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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California’s ag crisis and our concentrated food system
Not many “green shoots” in the Central Valley. California’s severe drought–which could well be related to climate change–isn’t just menacing Los Angeles. The drought has helped tip the state’s Central Valley, epicenter of U.S. fruit and vegetable production, into a severe crisis, The Wall Street Journal reports. Hammered by dry weather, the weak economy, and […]
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‘Time’ was right about cheap food–but forgot farmworkers
The widely read recent Time cover story “Getting Real about the High Price of Cheap Food” is a useful complement to current discussions about our food system. It offers further evidence of the mainstreaming of ideas and practices that were considered radical or irrelevant a mere decade ago. But the author errs by avoiding any […]
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How I got drafted into James McWilliams’ anti-locavore diatribe
It’s happened a lot lately. Someone will send me the latest political diatribe that quotes my work. “What do you think of this guy?” they will ask. There’s also a recent growth industry in academic essays in support of food movement icon, Michael Pollan. These essays pay tribute to him mostly by attacking my work […]
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UPDATED: The cruelty of industrial egg-riculture — plus a tasty recipe for your local pastured eggs
Consider the egg. Photo: Kurt Michael Friese UPDATE: The owner of the hatchery in the video mentioned below has spoken out, says there were violations of procedure but makes no apologies. He calls “instantaneous Euthanasia” “Standard industry practice.” Read the story here. Iowa is the number-one producer of eggs in the country, with more than […]
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NYC warns residents: “Don’t Drink Yourself Fat”
While the evidence continues to mount that taxes alone aren’t enough to significantly reduce junk food consumption, the political prospects for passing a federal soda tax appears to be dim. Well, New York City has decided that if they can’t tax your soda, they’ll go after your appetite instead. …New York City’s public health officials […]
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The way we eat is trashing the fragile conditions that make human life possible
In the ongoing debate about whether sustainable agriculture can “feed the world,” it’s important not to lose sight of what industrial agriculture is doing to ecosystems–both in specific areas and on a grand scale. Producing and distributing lots and lots of calories, leveraged by fossil fuel and synthetic fertilizers and poisons, may solve certain short-term […]
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Palm oil, healthy rainforests, and your kitchen
In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night. Just get rid of all this annoying rainforest stuff, and you can have all cookie shortening you want.Hi there,I keep hearing that the […]
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Tell USDA to add urban farming to the Ag Census! Deadline is Friday.
If you care about eating healthy food, you are probably already hard at work to build a better food supply for yourself. You already know that raising food in our cities will be increasingly important. Yet getting political support for this requires making a convincing case, and this means having compelling numbers. The federal Census […]
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Beat the August heat with an easy veggie supper
The sweet sizzle of summer. Photo: April McGreger Try as I might, I cannot hate on August. I half-heartedly complain in solidarity with the masses about the stifling heat and humidity, as well as my scratchy, ragweed-irritated eyes. But in truth, this is the time of year I long for. August means watermelons, okra, fresh […]
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Sustainable ag meets the MSM — and wins!
TIME Magazine‘s current cover story wants you to know that our fossil-fueled, chemically intensive industrial food system is destined to fail. Granted, the second part of that sentence isn’t news to Grist readers. But the first part of that sentence is news. Personally, I wouldn’t have expected to read the following positively Philpottian (if not […]
