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.
What Food Should Go Nude?
As consumers, we should worry less about the Styrofoam and plastic wrap encasing the ground beef—and take a pass on the shrink-wrapped broccoli.
The Resurgence of Solar Agriculture
Can farmers get the same food production under solar panels that they currently do growing lettuce for your dinner table the old-fashioned way—directly under the sun? There’s an increasing body of research suggesting that they can.
A wild grass gene endows wheat with the power to intercept fertilizer pollution
Applied to different cultivars, this discovery has the potential to not only slash nitrate pollution, but also agricultural greenhouse gases
Food scientists devise a clever way to recycle beer waste into food and fuel
By extracting the proteins and fibers in spent grain, researchers show that we can drink our beer and eat it too
To feed the world and protect nature, should we share agricultural land or spare wild habitat?
A decade of research holds the answer to this longstanding farming conundrum.
A 15-year snapshot of US diets reveals a gradual shift away from beef
US citizens are eating less animal-based products—and that's driven a 35% decrease in dietary carbon emissions over 15 years.
We’re running out of phosphorus for farming. Whales and other wildlife could build it back up
In an ambitious thought experiment, researchers show how restoring wildlife to pre-Industrial levels could achieve several billion dollars-worth of phosphorus production.
Lab-cultured seafood is coming. But can it actually relieve pressure on global fisheries?
Replacing wild-caught fish with lab-grown seafood is more complex than it may at first appear
We need a greener, healthier alternative to palm oil. Scientists may have found it in algae
Lipid-producing algae could decouple vegetable oil production from destructive land clearing—and it contains more polyunsaturated fats than conventional oils.
Q: How can we encourage sustainable diets? A: Subsidies.
Instead of punishing people for their food choices, study finds we should subsidize plant-based meals.
