Imagine cows fed and milked entirely by robots. Or tomatoes that send an e-mail when they need more water. Or a farm where all the decisions about where to plant seeds, spray fertilizer and steer tractors are made by software on servers on the other side of the sea. This is what more and more of our agriculture may come to look like in the years ahead, as farming meets Big Data.
Read MoreIt’s an industry that’s largely invisible to consumers, yet central to feeding the world’s sweet tooth. Cocoa processing — the process of turning raw cocoa beans into powder, liquor, and butter — is a major step in creating the candy bars and truffles that line store shelves. And thanks to a recent pair of recent business deals, it’s an industry that may never be the same.
Read MoreBelieve it or not, there used to be a wide variety of regional candy bars stocking grocery store shelves. But over the last 50 years, the biggest companies have gobbled up the smaller ones to create a highly concentrated industry. How did Hershey's, Mars, and Nestle take over our shelves of sweets?
Read MoreA year ago, Hurricane Sandy revealed harrowing realities about the basic systems New Yorkers rely on every day. The reality is that private food and fuel systems everywhere are already extremely fragile, and grow more so almost by the day. At best, Sandy-like shocks cause temporary price spikes. At worst, these ruptures can trigger the sort of panic that can forever change the character of a community.And, so far, no government has even begun to study these risks.
Read MoreIn New York City, locating a bite to eat is rarely a difficult task. The city is a food paradise or, depending on your mood, a place of overwhelming glut. But when Superstorm Sandy pummeled New York last fall, it revealed the terrifying potential for sudden food shortages.Disturbingly, city officials have little concrete data on how reliant their food system is on the private food distribution industry, and whether society is teetering a mere "nine meals away from revolution" (an ominous old expression that appeared in The Atlantic all the way back in 1945). Worse yet, they have little understanding of the logistical changes that have revolutionized how companies warehouse and distribute the food on which New Yorkers depend.
Read MoreIn July, the public learned that Goldman Sachs and several other large banks have morphed into giant merchants of physical goods, routinely shipping oil, running power plants, and amassing stocks of metals so large that Coca Cola accused them of hoarding. It was a disconcerting moment, as regulators realized that firms so recently known for their explosive mortgage-backed securities also deal in goods that can literally explode.But that was only half the story.
Read MoreToday, most chicken farmers are growing their animals on contract for huge meatpackers, a system that some farmers call "worse than sharecropping." The Obama Administration promised to investigate how concentration in the chicken industry was negatively impacting farmers. But then, mysteriously, their investigation disappeared. What happened?
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