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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‘Water’ author Stephen Solomon talks resource intelligence
Author Stephen Solomon recently suggested we need an “Al Gore of water” — a public champion to raise the profile of water scarcity threats and opportunities, as Gore has done for climate change. Solomon, an economics journalist, makes a bid for that role himself with his new book Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, […]
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Russ Parsons on launching a civil, inclusive food-system debate
Can we all just get along? Image: Tom Twigg for GristIn a recent article, the LA Times foodie pundit Russ Parsons attempted to start a “more constructive give-and-take, the start of a true conversation” on the food system. He argues the debate has congealed into a tedious battle between “hard-line aggies” who are “convinced that […]
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New report calls for atrazine review
An important new report on atrazine was published yesterday and it’s about time. Pesticide Action Network and Land Stewardship Project have brought together the science and farming communities to make a strong statement about the need for a new review of the herbicide atrazine and to outline alternatives for its use. I’ve followed the atrazine […]
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Lessons on the food system from the ammonia-hamburger fiasco
In case you missed it last week, The New York Times ran an excellent article on a South Dakota company called Beef Products Inc., which makes a hamburger filler product that ends up in 70 percent of burgers in the United States. To make a long story short: Beef Products buys the cheapest, least desirable […]
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Ammonia-treated burgers, tainted with E. coli!
In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. ——— Few who saw the documentary Food Inc. will forget the scene involving Beef Products Inc., a South Dakota company that makes a widely used hamburger filler product. No other industrial-meat company allowed director Robert Kenner to enter the shop […]
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Soybeans threaten Amazon rainforest
Photo courtesy Kanko* via FlickrSome 3,000 years ago, farmers in eastern China domesticated the soybean. In 1765, the first soybeans were planted in North America. Today the soybean occupies more U.S. cropland than wheat. And in Brazil, where it spread even more rapidly, the soybean is invading the Amazon rainforest. For close to two centuries […]
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Boring conference food: our culinary future?
The way of all cuisine? This is a guest post by David Gumpert, author of the Raw Milk Revolution. ————- When a good Jewish mother or grandmother knows she’s going to have a big group of special guests, she shifts into high gear to prepare meals. (Yes, I’m definitely stereotyping here, but bear with […]
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Amid Monsanto’s antitrust troubles, another study questions the health effects of GMOs
Better living through biotechnology? Pity executives at genetically modified seed giant Monsanto. Not only are they having to knock heads with Department of Justice lawyers over the company’s business practices, but some of their most-cherished PR talking points are being obliterated by researchers. In the past few months, we’ve learned that its much-vaunted technologies don’t […]
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Seed behemoth Monsanto stumbles into antitrust trouble
Even as it bombards the airwaves and magazine ad pages to tout its commitment to “sustainable agriculture,” GMO seed giant Monsanto has been having a rough go on the PR front of late. First came a report (PDF) from the Organic Center showing that the company’s core Round Up Ready products have sparked a veritable […]
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Chipotle Challenge: time to back up ‘food with integrity’
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Editor’s note: Trace the history of the food on your plate, and you’re likely to find worker abuse. Creating a truly fair food system will be a massive challenge–and not without conflicts. In the spirit of airing those conflicts with the hope of moving forward, we present a […]