Dan Charles

The number of pigs in China is falling rapidly due to an epidemic of African Swine Fever. It's affecting farmers and consumers across the world, because China produces half of the world's pork.

Some of the oldest companies in America are in the climate change debate. Utilities are supposed to deliver electricity cheaply and reliably. Now, regulators are trying to make them go green.

Some of the world's top experts on climate change issued a new warning on Wednesday about how we use land to grow food. They say it's contributing to global warming, but it doesn't have to.

Humans must drastically alter food production in order to prevent the most catastrophic effects of global warming, according to a U.N. report.

Studies are revealing new, unintended threats that neonicotinoid pesticides pose to insects. The chemicals, widely used by farmers, are difficult to control because they persist in the environment.

Dozens of food companies have promised to stop their suppliers from clearing forests in order to grow crops or graze cattle. Now the companies have a tool to monitor those farmers from space.

The Trump administration has released details of a $16 billion plan to compensate farmers who've lost money as a result of the trade dispute with China. Some economists say it's too generous.

That's good for farmers but bad for taxpayers, who subsidize government-backed crop insurance. The fate of research that forecasts these costs is in doubt as economists and scientists leave the USDA.

Scientists at four leading universities have seen their soybean experiments injured by a stealthy vandal: drifting fumes from a weedkiller called dicamba, now popular among farmers.

According to a new study of cocoa-producing cooperatives, Fair Trade certification boosts the income of small farmers, but those benefits aren't shared with their hired workers.

North Carolina's governor is promising to quickly cut greenhouse emissions but will need to convince Duke Energy, the state's dominant utility, to abandon coal and gas in favor of solar and wind.

Grocery stores are full of food with labels that appeal to a consumer's ideals, like organic, cage-free or Fair Trade. But there's often a gap between what they seem to promise and what they deliver.

The world's most widely used weed killer was once seen as one of the safest pesticides. Now it is blamed for causing cancer. Yet the scientific evidence remains disputed.

Crops that have had their DNA tweaked with new gene-editing tools are entering the food supply. But governments are struggling to figure out how — or even whether — to regulate them.

Some environmentalists say food production needs a fundamental reboot, with crops that stay rooted in the soil for years, like Kernza, a prairie grass. Even General Mills says it likes the idea.

In the long-running war between farmers and weeds, it's advantage, weeds. Scientists in Kansas have found examples of the dreaded pigweed that are immune to the newest weed-killing technologies.

Most beef cattle receive antibiotics in their feed to prevent liver abscesses while eating a high-energy diet. There's growing pressure on feedlots to stop this — and some have. But it's costly.

Some linguists are arguing that the advent of softer food thousands of years ago led to changes in biting patterns and, eventually, to more frequent use of sounds like "f" and "v" in human languages.

Stopping climate change won't just mean a halt to burning coal and gasoline. It will mean an end to cutting forests and mining the soil to grow more food. Fortunately, it is possible.

Stopping climate change will mean big changes for cities, where most people in the world live. To understand how we get there, we visit a city where you can see the seeds of a carbon-free world.