Stories Featured in

Organic farming has a plastic problem. One solution is controversial.

Drew and Joan Norman have been producing organic vegetables on 60 acres just north of Baltimore since 1983. On a recent spring day, signs of another new season at One Straw Farm were everywhere: seedlings in the greenhouse waiting to be transplanted, asparagus ready to be picked, tiny leaves of red- and green-leaf lettuce sprouting out… » Read More
Toronto restaurant fights food waste by chopping menu prices till all the dishes are gone

It’s 3:51 p.m., and Chef Ashley MacNeil is busy planning how to run out of food. Sunday brunch service has ended at Toronto’s Farmhouse Tavern, and she has already cubed and deep-fried the morning’s excess biscuits into croutons to adorn tonight’s house salad. Now she’s fretting over an excess of shaved Brussels sprouts, which aren’t… » Read More
Homes or gardens?

Vacant lots dot lower-income neighborhoods across the country. In many cities, urban growers have planted in those lots, repurposing abandoned city land into gardens with farmers markets and healthy food. But cities often still register such plots as “vacant,” which allows them to be snatched up by housing developers. In communities where both housing and… » Read More
$40 million later, a pioneering plan to boost wild fish stocks shows little success

Back in 1983, it seemed like a good idea. Local populations of California white seabass, prized by recreational and commercial fishermen for its mild, flaky white flesh, were declining. While a fishery management plan didn’t exist back then, sport fishermen had noticed a decline in their catches and asked officials for help. State lawmakers then… » Read More
Was your seafood caught with slave labor? New tool tries to help retailers.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program, known best for its red, yellow, and green sustainable seafood-rating scheme, is unveiling its first Seafood Slavery Risk Tool today. It’s a database designed to help corporate seafood buyers assess the risk of forced labor, human trafficking, and hazardous child labor in the seafood they purchase. The tool’s release… » Read More
‘Healing through harvesting’: Gleaning unwanted fruit helps refugees in need

Tilahun Liben thought he was seeing things. Surely that mound of orange orbs under those trees near his church couldn’t be oranges. Could they? More on this story Read more of our reporting on nutrition and food access. Read more of our reporting on farms and labor. It was 2010, and Liben had just arrived… » Read More
Do you care if your fish dinner was raised humanely? Animal advocates say you should.

At some point or another, we’ve all cringed at the videos: lame cows struggling to stand; egg-laying hens squeezed into small, stacked cages; hogs confined to gestation crates, unable to walk or turn. More on this story Read more of our reporting on oceans and freshwater Over the last decade, animal advocates have made great… » Read More
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
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