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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A U.N.-sponsored report warns that disappearing pollinators, such as bees, could cut production of healthful foods like fruits and nuts. But the degree of damage is mostly a matter of speculation. -
Millions of people want caffeine removed from their coffee. Millions more want caffeine added to their soda. Little-known caffeine factories, scattered across the world, satisfy both desires. -
Chipotle has scorned some mainstream farming practices, like GMOs and antibiotics. Now the fast-casual chain is taking hits over food safety, and past targets of its attacks are taking revenge.
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The nation's crop insurance program is really a lottery, says one economist. And it's rigged so that farmers win. In fact, farmers typically get back double the money they pay for premiums.
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Ted Cruz doesn't like the law that requires the use of ethanol in gasoline. So what would happen if it was abolished? The surprising answer: not much, probably. -
The Farm Bill promised to cut subsidies to farmers. Instead, farmers will continue getting about $20 billion a year thanks to new programs that compensate farmers when corn and soybean prices fall.
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Most workers who are picking oranges in Florida are temporary "guest" workers from Mexico. They have signed contracts to work only for growers who arranged their visas and provide their housing. -
The majority of American egg producers, when they order new chicken houses, are choosing cage-free systems. That's a sea change driven by consumer demand for cage-free eggs. -
The Cavendish banana and other beloved varieties are threatened by a fungus that's spreading around the world. Scientists are trying to find new varieties that will be resistant to the disease. -
Some food companies, hoping to gain consumer trust, are disclosing more information about what is in their products, and how they were made. But how much will they be willing to reveal?
