94. The fat of the land
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This week, we\\u2019re going back to basics, and ignoring cities to talk about farms.
Dr Sarah Taber is a North Carolina-based crop scientist who recently went viral. In a lengthy thread posted to Twitter, she explained why civilisations in different parts of the world developed entirely different diets: the short version is that wet regions developed low-meat diets, while dry regions developed high-meat diets. She went on to explain why cows are a useful source of food in those dryer regions, and also how much water you\\u2019d need to farm them.
Being me, I found all this fascinating, so I invited her to talk to me about it, down an occasionally dodgy Skype connection from a Chicago hotel room. She promised to explain \\u201ccrops, soil and cows\\u201d \\u2013 but also managed to cover the history of American farming, and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, too. Makes a change from trains, doesn\\u2019t it?
Skylines is the podcast from the New Statesman\\u2019s cities site, CityMetric. It\\u2019s hosted by Jonn Elledge.
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