Farmers and Ranchers Know What Climate Change Feels Like. They Just Wrote Congress Demanding Action.
Farmer Leah Penniman is one of a coalition of 10,000 farmers and ranchers who sent a letter to Congress in support of a Green New Deal resolution.Jamel Mosely-Mel A coalition that unites farmers and ranchers behind the Green New Deal hopes to set a new tone for how the agriculture sector relates to policy solutions…
The Bizarre Trump-Fueled Backlash to Healthy School Lunches
Party of One Studio Back in 2010, then–first lady Michelle Obama launched a nefarious scheme to turn school cafeterias into liberal indoctrination zones. Or at least that’s how Obama’s right-wing opponents portrayed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, a law she spearheaded that gave the National School Lunch Program its first nutritional update in more than…
A Big New Study Finds Bee-Killing Pesticides Aren’t Even Worth it for Soybean Farmers
Dzophoto/iStock/Getty Images Ever year, farmers in the United States devote at least 80 million acres, a combined landmass three-quarters the size of California, to soybeans. At least half the crop comes from proprietary seeds coated with insecticides and fungicides. These chemicals infuse the plants as they emerge, protecting them from damage by insects and fungal…
North Carolina Braces for Another Flood of Hog Poop
A hog operation with a lagoon in Sampson County, on North Carolina’s coastal plain.Matt Butler, Sound Rivers/Waterkeeper Alliance/Flicker It’s emerging as an annual rite: A massive hurricane roars across North Carolina and deposits epic amounts of water on the state’s coastal plain, home to a tangle of rivers intertwined with one of the globe’s most…
Jay Inslee Wants to Pay Farmers to Pull Carbon from the Atmosphere
Caroline Brehman/Associated Press True to his fixation on battling climate change, today Washington governor and Democratic presidential hopeful Jay Inslee released a rural policy platform centered on encouraging farmers to pull carbon from the atmosphere and trap it in soil. For decades, United States farm policy has pushed farmers in the nation’s Midwestern states to…
The Secret History of Why Soda Companies Switched From Sugar to High-Fructose Corn Syrup
Lemon_tm/iStock In a mesmerizing recent article, Mother Jones’ Tim Murphy recounts the surprising backstory of one of corporate marketing’s greatest flops: Coca-Cola’s quickly aborted 1985 effort to tweak its formula and convince consumers to accept “New Coke.” Tim Murphy is on this week’s episode of Bite, talking about New Coke and doing a blind taste-test:…