The Future of Global Food Security

Rosamond Naylor directs the Program on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University. An economist by training, she studies the world food economy and sustainable agriculture. Though she says she is deeply worried about climate change and population growth, she described herself as “optimistic” in a conversation with Smithsonian’s Amanda Bensen.

By 2050, there will be an estimated nine billion people in the world. Do we have the land and water to feed them?

Read Naylor's response, and the rest of our conversation, in the 40th-anniversary special issue of Smithsonian. I also wrote this sidebar about new and under-utilized traditional crops that could help feed the hungry in the future.

A Taste of Vermont

As a web extra to accompany one of the features I helped edit this month (a nice piece about Vermont's Route 100), I highlighted a few of the many food- & drink-related tours available in my home state. Read "A Culinary Adventure in Vermont" on Smithsonian.com.

Home is Where the Kitchen Is

For her latest book, photographer Dona Schwartz chose the home’s busiest shared space to observe how a newly blended family—two adults, one preteen, three teenagers, two college kids and two dogs—learned to live together. She spoke with Smithsonian’s food blogger, Amanda Bensen, about what she saw "In the Kitchen."

Read the Q&A and view Dona's photos here.

Did This Man Invent Color Photography?

"There, do you see it?” she asks, holding up a small, silvery rectangle in the half-lit room.

For a moment, I do: a splash of blue on a bird’s wings. Then it disappears. The photograph, captured some 160 years ago, reveals the outline of an owl and three smaller birds.

Lifting another plate from a storage box labeled “Hill, Levi,” Michelle Delaney sighs as she examines it.

“Oh, that makes me sad. You used to be able to make out the outline of the village in the center here, but it’s faded even more now,” she says. I see only a blur of brown, gray and white; what a ghost might look like caught on camera...

Read more about Levi Hill, the mysterious minister who may or may not have been the first to invent color photography, in the April issue of Smithsonian.