Farms can be beautiful sites that connect us to nature & history & culture, so we want some farms preserved near cities... but keeping high-value land in low-output farms is for agrotourism rather than sustainability, equity or health, so their area should be small. open.substack.com/pub/matthewy...

Farms aren’t nature

A banal take with serious consequences

open.substack.com

This deep-dive conversation with David Introcaso covers all the big questions in #FoodEconomics. It's just what you need: an unedited 40 minutes on agriculture, food and health... starting with an intro to my wonderful Friedman School of Nutrition at Tufts @tuftsnutrition.bsky.social

Tufts Professor William Masters Discusses Food Affordability and Food Production Stability in the Age of Climate Denial

open.spotify.com

📢 Rome Nutrition Week 2026 is almost here! #RNW26 Taking place 25–28 May in Rome and online, Day 1 opens with a session on the Cost of a Healthy Diet, a metric with IMMANA roots now used by FAO, WFP and the World Bank globally. 🥗 Free to register 🔗 www.unnutrition.org/rome-nutriti...

In Accra, celebrating the successful launch of the ANH Africa Regional Collaborative from @anhacademy.bsky.social, I was fortunate to catch the great Gyedu-Blay Ambolley at +233 Jazz. Here is his magnificent take on John Coltrane's A Love Supreme: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP1k.... Wow.

📣 Applications open for Round 2 of the ANH Academy Competitive Research Grants! Funding impact & cost-effectiveness evaluations to support equitable consumption of safe, affordable, nutritious foods 🍏🌱🌍 Apply by 1 May 2026 → www.anh-academy.org/workstreams/...

Condolences to Erroll Schweitzer -- and big thanks to him for this thoughtful assessment of NYC's plan to improve food access through five city-owned grocery stores:

Grocery Update #147: Three Ways New York’s Public Grocery Experiment Could Fail.

The Mamdani Administration’s Pilot Faces Structural Dangers That Have Nothing To Do With Whether Public Groceries Are A Good Idea.

open.substack.com

The American singer-songwriter tradition at its best: here's my stepdad at the iconic Dan & Whit's general store in Norwich, VT

PHIL BUSH 6 songs

Recorded by Chad Finer Upstairs at Dan &Whit's Feb 15, 2026

substack.com

Thank you to Ed Mabaya for hosting this talk on Food Prices for Nutrition -- my best effort at showing how and why the FAO, World Bank and national governments are measuring access to healthy diets in a new way, featuring links between @cornelluniversity.bsky.social & @tuftsnutrition.bsky.social.

Cost and affordability of healthy diets: Adoption and use of a new food security metric worldwide

YouTube video by Cornell Global Development

youtube.com

Great analysis and resource on food prices resource from @willmasters.bsky.social @tuftsnutrition.bsky.social. As with many things MAHA, a mixed bag. Via @sarah-todd.bsky.social @statnews.com

MAHA says its new food pyramid is affordable and healthy. We asked experts

How affordable are the new dietary guidelines? Economists and nutrition experts weigh in.

statnews.com

Heartiest of congratulations to @willmasters.bsky.social, whose work on food & ag I value very much.

Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy@tuftsnutrition.bsky.social · 6mo ago

William A. Masters has been awarded the 2026 Georg and Greta Borgström Prize for Global Food Security 🏆 His work brings economics, agriculture, and nutrition together to make healthy diets more affordable worldwide. 🔗 Read more: https://bit.ly/4jWQpre

William A. Masters has been awarded the 2026 Georg and Greta Borgström Prize for Global Food Security 🏆 His work brings economics, agriculture, and nutrition together to make healthy diets more affordable worldwide. 🔗 Read more: https://bit.ly/4jWQpre

Yan Bai, Elena Martinez, Anna Herforth, @willmasters.bsky.social (at @tuftsnutrition.bsky.social) and others have an insightful article with information-dense graphics in Nature Food this week, comparing low-cost to climate-friendly food options internationally. www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Environmental impacts and monetary costs of healthy diets worldwide - Nature Food

Identifying low-cost options for a healthy diet is an essential step towards allowing all people to meet their nutritional needs. This study measures the frontiers of the lowest available cost and gre...

nature.com

The nicely annotated recording of the webinar on Nov 20 with Prof. Norbert Wilson of Duke University @dukewfpc.bsky.social, about the recent end of the USDA nationally representative household food security survey, now has been posted. wfpc.sanford.duke.edu/webinar-what...

Webinar: What We Lose as USDA Household Food Security Reporting Ends - World Food Policy Center

Overview On November, 20, 2025, Duke’s World Food Policy Center hosted an in-depth webinar on a major policy shift by the US Department of Agriculture:…

wfpc.sanford.duke.edu

Want to see a circular bioeconomy, with minimal food waste and max energy recycling? I learned a lot from this amazing story about ruthless efficiency in pursuit of customer service:

Mise en masse

How do you prepare 100,000 meals at sea?

economist.com

My colleague @willmasters.bsky.social and I had a nice conversation with Norbert Wilson at @dukewfpc.bsky.social about least cost diets in the United States and internationally, with implications for understanding SNAP in the US and world hunger. wfpc.sanford.duke.edu/podcasts/how...

E286: How 'least cost diet' models fuel food security policy - World Food Policy Center

Governments use something called a ‘least cost diet’ to monitor food access, inform policy discussions, and target interventions to improve food security and nutrition. So, what is the least cost diet...

wfpc.sanford.duke.edu

Thanks to Pablo Rosado of @ourworldindata.org for a clear, vivid explanation of what #FoodPricesForNutrition metrics reveal about healthy diet costs and affordability. The original data are posted at www.fao.org/faostat/en/#... & worldbank.org/foodpricesfo..., from sites.tufts.edu/foodpricesfo...

Almost three billion people cannot afford a healthy diet

A healthy, nutritious diet is much more expensive than a calorie sufficient one.

ourworldindata.org

The tomato theory of everything 1/3

Winter is coming. So are tariff-induced price hikes on tomatoes and other produce. - The Boston Globe

A rise in produce prices could be a sign of higher costs to come as President Trump’s tariffs on imported food become more significant.

bostonglobe.com

Just finished the superb new book from @juliabelluz.bsky.social and @kevinh-phd.bsky.social. Crystal clear storytelling about the new science of nutrition, summarizing what we learn at top schools like @tuftsnutrition.bsky.social. It's a timely antidote to snake oil & vibes--highly recommended!

Food Intelligence by Julia Belluz, Kevin Hall, PhD: 9780593332306 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

“Food Intelligence dispels many popular myths we have about weight loss and breaks down the real drivers of the obesity crisis based on decades of research. I really hope everyone gets a chance to...

penguinrandomhouse.com

The U.S. food security data to be cancelled by Trump's USDA has been of huge value but is often misunderstood -- and the WSJ piece breaking the news is exceptionally clear about what's at stake

Exclusive | Trump Administration Cancels Annual Hunger Survey

The government has been measuring food insecurity since the mid-1990s but now says the report has become “overly politicized.”

wsj.com

Great piece from @henrymance.ft.com on a surprising way in which people have turned away from idealism: fewer online searches for "vegan". Data in the next post... 1/2

Why the vegans lost

Veganism didn’t become less good for us or the planet, so what changed?

on.ft.com

Big new paper shows limits to the common belief that healthy & sustainable foods are more expensive than other options. Details: linkedin.com/posts/wamast... Article: doi.org/10.1016/j.aj... Preprint: sites.tufts.edu/foodpricesfo... From @tuftsnutrition.bsky.social, for #foodsky #econsky #foodecon

It looks like healthy adults under 65 in the U.S. might be barred from getting the updated Covid vaccine for this fall. Here's the latest from my niece Nina Masters' Know Your Vax substack, in response to the story below from Caitlin Rivers @cmyeaton.bsky.social

Now It’s Personal: Changes to Vaccine Policy Affect All of Us

I had a painful experience at my local CVS this morning. I went in to get my flu shot and saw a pregnant woman standing at the pharmacy counter. She asked for last year’s formulation of the COVID-1…

knowyourvax.com

Caitlin Rivers@cmyeaton.bsky.social · 12mo ago

I tried to figure out what is going on with fall vaccines. - Flu vax is for everyone 6+ months and availability should be normal - Covid-19 vax likely be limited to ages 65+ AND people with health conditions. Still some uncertainty. - RSV for older adults and babies substack.com/home/post/p-...

Marion Nestle just posted a useful roundup of links about the leaked draft MAHA report here: www.foodpolitics.com/2025/08/http... So far MAHA is playing out somewhat like Italy's right-wing gastronationalism, which distracts food activists with symbolic stuff so as to give industry gets a free hand.

Will Masters@willmasters.bsky.social · last yr.

My guess is that MAHA will follow the food policy playbook of Italy's right wing, whose defense of tradition is used to stop rules against harmful new foods. In the U.S. we'll be distracted by fights over raw milk & beef tallow, while the real story is rules on sugar & salt. 3/3 PS, about Italy:

Sailing on Boston Harbor on a breezy summer afternoon with @willmasters.bsky.social, practicing dropping and raising the anchor, and, for conversation, in our imagination, solving global food systems challenges.

As ABC News @max-zahn.bsky.social reports, producer prices for vegetables jumped nearly 40% in one month. Tariffs? Supply hiccups due to immigration crackdown on farm laborers? Weather? Or random noise? Let's monitor vegetable prices in the next two months to see. abcnews.go.com/Business/tar...

Are tariffs to blame for nearly 40% spike in wholesale vegetable prices? Experts weigh in

The wholesale-price spike may eventually hike prices for shoppers, experts said.

abcnews.go.com

Remember all of the “food prices are too high” social media posts from 2024? Grocery price inflation is higher now than it was then

Will Masters@willmasters.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Today's U.S. CPI shows grocery price inflation rising and above 2% year-on-year since March 2025, after the period of low grocery price rises in 2023-24. This FRED chart shows rise in grocery inflation (green) vs restaurant meals (red) and the overall CPI (blue): fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1LgBF

Wholesale prices came in hot in today’s PPI report, but veggies stole the show 🥦📈 Vegetable prices at the wholesale level surged nearly 39% in July. @willmasters.bsky.social & I unpack what’s behind this spike in today's @marketplace.org 🎙️ www.marketplace.org/story/2025/0...

Why are wholesale vegetable prices spiking, and what's that mean for consumers?

About a quarter of the 3.3% price increase recorded by this month’s producer price index was driven by a spike in wholesale prices for veggies.

marketplace.org

For university courses about #FoodEconomics, a full set of class slides, weekly exercises, & exams is now available for use with the free online textbook from @afinaret.bsky.social and me. Audience is advanced undergrads and first-year grad students using graphical diagrams, examples and global data

Today's U.S. CPI shows grocery price inflation rising and above 2% year-on-year since March 2025, after the period of low grocery price rises in 2023-24. This FRED chart shows rise in grocery inflation (green) vs restaurant meals (red) and the overall CPI (blue): fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1LgBF

FRED Graph

FRED Graph

fred.stlouisfed.org

This year's #AAEA2025 coincides with launch of the UN system's #SOFI2025 report on The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World. Beyond diet costs and affordability, this year's report includes new work from @tuftsnutrition.bsky.social and @fao.org on relative cost of different foods: