Island Press Field Notes

Earlier this year, if you had asked me to tell you what a “gardener” looked like, I might have painted you a mental picture of someone not unlike my father: a white, middle-aged man who decided to take up gardening as a hobby after realizing he had more empty space in his rural Texas backyard than he knew what to do with. After spending a weekend shadowing the nation’s largest garden-building event, however, I have to admit that my idea of who a “gardener” is and what a “garden” looks like has dramatically changed.

In a political age of "alternative facts," we need defenders of science to speak up now more than ever. We spoke with toxicologist Emily Monosson, author of Natural Defense: Enlisting Bugs and Germs to Protect our Food and Health, to discuss her new book, ecology, and the process of scientific innovation.

While researching No One Eats Alone, sociologist Michael Carolan interviewed more than 250 individuals, from flavorists to Fortune 500 executives, politicians to feedlot managers, low-income families to crop scientists, who play a role in the life of food. Advertising consultants told him of efforts to distance eaters and producers—most food firms don’t want their customers thinking about farm laborers or the people living downstream of processing plants.

Watch as Baylen Linnekin, author of Biting the Hands that Feed Us, interviews small-business owner Jill Erber about how food regulations affect her cheese shops, Cheesetique.