Dan Charles

Most of us don't usually get to meet the people who pick our apples, oranges or other seasonal favorites. What are their lives and work like? Dan Charles has spent the past year finding out.

The proposal will require food companies to disclose their GMO ingredients, but that information doesn't have to be on the packaging. It's a compromise, and neither side is all that enthused.

Many farm workers call blueberries their favorite crop to pick. It pays well and the work is comfortable. But there's a catch: It's a short season, and workers and their families have to keep moving.

Americans buy twice as many packages of bagged salad greens as heads of lettuce these days. Is the bagged stuff just as good? If it gets you to eat more leafy greens, yes.

The bill requires food companies to reveal whether their products contain GMOs. But those companies are pleased, because they won't have to print "GMO" on food packages.

The yogurt entrepreneur who set fire to his factory remains in prison, but he's in better spirits now. "He's dreaming again," says his wife.

A public health campaign to sell Africans on the virtues of orange-fleshed sweet potatoes — bred for higher Vitamin A levels — has helped combat malnutrition on the continent.

Perdue Farms, one of the largest poultry companies in the country, says it will change its slaughter methods and also some of its poultry houses. Animal welfare groups are cheering.

Canada, despite its cold weather, ships more fresh tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers to the U.S. than we send the other way. How? With the continent's largest cluster of greenhouses.

Supermarket tomatoes have a terrible reputation. But the industry is evolving. More than half of supermarket tomatoes now are grown in greenhouses or "shade houses," and flavor is improving.

Companies cultivating a healthful image often list "evaporated cane juice" in their products' ingredients. But the FDA says it's really just sugar, and that's what food labels should call it.

The Food and Drug Administration has brushed aside industry objections and will require food labels to disclose how much sugar has been added to packaged food.

The German-based company Bayer wants to buy Monsanto. It would be the latest in a wave of consolidation among companies that sell seeds and pesticides to farmers.

A new report from the National Academy of Sciences knocked down some pro-GMO claims, such as that they've boosted crop yields, and urged federal agencies to change the way these foods are regulated.

As companies shun genetically modified ingredients, they're buying more sugar extracted from sugar cane rather than beets. Sugar beet farmers are thinking of going back to conventional beets.

Economists are working on ways to put a price on the environmental damage of growing food. Take sugar: Half of what we eat comes from beets, half from cane. Each has an impact, in very different ways.

NPR explores whether one version is better for the environment than the other.

Federal programs that collect money from farmers in order to promote pork, beef and eggs have been under attack. They now want to exempt their documents from the Freedom of Information Act.

America's foremost farmer-philosopher, Wendell Berry, is the subject of a new documentary. It celebrates the writer's work, and the rural community in Kentucky in which he's rooted.

The U.S. is trying to figure out whether, and how, to regulate crops that have had their genes "edited." One example: a mushroom that doesn't brown when cut. It could be the first of many such crops.