Food Environment and Reporting Network

JULY 13, 2023

For decades, efforts to cut fossil fuel emissions have focused on power plants, factories, and automobiles, not farmland. Farmland itself was also once a major source of atmospheric carbon dioxide as farmers cleared carbon-rich forests and plowed up prairie soils, releasing carbon from trees and the ground. But it should be.

Agriculture 88

Agriculture Agriculture Greenhouse Manure 88

Civil Eats

DECEMBER 4, 2023

These synthetic polymer products have often been used to help boost yields up to 60 percent and make water and pesticide use more efficient. Yet their pervasive use—along with farmland, plastics cover everything from individual seeds to bales of hay and packaged produce—has allowed them to plant themselves deeply in our food supply.

Agriculture 145

Agriculture Agriculture Supply Chain Production 145

Civil Eats

MAY 1, 2024

Tesdell explained that when his European ancestors settled in the Midwest, they plowed the prairie and switched from deeply rooted perennial plants to shallow-rooted annual crops like wheat, oats, and corn instead. Corn produces lower yields if it is nitrogen deficient, so farmers apply nitrogen-heavy fertilizer to the crop.

Fertilizer 145

Fertilizer Farming Farming Acre 145

The Counter

APRIL 27, 2022

They’d take a few hundred acres of both leased and family-owned central-Texas farmland—land that for decades had grown row crops of corn and cotton—and give it “what it wants back,” he said. See full series Back around 2011, Jonathan Cobb and his wife, Kaylyn, had what he calls a “simple game plan.”

Farming 52

Farming Farming Farmland Acre 52

Modern Farmer

DECEMBER 20, 2024

The conditions impacted crop yields, livestock, the transportation of goods, and the larger supply chain. A few years back, while building a fence on her farmland, Hemmes suffered her first bout of on-the-job heat exhaustion. Its also an area that has been battered by human-caused climate change. Photography via Shutterstock.

Agriculture 79

Agriculture Agriculture Food Harvest 79

Civil Eats

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

farmland is regularly cover cropped. A 2022 Stanford University satellite study reported that although cover cropping reduces erosion and improves water quality, it also causes significant yield hits for corn and soybeans. Despite the resources devoted to advancing the practice, however, only around 5 percent of U.S.

Crop 140

Crop Farming Farming Acre 140