“Throughout the Middle East, the versatile fruit has been revered since antiquity. How will it fare in a changing world?”
agriculture
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Ancient Potato of the Future
“The Four Corners potato has sustained Indigenous people in the American Southwest for 11,000 years; USDA is now studying its 8-year shelf life, and its resistance to disease, heat, and drought. The future of this remarkable little potato remains unwritten.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
How Your Cup of Coffee Is Clearing the Jungle
“However it happened, anywhere between 20,000 and 130,000 people — estimates range wildly — are farming illegally within Bukit Barisan Selatan.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
There Has Been Blood
“For more than five decades, the Thai palm oil industry has been marred by rampant exploitation, violence, and corporate greed. Thailand is the world’s No. 3 producer of palm oil.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Farmer Trying to Save Italy’s Ancient Olive Trees
“A fast-spreading bacteria could cause an olive-oil apocalypse.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Inequality’s Deadly Toll
“A century of research has demonstrated how poverty and discrimination drive disease. Can COVID push science to finally address the issue?”
Posted inQuotes
Pretty and Dumb? Tell It to the Avocado
New arrivals didn’t hand Natives the keys to the modern world — but took the tools that built its foundations.
Posted inNonfiction
What the World’s Most Controversial Herbicide Is Doing to Rural Argentina
After enormous lobbying efforts, Monsanto’s GMO soybeans, treated with Roundup, became the country’s largest export, as cancer rates and other health issues skyrocketed.
Posted inNonfiction
Betting the Farm on the Drought
Farmers like sixth-generation Illinois farmer Ethan Cox can’t wait for policymakers to protect them from climate change. To survive, they have to adapt their operations now, if they can.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Can the world quench China’s bottomless thirst for milk?
In China, milk represents modernity and progress. But the radical plan to triple the nation’s consumption has serious environmental consequences.