Dan Charles
Dan Charles is NPR's food and agriculture correspondent.
Primarily responsible for covering farming and the food industry, Charles focuses on the stories of culture, business, and the science behind what arrives on your dinner plate.
This is his second time working for NPR; from 1993 to 1999, Charles was a technology correspondent at NPR. He returned in 2011.
During his time away from NPR, Charles was an independent writer and radio producer and occasionally filled in at NPR on the Science and National desks, and at Weekend Edition.Over the course of his career Charles has reported on software engineers in India, fertilizer use in China, dengue fever in Peru, alternative medicine in Germany, and efforts to turn around a troubled school in Washington, DC.
In 2009-2010, he taught journalism in Ukraine through the Fulbright program. He has been guest researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg, Germany, and a Knight Science Journalism fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
From 1990 to 1993, Charles was a U.S. correspondent for New Scientist, a major British science magazine.
The author of two books, Charles wrote Master Mind: The Rise and Fall of Fritz Haber, The Nobel Laureate Who Launched the Age of Chemical Warfare(Ecco, 2005) and Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, and the Future of Food(Perseus, 2001) about the making of genetically engineered crops.
Charles graduated magna cum laude from American University with a degree in economics and international affairs. After graduation Charles spent a year studying in Bonn, which was then part of West Germany, through the German Academic Exchange Service.
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Farmers stand out among those who got federal aid in 2020. Total payments to farmers reached $46 billion, a record. Many farmers received more than $100,000, yet didn't necessarily need the help. -
Scientists are calling for efforts to protect hundreds of wild plants in the United States that are related to native foods such as cranberries and chili peppers.
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Vilsack served as secretary of agriculture during the Obama administration and has been a trusted adviser to President-elect Joe Biden. But critics say his time has passed.
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Lab studies have shown hydroxychloroquine has blocked the coronavirus from entering cells, but scientists have not reported results yet of whether it can work as a treatment.
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Researchers in Israel have grown date palm trees from ancient seeds found at the same site as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Those trees might soon produce fruit, re-creating the taste of antiquity.
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The Food and Drug Administration is inspecting less food these days, thanks to the shutdown. And while that has raised questions about food safety, the food business is largely carrying on as usual.
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Investigators who are trying to track down the source of E. coli in romaine lettuce have seen this movie before. They're tracking the exact strain of bacteria that caused a small outbreak a year ago.
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Vegetable farmers in Yuma, Ariz., are asking whether they can co-exist in the same valley with a large cattle feedlot. Those cattle are blamed for contaminating Romaine with toxic E. colibacteria.
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A record-setting "dead zone," where water doesn't have enough oxygen for fish to survive, has appeared this summer. One major cause is pollution from farms.
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March is a pivotal time in the world of strawberries. Production shifts westward, to California. In Florida, thousands of men and women who pick strawberries are moving on to other work.
