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

  • Impoverished Africans can’t eat their own crops

    From an interesting article by Dave Harcourt in Ecoworldly: The castor [oil], equivalent to 12,000 tons of oil, would actually be grown by 25,000 families [small African farmers] contracted by GEE and would have a value of around US$ 10 million [$400 per year or $1.10 per day per family]. … Ashenafi Chote was one […]

    Biodiversivist Food

  • ‘Second generation’ or not, biofuels contribute to Peak Soil

    The Seattle Times has another story peddling the fantasy that there are "second generation biofuels" that magically appear without use of energy, land, or water (not to mention subsidies). The most revealing comment in the piece pushes that idea that biologic systems generate "waste," and that "waste" is a huge resource that’s going unused. Apparently […]

    JMG Climate & Energy

  • New annual quota for bluefin tuna does the fish no favors, say greens

    A new legal quota set Monday for Atlantic bluefin tuna is a “mockery of science” and may cause the tuna population to collapse, green group WWF warned. The 46 member nations of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas set the annual quota at some 24,000 tons, defying scientists’ recommendations that it be […]

    Grist staff Food

  • Food sovereignty needs to be the center of renewed negotiations

    With each new event or international conference in 2008’s saga of economic and food crises, there are calls to complete the long-running Doha Round of World Trade Organization negotiations. The international players all act as if achieving a Doha agreement, seemingly any agreement, will help solve one or more aspects of these crises. The latest […]

    Thomas Dobbs Food

  • New research demonstrates that higher infant mortality rates surround CAFOs

    Thanks to Proposition 2, Californians will soon phase out some of the most egregious confining animal conditions. However the rest of the country continues to utilize concentrated animal feeding operations for the production of meat, poultry and dairy products. CAFOs are industrial facilities that are designed to produce the most amount of meat in the […]

    Meredith Niles Food

  • The dirt on biodynamic and ‘authentic’ wines

    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.   Dear Checkout Line, What the hell is biodynamic wine and does it taste any better than regular wine? JeffColorado Dear Colorado Jeff, […]

    Lou Bendrick Food

  • USDA has crazy idea that organic cows should get time in pasture

    Only cows that have gobbled grass in pasture for at least 120 days per year can produce milk labeled “organic,” according to draft rules issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Activists have long criticized a loophole that allowed organic-milk producers to keep their cows in giant feedlots, as long as they were fed organic […]

    Grist staff Food

  • Two studies point to ecosystem damage from factory-style farming

    How does chemical-intensive, concentrated agriculture affect surrounding ecosystems — and ones that lie downstream from large operations? Seems like a key question, given that upwards of 95 percent of our food comes from such agricultural methods. Yet there has been surprisingly little study of it. For example, when the meat industry started to rapidly consolidate […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • Food miles are a distraction, climate-wise

    One hesitates to agree with Ron Bailey given his doctrinaire libertarianism, but in a somewhat narrow sense I think he’s right about this: in terms of greenhouse-gas emissions, food localism is a red herring. That is to say: Eating local out of concern over carbon emissions is misguided. Food travel is not a big part […]

    David Roberts Food

  • Confirming Pollan, PNAS study shows that fast-food chains mainly peddle corn

    We literally are what we eat; our metabolic function converts the stuff we consume into our material bodies: flesh, bone, hair, etc. In a memorable passage in Micheal Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma, a biologist analyzes a strand of his own hair; he finds it shot through with corn’s unique carbon signature. Materially speaking, eaters of the […]

    Tom Philpott Food