agriculture

World’s Largest Desert Growing Even Larger, Partly Due to Climate Change

World’s Largest Desert Growing Even Larger, Partly Due to Climate Change

The Sahara Desert—which takes up about 3.6 million square miles of northern Africa—is growing ever larger, signaling daunting news for people living in the Sahel border region who stand to lose valuable arable land to the expanding desert. The boundaries of the world’s largest hot desert, already around the size of China or the continental […]

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    New Maps Reveal Industrial Fishing in More Than Half of World’s Oceans

    New Maps Reveal Industrial Fishing in More Than Half of World’s Oceans

    By Shreya Dasgupta Industrial fishing takes place across more than 55 percent of the world’s oceans, according to a new study published in Science. Fishing is vital for food security and livelihoods across the globe, yet the extent of industrial fishing has remained largely unknown. Now, a team of researchers has tried to solve this […]

    Why This Montana Farmer Grows Food Year-Round in Shipping Containers

    Why This Montana Farmer Grows Food Year-Round in Shipping Containers

    By Isabelle Morrison Kim Curren, owner of Shaggy Bear Farm in Bozeman, Montana, has worn many hats. She worked in the solar power industry for 15 years, owned her own café bookstore and worked a stint as a medical case manager. In 2016, Curren decided to try her hand at farming, because why not? “People […]

    Climate Change, Conflict Leave 224 Million Undernourished in Africa

    Climate Change, Conflict Leave 224 Million Undernourished in Africa

    An official with the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warns that climate change and conflict are leading to food insecurity for millions of people living in Africa. “Undernourishment appears to have risen from about 21 percent to nearly 23 percent between 2015 and 2016,” Bukar Tijani, FAO’s assistant director general for Africa, said […]

    8 Presidents Who Shaped the U.S. Food System (for Better and for Worse)

    8 Presidents Who Shaped the U.S. Food System (for Better and for Worse)

    By Karen Perry Stillerman As we observe Presidents Day, I’m thinking about a president’s role in shaping the way we grow food in the U.S., and how we eat. Quite a few of our past presidents were farmers or ranchers at some point in their lives, and some had infamous relationships with certain foods, whether […]

    Environmentalist: Big Business Threatens the Planet, Despite Boasts of Sustainability

    Environmentalist: Big Business Threatens the Planet, Despite Boasts of Sustainability

    By Kieran Cooke Transnational corporations, or TNCs, or just plain big businesses, are everywhere. They have an overwhelming influence and impact on our lives—and on the planet. They boast they are a force for good—and are helping in the fight against climate change. But Peter Dauvergne, professor of international relations at the University of British […]

    Cape Town Pushes Back ‘Day Zero’

    Cape Town Pushes Back ‘Day Zero’

    “Day Zero,” the day drought-stricken Cape Town, South Africa is projected to run out of municipal water, has been moved to mid-May 2018 following a decline in agricultural usage, according to a statement from Alderman Ian Neilson, the city’s executive deputy mayor. Day Zero was previously projected to fall on April 16. Capetonians, however, were […]

    Can the Smallest Wild Cat in the Americas Survive?

    Can the Smallest Wild Cat in the Americas Survive?

    By Niki Rust The smallest wild cat species in the Americas faces big problems as its habitat dwindles and it’s targeted as a farm pest. But a new study shows it may be able to persist in a human-dominated world—if farmers and policymakers give it a hand. The güiña (Leopardus guigna), also known as kodkod, […]

    Michael Pollan: Consumer Boycotts Are ‘Achilles Heel of American Capitalism’

    Michael Pollan: Consumer Boycotts Are ‘Achilles Heel of American Capitalism’

    Trump has dumped family farmers. That’s right, President Trump, who once claimed he’s “fighting for our farmers,” is passing policies that mostly benefit the big agribusiness corporations—not small farmers, and certainly not rural communities. Robert Reich, professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, recently sat down with [see video above] Michael […]