agriculture

California is parched. Wells are running dry. Vegetable fields have been left fallow and lawns are dying. Who can we blame? From almonds to politicians to cheap water, here are seven candidates.

The relentless drought has turned almonds into a target for water conservationists who bemoan that it takes one gallon of water to grow one almond. Growers say the bad rap is unfair and misleading.

Farms in California use as much as four times the water consumed by cities and towns. Now farmers are on defense after the governor decided to mostly exempt them from new, sweeping water cutbacks.

Some scientists suggest calling the era we live in the Anthropocene, to denote the time when humans came to dominate Earth's fate. But did it start with farming, the atom bomb or another event?

Scientists have recovered cultivated wheat DNA from an 8,000-year-old submerged site off the British coast. The finding suggests hunter-gatherers were trading for the grain long before they grew it.

Government regulators have approved the first genetically modified apples, which don't turn brown when you cut them open. But planting these trees will be a gamble since consumers may not want them.