Welcome to FERN’s Friday Feed (#FFF), where we share the stories from this week that made us stop and think.
The great Asian supermarket
Taste
Cathy Erway maps the history of Asian immigration to the U.S. onto the growth of suburban supermarkets that were, for many, a connection to home. “[W]hether it was for H Mart (‘A Korean Tradition Made in America,’ as the motto goes), Patel Brothers (the largest Indian supermarket chain in the United States), or a number of other regional or independent Asian supermarkets that were founded in the 1970s or ’80s, a generation of kids of immigrants who moved out to the suburbs have a deep love for these places,” she writes.
How to fight invasive species when they’ve become a beloved part of the culture
FiveThirtyEight
From nutria to emerald ash borers, the story of invasive species can seem entirely one of good vs. evil. How the hell do we stop these things? But, as Maggie Koerth-Baker explains, it’s not always that simple. “All over the world, you’ll find invasive species that are beloved by humans — even as these foreign plants and animals alter or damage the environment. The fight against invasive species is often framed as a technological problem — how do you selectively eliminate a species once it’s made itself at home in an environment? But in reality, it’s also a question of human hearts and minds. And those might be the harder obstacle to clear.”
Can the world’s largest food market shift its business to the cloud?
The New York Times
In the half a century since Rungis replaced the ancient Les Halles market in Paris, the sprawling wholesale operation has become “so efficient that Moscow, Abu Dhabi and other capitals are recasting their food markets on the Rungis model,” writes Liz Alderman. Now, though, facing growing competition from Amazon, Google, and other online conglomerates, the company that owns the market is pushing merchants to move their business to the cloud. The idea has been met with “résistance” among many of Rungis’s longtime denizens: “It’s naïve to think this can be done by computer,” said one fishmonger, pointing to stacks of brill and monkfish waiting to be sold. “People need to see the fish, touch it, make sure it’s fresh. You can’t do that through a screen.”
Do heirlooms hold the keys to climate-adapted crops?
National Geographic
A network of farmers is researching and reviving heirloom fruits and vegetables and analyzing their genetics to understand how those crops have persevered for hundreds of years. “In heirlooms, their fans see treasuries of biodiversity and resilience, protection against heat, drought, diseases, and pests that will be needed as a changing climate makes current crops and animals—which have been reduced to a narrow genetic range—harder to grow,” writes FERN contributor Maryn McKenna.
California comes to terms with weed farming
The Washington Post
In California, cannabis cultivation is butting up against the values of conservative farm country. “The regulated California cannabis market is a $4 billion-a-year industry, a boon to the local tax base and to a generation of entrepreneurial farmers more schooled in the agricultural sciences than in the dark arts of deception,” writes Scott Wilson. “But legalization already is reordering the business and geography of cannabis cultivation, pushing crops into places they have never been. The new cultivations are challenging long-held beliefs in some conservative communities, including this one, where a rural libertarian streak is confronting a crop still stigmatized despite its legality.”