Agriculture

Hundreds of chickens share a huge pen at a sovkhoz chicken production factory in Rudomino. Sovkhozy were state-owned farms that paid workers for their labor in the former Soviet Union. Location: Rudomino, Lithuania

A Professor Proposes Creating the Matrix for Factory-Farmed Chickens

He wants to give them the Virtual Free Range™ experience

The American Tobacco Industry's Child Labor Problem

Children as young as 12 work America's tobacco fields

Fujitsu is Growing the Most Technologically Advanced Lettuce Ever

This gives a whole new meaning to factory farm

This Farmer Grew Four Times As Much Rice in the Same Amount of Land

His controversial farming method has long been dismissed by experts

Bees from a single species aren't as effective in pollinating as bees from a diversity of species, a new study shows.

A Diversity of Bees Is Good for Farming—And Farmers' Wallets

A new study shows that if more species of bees are available to pollinate blueberry flowers, blueberries get fatter

To Save the Apples We Love Today, We Need to Save Their Ancient Ancestors

Apples aren't set to cope with our changing world. To help them, first we'll need to protect the past

Around three billion people worldwide depend on rice for their diet. But a new study finds that rice and other crops grown under high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide results in lower levels of some nutrients.

More Carbon Dioxide in the Air Makes Some Crops Less Nutritious

Crops such as rice and wheat have lower concentrations of some nutrients when they’re grown under an atmosphere with higher levels of the greenhouse gas

Maple Syrup Farmers Can Now Vacuum Sap Out of Trees

A new technology helps sugarmakers get every last drop

Marijuana Grow Ops Are Drying Out California's Water Supply

Illegal marijuana grow ops use thousands of gallons of water a day

Organic chicken feed.

Walmart's About to Do for Organic Food What It Did for Every Other Consumer Product

Walmart's going to give organic food a big push

The Midwest aglow with a visualization of photosynthetic fluorescence.

Under the Summer Sun, the Corn Belt Is the Most Biologically Productive Place on Earth

During the peak growing season, the corn belt outproduces the Amazon

Panicum miliaceum, or broomcorn millet.

Ancient Wandering Shepherds Spread Crops Across Eurasia

The nomadic shepherds of central Asia joined east and west

Zebrafish embryo

A Scan of a Mechanical Heart Pump Fitted in a Live Human and Other Eerily Beautiful Scientific Images

From a photo of a tick biting flesh to a closeup of a kidney stone, the 18 winners of the 2014 Wellcome Image Awards highlight objects we don't usually see

Compost

New York Is Turning Its Leftovers Into Natural Gas, With the Help of Hungry Bacteria

Some cities are taking table scraps and turning them into fuel.

A pastoral cattle herder in near the Meatu district in Tanzania.

Africans' Ability To Digest Milk Co-Evolved With Livestock Domestication

Lactose tolerance spread throughout Africa along human pastoral migration routes, say scientists

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New York Could Grow All Its Own Food

Theoretically, New York City could become largely self-sufficient

"I began to wonder," says Smithsonian researcher Dolores Piperno, who studies the ancestor of the corn plant, "what did the plants actually look like between 10,000 and 13,000 years ago? Did they look the same?"

To Decode the Mystery of Corn, Smithsonian Scientists Recreate Earth as it Was 10,000 Years Ago

As part of a groundbreaking study, researchers built a greenhouse "time machine"

The Hetch Hetchy reservoir is one of California's crucial reservoirs.

California's Crucial Reservoirs Are Running Low, And That's Even Worse Than It Sounds

An ongoing drought has drained California dry

GM Purple Tomatoes Could Actually Be Good for You

These tomatoes are stuffed with anthocyanins (but they're not the only source of the healthy pigment)

Climate Change Is Already Causing Mass Human Migration

When temperatures are high, Pakistani men are 11 times more likely to move out of town

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