Welcome to FERN’s Friday Feed (#FFF), where we share the stories from this week that made us stop and think.
‘Seeding a dark world with new life’
Longreads
“There were piles of laundry to do, a shopping list that needed tending … But I found myself drawn out into the garden, still covered with mulch for its wintry slumber,” writes Sara B. Franklin. “It seemed too early … I wasn’t ready, but the earth was ready; the plants were telling me so. So I pulled my box of seeds from the kitchen shelf … It might be too early, I thought as I sprinkled the harbingers of life into place, but it’s worth a shot. Anything hopeful, right now, is worth a shot. I should know. I’ve been here before, in another time, another life, it seems.”
Is carbon farming a boon or a boondoggle?
FERN and Yale Environment 360
Soil-carbon initiatives are popular among lawmakers and farmers who want agriculture to contribute to mitigating the effect of climate change. “But a growing number of scientists worry that mounting societal pressure to do something to counter climate change is pushing money into so-called carbon farming before the science needed to underpin it is mature,” writes Gabe Popkin in FERN’s latest story with Yale Environment 360.
Food waste expected to rise amid pandemic
FERN and National Geographic
The coronavirus pandemic is dramatically changing how many people eat. Many are eating more at home, and even hoarding food items they fear will soon be out of stock. Restaurants in many places must shift to take-out orders only. The response is bound to increase the country’s food waste output, writes Elizabeth Royte in FERN’s latest story with National Geographic.
The Marine general trying to ensure you don’t run out of food
The Atlantic
When he retired in 2018 after almost four decades of service, including leading 20,000 troops in Afghanistan, Larry Nicholson thought he’d left behind the battlefield forever, writes Kathy Gilsinan. But now, as a vice president at the wholesaler H. T. Hackney, which serves 20,000 stores from Miami to Detroit, Nicholson is again at war, trying to keep food and medicine stocked without endangering the health of drivers, packagers, and managers.
How a Texas grocery chain got ahead of the coronavirus crisis
Texas Monthly
San Antonio-based H-E-B … “started communicating with Chinese counterparts in January and was running tabletop simulations a few weeks later,” write Dan Solomon and Paula Forbes. In early March it “began limiting the amounts of certain products customers were able to purchase; extended its sick leave policy and implemented social distancing measures quickly; limited its hours to keep up with the needs of its stockers; added a coronavirus hotline for employees in need of assistance or information; and gave employees a $2 an hour raise on March 16.”
Panic-hoarding baby chickens?!
The New York Times
“The combination of an enormous rise in unemployment, anxious free time for those not struggling with illness, and financial instability has created a number of strange moments in economics,” writes Tove Danovich. “Here’s another: For the next few weeks, baby chickens are next to impossible to find.”
The hidden costs of Florida’s sugar crop
Bloomberg Green
When it’s time to harvest sugar cane in Florida, farmers “burn fields to clear them of excess organic material … making harvesting more efficient,” writes Paul Tullis. “The leaves, containing virtually no sugar, go up in smoke, while the sucrose-laden stalks, being about 72% water, don’t.” Studies have shown that the smoke contains black carbon (a greenhouse gas) and potential carcinogens. “Some residents of Florida sugar country see a link between what seems like a lot of kids using inhalers and the October-to-May harvest season.”