Food & Agriculture Stories
How do we feed a growing and more affluent population without the environmental collateral damage? The Anthropocene’s coverage of food and agriculture digs deep into innovations in farming, aquaculture, filling the global protein gap, reducing the carbon footprint of supply chains, and more.
The green revolution may be turning purple
The synthetic fertilizers behind the Green Revolution come at a steep climate cost. A sunlight-powered purple microbe just matched them in a 2-year field trial.
From sundae to solvents: Chemists find a way to recycle mountains of industrial ice cream waste
The same proteins that keep a frozen pint smooth also make its fat hard to recover. A research team found an inexpensive way around the problem.
A 100-year-old freezer rule has a hidden climate cost
Frozen food worldwide is still kept at −18°C (0°F). Raising that by just three degrees could avoid 17 million tons of emissions a year, and an 18-month study found most foods stay safe and tasty.
What happens to the world’s farms if everyone eats less meat?
Researchers ran the numbers on a worldwide sustainable-diet transition—and found a food system that looks nothing like today’s.
Scientists develop a plastic that can be turned into fertilizer
Researchers say a modified plant-derived polymer offers a possible alternative to conventional plastics—one designed to end its life as crop fertilizer, not landfill waste.
Intensive farming may yield a bumper crop of drug-resistant pathogens
Researchers find that changing the use of tilling, fertilizers, and chemicals could reshape the microbiomes of farm soils—reducing the emergence of drug-resistant pathogens.
Solar panels could cool down farms—and farmworkers
A new model of agrivoltaic farms shows shading crops with solar panels doesn’t just protect tomatoes from a warming climate. It makes outdoor labor safer, too.
Recycling food waste has a huge climate upside and a surprising downside.
A study of American composting and biogas schemes finds a climate win is shadowed by a microplastics problem. The clue is what food is wrapped in.
Scientists make a seaweed coating that beats the fridge for cutting food waste
Canadian researchers found a cheaper, lower-carbon way to keep strawberries fresh, cutting into a $58 billion waste problem.
Researchers recycle rice husks into a wonder material that removes toxic dyes from water
A biochar filter made from discarded husks hints at a broader shift: treating agricultural byproducts not as garbage, but as raw material for environmental repair.
