Agriculture and Food

In Alaska, reindeer provide food security and economic opportunities for the Alaskan Native community. Reindeer herding is an excellent example of science and policy in action at the local level. Even more so than farming, reindeer herding requires a deep understanding of the needs of Indigenous communities and academic science—as well as how to navigate and influence local, state, and federal policies.

Should octopus be farmed? This question is being debated in several pieces of legislation right now, including a bipartisan US Senate bill. For Jennifer Jacquet, the answer is a resounding no. On this episode, Jacquet discusses why octopuses are poor candidates for farming, how she built a social movement around octopus protection, and why we need public conversations about new technologies before investments begin.

Melissa K. Nelson shares her thoughts on the impacts of climate change on Native American communities, agriculture, and what can be learned from Indigenous sustainability practices. 

A wind-to-ammonia pilot project shows how localized green energy applications can slash carbon intensity, empower farmer cooperatives, and keep wealth in rural communities.

Centering the goals and knowledge of Native land stewards in federal data and definitions of “climate smart” agriculture could nourish communities while incentivizing carbon sequestration across millions of acres.

A growing bioeconomy must prioritize new forms of public engagement and transparency.

With a rigorous, sustainable approach to data collection and analysis, satellite data can improve our understanding of global food systems and prepare society to respond to the next crisis.

In this episode of The Ongoing Transformation, Marci Baranski talks about how a more nuanced understanding of the Green Revolution can improve agricultural and economic development policies today.

Madhumita Saha reviews a book by Marci Baranski that explores the scientific community’s interaction with the wheat plant during the Green Revolution.

In the latest episode of The Ongoing Transformation, Cynthia Greenlee talks about the role of technological innovation, storytelling, and myth in regional transformation.

In the latest episode of The Ongoing Transformation, we talk with artists David Allen Burns and Austin Young of Fallen Fruit and professor Molly Jahn from the University of Wisconsin-Madison to explore how creativity and systems thinking can change the food system.

The US Department of Agriculture’s watercolors of fruit, most of which were painted by women, tell the story of agriculture at the turn of the twentieth century and provide a visual time capsule of many fruit varieties that no longer exist.