U.S. Farmers Made in Brazil
Brazil is the second-largest producer of soybeans globally. Diego Giudice/Getty Images On the outskirts of the town of Luís Eduardo Magalhães, Brazil’s capital of agribusiness in the west…
Tag: agriculture
The Blueberry Wars
In elementary school, the first “robin red-breast” of spring signaled warmer days, colorful flowers, and a promise that the school year wouldn’t last forever. I considered robins m…
Night Soil and the Metabolic Rift
Our latest article is out, which examines the history and cross-cultural management of human waste (or “night soil”) as an agricultural resource. The paper grew out of a…
Review: Organic Sovereignties
Organic Sovereignties. Struggles over Farming in an Age of Free Trade. Guntra A. Aistara. University of Washington Press. 2018. ISBN: 9780295743110. Laura Kihlstrom (University of South Florida) Gunt…
Review: Eating Tomorrow
Wise, Tim (2019) Eating Tomorrow. Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food. New York: The New Press. ISBN 9781620974223 Ellen Messer, Ph.D. (Tufts University…
Privy2
This summer I’ve been working with students and colleagues in the Knowlton School of Architecture at Ohio State to install a demonstration garden, titled “Privy2: Biosolids and You.”…
Review: GMOs Decoded
Krimsky, Sheldon. (2019) GMOs Decoded. A Skeptic’s View of Genetically Modified Foods. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. 161 pp. + 9 pp. References Cited. Forward by Marion Nestle. ISBN…
The Message(s) In the Bottle (or Keg)
Amy Trubek with Elisa Ascione and Manuel Barbato Why am I in Umbria spending time with craft brewers and tasting beers such as an American Red Ale and…
A Story of Us
For the past several years, the graduate students of the Ohio State Department of Anthropology have produced A Story of Us, a podcast that is sponsored by the…
A Plantation inside the Cow: Capitalist Indigestions and the Rumen Microbial Universe
Editorial Note: This post is part of our series highlighting the work of the Anthropology and Environment Society’s 2018 Roy A. Rappaport Prize Finalists. We asked them to outline the…
Review: Against The Grain
James C. Scott Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017. ISBN #: 9780300182910 David Sutton Southern Illinois University With his 5…
Pollution Made by Nature: The Circulation of Nitrate Knowledge in Iowa Agriculture and Conservation
Editorial Note: This post is part of our series highlighting the work of the Anthropology and Environment Society’s 2018 Roy A. Rappaport Prize Finalists. We asked them to…
What FoodAnthropology Is Reading Now, January 26, 2019
David Beriss A brief digest of food and nutrition-related items that caught our attention recently. Got items you think we should include? Send links and brief descriptions to…
What’s the Cost of Quinoa?
SAPIENS host Jen Shannon goes on a mission to find out how quinoa travels from farmers’ fields in Huanoquite, Peru, to markets in Lima and the U.S. She…
Sugar Cane in Bolsonaro’s Brazil
When now Brazilian president-elect Jair Bolsonaro promised during his campaign to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, putting development ahead of environmental protection, many in the agribusines…
What Happens When We Flush? Public Talk at Whetstone Library
If you want to learn about all the fascinating things central Ohio does with its so-called “human waste,” come to this public talk I’ll be giving at Whetstone…
Bracing for the Vanilla Boom
Vanilla beans are dried in the sun as part of the curing process. George Zhu As the vanilla market opens in northeastern Madagascar this season, some local farmers…
Farmers & Foodies of the Future (FFF)
Update August 2018: This guest post by Robert Seguin on “Farmers and Foodies of the Future” was originally written in August 2015. Three years on, a post by…
Following a New Trail of Crumbs to Agriculture’s Origins
The world’s oldest bread crumbs found to date were excavated from the stone-lined fireplace in the center of this photo. Alexis Pantos It’s mid-August in 2013, and we…
What FoodAnthropology Is Reading Now, July 12, 2018
David Beriss A brief digest of food and nutrition-related items that caught our attention recently. Got items you think we should include? Send links and brief descriptions to…
Carbon Farmers Work to Clean Up the World’s Mess
It was a bright afternoon in March of 2011 when I met Pedro (a pseudonym) on his organic farm in the mountains of Costa Rica, north of San…
CFP: Agricultural History Society Meeting, June 2019
Having received this call for papers twice in two days, it seems necessary to share it here. As the CFP below notes, the Agricultural History Society is interdisciplinary,…
Better Off Without NAFTA, Part 3: Mexico—Armed Rebellion, Mass Migration, Flat GDP
Getting Past the Propaganda We are routinely told that Mexico has grown into the “one of the more robust emerging economies with exports of about $1 billion a…
Better Off Without NAFTA, Part 2: Canada—Localized Profit, but a Net Outflow of Capital
In Part 1, details on trade and investment between Canada and the US were presented that showed the US has run surpluses in the trade in goods and…