Environment

Despite this being harvest season, I’ve been pestering farmers with theoretical questions about food and agriculture labels.

Here’s something I’ve learned: If there’s one thing to guarantee a lengthy conversation with an ag-minded person, regardless of his or her crop harvesting schedule, it might be on the farm labels.

I’ve also learned that there comes a point when slapping a pithy saying on an agricultural method is a detriment to understanding just how a farmer does his job.

By Jeremy Bernfeld (Harvest Public Media)

WANTED: A dedicated worker familiar with intense physical labor. Must possess the ability to organize, anticipate pitfalls and plan ahead. Only those comfortable with individual responsibility and leadership skills need apply.

A want-ad for a farmer or a member of the military? 

By Kathleen Masterson (Harvest Public Media)

Far too many tax dollars are going directly into the pockets of private crop insurers, according to  a new report from a noted economist who helped design the government’s initial revenue crop insurance program in the 1990s.

Eric Durban (Harvest Public Media)

As the local food movement continues to gain steam, many Americans are becoming more and more familiar with their dinner’s origins. But food consumers aren’t just learning about food production at local farmer’s markets, many are getting educated on today's great connector: social media.

By Jeremy Bernfeld (Harvest Public Media)

State investigators are still investigating the cause of the explosion at a grain elevator in Atchinson, KS, which killed six people Oct. 29.

By Kathleen Masterson (Harvest Public Media)

Politicians aren't the only ones taking aim at farm subsidies these days. Some public health groups and foodies say subsidies drive overproduction of corn and soybeans.  And that, they say, enables the production of cheap fast food.   

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Monday that it’s changing its short-term approach to managing water levels on the Missouri River, following devastating flooding this summer in Missouri, Iowa and North Dakota. 

Allegedly, there's a tsunami washing up on American shores. It originates in Chinese beehives and the American beekeepers who've spotted it are hopping mad.

For a lot of farm kids, "learning to drive" means learning to drive a tractor before ever driving a car.

On the surface, it's easy to dismiss this menu as a mere Halloween stunt: duck hearts, cow tongues, lamb kidneys, pig ears and even testicles.

But chef Daniel O'Brien, who runs the Seasonal Pantry supper club in Washington, D.C., and hosted a "Scary Bits" dinner this weekend, is one of a growing number of innovative American chefs who are incorporating "variety meats," or offal, into everyday menus.

Consider the last time you ordered a salad at a restaurant. What, precisely, was in it? Chances are you'll remember the biggest, brightest ingredients, like the lettuce, the tomato, maybe the grilled chicken.

But will you remember the little bits — the nuts, berries or toppings? In an age when salads increasingly aspire to be confetti-like piles of artistic greatness, you'd be pardoned if you didn't take note every morsel.

Commuters on Northern California's I-80, which connects the Bay Area to Sacramento, saw something unexpected early this morning. Two rigs collided and about 5,000 chickens spilled onto the highway near Vacaville.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Think of the most natural, pristine place you've ever visited. You might envision a national forest or state park. These locales provide a landscape of solace, peace and quiet. We relate to these getaways as pure, real nature that's managed to stay untouched through centuries of human intervention. Now imagine your favorite hiking path or placid lake as a construction of wildlife: an outdoors reality based on someone else's idea of an anti-urban, off-the-beaten-path wilderness. On this episode of Field Notes, we explore nature conservation with environmental journalist Emma Marris.

The US Department of Agriculture this week announced it will test for more deadly strains of E. coli in ground beef beginning March 2012.