A Directory for Agricultural News and Information
In this post, I wanted to put together a round-up of some of my favorite news sources focused on agriculture. Containing a mix of food security and production-oriented periodicals coupled with more sustainability-minded publications, this directory provides various news sources that allow one to be reasonably informed about global agricultural trends. I hope this directory can be useful to those wishing to be better informed about the sector and access a range of rigorous, well-researched, and trustworthy reporting and perspectives.
Periodic Reports
Keeping up with the constant news cycle can be difficult. Everyone has busy periods where it’s difficult to follow the day-to-day drumbeat. And even if you can maintain that level of attention, merely following news and opinion, even within a specific field, broader trends and context may not make it into consistent reporting. For this reason, I am a big fan of reading periodic reports. Put out by various governmental and nonprofit organizations, these reports help me take a step back and get a broad assessment of where we are as an industry. By reading a few reports a year, I feel like I gain a stronger understanding of the contexts and trends in national and global agriculture, which is a great way to be more informed about the direction we are heading in.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World: Put out by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, this report is an exhaustive accounting of how food and nutritional security have changed over the years. It tracks a number of indicators related to production and access to food, trends threatening food security (such as conflict, drought, disease, etc.), and sets priorities for how the world should continue the fight against food insecurity. Each section includes a “key messages” section, and the executive summary is a great way to get a general sense of the report's content.
State of Climate Action: A new annual report put out by a consortium including Climate Analytics and the World Resources Institute (who do some excellent work). I like this report because it is heavily oriented toward resource and land use and focuses closely on the status of implementing different climate-oriented solutions. Their data visualizations are stunning, detailed, and easily digestible. The visuals display a set of solutions needed to address different areas of climate action and then color code each solution's direction and speed of progress. A truly excellent example of data visualization. Finally, the fine folks at the World Resources Institute put out an annual summary post on their website that is great for quickly digesting their findings and is friendly for sharing.
National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition: This advocacy organization publishes a number of featured publications on a number of agricultural policy topics, ranging from Farm Bill platforms, food safety, local food systems, and more. A great way to get oriented with the policy space.
Census of Agriculture: Run every 5 years by the National Agriculture Statistics Service. Looking at the results every time it runs is a great way to understand the raw numbers and trends facing agriculture domestically.
News Outlets
Organic Broadcaster: From the fine folks at Marbleseed, this newspaper covers current issues in organic production, emerging markets, and advice on exploring and implementing new practices and crops. It also features information on upcoming conferences and workshops and a classifieds section to find deals on land, equipment, and similar items.
Modern Farmer: A nonprofit newsroom focusing on how agriculture can better serve our people and environments. They cover everything, including chocolate, pest control, urban farming, innovation, gender and racial issues, food waste, water, and much more. They imbue their articles with lots of expertise but are also quite accessible to novices.
Civil Eats: A civic-minded news and commentary site that covers all facets of the American food system. They take a very holistic approach in their reporting, covering the food system from field to table with a socially conscious lens to their coverage.
Food and Environment Reporting Network: This outlet covers the intersection of food production and the environment, with a wealth of reporting on everything ranging from agriculture’s impact on biodiversity to the environmental conditions of farm labor. They also publish quality infographics and have strong regional coverage.
Food Tank: Branding itself as “The Think Tank for Food,” this organization publishes a host of articles focused on solutions to food and agricultural issues of today, drawing a lot of attention to the changemakers making those solutions a reality.
Food and Water Watch: Not technically a news organization, but this activist group publishes great coverage of grassroots campaigns across the country focusing on the environmental impacts of the agriculture industry, access to clean food and water, and supporting communities facing the brunt of agricultural pollution.
Podcasts
FAO Brief: Produces quick rundowns of major food security stories facing the world today and is a great way to keep on top of developing stories. Also includes a look behind the scenes of some of FAO’s agricultural development activities.
Food Talk: The official Food Tank podcast which includes fantastic interviews and topical discussions with those at the forefront of agricultural and food system change.
Blogs and Newsletters
Andrew McGuire’s blog: One of my favorite researchers, from Washington State, who writes roundups of topical discussions in agricultural science with an eye toward evaluating claims from the sustainable side of things. He adds a much-needed critical eye to many claims from the alternative agriculture crowd while still valuing resilience and sustainability.
Agrilinks: From the USAID Feed the Future program, this newsletter delivers a quick roundup of different initiatives and workshops held by our nation’s international development agency, including reports on the results of development programming.
Sustainability by Numbers: By one of the great minds at Our World In Data, this newsletter does quick, data-driven assessments of different facets of the sustainable transition. This includes looking at projections of future crop yields to the tradeoffs between battery vs. biofuel-powered vehicles.
Journals
As a researcher I have a couple of journals that I follow closely. And while I read much more widely than I am highlighting here, I wanted to include a few recommendations for some of my favorites. I especially recommend focusing on literature review, commentary, and book review articles for those not directly involved in research.
Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems: A leading journal in the alternative agriculture space (organic, regenerative, etc.), taking a sustainability-oriented approach to the study of agriculture, balancing the economic, social, and environmental aspects of production and consumption.
Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems: Similar to RAFS, it links social action with agricultural production and the delivery of food to consumers. This journal publishes a host of articles that have a holistic view of agricultural sustainability, emphasizing the importance of food security and minimizing our environmental footprint.
Agronomy for Sustainable Development: Published by the French national agriculture research agency, this journal focuses on how agricultural science can be leveraged to improve our environment and society.
Agriculture and Human Values: An agriculture-oriented social science journal with theoretical and applied articles.
Additionally, I also follow a number of researchers directly on Google Scholar who have similar research interests or are particularly innovative in their field. Some of my favorites include Colin Khoury (agrobiodiversity), Hale Ann Tufan (gender-responsive plant breeding), Silvia Secchi (agricultural and natural resource economics and policy), Tim Crews (ecology of perennial cropping systems), and Lennart Olson (sustainable land use and climate change).
I hope this directory can be useful for those becoming more involved in agriculture or wishing to diversify their media diets. If anyone has additional publications they would like to share, I would love to hear from you!
What I’m Reading, Watching, and Listening too
The Year in Parasitic Wasps: A year-in-review for one of the most exciting and gorgeous areas of entomology research.
867-5309…and the Poor Schmucks Who Actually Owned the Number: A humorous accounting of those unlucky enough to have a phone number that went viral.
The Devastation of Disinheritance: A heartful essay about a woman's experience being disinherited by her father.