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
-
We need to rethink all food based biofuels
The lion's share of biofuel bashing on Grist deals with corn ethanol, because we Americans primarily use gasoline for our cars and ethanol runs fine in them, with few modifications. However, our pals in Europe drive a lot of diesel cars and the biofuel crisis over there revolves primarily around biodiesel. I think it is time we recognize that their problem is also our problem. A comment from Pcarbo alerted me to Monbiot's latest take on biofuels. He has now gone so far as to propose a ...
... moratorium on all targets and incentives for biofuels, until a second generation of fuels can be produced for less than it costs to make fuel from palm oil or sugar cane.
-
-
The perils of cooking with greenhouse gas.
The BBC has issued a pretty clear-eyed report on food production and climate change, the podcast of which you can download here. The report makes no brief for sustainable ag, but it does cogently question industrial ag’s ability to “feed the world” as climate change saps water tables and population continues to grow.
-
Now’s the time to discover the myriad pleasures of growing food
“A natural diet lies right at one’s feet.” — Masanobu Fukuoka, The One-Straw Revolution It’s springtime here on my mountain farm, and that means an explosion of activity. We’re starting seeds in one greenhouse, and finishing construction on another. Fields are being tilled, and we’re putting in the very first sugar-snap peas and spring onions. […]
-
-
Appropriate technology?
Here's an interesting article about a rabbi who converted a bus into a wood-fired matzo bakery ...
-
Don’t Make Me Pull This Cargill Over
Amazon soy export plant shut down in win for environmentalists Greens did a victory dance this weekend as Brazil forced U.S. agribiz giant Cargill to close a soy export terminal in the country’s Amazon region. The facility has long been the focus of a targeted Greenpeace campaign protesting rapid deforestation of the tropical rainforest — […]
-
A ‘Maoist insurgency’ in a global information-technology hub?
Did you know that India, hub of the global information economy and destination of untold numbers of outsourced U.S. jobs, is in the grips of a Maoist insurgency? A recent Reuters article referred (a bit casually) to: the Maoist insurgency that has spread to about half of India’s 29 states and has been described by […]
-
I’m Hot, Sticky Sweet
Vermont’s maple-syrup industry braces for climate change Will warmer winters stop the flow of Vermont maple syrup? That’s the question of the day in the Green Mountain State, where folks worry that climate change will make the $200 million industry — which provides 32 percent of U.S. syrup output — dry up. “I’ve always been, […]
-
Turnip Out is Fair Play
FDA issues voluntary produce-safety guidelines If you’ve shied away from spinach since last year’s widespread E. coli outbreak, this should give you comfort: the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued voluntary guidelines this week to help keep fresh-cut produce safe. What, the “voluntary” part gives you pause? Pshaw. Pointing out that voluntary guidelines for production […]
