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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Simultaneous disasters, like the wildfires in California and Hurricane Ida this week, are happening more often as the planet heats up. Emergency managers are preparing for that future. -
Scientists who warned of heat waves and rising seas this week also say that it's possible to avoid the worst effects of the warming climate. They're relying on computer models of the world economy. -
In a landmark report, the world's top climate scientists are warning that Earth is headed toward unprecedented warming. Preventing the worst effects will demand a U-turn away from use of fossil fuels.
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A drift-prone herbicide called dicamba continues to plague the Midwest, despite promises to end the problem from the chemical's backers. A top seed industry executive now has joined dicamba's critics.
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California's farmers are pumping vast amounts of water from underground aquifers this year to make up for water they can't get from rivers. It's unsustainable, and the state is moving to stop it. -
Clearing natural forests in Brazil in order to grow crops like soybeans has actually made it harder to grow those crops. That's because deforestation makes the weather hotter and drier. -
Authorities said that 117 individuals remain unaccounted for from the collapsed building in Surfside, Florida. Authorities say demolishing the rest of the building has aided the search. -
The National Hurricane Center has downgraded Elsa to a tropical storm. Heavy rains and gusty winds continue to spread inland across southwest and west-central Florida. -
A ransomware attack that shut down several big beef plants is raising concerns about cybersecurity at food companies. Critics say industry consolidation makes the food supply chain more vulnerable. -
Cleveland is trying to create a less car-centered city, against tough odds. But public transit and walkable neighborhoods can help solve two problems at once: climate change and fairness.
