Viscous Profits: The Fracking Boom That Broke Agriculture

What connects a high-tech American oil rig to a poverty-stricken bean farmer in the deserts of Rajasthan? The answer is Guar gum, a hyper-viscous agricultural powder traditionally used to thicken ice cream. When the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) boom exploded in the United States, oil companies discovered that Guar gum was the absolute perfect agent to thicken the water blasted into bedrock. A...