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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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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

  • Gourmet’s conscience, Gopnik on cookbooks, and other tasty morsels

    When my info-larder gets too packed, it’s time to serve up some choice nuggets from around the Web. —————- Get ’em while they’re hot.  • For years, Barry Estabrook reported on food politics for Gourmet Magazine and its Web site. In a sense, he played the role of the conscience of the foodie set–at the […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • The new wave of urban farming (and fresh food from small spaces!)

    It’s always sunny in this Philadelphia community garden.Photo courtesy Tony the Misfit via Flickr Do you dream of an organic garden, but don’t have a yard? A flock of chicks, perhaps, but don’t have a yard? Home-grown food, and lower grocery bills (but, alas, no yard!)? Dream no more, because you can have it, and […]

    Makenna Goodman Food

  • Time for the mainstream media to face the factory farm-swine flu link

    “Since last spring and the onset of the 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza outbreak in humans, USDA has consistently asked that the media stop calling this “novel” pandemic virus “swine flu.” By continuing to mislabel the 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza virus that is affecting human populations around the world, the media is causing undue and undeserved […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • Corporate agribusiness divides farmers

    Most farmers Jim Goodman knows see organic farming as just another way to farm, curious, perhaps a bit backward, but to most conventional farmers organic farming doesn't even register. With agribusiness however, it's another story. They're not content with just 96.5 percent of the food system, they want it all.

    Jim Goodman Food

  • While scientists fight over BPA studies, Congress could just act

    Joining Tom Philpott on the anti-BPA bandwagon, the New York Times columnist Nick Kristof had an op-ed Sunday detailing the mounting evidence against the hormone disrupting chemical. One comment in particular summed up the debate nicely: “When you have 92 percent of the American population exposed to a chemical, this is not one where you […]

    Tom Laskawy Food

  • For swine flu, forget origins and start thinking about practices

    How is a massive hog farms like an open box of oily rags stored near a furnace? Photo courtesy of USDA Natural Resources Conservation ServiceAmid a trickle of news and science about swine flu over the past week, I’ve been rethinking my position on the novel H1N1 virus that has now infected millions of Americans […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • The most frightening story this Halloween is … pumpkintop removal

    I want to draw attention to one of the gravest — but least publicized — environmental crimes of our times. It is one of brutal violence, utter waste, and total disregard for the planet’s resources. Millions of unwitting Americans are complicit in the destruction each year, as evidenced by the burning lights spread across the […]

    Ashley Braun Climate & Energy

  • This Halloween, have your pumpkin–and eat it, too

    Try April’s White Bean and Pumpkin Chili recipe (below).Photo: April McGreger Halloween has pagan roots in the Celtic Samhain, a festival of the harvest and the dead.  The Celts saw the end of October as the “end of lightness” or the end of summer, and the “beginning of darkness,” or the long, cruel winter ahead. […]

    April McGreger Food

  • Heat makes honey toxic, and other myths of the hive

    Dear Lou, I heard a rumor that honey is toxic when placed in hot water. Is that true? Doesn’t the whole world drink honey in hot tea? Also wondering about the harvesting of honey — is it harmful to the bees and their sustainability? Honey Lover from Vermont Dearest Honey Lover from Vermont, I didn’t […]

    Lou Bendrick Food

  • Corn-based meat and ethanol: burning the planet to a crisp

    Corn harvest in Iowa. Would you like that in your Big Mac, your gas tank, or both?Photo courtesy of USDA NRCS. What do industrially produced meat and corn-based ethanol have in common? Well, they both thrive on the assumption that it’s good idea to devote vast swaths of land to an incredibly resource-intensive crop–corn–and then […]

    Tom Philpott Climate & Energy