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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Crops that have had their DNA tweaked with new gene-editing tools are entering the food supply. But governments are struggling to figure out how — or even whether — to regulate them. -
Stopping climate change won't just mean a halt to burning coal and gasoline. It will mean an end to cutting forests and mining the soil to grow more food. Fortunately, it is possible.
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Let's imagine that we've ended global warming. Humans no longer are releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Here's what life is like in a zero-carbon world. -
Connecticut and California are considering statewide taxes on sugary drinks. New data from soda taxes in Berkeley and Philadelphia present a mixed picture of their effects on sugar consumption. -
Satellite images show the amount of green vegetation on Earth increasing, despite deforestation. But some of the added greenery has a downside. -
Steven Falk of Lafayette, Calif., has resigned because he says he cannot carry out policies that fail to address the urgent threat of a changing climate. -
Supermarkets are clearing romaine lettuce off the shelves, following a warning that some of it may be contaminated with E. coli. Investigators are trying to figure out where the contamination started.
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The plants that nourish us won't disappear entirely. But they may have to move to higher, cooler latitudes. Some places may find it harder to grow anything at all, because there's not enough water. -
The Senate Judiciary Committee is moving forward with a hearing Monday on sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Also, a look at public health after the hurricane.
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Republicans in Congress have released their version of a new Farm Bill. It imposes new requirements on low-income recipients of food assistance, but continues traditional subsidies for farmers.
