Barry Estabrook

Pigs are social, self-aware, and smart. They can even learn to operate a modified computer. Barry Estabrook investigates their hidden lives, and the state of pork in this country.

Journalist Barry Estabrook and Natural Resources Defense Council Executive Director Peter Lehner discuss food and food regulations in the United States and the shortcomings of the Food and Drug Administration when it comes to food safety. Estabrook’s article “The FDA Is Out to Lunch” appears in OnEarth magazine.

Investigative food journalist Barry Estabrook reveals the huge human and environmental cost of bringing perfectly round, red tomatoes to supermarkets all year long. Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit, based on his James Beard Award-winning article, "The Price of Tomatoes," traces the supermarket tomato from its birthplace in the deserts of Peru to Immokalee, Florida, and investigates the herbicides and pesticides used on crops, why tomatoes have become less nutrient-rich, and how the drive for low cost fruit has fostered a modern-day slave trade in the United States.

Investigative food journalist Barry Estabrook reveals the huge human and environmental cost of bringing perfectly round, red tomatoes to supermarkets all year long. Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit, based on his James Beard Award-winning article, "The Price of Tomatoes," traces the supermarket tomato from its birthplace in the deserts of Peru to Immokalee, Florida, and investigates the herbicides and pesticides used on crops, why tomatoes have become less nutrient-rich, and how the drive for low cost fruit has fostered a modern-day slave trade in the United States.

Author Barry Estabrook decided to write about tomatoes because they almost killed him. He was driving in Naples, Fla. when a few tomatoes bounced off the cargo truck in front of him, narrowly missing his windshield. At the next stoplight, he was amazed to see that the tomatoes littering the street were unscathed after falling off a truck that was traveling at 60 miles per hour. How did the tomato— once summer’s tastiest treat — become the bland specimens available in most grocery stores now? And how can we fix it?

In 1970, there were nearly 650,000 dairy farms in the United States. Today, there are only 54,000 farms—many of them run by large operators who dominate the industry. As milk prices have fallen—fetching half as much in 2009 per gallon as they did in 2008—small dairy farmers have taken a huge hit. Barry Estabrook explains the crisis facing small dairy farmers in the United States and efforts to pass a price-fixing agreement in Congress. Barry Estabrook’s article, "A Tale of Two Dairies," appears in Gastronomica.

On today’s Underreported, Leonard and Barry Estabrook examine the current state of dairy farming in the United States—and efforts to pass a new price stabilization program in Congress.

Below, you can check out a map of the current concentration of dairy farms in New York. The image is taken from a website called Factory Farm Map, which promotes sustainable farming practices and a bias against larger farms. Although the website is partisan, the data upon which this map is based is not: it comes from the United States Department of Agriculture’s Census of Agriculture, which is a five-year survey of America’s farms. (It last happened in 2007.) For more on the map and the methodology, you can go here.

Overall, the majority of dairy farms are located in California and Idaho, but New York is still one of the highest producers of dairy in the U.S., coming in at 6^th overall. Within New York, Wyoming County and Cayuga County—both located in the western part of the state—are the largest producers of milk, with over 28,000 and 22,000 cows respectively.

Are you a dairy farmer in New York? Or have you visited a dairy farm recently? Let us know in the comments!

Barry Estabrook, contributing editor at Gourmet magazine, talks about why he says Florida is fertile ground for forced labor. He's joined by Gerardo Reyes-Chavez, farm worker and staff member of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW).