According to one industry estimate, organic food sales hit a record $62 billion during the pandemic, equal to a 12 percent increase over the year. While organic farming can have ecological benefits—for example, rules require that producers limit the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers—sudden spikes in demand can have an unintended consequence: conversion of wildland to farmland, reports Reuters. Transitioning conventional farmland into organic is a three-year process. Some farmers, wary of a long wait, may convert untouched land instead, destroying nearby ecosystems that are home to wildlife, including pollinators. To address the practice, critics are now calling on the United States to ban conversion of wildland for organic farming.
Every year, California dairy farms emit hundreds of thousands of tons of the potent greenhouse…
Highway 7 runs north-south through western Washington, carving its way through a landscape sparsely dotted…
One of the greatest pleasures I had as a child growing up in the Chicago…
Undocumented immigrants experience food insecurity at much higher rates than other populations, yet they are…
Writer Charlotte Druckman and editor Rebecca Flint Marx are both Jewish journalists living in New…
Last fall, first-year law student Karissa Kang arrived at Yale University and quickly set out…