All FERN Articles
NAFTA’s ‘Broken Promises’: These Farmers Say They Got The Raw End Of Trade Deal
You’ve heard that American agriculture loves trade. And it’s easy to see why: Under NAFTA, American farmers have quadrupled their exports to Canada and Mexico and the two nations rank second and third, after China, as markets for U.S. farm goods. More on this story Read more of our reporting on farms & labor. “American… » Read More
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No offense, American bees, but your sperm isn’t cutting it
Editor’s note: This story is for mature bees only. Seducing a honeybee drone — one of the males in a colony whose only job is to mate with the queen — is not too difficult. They don’t have stingers, so you just pick one up. Apply a little pressure to the abdomen and the drone… » Read More
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African Americans have lost untold acres of farmland over the last century
Driving the long, flat roads of Hilton Head island is hypnotic. One bike-rental shop blends into another; countless villa-style office complexes advertise real-estate agents and banks. Tourists meander to their cars wearing all white, carrying brightly colored smoothies. Rows of palm trees wave slowly over the crawling traffic. A waterfront hotel looms on the horizon.… » Read More
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1.3 Million Monthly ReadershipThe Nation
How Vermont tackled farm pollution and cleaned up its waters
If you were to go looking for a magnificent American body of water worthy of an epic end-to-end swim, Lake Champlain might be it. Carved out of high country by glaciers, fed by Green Mountain brooks and icy Adirondack springs, it stretches 120 miles, forming much of the border between New York and Vermont. It… » Read More
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Inside the multimillion-dollar world of eel trafficking
The alleged kingpin of one of the biggest domestic wildlife smuggling operations ever to hit the East Coast is exactly where you’d expect to find him on a rainy evening in early May: firmly planted in a swivel chair at a big green metal desk inside his renovated Quonset hut on Foster Street, in Ellsworth,… » Read More
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Terror in the Heartland
On October 11, 2016, less than a month before Election Day, police in Liberal, Kansas, sat in their cruisers outside G&G Home Center, waiting for Curtis Allen to emerge. The mobile home dealership where Allen worked was nothing more than a prefab trailer hauled onto a patch of scrub grass along a remote stretch of… » Read More
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4.7 Million Monthly ReachThe New Republic
Bears Ears Monument Is A Win For Tribal Food Sovereignty. Will Trump Undo It?
Seven years ago, the Navajo tribal council in southeastern Utah started mapping the secret sites where medicine men and women forage for healing plants and native people source wild foods. They wanted to make a case for protecting the landscape known as Bears Ears, a place not only sacred to their tribe, but to many other… » Read More
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4 Million Monthly ReachNPR's The Salt
How a wild berry is helping to protect China’s Giant Pandas and its countryside
In the cool mountains of the Upper Yangtze region, Chinese villagers clamber up dogwood and maple trees to gather what Dr. Oz has called a “miracle anti-aging pill.” The small, red schisandra berry has a peculiar taste — five tastes, in fact, because it’s considered to be at once sweet, sour, salty, bitter and pungent.… » Read More
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4 Million Monthly ReachNPR's The Salt
Is the United States ready for offshore aquaculture?
Harlon Pearce walks muck-booted past processors gutting wild drum and red snapper to showcase a half-full new 5,000-square-foot (500-square-meter) freezer he hopes will someday house a fresh boom of marine fish. Harlon’s LA Fish sits just across the railroad tracks from the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, perfectly positioned to ship fish out of… » Read More
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3 Million Monthly ReachEnsia