Thanks to Todd Gardner...

Thanks to Todd Gardner for linking us today to a story in Al Jazeera about some new ways of growing food that may keep future humans from starving. Before I get to this story, however, let me point out that you will often find the comment "thanks to Todd Gardner" at the beginning of my blog posts. Dr. Gardner is a researcher at the Center for Economic Studies in the U.S. Census Bureau. Although his Ph.D. is in history, he was trained by the historical demographers at the Minnesota Population Center, home of IPUMS, and he is also a very good population geographer. Given the scope that he brings to demography, it is also not surprising that in his spare time he keeps track of news stories that might interest demographers and posts them to his Twitter account: @PopGeog. I follow him and you should, too, if you don't already. 


I had the pleasure of sitting down for breakfast with Todd when we were both at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America a couple of weeks ago in Denver. The work that he and his colleagues do at the Census Bureau is not just fascinating--it is a very important part of what keeps the economy of this country growing. It is hard to conduct business well in the absence of good information, and the U.S. Census Bureau is one of, if not the, best data-gathering institutions in the world. Mention that to your Member of Congress every time you have a chance!!

Now, about that story. I'll get to it tomorrow, when I will link up that story with this one about the loss of farmland in the U.S.