Mother Jones

With the state of the next farm bill in crisis, FERN and Mother Jones are launching a series of articles that analyze the nature of that crisis and explore the emerging issues—from racial equity to climate change—that are changing the mandate of the nation’s most important agricultural legislation.

Robb Fraley, chief technology officer for Monsanto, said in an interview that the world's largest seed company spends half of its research budget on classical plant breeding, speeded-up by genomic tools, writes Tom Philpott in Mother Jones.

Family-owned Perdue Farms, one of the major U.S. poultry processors, is buying Niman Ranch, a producer of antibiotic-free meat and cage-free eggs, said Meating Place.

The Navajo Nation will begin collecting a 2 percent sales tax next month on pastries, chips, soda, fried food, sweetened beverages and other foods with minimal nutritional value -- the first junk-food tax in the United States, says Mother Jones.

Rampant hunger is appearing in Liberia, one of the west African nations hit by ebola, says Mother Jones magazine. It cites a spot check by Mercy Corps, a charity, of three parts of the country heavily affected by the disease.

The government could soon be required to make public how much a retailer or a specific store records in food stamp sales, says a story in Mother Jones and produced in partnership with the Food and Environment Reporting Network; a longer version appears at thefern.org.

"The drought in California affects the whole country's fruits, veggies and nuts," says Mother Jones magazine in presenting a series of maps that show how the severe drought affects...