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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Fertilizer runoff has provoked a confrontation between Des Moines and the farms that surround it. The city's water utility wants to sue neighboring counties for nitrates in the Raccoon River. -
On Jan. 1, all eggs sold in California will have to come from chickens living in more spacious digs. The rules have disrupted the egg industry and pushed prices up at grocery stores in California. -
Coca-Cola got a lot of attention in November when it announced it was going into the milk business. In fact, its extra-nutritious milk product was invented by some dairy farmers in Indiana. -
Should dietary guidelines consider the environmental effects of our food choices? The government-appointed Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee thinks they should. Congress, however, says no.
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An organic watchdog organization says big organic egg and milk producers are violating organic rules. As evidence, it offers aerial photos — but some photos may not be of organic operations. -
General Mills helped define the industrial era of American breakfasting with its ringlets of processed oats. Soon, it'll put out a version with "ancient grains," which aren't, actually, very ancient. -
When GMO-free cereals landed in supermarkets, some vitamins had mysteriously vanished from them. But these vitamins don't necessarily come from genetically altered organisms. -
Biotech companies are inserting new genes into microorganisms, turning them into tiny factories to produce valuable nutrients and flavors. But many of the companies don't want to talk about it. -
You can lead children to vegetables, but can you make them eat? In one school lunch program, kids will tell you upfront what they think of your veggies — and what you should do with them. -
American honey importers say they've noticed an odd surge in cheap honey from Turkey. They think some of that honey really came from China, which is subject to U.S. trade restrictions.
