Welcome to FERN’s Friday Feed (#FFF), where we share the stories from this week that made us stop and think.
The Washington Post
“From his wooden hut in the foothills of the Sierra Madre, Rodrigo Carrillo can see the product of his life savings: A vast green sea of coffee plants, sprouting red berries like tiny Christmas ornaments,” Kevin Sieff writes. But Carrillo — who had worked previously in the United States and returned home to Guatemala to grow coffee — has a new problem: Prices have plunged globally due to swelling supplies. Even with Fair Trade pricing and a bonus from Starbucks, farmers can’t make ends meet. So Carrillo has decided to go north once again, with his family, regardless of attempts by President Trump to stem the migration flow.
Drug company urged farmers to use more antibiotics
The New York Times
Public health groups have urged farmers to use less antibiotics in animal production as drug-resistant germs continue to emerge. But a recent campaign by drug company Elanco encouraged farmers to do the opposite. “The company’s Pig Zero brochures encouraged farmers to give antibiotics to every pig in their herds rather than waiting to treat a disease outbreak caused by an unknown Patient Zero,” write Danny Hakim and Matt Richtel. “It was an appealing pitch for industrial farms, where crowded, germ-prone conditions have led to increasing reliance on drug interventions. The pamphlets also detailed how feeding pigs a daily regimen of two antibiotics would make them fatter and, as any farmer understands, a heavier pig is a more profitable pig.”
To find African ingredients, stop by Walmart
Taste
African ingredients are becoming more common in the grocery aisle, with new product lines emerging at large retailers. “As little as a decade ago, buying specialty ingredients from Sub-Saharan Africa—such as the smoky, fishy seasoning paste shito, elastic fufu flour, and tangy baobab powder—all but required a visit to small specialty markets that rarely saw customers outside of their core communities,” writes Max Falkowitz. “In 2019, at a time when black chefs like Kwame Onwuachi and Eric Adjepong are bringing pan-African recipes to the Top Chef–watching masses, you can get ready-to-eat egusi soup delivered to your door.”
What is the World Food Programme-Balenciaga partnership achieving?
NPR
Luxury brand Balenciaga is selling clothes emblazoned with the World Food Programme logo and donating 10 percent of sales to the food aid group. But does the partnership actually do any good? The proceeds so far are “not much compared to what the U.N. agency normally gets from its big funders,” writes Malaka Gharib. And “[s]ome researchers take issue with the message that buying products can help the world.” But celebrity boosters like Christina Aguilera and 2 Chainz could bring more attention to the cause.
Evidence mounts on health risks of processed-food diet
Vox
A month ago, NIH released a study that found that people eating ultra-processed foods took in 500 more calories a day. Now come two studies in BMJ linking processed foods to higher rates of cardiovascular disease and early death. But why? “A new, intriguing hypothesis offers a potential answer. Increasingly, scientists think processed foods, with all their additives and sugar and lack of fiber, may be formulated in ways that disturb the gut microbiome,” writes Julia Belluz. Processed foods tend to reduce microbial diversity in the gut, which in turn can lead to higher rates of disease.