USDA Pulls Media Report on Climate Change and Rice

Lewis Ziska, a former plant biologist at the United States Department of Agriculture.
Lewis Ziska, a former plant biologist at the United States Department of Agriculture.
Lewis Ziska, a former plant biologist at the United States Department of Agriculture.
Lewis Ziska, a former plant biologist at the United States Department of Agriculture.

USDA Pulls Media Report on Climate Change and Rice

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Lewis Ziska worked as a plant scientist at the United States Department of Agriculture for more than two decades, studying how climate change impacts plant biology. When he published a paper last year on how carbon dioxide emissions are making rice crops lose nutritional value, he was surprised to find that the USDA not only questioned his findings, but pulled media coverage of the paper and asked partner institution the University of Washington to do the same. He quit the USDA in protest, and told Politico that “You get the sense that things have changed, that this is not a place for you to be exploring things that don’t agree with someone’s political views.”

Worldview’s food, health and culture contributor Monica Eng chats with him for this week’s installment about Food Mondays. They’ll talk about Ziska’s research and the findings he says the USDA didn’t want the American public to hear about.