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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Finding nirvana in the coffee capital of the United States
In “Mad Flavor,” the author describes his occasional forays from the farm in search of exceptional culinary experiences from small artisanal producers. —– While covering Slow Food Nation recently, I stayed in an unremarkable hotel located in a relatively uninteresting part of San Francisco’s Soma neighborhood. But I was as happy as a clam — […]
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What’s so eco about all those eco-meat labels?
In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices, and other diet-related quandaries. Free range: more sizzle than steak? Hi, Something I’ve been pondering a lot lately is the whole “free-range” meat market. After reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, I have a lot of doubts as to […]
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New data show that 2008 organic food sales will reach $32.9 billion
As people from Haiti to Ethiopia are tragically struggling to cope with rising food prices, many are piecing together the reasons behind our recent price spikes. The culprits lie in everything from the switch to growing crops for biofuels to market speculation. The situation is complex and involves multiple factors. But as economists tally up […]
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Two trends for bakeries, one encouraging and one dismal
It’s hard to imagine a vibrant local-food economy without a vibrant bakery scene. The capacity to efficiently turn something as bland as flour into something delicious and substantial seems key. In energy terms, baking several hundred loaves of bread a day in a commercial operation makes more sense than every family cranking out a loaf […]
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On the transformative potential of community-scale food production
In “Dispatches From the Fields,” Ariane Lotti and Stephanie Ogburn, who are working on small farms in Iowa and Colorado this season, share their thoughts on producing real food in the midst of America’s agro-industrial landscape. —– This spring, someone transformed the vacant lot across the street from my in-town apartment here in Cortez, a […]
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BrandWeek: ‘Sales drought’ for big water bottlers
Anyone who’s read Elizabeth Royte‘s Bottlemania will be cheered by this news, from BrandWeek: The market for bottled water may be drying up. Despite massive discounting, brands like Aquafina and Poland Spring are experiencing a sales drought unlike any the category has ever seen. After almost a decade of triple and then double-digit growth, sales […]
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Exposure to pesticides in utero linked to obesity, study says
Exposure to pesticides in utero can double a child’s chances of becoming obese, a new Spanish study has concluded. The study, published in the journal Acta Paediatrica, measured the level of the internationally banned (yet still freakishly persistent) pesticide hexachlorobenzene in the umbilical cords of over 400 children born on the Spanish island of Menorca. […]
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Fast Food Nation author says the sustainable food movement should consider labor
Few Grist readers need an introduction to Eric Schlosser. His 2001 book, Fast Food Nation, helped galvanize interest in the politics and ecology of food production. Since that time, he’s used his increasingly high profile to illuminate one of the most shadowy crannies of the food system — working conditions in the vast monocropped fields […]
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Only GMOs and agrichemicals can ‘feed the world,’ don’t you know?
People involved in the sustainable food movement have been debating the best ways to promote what Wendell Berry recently called “local adaptation” with regard to food and agriculture. The point is to shift away from a paradigm of relying on a fossil fuel-powered agriculture system to feed people living far away from the actual farms […]
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Seaweed is the best garden amendment, hands down
My wife and I have been living in a beach house for the last two weeks, and have been blessed with an incredible run of perfect summer weather. The exclamation point came with the passing of tropical storm Hanna on Saturday whose winds piled fresh seaweed high on the beach — a literal windfall for […]
