BY Adele Peters Around half of the habitable land onthe planet is now used for agriculture. A millennium ago—or more recently, in the case of many countries—it was mostly wilderness. Soon, technology could reshape that…
Story by Gabriel Popkin Jan. 22, 2021 Maryland farmer Trey Hill pulled in a healthy haul of corn last fall and then immediately planted rye, turnips, clover and other species, which are now spreading a…
By Cody Copeland for GRUNGE In the mid-1800s, a new beverage fad took over the United States and Europe. Coca wine was fortified wine infused with coca leaves, i.e., cocaine. According to The Drinks Business,…
BY ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARTIN OEGGERLI This story appears in the January 2020 issue of National Geographic magazine. THE MORE SCIENTISTS investigate the microbes living inside us, the more they learn about the…
As a child, Suzanne Simard often roamed Canada’s old-growth forests with her siblings, building forts from fallen branches, foraging mushrooms and huckleberries and occasionally eating handfuls of dirt (she liked the taste). Her grandfather and…
By Wolf Richter Eight months into the Pandemic, about 78% of the US restaurants that had taken reservations before the Pandemic took reservations again during the last week in October, the highest since the start…
On September 12, Iverson Family Farms posted ominous images on social media of their fields under a ruddy red sky, thick with a stagnant, dense haze—a stark contrast to the vibrant annual Wooden Shoe Tulip…
What’s the big idea? Current industrialized food systems were optimized for a single goal – growing the maximum amount of food for the least amount of money. But when room and supplies are limited –…
A new forecast projects that one in three U.S. restaurants may close permanently this year, showing how the Covid-19 pandemic is decimating an industry that employs millions of Americans. As many as 231,000 of the…
Early in 2019, a year before the world shut its borders completely, Jorge A. knew he had to get out of Guatemala. The land was turning against him. For five years, it almost never rained.…