Dan Charles

At the Center for Tropical Agricultural Research and Education (CATIE) in Turrialba, Costa Rica, you can touch the history of coffee — and also, if the optimists have their way, part of its future.

Here, spread across 25 acres, are coffee trees that take you back to coffee's origins.

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What does it take to find guilt-free coffee?

Much of our coffee comes from places where the environment is endangered and workers earn very little — sometimes, just a few dollars for a whole day's work. Coffee farmers have helped cut down tropical forests, and most of them use pesticides.

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Coffee is more than a drink. For many of us — OK, for me — it's woven into the fabric of every day.

It also connects us to far corners of the globe.

For instance, every Friday, a truck pulls up to the warehouse of Counter Culture Coffee, a ...

My first reaction when I heard details of this week's deadly fertilizer explosion in Texas was horror.

My second thought was, "Maybe I shouldn't have pushed to change that headline."

National Geographic magazine just published in its May issue my article about how nitrogen fertilizer has shaped our ...

The White House unveiled its proposal Wednesday for drastic changes in government programs that donate food to fight hunger abroad — and surprised no one.

As we reported last week, rumors of such an overhaul had been circulating for weeks, arousing both hope and anger among organizations involved ...

Washington is awash in rumors this week that the White House is planning major changes in the way the U.S. donates food to fight hunger in some of the world's poorest countries.

It has set off an emotional debate. Both sides say they are trying to save lives.

America's ...

Environmentalists and beekeepers are calling on the government to ban some of the country's most widely used insect-killing chemicals.

The pesticides, called neonicotinoids, became popular among farmers during the 1990s. They're used to coat the seeds of many agricultural crops, including the biggest crop of all: corn. Neonics, ...

There was bombshell news from the world of honey two weeks ago, and somehow we missed it. Two big honey packers, including one of the largest in the country — Groeb Farms of Onsted, Mich. — admitted buying millions of dollars worth of honey that was falsely labeled.

The ...

There's a kind of rice growing in some test plots in the Philippines that's unlike any rice ever seen before. It's yellow. Its backers call it "golden rice." It's been genetically modified so that it contains beta-carotene, the source of vitamin A.

Millions of people in Asia and ...

Some of the most healthful foods you can think of — blueberries, cranberries, apples, almonds and squash — would never get to your plate without the help of insects. No insects, no pollination. No pollination, no fruit.

Farmers who grow these crops often rely on honeybees to do the ...

Public health expert Derek Yach surprised nutrition advocates when he joined PepsiCo six years ago. He got the company to cut salt, sugar and fat from some popular products like chips...

That extra-thick, rich taste of Greek yogurt is popular, but you get it by creating lots of waste. For every pound of authentic strained Greek yogurt, there are 2 or 3 pounds of liqui...

Newly released death reports and a lawsuit against Monster Energy raise more questions and public scrutiny on the risks of drinking the high levels of caffeine found in supersized energy drinks, especially in teens.

Even though organic food has less pesticide residue, a new review of several recent studies finds scant evidence that it has more nutrients or fewer risky bacteria than conventionally...

The drought continues throughout much of the United States. NPR food and agriculture correspondent Dan Charles looks at the effects on everything from factory farms to local food prices.

Thanks to American wealth and ingenuity, we're a nation of meat eaters. But that's not the whole story. Over the years, we've made access to land near cities affordable to farmers, an...

Since it seems to be Pest Resistance Week here at The Salt, with stories on weeds and insects, we might as well just pull out all the stops. So, next up: Why didn't Monsanto's scientists foresee that weeds would become resistant to glyphosate, the weed-killing chemical in their ...

How do you square the idea of a bad person who does great good? Or a good person who does terrible harm? Sam Kean introduces us to the confusing life story of Fritz Haber. Around 1900, Haber was a young chemist in Germany, intent on solving the biggest problem facing ...