The Price of Plenty: A How-We-Did-It Production

In this second episode, host Elliot Tritto and producer Julia Cooper speak with UF reporters Lucille Lannigan and Alan Halaly. Lannigan's reporting covers Florida’s old phosphate mines that have been turned into housing developments, parks, bass lakes, golf courses and restored wetlands and other wildlife habitats. Her work asks the question "how safe are mined lands?" Halaly focused...

In this last episode, host Elliot Tritto speaks with UF reporters Abigail Hasebroock and Serra Sowers. Hasebroock's reporting focused on how fertilizer use by Florida farmers appears to be leveling off. Farmers are using less—but partly because Florida’s farmland and crop yields are shrinking. Sowers, alongside UF reporter Fernando Figueroa reported on the industry-driven environmental researc...

In this seventh episode, host Elliot Tritto speaks with Mizzou reporter Josie Heimsoth. Heimsoth's reporting focused on the journey of nitrogen fertilizer and its release of potent heat-trapping gases which is an extensive one, and it affects the climate along the way. According to a 2022 study in  Scientific Reports , the synthetic nitrogen fertilizer supply chain is responsible for 2.1% of g...

In this sixth episode, host Elliot Tritto speaks with Mizzou reporter Noah Zahn. Zahn's reporting focused on fertilizer companies who are seeing the highest profits on record as farmers and others who rely on fertilizer have no choice but to spend more. University of Florida journalists Elliot Tritto and Julia Cooper sit down with fellow reporters from UF and the University of Missouri for a b...

In this fifth episode, host Elliot Tritto speaks with Mizzou reporter Lauren Hines-Acosta. Hines-Acosta's reporting focused on a legislative package, projected to cost an estimated $1.5 trillion over 10 years that could have big implications for conservation in agriculture – including the production and use of fertilizer. The farm bill, which goes up for renewal every five years, addresses fer...

In this fourth episode, producer Julia Cooper speaks with Mizzou reporter Joy Mazur. Mazur's reporting focused on Nancy Rabalais and the legacy she leaves in hypoxia research. Rabalais’ work put the Gulf of Mexico “dead zone” on the scientific map and into the nation’s psyche, leading to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s  Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task F...

In this third episode, host Elliot Tritto speaks with Mizzou reporter Sofi Zeman. Zeman's reporting focused on how along one section of the Mississippi River, three massive fertilizer plants contribute to industrial pollution in Louisiana communities and the health and safety concerns around these three plants are a microcosm of larger environmental justice issues. University of Florida journa...

In this first episode, host Elliot Tritto speaks with co-producer Julia Cooper about their respective stories on the histories of the elements Nitrogen and Phosphorous as they relate to the fertilizer industry. Tritto reported on how one of the most commons elements that feeds billions, Nitrogen, is also deadly in chemical weaponry, factory explosions and overdoses in the environment. Cooper uncov...