At least half of all farmworkers in the United States are undocumented Mexican immigrants. And “documentation” often dictates inclusion in a guest-worker program that’s been compared to slavery. Americans avoid these jobs, yet elected a president who promised mass deportation. There’s a crisis brewing in our fields, and it’s about to get much, much worse.
agriculture
Posted inNonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
‘Then Again, Maybe They’re Just Birds’: One Farmer’s Bald-Eagle Problem
What happens when your chickens are killed by predators protected by law? At The New York Times Magazine, Wyatt Williams reports on the farming hardships posed by bald eagles and what one family farm in Bluffon, Georgia, is trying to do about it.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Salmon’s Identity Crisis
Matthew Berger explores the evolution and the history of salmon aquaculture for Nautilus.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
High Crime in California Dairy Country
In the California Sunday Magazine, Tessa Stuart writes the gripping story of a criminal who worked the people who work the fields in California’s rural interior, and the detective agency who raced to catch him. The story has all the markings of a Netflix original series, except in place of drugs or gold, the loot is […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Future of Restaurateuring in Portland
This “safer bet” is where the second generation of Portland’s food industry intersects with the region’s commitment to density in the face of growth. Micro restaurants and food halls celebrate small spaces. Their inherent informality appeals to diners who treat dining out as an everyday form of entertainment. The small, turnkey spaces make it easier […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Midwesterners Do Things Differently in the Driftless
Although it felt better to raise cattle that weren’t drugged up, economically it was hard to rationalize the decision. Sales barns in the Midwest feed into the industrial agricultural system and make no distinction between grass-fed beef and doped up beef. A farmer just pulls his trailer up to the sales barn, drops the cattle […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Developing Strawberry 2.0
California produces 29% of the world’s strawberries, but the ample water, cheap labor, chemicals and climate that support the state’s output are changing. In Bloomberg Business, Dune Lawrence writes about a breeder at Driscoll’s who’s trying create a strawberry that requires fewer chemicals, less water and less oversight. Having spent decades building a brand known […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Cloak-and-Dagger in America’s Cornfields
In Li’s luggage, [FBI] agents found two large Pop Weaver microwave popcorn boxes. Buried under the bags of unpopped snack kernels were roughly 300 tiny manila envelopes, all cryptically numbered—2155, 2403, 20362. Inside each envelope was a single corn seed. In Ye’s luggage, agents found more corn seeds hidden amid his clothes, each one individually […]
Posted inIllustrated Title, Story
After Water
The illustrated story of California, and what happens when the water runs out.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Quotes
The Bestseller That Warned Us About California’s Water Problem
When most of us think of California’s irrigated acres, we visualize lush fields growing tomatoes, artichokes, strawberries, and grapes. But in California, the biggest user of underground water, more irrigation water is used for feed crops and pasture than for all these specialty crops combined. In fact, 42 percent of California’s irrigation goes to produce […]