Food and Agriculture

MAHA v. Mamdani

Our broken food system and the real roots of American unwellness.

  • Raj Patel

The Animal Crisis Is a Human Crisis

The systems that harm animals go hand in hand with systems that harm humans. Combating them requires inter-species solidarity.

  • Alice Crary
  • Lori Gruen

Our Global Food System Was Already in Crisis. Russia’s War Will Make It Worse

The Global South will suffer the most as colonial legacies, climate change, and capitalism continue to plunge millions into hunger.

  • Raj Patel

Far from Ukraine, Putin’s War Worsens Palm Oil Crisis

The commodity’s bloody history is instructive of how global capitalism can and can’t be fixed.

  • Max Haiven

Detroiters Are Not Waiting to Be Saved

Inspired by the work of James and Grace Lee Boggs, many young Detroit activists are turning to forms of mutual aid to meet the needs of their communities.

  • Nate File

Food for Thought

Our best essays on food and eating from the past forty-six years! From a food anthropologist’s early love affair with Chinese cuisine to the farmers’ protests in India, the pieces in this list consider food from political, cultural, and economic perspectives.

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What Does Europe Have Against Halal?

Food is becoming a target for anti-Islam politics.

  • John R. Bowen

Why Aren’t We Talking about Farmers in India?

They are fighting in a global war over the future of agriculture. Modi is chocking the debate.

  • Raj Patel

Pigs and Capital

The meat business has become a vast, fragile beast teetering on the brink of ecological and financial ruin.

  • Troy Vettese

Global Warming, Market Opportunity

On the lure of climate entrepreneurism.

  • Troy Vettese

The Seed Vault Flooding Is Only the Start of Our Problems

Biodiversity should be maintained by using it, not by storing it under ice.

  • Jack Heinemann

A Jobless Utopia?

A rural town in Spain gives us a glimpse into the challenges we will face in a workless future.

  • David McDermott Hughes

White Leghorns

On the cruelties the South doles out to animals, children, and black folks.

  • Colin Dayan

The Sweet Life of Sidney Mintz

Remembering one of the century’s great anthropologists and teachers.

  • Sarah Hill

Pigs

Two men test their ethical and spiritual mettle by raising and slaughtering pigs.

  • Jesse Maceo Vega-Frey

The New Nature

It is impossible to divorce nature from human influence. Can that influence be democratic?

  • Jedediah Britton-Purdy
with responses from
  • Jo Guldi
  • Jairus Grove
  • Robert Paarlberg
  • Andreas Malm
  • David Keith
  • Anna Tsing
  • Ugo Mattei
  • Vandana Shiva
  • Paul Waldau
  • Roy Scranton

The New New Guidelines

Why do our ideas about nutrition change so quickly?

  • Anne Fausto-Sterling

People v. Dole

Dole used a pesticide that rendered banana workers sterile. Why is it so hard to litigate?

  • Susanna Bohme

Ground Down to Molasses

The making of an American folk song.

  • Dave Byrne

The Truth About GMOs

Genetically modified foods are safe for humans and pose no special environmental risk. Yet there are serious policy questions to consider.

  • Pamela Ronald
with responses from
  • Marc Gunther
  • Greg Jaffe
  • Margaret Mellon
  • Rosamond Naylor
  • Robert Paarlberg
  • Nina Fedoroff
  • Tim Burrack
  • Jennie Schmidt
  • Jack Heinemann

Cash Cows

Thanks to dairy farmers, there is hope for a sustainable middle class in East Africa.

  • Jennifer Wheary

Dragon’s Blood

A food anthropologst’s early love affair with Chinese cuisine.

  • Sidney W. Mintz

Storms Without Names

Climate Change Wreaking Havoc in Central America

  • Douglas Haynes

Feast and Famine

India is growing, but Indians are still starving.

  • Siddhartha Deb
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