FERN’s Friday Feed: Dicamba dispute led to a killing in farm country
Welcome to FERN’s Friday Feed (#FFF), where we share the stories from this week that made us stop and think.
Monsanto’s weedkiller brings violence to a small town
The New Republic
The controversial pesticide dicamba has brought conflict and even violence to farming communities that are attempting to reckon with its destructive capabilities. “The controversy over dicamba reveals the fault lines of modern agriculture, which is increasingly built atop a precarious framework of chemistry,” writes Boyce Upholt. “It also reveals who holds the power. The new seed-and-chemical combination serves as a kind of protection racket, initiated by Monsanto: Pay to use dicamba-resistant soybeans, or you may lose your crop and your livelihood.”
Studying the healing properties of a diet
The New York Times
We know a lot about what types of medicine to take for our ailments—but what about what foods to eat? “A careful scientific examination of diet as medicine is now long overdue in oncology, and in most fields of medicine,” writes Siddhartha Mukherjee. “Rather than relying on received knowledge, or on presumed ideas, we might examine our diet molecule by molecule, and trial by trial, probing the aspects of food that incite or treat particular diseases, for particular humans, with particular genetic attributes.”
A newly-classified animal allergy with untold victims
Mosaic
A growing number of people are being diagnosed with “alpha-gal allergy,” an allergy to mammal meat and other animal products. The consequences of a diagnosis can be life-altering. “For those affected, alpha-gal is transforming the landscapes they live in, turning the reliable comforts of home – the plants in their gardens, the food on their plates – into an uncertain terrain of risk,” writes Maryn McKenna. Researchers are trying to understand where this new disease originated and how it is best treated.
Can the cockroach solve China’s food-waste problem?
Reuters
As its cities sprawl, China’s landfills are overflowing with table scraps. So entrepreneurs are launching cockroach farms and feeding plants, turning the insects loose on the mountains of food waste. “On the outskirts of Jinan, capital of eastern Shandong province, a billion cockroaches are being fed with 50 tonnes of kitchen waste a day — the equivalent in weight to seven adult elephants,” write Thomas Suen and Ryan Woo. And when the bugs die, they are fed to hogs and other livestock.
The South’s long, complicated relationship with the tomato
The Bitter Southerner
From aspic and pie, to gravy and gumbo, the tomato has been imbedded in southern culture from the start. But for the migrants who pick tomatoes for giant agribusiness operations, and for the independent farmers who have been forced to the margins by Big Ag, the production of the South’s favorite fruit is full of contradictions and struggle. “While we now have so many other fanciers, seed savers, scientists, and botanists working on reviving the flavor of the slicer,” writes Shane Mitchell, “we remain deeply compromised in our hunger for a fair — and fairly decent tasting — tomato.”