In our latest report in partnership with The American Prospect, reporter Paul Greenberg, author of the New York Times bestseller Four Fish, tells the story of how the “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico is the result of decades-long U.S. agricultural practices and investigates some of the promising solutions to fixing its future. The [...]

We are honored to report that Tracie McMillan’s story on the plight of farmworkers, “As Common As Dirt,” won a James Beard Foundation Journalism Award last week. The story, produced by the Food & Environment Reporting Network in collaboration with The American Prospect, appeared in the magazine’s September 2012 issue. Considered the Pulitzers of the food reporting [...]

FERN’s latest report, out today in May/June issue of Eating Well magazine, looks at the growing issue of antibiotic resistance due to the routine use of antibiotics in livestock production.  Reporter Barry Estabrook, author of the New York Times bestselling book Tomatoland, details how livestock are fed a diet laced with low “sub-therapeutic” doses of [...]

In the Pacific, eight island nations have recently come together to protect the world’s last healthy tuna populations from the perils of the lawless sea, the first agreement of its kind, reports Shannon Service in FERN’s latest story, “The Saudi Arabia of Sashimi,” for Slate. This report follows a recent radio broadcast supported by FERN [...]

A couple of positive pieces of news came our way in March and they show how far FERN has come in a little more than a year. First, Tracie McMillan’s story, “As Common As Dirt,” about wage theft suffered by California farmworkers, was nominated for a James Beard Award (PDF)–the Oscars of the food world. We produced [...]

On February 20, California’s Water Resources Control Board released a sweeping report to the state Legislature aimed at cleaning up drinking water contamination caused by nitrates used in agriculture. Chief among the water board’s 15 recommendations is a fee on fertilizers, considered the major source of nitrate contamination. The report also recommends a point-of-sale fee [...]

San Francisco’s bays are brimming with herring, a welcome sight after the fishery collapsed four years ago, according to the latest report by the Food & Environment Reporting Network for the San Francisco Chronicle. As The Chronicle’s Peter Fimrite reported on Jan. 24, warm water and lack of food caused a catastrophic population decline and, [...]

In our latest investigation, for the PRI’s The World, Shannon Service reports from Palau in the Western Pacific, where the island-nation struggles to protect the world’s last healthy stock of tuna. Last week, Service reports, scientists released jaw-dropping data showing that Pacific bluefin tuna has plummeted to just 4 percent of its population. As tuna—America’s [...]

As 2012 comes to a close, please consider a tax-deductible gift to the Food & Environment Reporting Network, a 501(c)3 organization. We’re the first and only independent, non-partisan, non-profit news organization dedicated to bringing you vital reporting on food, agriculture and environmental health. We’ve been busy this year! On ABC’s World News Tonight, we broke [...]

The following was issued by Elizabeth Royte in response to criticism by Steve Everley, a spokesperson for the industry lobby group Energy in Depth, of her story ”Livestock Falling Ill in Fracking Regions.” His comment appeared after NBCnews.com published the condensed version of Royte’s groundbreaking story in The Nation. Everley states that the “central thesis of the article is that shale development, including hydraulic fracturing, [...]