Tuna firm’s bungled IPO exposes China’s flouting of global fishing rules

Draft IPO sends a reporter down a rabbit hole to find shell companies and shady dealings in the world-wide fishing industry

Reporting on international fishing can often feel like investigating organized crime. Everyone knows how things are run, but the truth is obscured by shell companies, back-door dealings, and plausible deniability. This is why it’s remarkable that a recent, bungled initial public stock offering from a major Chinese tuna firm accidentally revealed something close to the… » Read More

California’s drought creates an unexpected casualty: sports

As a result of the recent drought ravaging California, high schools and universities struggle to provide outdoor sports for students

A year ago, Lauren Porter worked out twice a week at dawn with a women’s soccer club on the main recreational field at the University of California-Santa Cruz (UCSC). The field commands a view of scenic Monterey Bay. “Every morning, it was so great,” says 21-year-old Porter, a fourth-year environmental studies major. But this academic year… » Read More

The Quinoa Quarrel

Who owns the world’s greatest superfood?

At the sixty-sixth session of the United Nations, the General Assembly named 2013 the International Year of Quinoa. When I tell people that, they often laugh— most Americans know quinoa as the latest in a string of superfoods that cycle through the shelves and bulk bins of their local high-end grocery. But this grainlike seed… » Read More

Toxic Chicken: Petition Demands USDA Crack Down on Salmonella

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Bucking a rejection by federal food safety officials, a consumer advocacy group is renewing and expanding its fight to ban drug-resistant salmonella bacteria from U.S. meat and poultry. Officials at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, or CSPI, refiled a petition Wednesday demanding that the U.S. Department of Agriculture classify four strains of… » Read More

California governor vetoes ‘unnecessary’ livestock antibiotics bill

Consumer and environmental groups cheer California governor Jerry Brown’s veto of antibiotics bill, calling for tougher legislation

The governor of California on Tuesday vetoed a first-in-the-nation state law to reduce the use of antibiotics in livestock production and said lawmakers should look for “new and effective ways” to prevent antibiotic overuse. The bill would have outlawed the use of antibiotics for growth in animals and required all antibiotics be prescribed by a veterinarian. Some consumer and… » Read More

Want To Find Out Where Your Fruit Was Grown? Good Luck.

Big Ag considers the path from field to supermarket a trade secret.

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On May 6, 2014, as I read through the morning’s incoming email, a Food Safety Alert from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announcing a “voluntary recall of mangos due to possible health risk” from the bacteria Listeria caught my eye. This grabbed my attention because at the time, a handsome sunset-hued mango, purchased several days… » Read More

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