For Joseph Goni, a fourth-generation dairy farmer in Tulare County, California, the region’s historic floods were part of family lore. As such, his grandfather, who lived through the 1955 deluge, ...

Melissa Schneider didn’t set out to become a shepherdess. She left Los Angeles looking for something quieter. A life with a slower rhythm, a life closer to the ground. What she found on her Maine farm ...

Deanne Coon’s career started with a couple of mystery seeds. The then-hobby farmer, growing on the Central Coast of California, planted the seeds with a friend, curious to see what they would bloom ...

There should not be any land mammals living in the wild on any of the Hawaiian islands. There shouldn’t be many wild mammals, period; the only endemic mammal in Hawaii, besides marine mammals, is a ...

Outside of Charleston, South Carolina, in the picturesque marshes of the Kiawah River, sits more than 100 acres of working farmland. Seasonal crops rotate through expansive pastures, cattle graze the ...

Water scarcity is a growing concern. Lack of water from long, recurring droughts is increasingly dominating the food and agriculture world. It’s driven up the cost of groceries and put a dent in ...

1. A shepherd’s life is most humble (the oldest profession) From the beginning of time, shepherds have been the proverbial “ditch diggers,” the down-trodden, the disrespected. Hence, even the angels ...

In general, the primal pork cuts from the top of the pig (like the loin) are leaner and more tender than those from the bottom. But cooking the tougher cuts (like the shoulder and the hocks) low and ...

It’s autumn in Stowe, Vermont. Fire-hued leaves are reaching their peak and the growing season is drawing to a close for most local farmers. But not for saffron grower Brian Leven. “I’m just starting ...

This story was originally published by Reasons to be Cheerful, and is reprinted with permission. When Michael Kotutwa Johnson goes out to the acreage behind his stone house to harvest his corn, his ...

He’s also a rat catcher although his mode of pest resistance is unlike any other: Reed has trained terriers to kill. Nicknamed “the Mongrol Hoard” (sic), he employs a team of four rat terriers to ...

The dark, reddish, “mad honey,” known as deli bal in Turkey, contains an ingredient from rhododendron nectar called grayanotoxin — a natural neurotoxin that, even in small quantities, brings on ...