Welcome to FERN’s Friday Feed (#FFF), where we share the stories from this week that made us stop and think.
Green Acres meets The Jetsons
FERN and EatingWell
In FERN’s latest story, Michael Behar takes a close look at precision agriculture — cutting-edge tools like drones, satellite imagery and artificial intelligence that help farmers keep careful watch over their crops. Also, Behar writes,”Because farmers equipped with precision ag know exactly where problems exist, they can also use less water and limit their application of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and fertilizers to the plants that need them most, subsequently reducing their reliance on these chemicals.”
A Colorado farming community fights for its future
High Country News
The farmers of the San Luis Valley in Colorado came up with an “uncommon solution” to address their depleting water supply: “an experiment in communal water management,” writes Nick Bowlin. “In 2012, local governing bodies made up of water users across the valley began to tax commercial irrigation, replace water removed from rivers and streams, and pay farmers to fallow their land. Western water wonks mostly view this attempt at self-management with hope, as a possible model for other communities facing water crises. But on the ground in the valley, the situation is grim. … For decades, the locals lived beyond nature’s limits. Now, water is scarce.”
A hundred and thirty-seven years on the Mexican food beat
Los Angeles Times
From the “earliest known English-language reference to a taco” to deploying “the original food influencer in Charles Fletcher Lummis, who thrilled readers with his weekly dispatches through the Southwest in 1885,” the Times, writes Gustavo Arrellano, has “championed Mexican food” more than any other U.S. newspaper. “For more than 137 years, The Times has operated under the radical idea that Mexican food is a part of this country’s fabric instead of a foreign cuisine with the propensity to cause Montezuma’s revenge.”
China’s big, decadent oyster shuck-offs
Deadspin
“Shuck offs are more common and better attended than you may think,” writes Noelle Mateer. “Many in the sport’s small, die-hard community of restaurant-professionals-turned-fanatics travel internationally to compete every year. Oyster-shucking contests have existed informally since God knows when among the rocky coasts of fishing villages, but in recent years, they’ve become more international, more boozy, more likely to be sponsored by champagne labels or big hot sauce brands. And, as befits something undergoing international corporatization, the competitions are more likely to be in China.”
A vanilla boom transforms life in Madagascar
NPR
Prices for vanilla have spiked in Madagascar, “partly because of increased global demand and partly because of decreased supply, as storms have destroyed many vines, and a lot to do with speculation,” writes Wendell Steavenson. “Local middlemen have rushed into the market, leveraging deals between village growers and the international flavor companies that distill the cured beans into extract and sell it to the big multinationals like Mars, Archer Daniels Midland and Unilever. In the meantime, farmers are getting rich — richer than in their wildest dreams.”