Costco is opening a chicken farming operation in eastern Nebraska so it can (partially) escape America's chicken monopoly.

China’s miniature biosphere experiment has yielded sprouting cotton seeds, and they are the first plants to germinate on the Moon—an important first step in creating a viable, self-sustaining lunar colony. China’s Chang’e 4 lander arrived on the Moon’s far side on January 3, 2018. Among its cargo is a miniature lunar biosphere developed by scientists at Chongqing University. This experiment consists of a 7-inch-long, airtight container filled with soil, air, water, various seeds, yeast, and fruit fly eggs.

Tweaks to the tomato’s genes could turn it into a spicy one-stop shop for the salsa of the future, Popular Science reports. Shared ancestry with hot peppers, such as the jalapeno, gives the mild-mannered tomato all the genetic tools needed to set the human mouth ablaze. Scientists outline two genetic pathways to turn tomatoes spicy in new research published this week in Trends in Plant Science. The motivation for turning up the heat on the tomato isn’t just culinary.

The world’s hottest pepper is currently the Carolina Reaper, clocking in at an average of 1.6 million Scoville Heat Units. The world’s hottest tomato? That’s still to be determined. The current hottest tomato in the world is, of course, none of them, because tomatoes don’t make capsaicin, the chemical compound that gives hot peppers their kick. But, a group of researchers say that the bland red fruits (yes, they are technically fruits) could conceivably be genetically engineered to begin pumping out the scorching compound, due to tomatoes’ close evolutionary relationship with peppers.

Our collective overuse and misuse of antibiotics is accelerating resistance to these universal drugs, leaving people increasingly vulnerable to infections that can no longer be treated. This applies not only to the use of antibiotics in human medicine, but also in animal industries. Antibiotic resistance is an example of a collective action problem. These are problems where what is individually rational leads to a collectively undesirable outcome.

As corporations rush in to make a buck, some farmers are pushing back — and fighting for the soul of organic food

Monsanto’s new herbicide was supposed to save U.S. farmers from financial ruin. Instead, it upended the agriculture industry, pitting neighbor against neighbor in a struggle for survival.

Classical swine fever virus (CSFV) is a highly infectious and deadly disease among pigs, with outbreaks leading to huge livestock losses. Now, researchers from Jilin University in China have genetically modified pigs to be resistant to the virus, which will also pass that down to their offspring.

This story originally appeared on Reveal and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. William Whitt suffered violent diarrhea for days. But once he began vomiting blood, he knew it was time to rush to the hospital. His body swelled up so much that his wife thought he looked like the Michelin Man, and on the inside, his intestines were inflamed and bleeding.

Don Lobb, a prominent soil advocate since the 1980s, argued agriculture needs a radical shift in focus to make soil health the top priority.

California voters will soon decide whether to ban the sale of all veal, pork and eggs from farm animals raised in cages, even when raised in other states.

How American whiskey is moving ahead by looking back.

The number of sheep and cattle in the UK should be reduced by between a fifth and a half to help combat climate change, a report says. The shift is needed, the government’s advisory Committee on Climate Change (CCC) maintains, because beef and lamb produce most farm greenhouse gases. The report foresees an increase in the number of pigs and chickens because these produce less methane. The farm union NFU said it did not agree with reducing livestock numbers.

Jacy Reese thinks that someday, we’ll look back on factory farming as one of the greatest moral mistakes in history. In his new book, The End of Animal Farming, he lays out a road map to get us to that point. Reese is the co-founder of the Sentience Institute, an organization that researches effective animal advocacy. According to Reese, the first step toward a meatless future is developing better alternatives...

A few years ago I wanted to visit the best egg farm I could find. I had been inside an egg factory farm. I had seen a dozen sheds, each with a dozen rows of wire cages stacked two high and 150ft deep. Those cages were so small the birds inside couldn’t even spread their wings. They were half-starved, diseased, and undeniably miserable. Factory farming was clearly wrong, so I wanted to instead find a farm that represented an ethical and humane way to raise animals for food.

With the Thanksgiving holiday upon us, it’s a great time to reflect on the future of food. Over the last few years, we have seen a dramatic rise in exponential technologies transforming the food industry from seed to plate. Food is important in many ways—too little or too much of it can kill us, and it is often at the heart of family, culture, our daily routines, and our biggest celebrations. The agriculture and food industries are also two of the world’s biggest employers. Let’s take a look to see what is in store for the future.

An ant-controlling insecticide used by wine farmers is suspected to have caused the deaths.

As President Donald Trump maintains protectionist policies with global trading partners, an increasing number of farms in the Midwest are struggling to stay afloat. At least 84 farm operations in Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and parts of northwestern Wisconsin filed for bankruptcy in the 12 months that ended in June, according to a new analysis from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, more than twice the level seen over the same period in 2014.

Researchers from the University of Sydney, CSIRO, the United Kingdom’s John Innes Centre, Limagrain UK and the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB) have isolated the first major resistance genes against the stripe rust disease that is devastating wheat crops worldwide. The discovery by the scientists, who have cloned three related rust resistance genes – called Yr7, Yr5, and YrSP – will enable these important genes to be accurately monitored and integrated into breeding programs in the fight against ever-changing pathogens that could kill about 70 percent or more of whole wheat crops at a time.

After more than 20 years of theorizing about it, scientists have tweaked a hybrid variety of rice so that some of the plants produce cloned seeds. No plant sex necessary. The feat, described December 12 in Nature, is encouraging for efforts to feed an increasingly crowded world.

Family farms can’t survive low milk prices, tariffs and terrible government policies.

A farmer tends to an onion crop on the slopes of Mount Cereme, Majalengka, West Java, Indonesia.

Oscypek, a golden-hued, spindle-shaped cheese, is as delicious as it is beautiful. But authentic versions are getting increasingly hard to find.

It had been only five months since I quit my corporate job at IBM and I had a decent first crop. By Venkat Iyer.

Scientists in Antarctica have harvested their first crop of vegetables grown without earth, daylight or pesticides as part of a project designed to help astronauts cultivate fresh food on other planets.

A pair of major agricultural pests have combined to produce a “mega-pest” that could threaten crops around the world.  Losses from the original pest species, cotton bollworms and corn earworms, already amounts to billions of dollars worth of food.  But a hybrid of the two, shows signs of rapidly developing resistance to pesticides and it scientists fear it could cross international boundaries undetected, wiping out all the crops it comes across. 

A wild tomato from the Galapagos Islands has been discovered by scientists from Wageningen University & Research to be resistant to a wide range of pest insects. This variety is closely related to the cultivated tomato, making the resilience easier to interbreed into the latter and ultimately making it resistant to many different types of insects.

A new rule in the US would eliminate food inspectors and lift limits on how quickly pigs can be killed. The impact on workers, animals and consumers would be disastrous

The FDA has been testing food samples for traces of glyphosate for two years, but the agency has not yet released any official results

The latest E. coli outbreak in romaine lettuce is part of a larger trend.

There are still plenty of questions we need to answer, but let’s be realistic about how we use language

The F.D.A. banned the use of antibiotics for growth promotion in animals last year. One organic cattle farmer is sure the ban is being flouted.

Biggest analysis to date reveals huge footprint of livestock - it provides just 18% of calories but takes up 83% of farmland

In a humid greenhouse on a rooftop in the Bronx, Electra Jarvis is showing off her oasis cubes. Tucked away from direct sunlight, a cabinet full of small, spongey squares are arranged neatly, each one the home to a sprouting seedling. In a few months, the seedlings will become lettuce, bok choy, and mustard greens. For now they are tiny stems, fed by an automated system of nutrient-rich water and regulated light.

Germany's Bayer will wrap up the $63 billion takeover of Monsanto on Thursday and also retire the U.S. seeds maker's 117 year-old name.