I’ve been reading The Economist’s “Special Report on Feeding the World” (intro here). So far, it’s typical Economist: compellingly written and impressively broad in scope — but largely uncritical of the status quo. The report doesn’t bring much new to the table, especially to those of us who follow the gloomy […]

    Tom Philpott Agriculture

  • Rooftop garden porn to get you through winter

    Winter’s relentless grip will give way, we promise. Come summer, even those of us deeply ensconced within a concrete jungle will kick it in under the shade of glorious greenery. You need a little of that right now, don’t you? Step in, sit down, and take in the warm air of these rooftop oases.   Photo: […]

    Grist staff Agriculture