Our Impact

Elizabeth Grossman’s groundbreaking piece, “Climate Change Poses Serious Threats to Food Distribution,” introduced a new and troubling frame to the conversation about climate change, agriculture, and access to good food. Published March 2015, by Earth Island Journal, it was shared on social media 500 times and the 1,500 (and counting) folks who read it on the Journal’s site spent an average of five minutes with the piece—pretty good engagement in our click-and-flit digital world. More important, perhaps, is that among the places that picked up Grossman’s piece was AGree: Transforming Food & Agriculture, the reform effort led by Dan Glickman, a former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, and Kathleen Merrigan, a former Deputy Secretary of the USDA. In other words, the article got to people who can actually make a difference.

In April 2014 we established an important partnership with Latino USA, which airs on 141 NPR stations nationwide, with a wonderful story about a woman who singlehandedly changed the game on the sprawling and complex problem of food waste. Reporter Lisa Morehouse traveled to Nogales, Arizona, to profile Yolanda Soto, who runs Borderlands Food Bank. Soto rescues between 35 and 40 million pounds of safe, edible fruits and vegetables each year that cross the border from Mexico but are rejected by USDA inspectors for largely aesthetic reasons. This food used to get dumped in a landfill, but now Soto sells it to food-relief operations at bargain rates—offering a new model for food re-distribution.

“The Trouble with Iowa: Corn, corruption, and the presidential caucuses,” by Richard Manning, was the cover story in the February issue of Harper’s Magazine. That alone is impact, as the venerable magazine has a gravitas that extends beyond its 560,000 monthly readers; it is one of a handful of publications that continues to help set the media world’s broader agenda. Also, the timing of the piece was perfect, appearing as it did on the cusp of the much-anticipated Iowa caucuses. People were ready to read something that was intelligently provocative—as Manning always is—and that put all the political blather and horserace coverage of the preceding months in meaningful context.

Our March 2014 story, “Nervous Energy,” on the potential impact of fracking on the food and water of California, appeared in Sunset Magazine, which has a monthly circulation of nearly 1.3 million. A companion radio piece was broadcast on Capital Public Radio to an audience of 470,000. In May of that year, FERN co-hosted a public panel discussion at Sunset Magazine, based on the story. The panel featured Barry Yeoman, the reporter who wrote the story; Amy Quinton, who produced the companion radio segment for; Paula Getzelman, a wine grower in Monterey County who was featured in the story; and Jayni Hein, the author of a report on the potential impact of fracking. Sam Fromartz, FERN’s editor-in-chief, moderated the panel.

In October 2015, "With No U.S. Standards, Pot Pesticide Use Is Rising Public Health Threat" was produced for broadcast and online in collaboration with Rocky Mountain PBS I-News. Reporters Erica Berry, of FERN, and Katie Wilcox, of I-News, found a glaring absence of oversight on the marijuana industry. Their work was the top story of a rolling 30-day period surrounding its publication on the I-News site in terms of traffic.

George Black’s powerful cover story, “The Lethal Legacy of the Vietnam War,” in The Nation, showed how tons of unexploded ordnance, herbicides, and defoliants the U.S. dropped on Vietnam during the war continue to plague farmers there today. The piece, which appeared online in late February 2015, had considerable reach. The Nation has 1.3 million monthly readers in print and online, and as of April 15, 2015, the story had received nearly 18,000 views at the magazine’s website. Prominent political activist Tom Hayden was among the many who sent The Nation letters praising Black’s skill, calling the story “one of the finest works of journalism I have read in years.” He went on to say, “Black uses the long-form approach to a long story, but in a way that will engage anyone with an ounce of curiosity or humanity. Not that social media doesn’t have its place, but Black shows us what our culture is losing to chatter.”

In “With emergency SNAP benefits ending, a ‘hunger cliff’ looms,” published with Mother Jones, Bridget Huber details how anti-hunger advocates worry that the nation may be approaching a “hunger cliff,” as emergency SNAP benefits are ending even as demand at food pantries—and Covid case numbers—are rising again.

In “Big Tech’s food-delivery apps face a grassroots revolt,” published with Mother Jones, Dean Kuipers explains how restaurants got fed up with the exorbitant fees and other aggressive tactics from food-delivery apps like Grubhub and Uber Eats. So they took action and formed local delivery co-ops in an effort to drive those apps out.

In “Unraveling The Gluten-Free Trend,” published in EatingWell magazine in May 2014, FERN editor-in-chief Sam Fromartz investigates the science and controversy behind the “gluten-free” craze. He draws on the latest medical research to explain what we really know about gluten’s health effects, and how much of what we think we know might be hype. The story focuses on the emerging research around “gluten sensitivity,” which, as Fromartz shows, isn’t well understood, and thus is prone to conjecture.

“Dispute Over Drug in Feed Limiting U.S. Meat Exports,” which was published January 25, 2012 (and was our second story after our launch in 2011), on MSNBC.com (now NBCnews.com), was the first in-depth article on the growth-promoting drug ractopamine in the U.S. mainstream press. We knew we’d hit a nerve when the story starting receiving a lot of coverage by other outlets and queries from Taiwanese reporters and legislators. At the time, Taiwan was considering lifting the country’s ban on ractopamine, and at least five articles in the Taiwanese media followed our reporting, heightening tensions over the issue.

In “Europe’s butterflies are vanishing as small farms disappear,” published with National Geographic, Bridget Huber shows us that industrial farms and abandoned ones are both bad for butterflies. So researchers in Spain are trying to combat the trend, one 'micro-reserve' at a time.

Shannon Service’s October 2014 story in The Guardian on the “shady dealings” of a massive Chinese tuna-fishing firm had real-world impact. Notorious for going after threatened species like Yellowfin and Bigeye, the China Tuna Industry Group was forced to withdraw its IPO application after negative media coverage, including our piece, exposed the company’s nefarious operation.

In “Urban Farming Is Booming, But What Does It Really Yield?” reporter Elizabeth Royte explored whether community gardens and rooftop farms can really play a role in feeding our burgeoning population. With the help of leading researchers and growers across the country, she scrutinized the challenges facing both for- and non-profit urban farms as they try to take a “bite out of long-distance food chains.” The piece was published by Ensia in April 2015.

In February 2013, we produced our first story in partnership with the San Francisco Chronicle, about the booming herring population in the San Francisco Bay following a near collapse in 2009. The boom was being supported by Bay Area chefs who were serving the fish, which often is used to feed larger fish species, in an effort to bring attention to the herring’s plight. The Chronicle has a weekday circulation of around 218,000 readers. In addition to print, the story received 130 likes on Facebook, and 10 tweets, including by Michael Pollan (575,000+ followers) and Edible San Francisco (52,000+ followers). KQED followed up with its own piece on the herring situation.

One of our biggest hits of 2014 was also one of our most-important pieces, in terms of challenging conventional wisdom and taking on the food-reform movement’s sacred cows in a critical but constructive way. In November 2014, Slate published Tracie McMillan’s provocative look at the first Whole Foods store in downtown Detroit, which the company claimed would be more than just a market for rich people. “Can Whole Foods Change the Way Poor People Eat?” spurred a broad, ongoing and overdue conversation about whether the food movement—which has been largely an elite phenomenon—can reach a mass audience. It was about access, but also about class and the motives of a food icon with big business interests.

In “A River Runs Through It,” reporter Paul Greenberg, author of The New York Times bestseller Four Fish, explained how the hypoxic “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico is the result of U.S. agricultural practices. Greenberg went on to explore some of the most promising solutions to the problem. The first such piece of its kind, the story was published in 2013 by The American Prospect. It was shared over 480 times on Facebook and tweeted 230 times, including by Mark Bittman (529,000+ followers), Michael Pollan (575,000+ followers), Andy Revkin (89,000+ followers) and chef Dan Barber (36,000+ followers). The circulation of The American Prospect is 45,000.

In August 2013, Slate (10 million monthly readers) published “SNAP Judgment,” in which reporter Jane Black explained why anti-hunger groups were protesting limitations on junk food purchased with SNAP, or food stamps. The story was subsequently syndicated to other print and online outlets through The Washington Post Media Service, and was cited by The New Yorker. Black also appeared on Heritage Radio Network to discuss the story.

In September 2013 we published an infographic, based on new data, which showed how 127,000 fewer people would die of heart disease, and the nation would save $17 billion in medical costs, if Americans ate the recommended 4 1/2 cups of fruit and vegetables every day. The graphic appeared online at The Daily Meal, a fast-growing site that draws a million unique visitors per month.