As soon as you drop into the Santa Ynez Valley, that vision changes. Here, from March through October, endless rows of strawberries fill the valley’s plain. Along the dirt access roads, cars sit parked in the dust, most of them older vans and sedans. Dozens of workers move down the rows. You might notice tall […] The post Strawberry Farmworkers Fight for a Living Wage appeared first on Civil Eats ..read more

So it was a collective victory for the village in April 2017, when then-16-year-old Chris became the youngest person in his community to harpoon a whale: Gambell fed off the bounty for months. But after his mom, Susan, posted about the exciting accomplishment on Facebook and the Anchorage newspaper picked up the news, the family […] The post For This Alaska Town, Whaling Is a Way of Life appeared first on Civil Eats ..read more

The isolation of this ecologically rich archipelago of peaks, located in a “sea” of desert that stretches from northern Mexico into southern Arizona, means that plants grow here that don’t grow anywhere else. Its 2,800 acres—the first protected habitat for the wild relatives of crops in the United States—now shelter not just a single pepper but […] The post Seeds from Wild Crop Relatives Could Help Agriculture Weather Climate Change appeared first on Civil Eats ..read more

“These peeling sheds aren’t supposed to be there. They’re not supposed to be used by anybody,” Farinella told Civil Eats. “There are 20,000 pounds of shrimp per day going through these peeling sheds that are landing on U.S. grocery store shelves.” The high temperatures in the shed could easily lead to pathogen growth, he warned. […] The post The Shrimp on Your Table Has a Dark History appeared first on Civil Eats ..read more

In a mostly dark dorm room, a narrow beam of light illuminates the makeshift table: a white towel spread over a bed. A pair of hands prepares filet mignon, using just a cutting board, basic utensils, a crockpot, and a blowtorch. The hands sear a slab of tenderloin steak with a flash of blue flame. A Nicki Minaj–Ludacris mashup is punctuated by the sounds of fast-paced cooking: the grinding of sea salt, a flick of a cap of oil, the sizzling of the steak in a crockpot with melted butter, a heap of garlic, and a twig of rosemary. The final scene: A knife glides into the perfectly tender and crisp ..read more

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So when he got word of a new $8.2 million grant trickling into his corner of the world, Keener was intrigued. “This one caught my eye,” he remembers. “Funding for food banks to buy local?” In December 2021, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a new program called Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement, […] The post How Tennessee Officials Lost Out on Millions in Funding for Farmers and Food Banks appeared first on Civil Eats ..read more

She was working as a chef in residence at Stochastic Labs, an incubator in Berkeley that brings together engineers, artists, and scientists to collaborate on and discuss the future of technology. Finn had been a forager for years. After COVID hit, Finn adopted a truffle dog named Flora Jayne and launched Flora & Fungi Adventures […] The post We’re Born to Eat Wild appeared first on Civil Eats ..read more

Manske runs conventional crop operations in Iowa and Minnesota, including managing a 1,000-acre family farm in northern Iowa, and primarily plants a rotation of corn and soybeans. Because corn requires nitrogen fertilizer to grow, Manske is concerned that further consolidation of the fertilizer industry will drive his input prices up more. “It’s kind of like, […] The post An Iowa Fertilizer Plant Purchase Spurs Antitrust Concerns appeared first on Civil Eats ..read more

In this week’s Field Report, controversial research on growing food in cities, the food and agriculture impacts of the Key Bridge collapse, and more. The post Despite Recent Headlines, Urban Farming Is Not a Climate Villain appeared first on Civil Eats ..read more