Welcome to FERN’s Friday Feed (#FFF), where we share the stories from this week that made us stop and think.
Wired
Much of the conversation about antibiotic-resistant bacteria has focused on the potential health effects for humans if our drugs become less effective. But new research suggests that animal health is the next frontier of antibiotic resistance, and that drugs used to treat livestock are already flagging. “This trend in the animal world carries a double danger,” writes Maryn McKenna. “Long term, these resistant bacteria could travel to people, creating untreatable, hard-to-contain infections. But even now, within the meat industry, routine use of antibiotics is harming farmers’ ability to raise animals and treat them if they get sick.”
In August, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers conducted raids at seven Mississippi poultry plants, arresting 680 workers. Nearly half of the arrests occurred in Morton, Mississippi, where residents are still reeling from the raid. “After the raid, there have been fewer Latinx people on the streets and in the shops,” writes Cheree Franco. “The local pharmacist said several customers moves their prescriptions to other towns, but no one knows exactly how many residents the town has lost.”
Farmers say Trump’s bailout isn’t a solution
Bloomberg
Farmers have been “collateral damage” in President Trump’s trade war with China, and are being bailed out to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. “At $28 billion so far, the farm rescue is more than twice as expensive as the 2009 bailout of Detroit’s Big Three automakers, which cost taxpayers $12 billion,” write Mario Parker and Mike Dorning. “For American producers, the hit to exports has further strained finances that are at a breaking point because of a six-year slump in prices for agricultural commodities. Net farm income is projected to be down 29% this year from 2013 levels, and debt to total $416 billion.”
Meet the woman behind PepsiCo.’s food-as-meme team
Fast Company
It all began in 2012 with the Doritos Locos Taco. Seven years, and more than 3 billion tacos later, “PepsiCo has built a team of marketers who, working closely with chefs and food scientists, are dedicated to inventing the next sensational crossover menu item,” writes Mark Wilson. “Their work focuses on turning components from the company’s massive portfolio of Frito Lay snack food brands (ranging from Ruffles chips to Cheetos dust) into tasty, absurdist spectacles.”
The anchovy is finally having its moment in America
The New York Times
“The anchovy may have once been a punch-line and an item of derision,” writes Maya Kosoff. “And … a 2016 Harris Poll surveying 2,193 American adults about their favorite pizza toppings found that anchovies were the least liked. But anchovies are slowly being adopted by an American public that is more open-minded to the small fish than they once were.”