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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The Food and Drug Administration has started testing randomly selected fresh herbs and prepared guacamole. So far, the agency has found dangerous bacteria in 3 to 6 percent of the samples it tested. -
In Arkansas, a regulatory committee of farmers and small-business owners banned the latest weed-killing technology from the giant agrichemical company. Monsanto is taking them to court. -
The proposed changes to food stamps, now called SNAP, would be drastic: About half the benefits would be boxed-up, nonperishable foods. Recipients would lose a lot of their ability to pick their food. -
Maybe honeybees get too much attention. They are agricultural animals, like sheep or cattle, and they sometimes make life harder for wild bees. In fact, the bees in true peril are the wild ones. -
The law that requires America to turn some of its soybeans into diesel fuel for trucks has created a new industry. But it's costing American consumers about $5 billion each year. -
Venison, a luxury meat sold in high-end stores also shows up on the winter menus of expensive restaurants. But venison from deer killed by hunters can't be sold, so much of it is given away for free. -
It's the latest Obama-era agriculture regulation to go on the chopping block. This one governs the treatment of animals on organic farms. But most organic farmers actually support the rule. -
For the first time, government statistics show America's pigs, cattle, and poultry are getting fewer antibiotic drugs. Public health advocates call the new figures encouraging. -
For the first time in history, soybeans are about to become America's most widely grown crop. Yet compared to corn or wheat, they remain curiously invisible in American culture. -
Dozens of countries have government-recommended diets. That advice differs from country to country, but according to a new study, following it generally would help the environment.
