Every year, the meat industry raises billions of chickens on factory farms to meet consumer demand.

To paraphrase science fiction writer William Gibson, the farm of the future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.

A farmer checks hot peppers laid out on a road to dry under the sun before selling them to factories producing pepper products in Kilis province, Turkey August 29, 2016

A proper diet can give you better health and prevent illnesses. A proper diet should include all the necessary nutrients required for staying healthy and for leading an active life.

Picture this: a downtown greenhouse skyscraper. On each floor are rooms filled with LED lights used to grow leafy greens, tomatoes, cucumbers and even watermelons year round. Sound like a scene out of a science fiction movie? If Columbia University professor Dickson Despommier is right, this type of vertical farming could be part of agriculture’s future. Despommier envisions the world’s food system will increasingly turn...

Modern medicine is no more sophisticated than traditional remedies.

'The sweetest, whitest and most pleasant of roots,” raves gentleman gardener John Worlidge in his 1677 Systema Horticulturae, or, The Art of Gardening. “Pleasant and wholesome,” agrees Culpeper’s Complete Herbal. Yet the subtle sweetness of the modest skirret, noted by Pliny as the Emperor Tiberius’s favourite and a mainstay of Tudor tables, is all but lost today. Unfussy in most soils, resistant to disease and relishing frost, this sweet...

Ten years ago, NPR opened a radio news segment with a few words about a man few knew. Mike Yurosek, a carrot farmer from California, had passed away earlier that year. The homage was short —it lasted no more than 30 seconds — but for many of those listening, it must have been eye-opening. "He actually invented these things," Stephen Miller, then an obituary writer with the New York Sun said, holding a bag of baby carrots. "Not many people know...

This Christmas, as consumers around the world hope Santa will give them a smartphone, TV or tablet computer, few people know that the lowly carrot inspired the liquid crystals at the core of such high-tech gadgets.

In a rather science fictional moment, the Expedition 44 crew members on the International Space Station are about to eat the very first space crops. On Monday, a batch of red romaine lettuce will be harvested from the Veggie plant growth system on the ISS orbiting laboratory. Cosmically delicious.

Fresh sweet corn is crunchy, sweet, light and versatile. Cut fresh from the cob, it brightens up salads, stews ... even ice cream.

California's "salad bowl" farming region is cranking at full tilt—and rapidly sucking down its groundwater in the process.

Unlike cut baby carrots, farmers grow “true” baby carrots to be naturally small, or other times they are simply carrots harvested before they get a chance to completely mature. “True” baby carrots bear the same cone shape as a normal sized carrot while only being a fraction of the size. A number of farmers produce these type of baby carrots when they thin their crops during the growing season by removing a certain percentage of immature carrots.

Kale has become remarkably popular. Once a little-known speciality crop, its meteoric rise is now the subject of national news segments. Some experts are predicting that kale salads will soon be on the menus at TGI Friday's and McDonald's. Cabbage is a different story. Per capita consumption of it peaked way back in the 1920s, when the average American ate 22 pounds of it per year. Nowadays, we eat about eight pounds, most of it disguised as cole slaw or sauerkraut.

Let's face it — the produce aisle can be scary. Once you get past the apples, oranges, bananas and celery, fruits and veggies can get hairy (literally). It's time to face your fears and learn how to tackle intimidating produce once and for all. It's easier than you think. We promise.