Stop Sucking Up to Farmers
My good advice that Democrats probably won't take
My first column as a New York Times contributor suggests a silver lining in the execrable Big Beautiful Bill: Its food and farming provisions are so awful that it could conceivably persuade Democrats to stop showering ludicrous and destructive subsidies on rich farmers who will never vote for them. You can read it here.
Honestly, though, I’ll take the under. Even though the Democratic brand has become toxic in rural America, and the BBB’s massive cuts to food stamps ought to remove any incentive for urban Democrats to support agricultural socialism, the farm lobby always seems to get its way in Washington. I tell a lot of fun and appalling stories about its power in WE ARE EATING THE EARTH. You can buy it here.
Speaking of which! It’s been an exciting book launch, with a bunch of great reviews, including the most awesome stuff anyone’s ever written about me in The Washington Post. Kind of cool to see words like “thrilling and provocative,” “riveting,” “beautiful,” and “profound.” I especially loved these words: “This is a book about a looming catastrophe that contains a lot of laughs, refreshing honesty, and the joy of learning.”
I wrote this book because I wanted to start a conversation about the way our natural planet is becoming an agricultural planet. I’ve been talking about how to feed the world without frying it on a ton of podcasts, from Volts with clean energy guru David Roberts, who hates talking about food but still asked a lot of great questions, to Flipping the Table with regenerative advocate Michael Dimock, who admitted he found a lot of my arguments compelling even though he initially wanted to hate me. I’ve also spoken to packed houses in New York City, Kansas City, and Washington, D.C.; next is Miami on Monday night and then San Francisco on Wednesday night. I also stirred up some controversy with a column warning that Your July 4 Barbecue Is Destroying the Planet: “When you eat a burger, you’re not just eating a cow. You’re eating macaws and the rest of the cast of Rio. You’re eating the Amazon.”
I’m doing way more promotion for We Are Eating the Earth than I did for The Swamp or The New New Deal, because I’m so eager for people to grapple with these issues. (You can also invite me to speak at your event!) I was thrilled to see this FoodPrint article quoting a bunch of regenerative leaders whining about grappling with my book, because it means they think they can’t ignore it.* They’ve enjoyed a longtime stranglehold on the idea of “sustainable agriculture,” and they can feel it loosening.
Anyway, keep sending me story ideas, and keep buying the book. Thank you!
The main argument they trotted out in that article was that we don’t need more high-yield agriculture because we don’t need more food, just better distribution of the food we already have. That’s wrong, but even if it wasn’t, they don’t explain how they intend to fix the world’s distribution problems, or who they’re willing to starve if those problems aren’t fixed, or which forests they’re willing to sacrifice.