Exploring the challenge of keeping ourselves fed at a time of rapid social and environmental change.
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Cassandra Herrman
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Sam Eaton
Food for 9 Billion
Costa Rica Farmers See Value in Biodiversity
Sam Eaton
Food for 9 Billion
Costa Rica Farmers See Value in Biodiversity
Scientists in Costa Rica are finding that biodiversity on and around farms can increase yields, lower input needs, and provide protection against environmental stresses.
Gretchen Daily (right) of Stanford University’s Center for Conservation Biology tags a bird caught in a drift net. Daily and her colleagues have been studying the contribution of birds to pest control on Costa Rican farms. Photo by Sam Eaton. Scientists in Costa Rica are finding that biodiversity on and around farms can increase yields, lower input needs, and provide protection against environmental stresses.
This story was produced by The Center for Investigative Reporting.
Producer, Reporter, Camera: Sam Eaton
Co-Producer: Cassandra Herrman
Editor: Linda Peckham
Additional Editing: Adithya Sambamurthy
Translation: Ambar Espinoza
Transcription: Karishma Suri
Senior Producer: Stephen Talbot
Executive Producer: Sharon Tiller -
Mary Kay Magistad
Food for 9 Billion
China Strains to Satisfy Demand for Meat
Mary Kay Magistad
Food for 9 Billion
China Strains to Satisfy Demand for Meat
China’s growing appetite for meat and dairy is driving big changes in everything from farming to food safety. For the country’s increasingly wary consumers, those changes can’t happen quickly enough.
Over the past three decades in China, meat consumption per capita has quadrupled. This rapid change in diets has paralleled the massive migration from the countryside to the cities. City dwellers eat twice as much meat on average as those back in the villages.
This has put a strain on the country’s land and water resources. Agricultural runoff, mostly manure from large-scale farms, is causing water pollution within the country. Because of water shortages, China imports 70 percent of its soybeans and increasing amounts of its corn from the United States, Brazil, and Argentina to feed its cows and pigs.
Toxic blue-green algae blooms populate Anhui province’s Chao Lake. Photo by Cassandra Herrman. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has set up an office in Beijing to help train hundreds of Chinese companies, government inspectors and officials in food safety.
But some say the Chinese government is relying too heavily on inspections and needs to focus more on prevention.
Chinese fed up with waiting for government action have started to find other ways to access safer food – like buying imported, processed, or organic food.
With the increasing calls for more safe, affordable and environmentally friendly food, China’s leaders will need to show creativity and balance to meet those needs.
This video was produced by The Center for Investigative Reporting.
Reporter: Mary Kay Magistad
Producer: Cassandra Herrman
Camera: Serene Fang
Editor: Stephanie Mechura
Field Translation: Yufan Zhang
Additional Translation: Ah Ping
Series producer: Cassandra Herrman
Executive producer: Sharon Tiller -
Fred de Sam Lazaro
Food for 9 Billion
Re-Greening the Sahel
Fred de Sam Lazaro
Food for 9 Billion
Re-Greening the Sahel
In Niger, farmers race to reclaim the desert and break the link between drought and famine.
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Fred de Sam Lazaro
Food for 9 Billion
Business Fund Puts African Farmers on Road to Market
Fred de Sam Lazaro
Food for 9 Billion
Business Fund Puts African Farmers on Road to Market
A start-up in East Africa aims to give small-scale producers the tools they need to compete – and business is booming.