This project started with a question: Can we feed this growing world without starving the planet? A team of AP journalists explored this with a group of experts brought together in 2022, trying to learn more about how food production affects the climate and environment and how that could change in the future. Agriculture feeds 8 billion people every day, but also generates enormous amounts of greenhouse gases and threatens wild animals and plants because of the land and water needed to raise our food. Demand for protein — especially meat, which takes by far the biggest toll on the environment — is soaring as the population grows, tastes change, and incomes rise. The AP deployed journalists to 16 locations in 10 countries on five continents to better understand this protein problem — and learn about ways some creative thinkers and innovators are trying to solve it.
Thanks to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group, which supports AP's Health & Science Department, and to Chris Barrett of Cornell University, Upmanu Lall of Columbia University, Sonali Shukla McDermid of New York University, Linda Prokopy of Purdue University and Norbert Wilson of Duke University.
Project editors: Darrell Allen, Alicia Chang, Janelle Cogan, Jonathan Fahey, Matt Ford, Enric Marti, Jonathan Poet, Howie Rumberg, Pia Sarkar, Patrick Sison, Emily Swanson, Maye-E Wong, Kathy Young
Developers and designers: Linda Gorman, Peter Hamlin, Koko Nakajima
Data: Camille Fassett, Nicky Forster
Writers: JoNel Aleccia, Dee-Ann Durbin, Aniruddha Ghosal, Christina Larson, Krista Larson, Scott McFetridge, David McHugh, Victoria Milko, Laura Ungar
Photographers: Dita Alangkara, Noah Berger, Rebecca Blackwell, Leo Correa, David Goldman, Aurélien Morissard, Han Guan Ng, Eraldo Peres, Michael Probst, Manish Swarup, David Zalubowski
Video journalists: Terry Chea, Lucas Dumphreys, Yesica Fisch, Shelby Lum, Daniel Niemann, Brittany Peterson, Fadlan Syam, Emma H. Tobin, Angie Wang, Olivia Zhang
Polling: Hannah Fingerhut, Linley Sanders
Audience engagement: Bridget Brown, Dave Clark, McKinnon de Kuyper, Sophia Tulp, Kyle Viterbo