Will the Mississippi River become ‘just another polluted waterway’?
The Mississippi River, rising from Lake Istasca in northern Minnesota to flow 2,340 miles to the Gulf of Mexico, "is heading toward an ecological precipice," says the Minneapolis Star Tribune in a special report. In five years, 400 square miles of forests, marshes and grasslands in the upper Mississippi have been converted to agriculture and urban development, "endangering the cleanest stretch of America’s greatest river with farm chemicals, depleted groundwater and urban runoff."
Worldwide migration to cities shaping the future of agriculture
As the global population zooms toward an estimated 9.7 billion people at mid-century, a 34-percent increase in 35 years, more and more of them will live in cities. "By 2050, 66 percent of the world's people are expected to live in cities, fueling unprecedented demand for food," says a report by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.