agriculture

Cory Booker: Taking on Big Ag & Going Big on Climate

BenTestani — Thu, 22 Jun 2023 22:31:05 +0000

Cory Booker: Taking on Big Ag & Going Big on Climate

06/23/2023

Our food and agricultural systems are helping fuel the climate emergency. But climate isn’t the only harm; these systems also impact local economies, human dignity, and animal welfare. The upcoming Farm Bill presents an opportunity to infuse more climate-smart practices in American agriculture, which accounts for about 10% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. But doing so involves confronting industrial practices that focus on short-term gains and commodity subsidies that have deep support in both parties.

Senator Cory Booker has a plan to address our broken food system. He introduced legislation that would challenge large industrial beef and pork packagers and tilt the balance of power in our industrial agriculture system, giving family farmers, ranchers, and workers a better deal. But what chance do these elements have of passage? And what other options are there for decreasing the concentration of power in Big Ag?

This episode features a contribution from Elizabeth Rembert.

Guests

Cory Booker

U.S. Senator (D–NJ)

Meat Accounts for Nearly 60% of Agricultural Emissions (theguardian.com)

Why The Farm Bill is High Stakes for Climate (americanprogress.org)

Senator Booker’s Bills to Reform Food System (booker.senate.gov)

Black Farmers Call for Justice from the USDA (npr.org)

Note: Transcripts are generated using a combination of automated software and human transcribers and may contain errors. Please check the actual audio before quoting it.

Greg Dalton: This is Climate One. I’m Greg Dalton.

Ariana Brocious: And I’m Ariana Brocious.

Greg Dalton: Often the climate conversation has been about tailpipes and smokestacks. But it’s not all about how we move or how we produce energy. One of the big overlooked levers is what we eat.

Ariana Brocious: Our food system accounts for one third of human caused emissions. There are many factors at play there, but raising meat and dairy is a big part of it.

Greg Dalton: and while we’re electrifying transportation and building solar and wind farms, not as much is being done to reduce emissions from the food system.

Ariana Brocious: And while addressing climate can feel daunting, this is one area where I personally feel I have some agency. I’ve been a vegetarian for about 20 years, and while I know that my diet alone won’t make a difference, it makes me feel like I’m living aligned with my climate values. And while I’ve never been one to convince others how they should eat, I do know that if more Americans ate less meat and dairy on a large scale, we could begin to impact these huge systems.

Greg Dalton: And it’s not just climate issues, the food system hits about every issue we care about: equity, compassion, justice.

Ariana Brocious: That’s what motivated Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey to get on the Agriculture Committee – because he finds all the issues important to him wrapped up in our agricultural system.

Cory Booker: When we started really looking at our food system, I was stunned to realize how savagely broken it is.

Greg Dalton: Our food system is broken.

Ariana Brocious: And just like so many other areas of our economy, agriculture is becoming dominated by fewer and fewer companies, who wield most of the power and receive most of the benefits. Row crop farmers – who grow soy, corn, etc – are incentivized to amass larger and larger farms to make a profit, and the mechanization of agriculture has dramatically reduced the number of people who make a living from agriculture in the last few decades.

Greg Dalton: And as power becomes more concentrated, it tends to lack empathy.

Ariana Brocious: And there’s a lot of places where that lack of empathy comes through.

Greg Dalton: I recently had a conversation with Senator Booker live at the Commonwealth Club of California. He is a gifted storyteller, and started the conversation with a story that surprised many in the audience.

Cory Booker: I always try to tell stories, where histories replete our lives or replete with the small actions of individuals making big changes. I always tell people the quick story about a white guy sitting on a couch in New Jersey watching TV and seeing the crisis on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. And he is so disturbed by these people being beaten with billy clubs and gas that he decides to go to Alabama then laughs because he can’t afford a plane ticket not to mention to close his business. All he says, well, I’m gonna give an hour a week of pro bono work to a civil rights organization in New Jersey. And finds us one call the Fair Housing Council works with them over the years to design these test cases where you send a black couple look at a house there, turned away, and a white couple comes. Five years later after they get good at it, they amazingly he says he gets a case file where black family coming up in the South looking for communities with great public schools and is turned away from housing. They set up the sting operation and the black couple’s told the house is sold; the white couple put a bid on the house for the black family. Bid is accepted, papers are drawn up. On the day of the closing the white couple doesn’t show up, the lawyer and the black man does. They get attacked in the real estate agent’s office. Real estate agent punches the lawyer and sics a dog on the black guy. But after a lot of legal rigmarole the black family in 1969 moves into the home, has this incredible community, incredible public schools. And 41 years later, the baby in that family becomes America's fourth black person ever popularly elected in the United State Senate, me.

And so, a lot of people underestimate what a small action on big issues can actually do when it ripples out in time and space. So, don't discount your power. The most common way people give up their power is not realized that they have it in the first place. And even you can’t do everything about an issue, do something today that you didn't do yesterday. Do something this year that you didn't do last year to be a part of a larger movement for change when it comes to climate.

Greg Dalton: And food is one area where climate can often seem very abstract like power plants and things remote from people. But food is a place where people, if you’re fortunate you can vote three times a day with your fork. I didn’t know that agriculture is the third largest industry in New Jersey. So, talk about food and climate and what brought you to be so passionate about food.

Cory Booker: Well, on the point we’re making before a lot of it is our, you know, W. E. B. Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk talks about the tragedy of men, forgive the genderize language, but the tragedy of humanity is that we know so little about each other. And lot of things allow injustice to fester is not being focused on learning about your neighbor, learning about your fellow person. And that means that we often get involved in these very impersonal systems that sustain and perpetuate injustices. Like I always say that I did not know the ills of fast fashion, for example. And I bought t-shirts, wore things just never put my thought into wait a minute, who made the shoes I'm wearing. What were the providence of the clothing I’m wearing and how am I and my dollars and my ignorance participating in systems that are pushing injustice on the individuals who are making them just as on our environment? And so, for me, I never imagined 10 years ago when I got to the United States Senate that I would be battling not really battling but having to ask and maneuver myself to get on to the agricultural committee. I just never thought I would do it. And I did it because one of my great staff members came up to me and said every issue you care about, all the issues you care about and have been working on intersect within our food system. And the more I listened, at first, I laughed at him, then I joined him, which is often the process. But I thought you're insane why do I want to sit on the ag committee for. But when we started really looking at our food system, I was stunned to realize how savagely broken it is. And the only people that really works for are these big multinational corporations that more and more controlling everything that we eat. It is a system that’s broken for farmers. If you interview farmers and majority of American farmers are actually small farmers, but the system does not support them. They have higher suicide rates they’re going out of business at alarming rates. There is mass consolidation of farms. It’s broken for farmworkers. I was challenged by the United Farm Workers Association to go out and work on a farm. I was stunned that number one how difficult the work it was. But what was more stunning to me besides the fact that I was sore for days and days afterwards was just having conversations with the farmworkers about sexual harassment, wage theft. It’s broken for our ecology what we prioritize and emphasize and incentivize is a farm system that poisons our lands, poisons our rivers and streams causes flooding even though farmers are great stewards of the land they are pushed into a system that often is very destructive. It's broken for our environment, climate change issues. It's broken for the end-user. I give this last example of how Americans are trapped in this unjust system because their government is subsidizing all the food to make a six while one party government tells you half of your diet should be fresh fruits and vegetables. Less than 10% of our accepts these go to that.

And so, kids in San Francisco or in Oakland can walk into a corner store and find a Twinkie product cheaper than an apple not because of the free market, but because government has decided that we’re gonna cheapen the happy meal we’re gonna cheapen the Twinkie and all the other stuff that we want you to eat we’re gonna make more expensive, harder to access and drive rates of disease that most Americans should be stunned by. We live in a nation right now where one out of three of our government dollars. Your tax dollars is being spent on healthcare. And to pay for healthcare with the majority of the things we’re paying for are preventable diseases. The majority of them are diet-related diseases. So, this food system is broken for everybody, but mostly it’s broken for all of us. Because we are seeing in America diabetes rates, hypertension, all of these rates of illness and disease and suffering spiking up. And our government is fueling that because they’re subsidizing the fast food or the hyper processed foods and then we’re paying for it again on Medicaid, Medicare and health care benefits. There is a way out of this broken system. And that's one of the reasons why we moved to the ag committee start finding common sense, win-win solutions to get America out of this sickness, illness, economic injustice, environmental injustice, climate fueling injustice as well as injustice for American farmers.

Greg Dalton: Big ag makes us sick and big farmers there to sell us pills when we get sick.

Cory Booker: Yes.

Greg Dalton: Well, we’re at this moment now where talking about this food system. The farm bill comes up every five years. It is happening now. This is a big unwieldy thing. What would you like to see in the farm bill to make both a healthier people and a healthier planet? There's been some talk about climate smart agriculture getting into the farm bill. It’s a big massive thing. What would you like to see in it?

Cory Booker: Well, I want to set the stage a little bit. So, my team has put out a suite of bills often endorsed by the Farmers Union by healthcare groups by environmental groups to deal with our food system. Whole suite, involves everything from composting to food waste to big factory farms, CAFOS, to the overuse of antibiotics on our food system. We decided to put up a whole bunch of bills that can point to the way out. And we want to show folks that it doesn't have to be this way and there are smart policy solutions that can do something about it. More than this, though, we wanted to go a little deeper and start talking about unfortunately, the power of big ag in Washington. People often think that the oil industry is one of the most powerful lobbyists. I would say that actually big food is more powerful because of their deep influence in the way we draw our policy up on both sides of the aisle. So, simply it’s something that should not be controversial should be based on science like nutrition standards or school lunch programs become these hotbeds of fights for folks that want to continue to push unhealthy food, deeply sugar filled processed foods and we’re aware of that. So, here's this farm bill as you said that rolls in every five years. We have tried to put out bills about the way to go. And what we're trying to do now is have some realpolitik on one hand about what knobs can we turn in this farm bill that could get us closer to some of our ambitious goals for health, well-being, climate change, and more. But at the same time what I think is lacking in every great movement is just that courageous empathy we started with. You know I look at I'm a product of civil rights activist parents who would tell me that the civil rights movement wasn’t a movement of black people for black rights. It was a conscious movement of creating a movement based on common ideals and our common values. But the biggest obstacle was getting people to understand the crisis in our country that they were participating in and that their silence, inaction was contributing to. So, the great thing about these incredible artists of activism in the civil rights movement is they found ways to dramatize what other people could not see. That's why the big standoff with Bull Connor, the big protests that they were able to do that all of a sudden got people off the sidelines to realize what's happening. So, this farm bill I'll talk about the specific objectives we have, but our ability to make the change is really dependent upon the average American understanding that the system is broken and that I can do something. Because there is not enough political will yet to make the kind of dramatic changes. So, in the farm bill there’s a number of different areas where we’re trying to turn knobs up. So, one of them is this understanding to trust American farmers. They are very good stewards of the land and they often know that they're doing things that are killing their soil. Soil which is rich in biodiversity, rich in the power to sequester carbon to hold on to water. What’s happened now is things that are allowing too much runoff drought poisoning their soil. I remember going to meet with a Republican farmer in the Midwest who told me I used to be able to fish in my creek. I used to be able to drink from my well. But since the CAFO has moved here I can't do either anymore. And so, what we saw when I got onto the ag committee is that there are some very small programs in the ag committee. Things like EQUIP that have acronyms so I probably can't name every word for. But environmental programs incentivize farmers to engage in environmental practices that help create goes win-win-win-wins but they were way over subscribed. So, one of the things in the Inflation Reduction Act that my team was able to do was to put billions of dollars into these programs which farmers rejoiced in because now they are able to do things like cover crops, rotational grazing and other things that we know fundamentally can not only help farmers be more successful but actually could do things that help our ecology and our environment. And so, those are the programs we’re going after now to say, can we expand certain things. But one of the specific examples I’ll give you and I could go on talking about the farm bill for a long time but I want you to know this is one example. Because the farm bill has two sides. There are agricultural programs, but another big part of the farm bill is food stamps.

Greg Dalton: SNAP is the biggest part of it.

Cory Booker: SNAP. And remember what SNAP is, Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. I'm not exaggerating, Coke and Pepsi make billions of dollars annually. Think about this for a second, because of SNAP payments being used to buy sugar water. Billions of dollars. And the correlation between sugar waters and diabetes rates is stunning. And what used to be adult onset diabetes is now proliferating on our children and our families. Half of Americans now are diabetic or prediabetic stunningly a quarter of our children are diabetic or prediabetic. And so, there are some people that think we should go about this by banning the use of SNAP on certain things. That becomes politically fraught. What we want to do is expand the program to create incentives. So, let me give you an example. When I was mayor of the city of Newark. We knew we had a crisis of food deserts all around our city. And we're trying to expand access. We did a lot of different creative things. One of the things I love was taking massive plots of city land and turning them into farms. One of them was an entire city block in a very low-income neighborhood in Newark that we turned into an urban farm. I returned to that farm recently to film a documentary Food, Inc. 2 and did not realize as I'm filming it that women would be coming up and wanting to offer their testimony. So, I'll never forget these two elders African-American women. One had gut issues that she had a $700 with prescription drugs to deal with the problems she was having in her gut. Her co-pay was hundred dollars and then the rest was being picked up by taxpayers, these prescription drugs. But as soon as she started sourcing her food from an organic urban farm in her neighborhood, her gut issues went away. The other one was an octogenarian who had diabetes for years. And she has a little now an Instagram account about being a vegan in her 80s. But she actually reversed her diabetes completely. And so, the program that they were taking advantage of that we’re talking about has a terrible name, GusNIP. But it’s basically the double bucks program where if I go to the supermarket and use one dollar of my SNAP to buy sugar water or highly processed food. I get a dollar like any consumer. But if I go to fresh fruits and vegetable markets, I can get double that. And when I went there, I used $10 to buy an amount of food at this urban farm. I couldn't believe how much food, put Whole Foods to shame. But then I realized that other people using SNAP payments could double that amount. And so, what we believe in our philosophy right now in this fight until the consciousness of our country gets higher and higher and higher. And by the way when you create these points of light, all of us wanna condemn darkness. When people point of light show the way it attracts a lot of attention. We want to expand these programs that can show dramatically that we can make a difference in people's lives for local farmers and others if we do these things.

So, we want to expand the GusNIP program. We want to expand programs that incentivize farmers in their practices. We’re in the farm bill looking to do things okay, you know what I may not be able to end the over subsidization of highly processed foods, but we had a hearing last week in Washington with a local what they call specialty crop farmers. What are specialty crops in America, fruits and vegetables? I mean it’s the majority of what we’re told to eat. The commodity crops are going to things like ethanol standards in gasoline. They're going to feed, not food, but feed for animals. It’s the number one reasons for rainforest deforestation right now is clearing land that grow commodity crops to feed animals. And so, what we said is well let's talk about why can't people who do specialty crops get crop insurance. Or other programs that help to sustain the growth of these more regional local farms that actually create more resilient of food systems. So, that’s what we’re looking in the farm bills. What dials can we turn up what changes can we make what pilot programs can we put in to advance the cause and create more points of light that can begin to cast away the darkness and show people like the North Star the way to go.

Greg Dalton: You’re listening to a Climate One conversation about our food system with Senator Cory Booker. Please help us get people talking more about climate by giving us a rating or review. You can do it right now on your device. On our new website you can create and share playlists focused on topics including food, energy, EVs, activism.

Coming up, the ripple effects of a pivot away from globalized supply chains.

Cory Booker: We know that when we create holistic localized systems for food and other critical supply-chain elements that we are a stronger, more resilient and more nationally secure society.

Greg Dalton: That’s up next, when Climate One continues.

This is Climate One. I’m Greg Dalton.

Let's get back to my conversation with Senator Cory Booker. Recently the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of California allowing the state to uphold a proposition related to the sale of pork meat. It forbids meat sold from places where pigs are confined in “gestation crates” – barely bigger than the pig’s body.

Cory Booker: California won. That's the only time I’ve ever written an amicus brief to the Supreme Court maybe my law professors now will respect the fact that I actually use my law degree. But California is doing so many things that are forcing, because you are 40+ million people here and such a big powerful consumer market. When you all make changes it's hard for those corporations not to have to change your practices nationwide. And I'm really grateful these propositions on humane raising of animals, these propositions on things like or these laws you’re all passing things like composting makes such a big difference. And so, my team looked at this composting problem and again we think that what's lacking in America is a composting infrastructure. And what we’re trying to do to our composting law is to create more incentives for state and local communities to shift towards composting. And the power of it as you alluded to is that we have a, first of all, we have a food waste problem we've another bill all about food waste where we have a food waste problem in this country that is horrific. About a third of our food is wasted and goes into landfills that create methane, which is significantly more harmful to our climate problem than carbon. And so, what we have said is let's figure out a way not to punish, not to make people complain my friends on the right about overregulation. But let's start creating grants and incentives to build out that infrastructure and show again points of light of people that are using that composting in such constructive ways. Where instead of throwing something away you compost it and you’re actually creating industries you’re creating materials for farmers to use for growing foods. It has again this multiplier effect for the investment of a government dollar in the growth of local economies in the support of local agricultural industries and more. And so, that's what folks lose in this whole thing. And we all in our language have to start getting away from falling into the partisan divide. And it’s really problematic when you have issues that should unite Americans around common values. And I understand there are big concentrated corporate interests. But when you start having conversations with human beings and start around what our common values are. You can often arrive at policy conclusions that make it hard for the big corporate concentration to go.

Greg Dalton: So, one part there we’re talking a lot about carrots or whether it's incentivizing people to buy an apple versus a Twinkie. One thing in the IRA was it’s basically a tax bill that rewards people for buying a heat pump or electric car, etc. It's not the regulatory stick that Democrats usually wield.

Cory Booker: Exactly.

Greg Dalton: And the Republicans in this recent, you know, debt ceiling thing that I don’t want to get into very much because I’m kind of sick of it, is that one reason they didn't go after the IRA because it is that its tax policy it's carrots. Do you think the Democrats should learn a lesson from this and use incentives more and less of that regulatory approach that they are so known for?

Cory Booker: A hundred percent. We have got to find ways, understanding politics. And again, as consciousness grows more things become possible. Civil rights legislation failed for years until consciousness grew and we all get things done. But for now, we have got to be better at looking for win wins and not falling into a partisan divide. Creating incentives is a good way, especially if I can demonstrate to you. And again, the way the Congressional Budget Office measures things often comprise difficulty. But when you can demonstrate that this action you are incentivizing will help to encourage behavior that provides a greater societal benefit and often a greater economic benefit as well. And we as Democrats need to focus on those strategies and then defend them. Because there are interests, like for example the billions of dollars we got into climate smart solutions for farmers. That money is being gone after now. In the coming budget battles, they’re gonna be trying to cut a lot of these wins that the Biden administration got that actually farmers love. I love that Chuck Grassley and I, with a lot of our differences, were able come together and fight in my early days in the Senate for wind tax credits. Because when I went out to Iowa to run for president, I was surprised how many windfarms I saw on farm. Farmers were getting win wins with that. And so, when you do programs that actually benefit people despite their party, they begin to defend the fight for those programs.

Greg Dalton: They call that mailbox money.

Cory Booker: Yes, exactly. Farmers call it money that they're going to get. And that's why I've fallen in love with farmers, the more I sit with them. Again, Republican or Democrat they may identify different parties than me but we share common values. People in my inner city of Newark and farmers in the Midwest. They may have a lot of things that they may seem to divide us but the lines that tie those groups together are so strong that if we start to affirm those connections, we can overcome the political gridlock.

Greg Dalton: You also sit on the Foreign Relations Committee. And one thing that unites Republicans and Democrats these days seems to be, you know, banging on China. And China's commonly cited as enemy for both parties. China also have as it control most of the supply chain for both solar panels and batteries and that are needed to transition away from fossil fuels. So how does the escalating tensions with China fit into the energy transition.

Cory Booker: Right.

Greg Dalton: Hard one by doing the other.

Cory Booker: Right. I tried to, the Chinese government and often when people say China and I heard this from the previous president. It fuels a lot of hate towards Chinese-Americans and towards Asian-Americans in general. And at the time when the skyrocketing hate crimes against Asian-Americans in this country it’s important that we remind people --

Greg Dalton: Thank you. My wife is Chinese. My kids are biracial and they were afraid of the anger.

Cory Booker: I mean I cannot tell you coming to San Francisco and hearing a lot of my Asian-American friends talk to me about the hate crimes that are there and something we should keep present. And so, the Chinese government is definitely doing things that should have us all conscious. I mean the pandemic was full of lessons, collateral lessons, despite the over a million Americans have died as a result of COVID. We should not lose the lessons that came from that horrific pandemic. And one of things like supply chain security and defense. And so, when it comes to the unifying Democrats and Republicans around this idea of China competition it's working across the board. And one of the reasons why Joe Biden had perhaps this most successful Congress in my lifetime because everything from the CHIPS Act to the IRA, a lot of these things were about doing things to counter China. And again, globalization we can argue about pros cons of all of it, but we know that when we create holistic localized systems for food and other critical supply-chain elements that we are a stronger, more resilient and more nationally secure society. And so, that is another way that I'm finding alliances with Republicans again that people in the right like to often demonized. But from Lindsey Graham to young Republicans like young, to Mitt Romney. There's a lot of really good alliances going on that are doing things that are gonna help our country have greater national security but also have incredibly inspiring environmental benefits as well.

Greg Dalton: And Chris Coons and Kevin Cramer, Republican have a new bipartisan bill on tariffs which is partly aimed at China to get at that. Race is also part of, we’re talking about race or relations in China it’s also part of food. And the USDA is responsible for implementing the farm bill and yet the agency has a real historic problem with racist practices. Last year I talked with John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association. He told me personal stories of his application for farm operating loan being thrown in the trash can by a USDA official who was later found guilty of discrimination but still allowed to keep his job. Let's hear from John Boyd.

Cory Booker: Yeah, please.

John Boyd: We had two settlements, but nobody was ever fired. No senior person at USDA or no local person, for that matter was ever fired for the act of discrimination. And as I organized it further, I went South, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana. The discrimination was more pervasive with many blacks weren't even given a loan application. I was given one mine was tossed in the trash can and all kinds of stuff that I personally faced. But the further I went South the more egregious and more blatant the discrimination was for black farmers.

Greg Dalton: John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association. Senator, your reaction to John Boyd and what the USDA is doing to address its legacy.

Cory Booker: Yeah, John’s become a strong ally of my office as soon as the Biden administration won their election that got them the presidency. And we saw what the shift in Congress we immediately went to the administration to try to start doing things that would rectify these specific past harms. And John's one story, but lots of great news organizations around the country have elevated these stories of black farmers who have been cheated denied resources discriminated against. It is stunning. Black farmers used to control, there used to be over a million black farmers in America proportionate to the population of African-American is all coming out of slavery blacks return to the land. But that history, especially even since 1950, blacks have been moved off their land continuously losing opportunities and dwindling down to a very small amount. And so, I've taken this problem on and won some victories, got court battles that set back but still have some resources right now and the billions of dollars trying to help African-American farmers and farmers who have been subject to specific discrimination. But it's still not enough. This is one of the sadder chapters. And when we think about generational wealth in this country the number of Americans can trace their family wealth to the Homestead Act for example, or other policies which excluded predominantly African-Americans. It is a very sad chapter that contributes to a lot of the income disparities that we have today. We, as a society have to begin to look for ways to win, especially when there's a specific measurable harm to looking at those communities and finding ways to make them whole. It is the very ideal of America to be a nation of liberty and justice for all. But these are lot of farmers in America who are very frustrated that faced unimaginable injustice and haven't found a way to be made whole and make it right.

Greg Dalton: Meat accounts for about 60% of greenhouse gas emissions from food production. One of the biggest tensions in climate conversations is the weight of individual choices versus actions. What should the average person focus on building more healthy and just food system.

Cory Booker: Well, I think this is a personal choice we all make and I'm one of these folks. I’m a vegan, but I only supposed the last thing I want my government to do is to tell me what to eat. Very ideal freedom is eat whatever you want. But I will tell you this. I don’t want my government picking winners and losers. I don’t want my government that is subsidizing some foods to the harm of other foods. We should be creating a far more level playing field and understanding that we are a nation right now that is using practices forget your diet for a second that are unsustainable. And as the entire planet earth is moving more towards the standard American diet, SAD, as the globe is moving more towards our diet. We will probably need about four planet Earths just to have the land necessary to feed the exploding demand for pork, chicken and beef. These are not the way we are doing these practices right now are not sustainable. So, I'm just a big believer that we need to start looking at alternative proteins. We need to start making more awareness out there of different alternatives and also stop picking winners and losers. That said, there's exciting things going on whether you’re vegan or vegetarian or carnivore or what have you. There's a lot of exciting things going on that should inform us all in our policy decisions and perhaps maybe in our personal decisions. So, I just sat with Dr. Mark Hyman yesterday or day before yesterday in my office. And all he wanted to do is talk to this vegan about buffalo. And Mark believes that you should reduce the meat increase vegetables but he loves his meat and he loves eggs. But he was telling me about this powerful Buffalo regenerative farm that he had been to. And I was blown away by the way he is talking about because they're doing rotational grazing environmentally practices that really harking back to the days of buffalos used to rule the plains. And so, he went to explore it and he said he couldn't believe what this regenerative buffalo farm has achieved. He said that, especially when you compare them to others that are doing it the standard American way.

Greg Dalton: Factory farms.

Cory Booker: Factory farms. And he said, in these prairies, the biodiversity exploded. Species of plants that roam the plain that people hadn't seen in years and years and years. The soil became biodiverse the nutrients in the soil it was exploding again with life not dirt but soil. And then he said what was really interesting to him was because the soil held the water and I’ve seen these pictures of people who do farming with chemicals that kill everything in the soil and dirt and it's flooding rolling one off right next to farms that use regenerative practices that are green that are rich you can see the life in the soil. But the thing that I've never heard before that marked to me was, he said that in this vast acreage historically, there have been streams and rivers in them, but they had all dried up. But as soon as they turn it back because the soil was holding so much water the streams the rivers the creeks came back and flowing to the point that neighbors were jealous. Wait a minute, how did you get this water back on your land. And they weren’t doing anything they weren’t out there watering. It was just the power of nature to heal itself if you go back to these regenerative practices. And so, again I want people to be happy. I think joy should be the center of our being. So, I'm not telling you what to eat, but the more I find that I grow my consciousness and align my diet my shopping habits, especially those of us who are privileged enough to have some flexibility and are not living paycheck to paycheck, which unfortunately is 40+ percent of Americans. But the ability to align your values and your personal habits together that's integrity.

Greg Dalton: We’ve been talking with Cory Booker about how the ag industry is dominated by a few major multinational corporations. Let’s pause my conversation with him to take a closer look at one way cattle ranchers are attempting to circumvent the tightly controlled meat market.

Ariana Brocious: The meat industry has transformed since the 1980s, when the Reagan administration loosened antitrust laws. Today, just four companies control 80% of the market. That’s meant higher prices for consumers, and a lower return for the people raising the animals. Senator Cory Booker is critical of how that economic concentration hurts ranchers and rural communities, and of the larger system of factory farms or CAFOs--concentrated animal feeding operations where most of our meat comes from. His Farm System Reform Act would address monopolistic practices of meatpackers and put a moratorium on large factory farms. As Elizabeth Rembert reports, one group of ranchers in Nebraska is creating their own meatpacking plant to gain greater financial sustainability.

Elizabeth Rembert: Hundreds of cows crowd close to the edges of a pen to push their necks through a fence to get to the golden corn grains in a feed trough.

Trey Wasserburger looks out at the cattle from his pickup. He runs this feedyard outside of North Platte, Nebraska, along with his father-in-law.

Trey Wasserburger: These will be probably ready to go here in the next 30 or 40 days and they'll go to a large packer and they'll be in the beef supply chain in 60 days, probably.

Elizabeth Rembert: Wasserburger adds up the time it takes to breed, birth and raise the cows on ranches to get them to this point.

Trey Wasserburger: Geez … yeah, you're talking this is a three year deal probably to get here.

Elizabeth Rembert: And now the feedyard work starts. Cassie Lapaseotes runs her family’s feedyard in western Nebraska and says it’s kinda like how you expect a clean bed at a hotel.

Cassie Lapaseotes: When these cattle come into a feed yard, we want their pens to be clean, their water tanks to be clean, the feed to be freshly laid out in front of them.

Elizabeth Rembert: Wasserburger and Lapaseotes are proud of how they take care of their animals to bring quality meat to the market.

But when companies buy their cattle to turn it into steaks, they basically get a predetermined rate … which is based on the price of cattle that’s a much lower quality than what Wasserburger and Lapaseotes are raising.

Trey Wasserburger: Be like an Audi and a Kia…and the Kia sets the price for the Audi. It’s a broken system, totally.

Elizabeth Rembert: Right now their paychecks don’t reflect the sweat, science and money they’ve invested.

Trey Wasserburger: <TUTS> Not yet, that’s where Sustainable Beef comes in.

Elizabeth Rembert: Wasserburger and Lapaseotes are founders and board members of Sustainable Beef, a meatpacking plant designed and owned by ranchers and cattle feeders.

Wasserburger and his father-in-law are planning to integrate solar panels, manure collection and methane gas recovery to lessen their environmental footprint. The ranchers hope that keeping processing closer to home can help them regain control – and profit – to keep their livelihoods sustainable into the future.

The idea gained momentum after the pandemic when COVID forced packers to limit operations and turn away market-ready cattle.

Trey Wasserburger: I still remember June of 2020. We couldn't get any cattle in anywhere. I lost a third of my equity in cattle almost overnight.

Elizabeth Rembert: It was a new low, as ranchers lost buyers and shoppers faced empty shelves. But it wasn’t a new problem.

For decades companies like Tyson, Cargill, JBS and National Beef have absorbed other meat processors, leaving less buyers to compete for animals. Feedlots and cattle ranchers have been forced to take lower and lower prices. From 1980 to 2017, 40% of them went out of business.

So the ranchers in Nebraska came together to create their own plant, where they can process the meat and give fair prices for premium beef.

Sustainable Beef CEO David Briggs drives around the construction site, where 100 people work to move dirt and set up a foundation.

When the plant is operational, it’ll process around 1,500 cattle a day. That’s about 1.5% of the nation’s capacity, Briggs says.

David Briggs: Our mission was not to just be a local, it was to help with the national security concept, and actually be a player in the overall industry.

Elizabeth Rembert: Walmart will help them do that. The retailer has invested in the project and agreed to buy and distribute all of Sustainable Beef’s product. Even with a boost from the nation’s most popular grocery chain, Wasserburger says they’re not trying to compete against the Big Four packers.

Trey Wasserburger: This is like comparing the Yankees to my son's T-ball team. We don't want to be the Yankees and we're not trying to be and we're not pretending like we are. This model works for us and our families and so we're gonna play ball how we know how.

Elizabeth Rembert: Austin Frerick is a Yale fellow who’s studied concentration in the meat market, and says they have an uphill road. This isn’t the first time ranchers have tried coming together to start their own packing plant.

Austin Frerick: If they succeed, that means the Big Four lost a little bit of market share. And there's nothing in recent history that says those four will lose a point of market share without a fight.

Elizabeth Rembert: Past startups have tripped over logistics, collapsed under market pressure or even been swallowed up by one of the giant packers. Still, he hopes the ranchers can find a foothold.

Austin Frerick: If they can carve out a niche where they can play T ball, at least are playing baseball …

Elizabeth Rembert: But he says the broader industry needs regulation to truly level the playing field for projects like Sustainable Beef.

Austin Frerick: I want a bunch of baseball teams. The best thing we can do for them is break up the big four, put competition back into these markets, so they have a chance to succeed.

Elizabeth Rembert: Briggs and the ranchers know it’s a challenge. But for a new future in cattle, they think it’s worth a try.

For Climate One, I’m Elizabeth Rembert.

Ariana Brocious: Elizabeth is a reporter with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest and Great Plains. And I just want to say one note about the term about sustainable beef which can kind of seem like a misnomer on a climate show.

A lot of the cows people eat are raised on ranches, they start their lives eating grass but at some point they move to these feedyards or feedlots where they’re kept in more concentrated operation and from there they go to the slaughterhouse. So that's pretty conventional, that’s the majority of beef you find at the grocery store. So when we talk about sustainability from an agricultural emissions standpoint, that might be things like capturing the methane that comes off manure lagoons or dairies. That’s not what we’re talking about here, we’re talking about the idea that the concentrated market of selling cows is just unfair and this is trying to create a more regional and economically sustainable option for farmers.

Greg Dalton: Coming up, what if the biggest obstacle to progress is ourselves?

Cory Booker: The most toxic threat is the hate that is growing on Americans for each other. And this is creating an environment where we can't even talk to each other.

Greg Dalton: That’s up next, when Climate One continues.

This is Climate One. I’m Greg Dalton. Let’s pick up my conversation with Senator Cory Booker.

Cory Booker: The most powerful way and my favorite story in leadership is about Gandhi entertaining visitors in his tent. The mother who asked Gandhi emphasize dietary discipline and Gandhi talk about vegan this guy was like a fruitarian vegan. And she says, tell my son to stop eating sugar. And he goes, I won’t. And she seems to protest. And he goes, no, I’m sorry I won’t but come back in two months and ask me again. She comes back into the tent with her son two months later, Mahatma, sir with great respect my son will listen to you. He has terrible dietary habits his health is suffering would you tell him to stop eating sugar. Gandhi gets up, put his hands on the boy. Mahatma touches this child and says, my child, you must stop eating sugar. The mother was pleased the child was affected and she's going to leave, but she stops and says forgive my disrespect, but why didn’t you just tell my son to stop eating sugar two months ago? And he said, because two months ago I was eating sugar. And so, I have seen in my life the greatest impact I can have on others is when I'm deeply authentic living according to my values. That's what often this is. Nothing worse than a politician that talks right and walks left.

[Applause]

And so, I want people to pursue their joy. I want people to expand their understanding of Americans. Because the most toxic threat to our nation right now I believe this and we have real problems in America and we have real problems globally. But I think the most toxic threat is the hate that is growing on Americans for each other. And this is creating an environment where we can't even talk to each other or far more common values. I was campaigning pretty hard in the last midterm election traveling all around the country. And I sat down on a plane and I often have people saying nice things to me often, unfortunately, people usual send me Mother's Day cards because I often get called you mother something else. So, I get all kind of reactions across America as I crisscrossed the nation. But people are being really nice to be on this plane ride and I sit down next to a mom and a daughter 80 and 60 and they don't know who I am. And here I am large African-American male and for my ego some people might think this is wrong, but for my ego I love hearing what they said. They go, sir, who are you? Are you a professional athlete? And I'm like, well, I could be if I wanted to. But I said no ma'am, I'm a United States senator. And immediately all of us in America if you need a politician congressperson you want to know what tribe they’re in. Are they in your tribe, their tribe or my tribe? The other rising, the impersonality of that. Where do you stand with me or against me? And too much we have a binary world in America. And I said ma'am, I'm a Democrat. And she looks angry at me and says, I should've brought my Trump hat.

Now there is a moment all of life our power is not in what happens to us. Our power is never in the stimulus it's always in the response. And we have a choice to respond with love, empathy, compassion, or to respond with negativity hate lower frequencies of our being. And I look at the woman and I'm not dancing to this tune. And I look at her and I go, oh my gosh, Donald Trump, he signed two of my biggest pieces of legislation into law. And she seems surprised by that. And I go through some of the common values of that legislation. One on criminal justice reform. One on getting investment into low income rural and urban areas in America. And the record was scratched. It’s a long flight, but in the end of the flight we are talking about our personal lives. I learned about their family they learned about mine. We’re affirming our commonality and talking about some of the problems in America being we don't talk to each other. We don't listen to each other.

And so, my biggest worry about a lot of these issues is when they fall into the pardons we stop listening. There's a paper I remember if I remember correctly, they did a study where they took arcane educational issue policy and this is a Democrat policy. And immediately 80% of Republicans were against the policy because it was labeled Democratic policy. But Democrats were not much better when they flip it around. When it says Republican policy, all Democrats hated it. And that is the crisis because the issues we’re talking about cannot be solved in a partisan way. I'm looking at the Senate right now and I hate to tell you the map for 2024 is looking pretty bad. We are defending a lot of seats we being Democrats are defending seats are gonna be hard, I hope I'm gonna be everywhere from Montana to Ohio to even West Virginia if Manchin will have me. But my point is we have got to start not only I think every election matters every election is important, but somehow, we have to commit ourselves to creating more dialogue, more ability to affirm each other's humanity and still believe that we have common cause in this country. Because when America acts with a sense of increased compassion and empathy and common cause we dazzle humanity in what we achieve. From immigration laws that let the entire plan is diversity come here and breakthroughs in science defying gravity going to the moon to even affirmations of human rights and human dignity that have put us as a standard bearer for our planet that’s still struggling with LGBTQ rights as we see in Uganda and elsewhere. We can do these things when we stop hating each other. And even if we disagree find ways to affirm this commonality. I call it love people who call it just affirming your fellow citizenship.

[Applause]

And so, I'm not saying that there are big issues I keep returning to gun violence that anguish me. I've lost people I know to assault rifles. I'm not saying that we’re gonna solve those with kumbaya moments. But I know we can't solve those unless two things happen. One is we stop demonization which often prevents coalition. And number two is what King said. When we rush to demonize the other side, we forget the wisdom of what King said. So, what we have to repent for in this day and age is not just the vitriolic words and violent actions of the bad people, but the appalling silence and inaction of the good people. To me whether it's climate change or gun violence. If you pull these issues, Democrat Republicans, most people agree with us. But yet there’s too many people that are not turning their head and their heart.

As Frederick Douglass says, I prayed for years for my freedom and I was still a slave. And it wasn't until I started praying with my feet that I found my freedom. More people need to get up off the couch like the guy watching the Edmund Pettus Bridge who said, you know what I'm not going my inability to do everything to undermine my determination to do something. I’m gonna do the best I can with what I have where I am. But the key is to do something. This is what we’re missing. There are too many people on the sidelines of America and don't realize they’re needed to make history and to save the future.

Greg Dalton: Oil companies have lied and deceived the American public for a long time, in particular executives. And again, like you said about China it’s the Chinese government, not the Chinese people. Not every rank-and-file worker who works in the fossil industry they hear that and might say, oh you think I’m bad have that division. Executives certain companies, particularly Exxon. Some people in climate and the left think that oil companies that anything that's bad for that, you know, anything that’s good for them must be bad. They have to be like run out of business don't want to deal with them. What’s your approach to the villains which in this case, the industry you talk about empathy and working with people you disagree with? How do you apply that to the fossil fuel industry?

Cory Booker: Well, I’ll say some things that, you know, Abraham Lincoln said, too much agreement kills a conversation. I am a guy that really believes because I'm on the foreign relations committee I see the global context, that Americans are demanding oil, they are. So, when you point your finger and want to vilify the people that are delivering oil to your pump you got to look in the mirror first.

Greg Dalton: That's hard.

Cory Booker: It's hard. And then Americans might want to, and it’s a global market by the way. We're not living on the oil that we’re drilling here in the United States. We’re buying oil from around the world. And we may succeed in stopping some drilling here, but if we’re still not doing anything about demand guess where that oil is coming from.

Greg Dalton: Nigeria.

Cory Booker: Places that have worse environmental protections. Your oil drilled here has better carbon models than the oil drilled over there and then these are petro-dictators who are engaged in that oil is like you’re paying blood money there. So, let's not be too self-righteous about the problem we have here. I'm a big believer that we need to be fast tracking our efforts to get the demand for oil lower. And without vilifying but start to try to expand the promise. And I'll give you one example you’re talking about this in the car right over here because we thought you are gonna bring this up I'm grateful you didn't, so I don't know why I'm about to. This is my staff is like, you know, they find this a driving test. If you look at the, don't look at the barrier, you look in the barrier you drive into the barrier. They made me look at this beforehand. But we just had a big moment on the Senate floor where part of the debt ceiling fight were some permitting issues. And I’m surprised they get Democrats telling me Corey, we got to do some permitting reform. And I’m like, yeah, I’m all for permitting. In order to get the transmission, we have massive transmission problems now with solar, wind, how are we gonna get that. We definitely need permitting reform or else that slowness of our transition off of oil is going to be affected. I'm the biggest believer in permitting reform. And I'm the biggest believer in just dumb regulation stopping things.

When I was mayor of the city of Newark, I had people bringing in cargo putting it on trucks and driving it to Exit 8A far away from Newark warehousing and there. And then when they needed to be sent out, they took back into Newark spewing all this carbon into the air and smog that gets my kids four times the asthma rates. So, I said all this vacant land in Newark I want a bill down there but the EPA comes in and says, well you have to have groundwater standards at the same level of residential. And so, I had to start jumping over all these environmental hoops that ultimately, we’re gonna reduce the amount of carbon that I have. You’re causing the problem to your environmental delays that I need to do. So, we’ll find very few Democrats that’s friendly towards me as understanding. That we need to have the common goal here and not mess it up with all this muckety-muck. But what I get so frustrated about and I wish Americans could have seen everything that I see. We did this environmental injustice tour to America. And from going to Duplin County, North Carolina, where the CAFOs are where these contract farmers who have miserable lives because they are short of sharecroppers. But these big multinational port corporations who three or four of them control the whole market dictate to the contract farmers how they have to raise things big warehouses of pigs all the feces going through these grades into massive lagoons and then they’re sprayed onto fields in low income communities.

And so, you walk through these communities, community of African-Americans who has been on that land since slave times since slavery was around. And now the value of their land is going to the floor. They can’t open their windows. They can’t put their clothing on the lines they have respiratory diseases clusters of disease there spiked and they said how can we have this happen. How could Americans eat their bacon and not understand how we’re suffering. Again, it's the lines that divide us that stop us from having empathy and understanding. Whatever religion love your neighbor it’s not a geographic thing we’re all each other's neighbors. But I travel to a place called Cancer Alley. You don’t need to know. Look up Cancer Alley you’re gonna see section of the Mississippi that's near Baton Rouge where again it happens again to be a low-income community this is a low income African-American community where the particulates in the air all of these things have been permitted that’s spewed these chemical plants are spewing stuff in there the cancer rate cancer clusters. I sat and I couldn't hold back my tears. As family after family in this crowded black church were getting up and telling about their family members who have died of cancer. I could take you Uniontown, Alabama I could go to the places where we don't know the absolute misery and suffering of other Americans based upon systems whether it's petrochemicals or the food industry that are poisoning Americans right now. And so, that's my bigger frustration is that again there are too many people that just don't know about the systems that we’re participating on. And when you expand that lands beyond America – And you start visiting other countries, whether it's people working in warehouses that produce the devices we carry around or the clothing that we have. The poverty that worries me most, and I’m a United States senator made a decision to live the last 25 years in the community or below the poverty line where we don’t mistake wealth with worth. I do a lot of economic justice things the child tax credit. Me, Bennett, Brown others fought for that help cut poverty, but we couldn't get it to be permanent. Common sense things to address poverty I do it internationally. But the poverty that most worries me every day is the poverty of empathy in this world. Somehow we just don't understand the suffering of someone that often is not that far away that we feel again it’s not about blame it’s about responsibility, that we feel no responsibility in and live in a blissful ignorance of the challenges that are affecting people Democrat, Republican, forget they’re affecting people human beings. Until we can close that gap then things are not, until we close that gap, we’re not gonna make the changes we need to make.

Greg Dalton: Thank you for that. I wish more senators thought that way and talk that way. And thank you Senator for bringing the power of your heart and your mindfulness into this conversation here today with us.

Greg Dalton: Thank you very much. Senator Cory Booker.

Climate One’s empowering conversations connect all aspects of the climate emergency.

Greg Dalton: Climate One’s empowering conversations connect all aspects of the climate emergency. To hear more, subscribe wherever you get your pods. Talking about climate can be hard-- AND it’s critical to address the transitions we need to make in all parts of society. Please help us get people talking more about climate by giving us a rating or review. You can do it right now on your device. You can also help by sending a link to this episode to a friend. On our new website you can create and share playlists focused on topics including food, energy, EVs, activism. By sharing you can help people have their own deeper climate conversations.

Ariana Brocious: Brad Marshland is our senior producer; Our managing director is Jenny Park. Austin Colón is producer and editor. Megan Biscieglia is our production manager. Wency Shaida is our development manager, Ben Testani is our communications manager. Our theme music was composed by George Young (and arranged by Matt Willcox). Gloria Duffy is CEO of The Commonwealth Club of California, the nonprofit and nonpartisan forum where our program originates. I’m Ariana Brocious.

3:35 – Senator Booker shares a personal story about activism
10:54 – Senator Booker on the Farm Bill
15:28 – Senator Booker on improving SNAP
24:14 – Senator Booker on Incentives vs. Regulations
30:24 – Senator Booker on racism in the USDA
37:07 – Contributor Elizabeth Rembert Field Piece on Sustainable Beef
54:29 – Senator Booker on Permitting Reform

Play

Climate Smart Agriculture with Secretary Tom Vilsack

Otto Pilot — Fri, 17 Feb 2023 08:01:00 +0000

Climate Smart Agriculture with Secretary Tom Vilsack

02/17/2023

From tilling soil to fertilizer use to belching and farting cows, agriculture is a major climate polluter, responsible for around 11 percent of U.S. emissions. Conventional farming aims to maximize crop production using practices that contribute carbon to the atmosphere.

“For 60 years, the message that's been conveyed to farmers across the United States has been, you've gotta produce more. You've gotta produce more,” says Tom Vilsack, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, a role he also held for eight years under President Barack Obama.

But by using tools like cover crops, compost and rotational grazing, soil also holds the potential for massive carbon sequestration, which is good for the climate, crops and farmers. For years, the government has incentivized environmental best practices through federal programs that address things like habitat, watershed health and erosion. But the Biden administration has put more money and support into those efforts with a climate lens. In 2022, the USDA launched a Climate-Smart Commodities program, investing more than $3 billion into 141 projects, including many small and underserved producers.

“That's one of the principal reasons for doing climate smart practices: not just to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or to sequester more carbon, but to improve soil health. And as we improve soil health, we're also going to improve productivity,” Vilsack says.

Despite domestic and international pressure for climate action, Secretary Vilsack says the voluntary nature of these programs is better than regulations.

“When you try to regulate farming operations, what you do is you essentially invite a series of lawsuits, a set of efforts to delay the implementation of a particular regulation. We're gonna get much further, much faster, listening to farmers who basically said, ‘if you create a voluntary system, which is incentive based and market-based, we will respond.’”

And there are other incentive models out there to encourage farmers to change their practices for climate reasons. As Executive Director of Zero Foodprint, Anthony Myint works to support healthy soil as a climate solution by organizing restaurants and businesses to add a small surcharge on meals and food. These funds are collected and distributed to participating farmers to pay them to implement things like cover cropping, compost and other climate smart practices. Myint says the amount each consumer contributes is small, but can have a big impact.

“One percent actually adds up to quite a lot. At the society level, 1% of GDP would generate a trillion dollars a year towards climate solutions. And according to Project Drawdown, that $1 trillion a year between now and 2050 would actually be enough to lower global temperatures,” he says.

Highlights:
2:25 Secretary Tom Vilsack on methane reduction
6:20 Tom Vilsack on Climate-Smart Commodities and voluntary incentives
13:13 Tom Vilsack on using less fossil-based fertilizers
17:30 Tom Vilsack on working collaboratively with tribes for forest stewardship
20:00 Tom Vilsack on addressing USDA’s history of racial discrimination
27:30 Jeremy Martin on corn ethanol versus gasoline
31:20 Jeremy Martin on updates to renewable fuel standard
40:00 Anthony Myint on current agricultural subsidies and incentives
43:20 Anthony Myint on Zero Foodprint’s mission and work

Guests

Tom Vilsack

Secretary, US Department of Agriculture

Anthony Myint

Executive Director, Zero Foodprint

Jeremy Martin

Senior Scientist, Union of Concerned Scientists

Zero Foodprint (zerofoodprint.org)

USDA Climate-Smart Commodities (usda.gov)

Note: Transcripts are generated using a combination of automated software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the actual audio before quoting it.

Greg Dalton: This is Climate One. I’m Greg Dalton. Agriculture is responsible for around 11 percent of U.S. emissions. Conventional farming aims to maximize crop production using practices that contribute carbon to the atmosphere.

Tom Vilsack: For 60 years, the message that's been conveyed to farmers across the United States has been, you've gotta produce more. You've gotta produce more.

Greg Dalton: And yet by using tools like cover crops and compost, soil ALSO holds the potential for massive carbon sequestration, which is good for the climate and farmers.

Tom Vilsack: That's one of the principle reasons for doing climate smart practices, not just to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or to sequester more carbon, but to improve soil health.

Greg Dalton: So how do we change the practices on the ground and get more farmers using these tools?

Tom Vilsack: We're gonna get much further, much faster, listening to farmers who basically said, if you create a voluntary system, which is incentive based and market-based, we will respond.

Greg Dalton: Climate Smart Agriculture with Secretary Tom Vilsack. Up next on Climate One.

Greg Dalton: This is Climate One, I’m Greg Dalton.

Ariana: And I’m Ariana Brocious.

Greg Dalton: When we think of climate-harming emissions we often think of smokestacks, powerplants, and car tailpipes. But agriculture is a huge part of our total carbon footprint.

Ariana Brocious: From tilling soil to fertilizer use to belching and farting cows, agriculture is a major carbon emitter. For years, the government has incentivized environmental best practices through federal programs that address things like habitat, watershed health and erosion.

Greg Dalton: Now the Biden administration has put more money and support into those efforts with a climate lens.

Ariana Brocious: Tom Vilsack is U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, a role he previously held for eight years under President Barack Obama. In 2022, his agency, the USDA, launched a Climate-Smart Commodities program. The USDA is investing more than $3 billion into 141 projects, including many small and underserved producers.

Greg Dalton: We’ll get into the climate smart ag in a moment. I began my conversation with Tom Vilsack by asking about the Global Methane pledge, which was signed by 150 countries and aims to cut emissions from dairy 30% by 2030. California is aiming to cut methane emissions 40 percent in the same period, prompting me to suggest the US plan lacks ambition. Secretary Vilsack disagrees.

Tom Vilsack: The fact is there are nine separate dairy projects associated with our climate Smart Agriculture and Forestry Commodity Partnership Initiative, which are looking at a variety of processes for reducing methane, capturing methane and converting methane from dairy production. And I think those programs will provide us a very clear pathway for both large and small dairies to basically embrace climate smart practices, which will lead over time to methane reduction. In addition to that, the Inflation Reduction Act contains additional resources to decarbonize our utility grid in rural communities. And I suspect strongly that you're gonna see an increase with that funding and the renewable energy for America program funding under the IRA in digesters. So I think there's a lot of activity that may not be on the surface, or may not be as prevalent as one company's commitment. But I think the industry here in the US is committed to getting to net zero by 2050 and is working towards that goal.

Greg Dalton: The dairy digesters that you mentioned turn waste into electricity. That requires some real scale to make that investment. And some people are concerned that that hurts local air quality, local pollution. It helps globally and creates electricity. But people who live near large industrial beef and dairy operations, does that come in conflict with some of your priorities about helping traditionally marginalized communities?

Tom Vilsack: No, I don't think so because part of what we're working on through the climate smart commodities effort is a separation technology in which we are separating the solids and the liquids, reclaiming the liquids so that we have better utilization of our scarce water resources and taking the solids and basically pelletizing those solids, which I think will eliminate a lot of the concerns that folks have. And I think ultimately this is a technology that as we utilize it will significantly reduce many of the challenges that the livestock industry has faced relative to waste. In addition, these digesters not only take a focus on animal waste, but they also are a good source for food waste, which can eliminate the utilization of and placement of food waste in landfills, which is a very significant methane producer. So I think there are a number of technologies that are gonna lead us to a much better place for our livestock industry, for farm income, for the quality of life in rural communities and for us as a country, providing leadership in terms of climate change.

Greg Dalton: The partnership for climate smart commodities uses incentives to encourage farms, ranches, orchards, and forests to clean up their operations. What do you say to people who say that incremental voluntary approaches by industry won't be enough or fast enough to slow rising climate disruption and meet the Paris goals?

Tom Vilsack: Well, I would say that they need to understand what works in the countryside. I can tell you that if you understand the economics of farming, it can be incredibly challenging. And when you try to regulate farming operations, what you do is you essentially invite a series of lawsuits, a set of efforts to delay the implementation of a particular regulation. We're gonna get much further, much faster, in terms of climate smart practices by listening to farmers who basically said, if you create a voluntary system, which is incentive-based and market-based, and you create an opportunity for us to have a value-added proposition in the marketplace, we will respond. And the proof of that is in addition to the 141 projects that we actually funded, there were roughly 850 other projects that were proposed that we couldn't fund because of limitation of funding. So there's tremendous interest out there in the countryside. The Inflation Reduction Act, and to a certain extent the infrastructure law, provide additional resources that will complement the Climate Smart Partnership effort. So I'm confident we're gonna see significant progress and there's a factor of this program that people often don't focus on, which is there's a measurement, verification, monitoring, and reporting requirement associated with these projects. So we're gonna know what works and what doesn't work, and we'll be able to funnel and target resources in the future to promote what does work.

Greg Dalton: And you mentioned those 140 some odd programs. USDA programs often favor industrial companies that have capital and resources to make the transition and it takes money to get money out of the federal government. You talked recently at Tuskegee University in Alabama about helping small and historically marginalized landowners transition to climate smart practices. So what is being done to help small scale farmers, ranchers make this transition that involves investment and learning new ways of doing things?

Tom Vilsack: Well, there are a couple answers and responses to that question. First of all, the structure of the Climate Smart Partnership Initiative recognized the importance of making sure that we were able to provide smaller grants to smaller farming operations, to underserved operators. And so a number of the projects within that 141 are in fact focused on small-sized operations, mid-sized operations, historically underserved producers. And the partnerships that we've formed with universities, with environmental groups, with conservation groups, food companies, with retailers, are providing additional support above and beyond what the federal government is providing, leveraging roughly 50% of additional investment. So that's one aspect. The other aspect is working with those producers to make sure that they take full advantage of the regular conservation programs that are offered. We know that it sometimes can be difficult for underserved producers to be able to access these programs. So we've entered into a number of contracts with cooperative groups, groups that have a trusted relationship with small and mid-sized operators to provide them resources to be able to expand our outreach and to provide technical assistance to those producers so they can qualify more easily for the normal conservation programs. And then, it's great that you do conservation. It's great that you are encouraging climate smart practices, but you want those folks to be able to stay in business and so it's necessary for us to develop a local and regional food system with market opportunity for those underserved producers, for those minority producers, for those small sized operators. So we are using federal procurement resources to help create that local and regional food system. We're creating resources to be able to address food deserts, particularly in areas, rural areas where local and regional food producers might be able to provide assistance. We're expanding farm to school and farm to institution programs, all designed to create market opportunities. And then as we do business with many of these producers and they go through a tough stretch as producers often do, now we are changing our attitude and our approach to debt servicing instead of focusing on trying to figure out how to collect the debt. We're in a position now where we're providing some debt forgiveness, and we're also developing a new structure to work with these producers to make it a little bit easier for them to stay on the land.

Greg Dalton: I'd like to ask about practices that are fairly well established on the margins of our industrial agricultural system in this country, and could bring climate benefits if more widely adopted. I’m talking about cover crops, regenerative agro forestry, no-till farming. We've heard from other ag experts that federal environmental incentive programs are way oversubscribed. There's more interest among farmers than there is money to give to them. So what are you doing to change that?

Tom Vilsack: Well, that was true before the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. But as a result of the passage of that, we now see an historic investment that's being made by the Biden administration and by Congress in those very programs that as you said, were oversubscribed. The challenge will be for us to make sure that we also have the personnel and to provide the technical assistance necessary to make sure that folks take full advantage of those increased finances and financial assistance. So I think we're gonna see a tremendous expansion of interest and use of those traditional conservation programs. And we know that there are roughly 45 different practices, you mentioned several, that we are going to try to steer or target or focus the resources under the Inflation Reduction Act to be, to better encourage rotational grazing, to better encourage regenerative practices, cover crops. We also have looked at ways in which we can encourage through risk management tools through crop insurance premiums if you will, or incentives to encourage more cover crop activity, and also trying to find markets for that.

Greg Dalton: I talk to climate people of course across a range of sectors and some of the biggest optimists I talk to are the soil people who, you know, soil is sexy now and, and soil can sequester water and carbon. So speak specifically to, to soil cuz it's often urban people think soil and dirt's the same thing.

Tom Vilsack: Oh no. You know, I think it's important for people to understand that every single acre of ground, even an 80 acre, 160 acre, 640 acre farm is different. It's sort of like kids. Every acre's different. You have to understand the characteristics of every acre. Some acres need more nutrition, some acres need less, and that's why we're investing in precision agriculture, why we're making sure that as farmers are utilizing inputs that they're doing, it is in the most efficient and effective way possible. And we're making sure that those tools are not just available to commercial sized operators, but understanding the challenges that some of those small and mid-sized operators have.

We're also trying to make sure that they can take full advantage of reduced costs associated with precision agriculture. Now, we also understand and appreciate that as we do more climate smart practices, the expectation is that the productivity of soil is going to increase, it's gonna get richer, it's gonna get better, it's gonna get healthier. That's one of the principle reasons for doing climate smart practices, not just to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or to sequester more carbon, but to improve soil health. And as we improve soil health, we're also going to improve productivity. So there's multiple benefits, if you will, from Climate Smart Practices.

Greg Dalton: So does that mean less pounding it with fossil fuel-based fertilizers?

Tom Vilsack: Well, we're looking at a variety of ways in which we can look at alternatives and substitutes. We obviously know that the cost of fertilizer today is expensive, in large part because of Russia's unprovoked and ill-advised war in Ukraine. And the president has instructed us to utilize roughly a half a billion dollars to try to figure out ways in which we can be more self-reliant when it comes to fertilizer in terms of substitutes, in terms of more efficient use of fertilizer. But you know, what we're learning from our research and an understanding of precision agriculture is that some acres of ground that are currently being fertilized don't really require fertilizer at all. Or require a significantly reduced amount. So, in fact, I talked to one group of scientists at Iowa State University who suggested that maybe in the Midwest, perhaps as much as 30% of the corn acres that are currently utilizing fertilizer may not need much, if any, uh, fertilizer. That would be an enormous savings and an enormous opportunity to have a more efficient, more effective, a more soil-health focused agriculture. And this is an incredibly transformational time in American agriculture. I think there's an understanding and appreciation that for 60 years, the message that's been conveyed to farmers across the United States has been, you've gotta produce more. You've gotta produce more. And American farmers responded. American consumers have had an incredibly wide array of choice as a result. The challenge, however, is that not only have we seen some concerns about soil health, but we've also seen a growing disparity in terms of income opportunities for those who were able to get larger over time and those who decided or, or had to remain small or midsize. So our challenge, I think, is to move away from that singular model of focusing on production and looking at ways in which we can not only be product productive, but also profitable, sustainable, and resilient. And that requires, I think, a commitment to local and regional food systems. It requires a commitment to climate smart agriculture. It requires an expansion of processing capacity so there's more competition. It requires greater assistance from the government to embrace more value-added propositions, whether it's climate smart commodities, or whether it's organic. All of that is actually being done now at USDA as a result of the American Rescue Plan resources, the infrastructure law, and the Inflation Reduction Act.

Greg Dalton: You’re listening to a Climate One conversation with US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. Please help us get people talking more about climate by giving us a rating or review. You can do it right now on your device. You can also help by sending a link to this episode to a friend. By sharing you can help people have their own deeper climate conversations. Coming up, how the US Department of Agriculture is trying to move beyond decades of bias and discrimination against farmers of color and women:

Tom Vilsack: We are learning that we have to really think carefully about how to infuse into USDA, an understanding of the power and the benefit of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. The president is very, very focused on this and is expecting us to deliver on that promise.

Greg Dalton: That’s up next, when Climate One continues.

Greg Dalton: This is Climate One. I’m Greg Dalton. Let’s get back to my conversation with Tom Vilsack, US Secretary of Agriculture. The agency he leads, the USDA, controls vast tracts of forest in the American West that have been scorched by horrific wildfires in recent years. The Forest Service Climate Adaptation Plan says its ability to adapt to climate change depends on building trust and developing strong collaborations with tribal nations and other indigenous peoples. I asked Vilsack what he’s personally doing to build that trust and overcome centuries of settler colonialism.

Tom Vilsack: Well, I think one answer to that question is basically encouraging the forest service to do what it has wanted to do for some time, which is to work collaboratively with tribes in a co-stewardship. The fact is tribes understand forest health as well as anybody. They've obviously lived in those forests. They have depended on those forests for many, many, many, many years, if not centuries. And so they understand and appreciate the importance of forest health. So working in co- stewardship and co-management, that is to say working collaboratively, in a consultive way with tribes as we look at ways in which we can improve forest. We've got a crisis on our hand, no question about it. That's why we have a wildfire crisis strategy. We just recently announced an additional 11 priority landscapes where we're investing between those landscapes and the 10 that we announced last year, roughly 930 million in helping to provide treatment in those forests in a thoughtful way to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire. To create opportunities for healthier forests. And from that obviously come a wide variety of benefits, not the least of which is we're not seeing carbon go up into the atmosphere. We're seeing more recreational opportunities and we're seeing a better relationship with tribes and others, frankly, as we work. We listened to folks. We went out before we decided on these 11 landscapes in the 10 previous landscapes. We listened to folks in those areas and said, what do you think we need to do? What do you think we need to focus on? Where do we, where do you think the need is greatest? And by listening, we've been able to identify these priority landscapes, and the result is about 134 of the most seriously at-risk landscapes are gonna be treated, if you will, as a result of these resources, uh, which hopefully over time will reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire.

Greg Dalton: During America's racial reckoning in the last three years, I've learned a lot about how systemic racism has shaped this country and frankly benefited me as white man. You and I have sort of wind in our back every time we walk into a situation, and I'm ashamed how inadequate my fancy private education was, and I've learned that I need to own some of my own ignorance and not lay that at the feet of others. What's been your journey in the last few years? What do you see now about race in America that you didn't see the first time you were in this position?

Tom Vilsack: Well, I'm not gonna say that I didn't see it the first time I was in this position because I spent a lot of time, uh, working to try to resolve literally thousands of claims against the Department of Agriculture for discrimination that was experienced by African American farmers, Hispanic farmers, women farmers, native American farmers. And as a result of the work of the Obama administration, we were able to resolve and at least provide some level of justice to over 20,000 of those producers. And we did have a process in which we began the process of trying to make sure that USDA embraced diversity as opposed to being opposed to it. That work continues now in the Biden administration at an accelerated level. I mentioned the debt servicing. That's a good example of work that we're doing with distressed farmers, many of whom are minority producers, basically changing the way in which we think about the relationship between us and those farmers in terms of when times are tough. I mentioned the fact that we are looking for ways in which small and mid-size producers can access additional markets and additional support from the government. We also established an equity commission, Which the Deputy Secretary and Arturo Rodriguez, former president of the United Farm Workers, are co-leading. And this equity commission is basically taking a look at the way in which we've done business in the past to try to identify places where there may be systemic issues that have created barriers, created difficulty, made it more difficult for folks to access the programs at USDA. And I think we're learning a lot from that. We are learning that we have to really think carefully about how to infuse into USDA, an understanding of the power and the benefit of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. The president is very, very focused on this and is expecting us to deliver on that promise. And we're taking a look at many of our programs. Give you a couple additional examples. We are focused on rural development. And the need for us to basically identify areas where there has been persistent poverty for far too long. And by persistent poverty, I'm talking about poverty rates that have exceeded 20% for 10, 15, 20, 30 years. We have established a program called the Rural Partnership Network, where we are essentially going into states where there are areas of persistent poverty and we're identifying several communities, maybe two, maybe three or four communities where this has been the case for quite some time, we've assembled a staff that will be physically located in those communities, who will work on behalf of USDA. And connect those communities to every single federal agency that does work domestically. So as these communities identify key programs and projects that are of most interest to them, to basically take the next step to get themselves in a better position, we're gonna be able to help provide the guidance, the technical assistance, the assurance of success, if you will, as they work with the federal government. Sometimes can be somewhat of a daunting activity for, especially for communities that are persistently poor. By no means do we have all the answers, but there is an aggressive effort being made.

Greg Dalton: EV sales are surging in this country and around the world. Batteries are winning the technology race over hydrogen and other alternatives to petroleum. If the federal government and California continue to subsidize biofuels made from soy and corn, as a former governor of Iowa, you’re known as a fan of blending corn with gasoline. A study last year funded in part by the US Department of Energy found that corn ethanol is likely at least 24% more carbon intensive than gasoline due to emissions resulting from land use changes to grow corn along with processing and combustion. Should the US reconsider its support for corn ethanol given that the market is clearly choosing electric vehicles with batteries?

Tom Vilsack: Well, first of all there are a number of studies that I could provide to you that would suggest that what you've suggested about biofuels is not actually environmentally correct. When you took a look at air quality, when you take a look at the increased productivity of corn production, what you'll find, I think is at the end of the day, it is significantly better to have biofuel mixed into your fuel than to basically rely on purely fossil fuels from the environment. So that's number one. Number two, you know, the reality is that as much discussion as there's been about electric vehicles the reality is that it’s going to take a considerable period of time before our vehicle fleet is totally electric. Some have suggested it may be another 20, 30 years before that happens. So in the meantime, do you want cleaner air? Do you want a fuel with lower carbon intensity? It seems to me that you do want to have that kind of fuel. And then finally, you know, it's one thing to talk about putting a battery in a car. It's another thing to put that battery in an airplane. And so that's why the aviation industry is making a concerted effort to encourage us to support an acceleration of sustainable aviation fuel, lower carbon biofuel that will fuel our planes and our ships to reduce the greenhouse gas input of that transportation system. And we are very much interested in working with the Department of Energy and the Department of Transportation to accelerate that. We've set as a goal a grand challenge of producing 3 billion gallons of that sustainable aviation fuel. So the reality here is that it's not just, it's not just fuel. There's an entire bioeconomy that can help us transition from a fossil fuel-based economy to one that is more bio-based. And as we do that, we a) produce more income for farmers. B), environmentally better products for consumers, and c) create better manufacturing jobs in rural places, all of which is, I think, very consistent with the president's design to rebuild and restructure the economy of this country from the bottom up and the middle out to strengthen the middle class. You've gotta do that in, in rural places. To do that, you've gotta bring manufacturing back and I will tell you that we are looking at ways in which you can use agricultural waste in a million different ways to produce those products. So it's an exciting future ahead of us.

Greg Dalton: And, and forest and wood and timber from forest so it doesn't burn. Yeah.

Tom Vilsack: Woody biomass basically helps to reduce that hazardous fuel buildup, which in turn reduces the risk of catastrophic fires. So a lot of benefits I think from what we're trying to do at USDA and we're excited about.

Greg Dalton: Tom Vilsack, secretary of the US Department of Agriculture. Thanks for coming on Climate One.

Tom Vilsack: Thank you.

Greg Dalton: As we just heard, Secretary Tom Vilsack justifies ethanol by saying it burns cleaner than gasoline. But I wanted to know about the full lifecycle analysis of corn ethanol and the climate impacts of biofuels if you include land use, water use, cutting forest to grow more soy. So I spoke with Jeremy Martin, senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Clean Transportation Program.

Jeremy Martin: Yeah, so there've been a lot of analyses of that question over the last 10 years, and they haven't reached a firm consensus. I think in some respects it's not the right question because nobody's really reconsidered the ethanol that's already blended with gasoline. Right? That decision was made. That's really part of the system now. Is corn ethanol better or worse than gasoline? My inclination is that yes, it is better than gasoline. It's cleaner today than it was 10 years ago. And there's a lot of ways it could get cleaner over time. But that's not the whole story. I mean, a lot of these scientific debates have been around what was the impact of land use change, and I think that informs how much corn should we use for fuel? How much vegetable oil can we use for fuel? How much of these other resources can we use for fuel? So getting the right answer to how much is different than, is it better or worse than gasoline? Because ultimately, we need to get to zero. So being a little better than gasoline's, not the right metric over the long term. So the way that I think about it is, what's the consequence of dramatically increasing biofuel use as we did shortly after the renewable fuel standard was passed, especially in the period between 2005 and 2010. Of course people have slightly different interpretation of it, but the lesson I take away is, you know, we shouldn't repeat that again. We shouldn't have a huge increase in biofuel production in a short period of time. that's gonna have ripple effects in the agricultural system, which could be damaging,

Greg Dalton: Right. And during that time of 2005 to 2010, there was a lot of debate and concern about food versus fuel.

Jeremy Martin: Yeah. Well, so we saw a big expansion, very rapidly of the use of corn for ethanol, which went from, you know, before 2005 it was a fairly minor use of corn, and by the time we got to 2010, it was something like a third of the corn was being sent to ethanol plants and was one of the biggest users of corn together with animal feed. And that sudden shift was quite disruptive. What's interesting to me today, is that's happening again, but not with corn. Actually corn use for ethanol has been fairly stable over the last decade now. It's actually soybean oil, which is suddenly expanding as oil refineries retrofit to process renewable diesel from soybean oil. And this is happening again in a period where food prices are high. And, and in particular, vegetable oil prices are high on the global market for a variety of reasons, not all related to biofuels, but it definitely begs the question of, you know, have we learned the lesson of 2005 and can we translate a lesson about corn to the other important global commodity crops of soybeans and vegetable oil?

Greg Dalton: And also when you mentioned soy, I think of deforesting the Amazon to grow soy to go into gas tanks and into, into feed cows. What about that part of the equation?

Jeremy Martin: Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of reasons to be worried about a big increase in the use of vegetable oil for fuels. The US is a big producer of soybeans. So what's likely to happen is, you know, more of the crop that's produced in the US will be used domestically and not exported. And then those exports that we used to send will be made up for in other places, for example from South America, or that soybean oil will be replaced with palm oil from Southeast Asia. So, yeah, there's a lot of reasons to think that's not really a great strategy to reduce US gasoline and diesel consumption. And so we should be smart about how much vegetable oil, how much corn, you know, makes sense to direct into the fuel use.

Greg Dalton: So the renewable fuel standard was created nearly 20 years ago, shortly after General Motors famously killed its first electric car. There were no EVs on the market. Today there are many, and the renewable fuel standard is up for revision or extension. What are the points of tension around updating the renewable fuel standard?

Jeremy Martin: So when the renewable fuel standard was passed and then amended in 2007, Congress set targets out through 2022. And so now it's up to EPA to set the targets going forward. And one of the big problems with the federal renewable fuel standard is that it's all about combustion fuels and really doesn't actually recognize renewable electricity and wind and solar as renewable sources of transportation fuel. So that's a huge problem. And it's a problem, you know, in the way that the law was written and can only be fixed by Congress. So, EPA’s they're setting a course, trying to adapt the standard to the current context. But it's difficult because they have to follow what's in the law.

Greg Dalton: So, what is the demand for biofuels as EVs take off? Will we wind down our use of corn or soy for cars?

Jeremy Martin: I think certainly corn ethanol for blending with gasoline is intimately linked to the amount of gasoline we use. And so as we use more electric vehicles and less gasoline, we'll see less corn ethanol being blended with gasoline. We're expecting gasoline use to fall most quickly. So, diesel fuels, which is where most of the vegetable oil-based fuels go, may take a little bit longer. But even as we look out a couple decades, you know, I think biofuels will continue to have an important role but that role will evolve. So today where most of the biofuels are blended into gasoline, you know, I think we'd anticipate 20 or 30 years from now seeing most of the biofuels for aviation fuel. And so the way that we produce biofuels to change, to get cleaner and to stop taking this benchmark of a little cleaner than gasoline as the standard. But really say like, how do we produce biofuels that are headed towards zero emissions? And how do we do it in a way that's, and at a level that's reasonable considering all the other uses of crops and of land.

Greg Dalton: Is there a lifecycle analysis of crop land for sustainable aviation fuels? And is that different than biofuels for cars?

Jeremy Martin: Yeah, and this is where it gets a little tricky because the lifecycle analysis depends a lot on what the fuel is made out of. So, today most of the biofuel blended with gasoline is corn ethanol, and most of the biofuel blended with diesel fuels are various kinds of biodiesel and renewable diesel. And the largest source of those is soybean oil. But over time, new processes, new things are coming online. And so we don't know if aviation fuel in the future is made from lipids, different kinds of fats and oils or their process to make corn into aviation fuel. And of course, ever since 2007, people have been working on how to make cellulosic fuels using agricultural residues and other kinds of materials to make biofuels. And there's not enough vegetable oil to just make a lot of sustainable aviation fuel from vegetable oil. So we really need to bring these other types of materials into that market.

Greg Dalton: What changes would you personally like to see made to the renewable fuel standard?

Jeremy Martin: Yeah. The most important change in a way is to recognize that solar energy and wind power, these are really important renewable resources, and especially as we look up to a transportation system powered mostly by electricity, we need to have a fuel policy that recognizes the central role of renewable electricity and transportation electrification.

Greg Dalton: Jeremy Martin is a senior scientist with a Union of Concerned Scientists Clean Transportation Program. Jeremy, thanks for sharing your insights with us today.

Jeremy Martin: Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you for the opportunity.

Greg Dalton: You're listening to a conversation about how changes to agriculture can cut climate emissions. This is Climate One. Coming up, a chef and restaurateur trying to encourage better climate practices on farms:

Anthony Myint: You've got great chefs supporting great farms, but I don't know any chefs or restaurateurs or you know, anybody who is like at the farmer's market saying to the good farmer or the conventional farmer, hey, let me pay an extra dollar and maybe you could use this to plant some cover crops or apply some compost instead of fertilizer.

Greg Dalton: That’s up next, when Climate One continues.

Greg Dalton: This is Climate One. I’m Greg Dalton. We’re talking about the power of agricultural practices to sequester carbon and be more climate friendly. As Executive Director of Zero Foodprint, Anthony Myint works to mobilize the restaurant industry and others to support healthy soil as a climate solution. He spoke with Ariana Brocious about those efforts and his personal journey.

Ariana Brocious: You're an accomplished chef and restaurateur in San Francisco. Tell us about your experience trying to change the food system and support regenerative practices through your restaurant.

Anthony Myint: So we first learned about regenerative agriculture in 2014 and 2015, and got really excited about it and started a restaurant called The Perennial, where we were showcasing a perennial grain called Kernza under development by the Land Institute in Kansas as well as climate beneficial beef. And so they were managing the way cattle grazed as well as applying compost to the field to expedite carbon sequestration. So we were showcasing these kinds of ingredients and trying to get consumers excited about it. And then after a couple years, we started to feel like maybe it wasn't having the biggest impact in the field.

Ariana Brocious: So why did you feel that way? I mean, you were offering these products that you were contracting, so you as a supplier were in relationship, you had some buying power, but was it just insufficient?

Anthony Myint: You know, I think the actual crystallizing moment for me was being at a happy hour with a soil scientist. And I kind of had given my rah rah regenerative a type of speech. And then we were sitting there having beers and chatting and the soil scientist kind of said, ‘Hey dude, you realize the whole organic movement is 1% of acres after 50 years, right?’ I hadn't realized that, you know, we were in San Francisco, kind of in farm to table, Alice Waters country. You would see organic on the shelf at Walmart. And so I had really started to feel like, you know, consumers making a good choice was driving change. And so just to hear that, that, you know, the consumer thinks they're voting with their dollar, but it's not actually getting the next practice onto the next acre in the field, to learn that was, was very kind of a slap in the face. And so we started to ask questions, learn more about the food system, the levers for change, and then we began collaborations with the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the California Air Resources Board to kind of start laying the groundwork for something that could create transformative change.

Ariana Brocious: Right. Sort of inverting the farm to table to make it more table to farm.

Anthony Myint: That was the goal. And to almost put it a different way, like, you know, you've got great chefs supporting great farms in the Bay Area and across the country and stuff, but I don't know any chefs or restaurateurs or you know, anybody who is like at the farmer's market saying to the good farm farmer or the conventional farmer, ‘Hey, let me pay an extra dollar and maybe you could use this to plant some cover crops or apply some compost instead of fertilizer.’ I've never heard anybody say that, you know, like that. I don't think people are thinking at that level of actually actively trying to change agriculture. They're just trying to like support a good farmer and then sort of like hope that things change someday. And so when we started to learn about just how impactful agriculture could be, like how big of a climate solution it could be, then you start to want to make that change as quickly as possible.

Ariana Brocious: Elsewhere in this episode we talk with agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack and the US Department of Agriculture is using a commodities based approach to climate smart agriculture. That's what they're calling it. So I'm curious how you define this idea of climate smart agriculture and how it is similar or different to regenerative agriculture?

Anthony Myint: I think that the practices involved with climate smart agriculture, regenerative agriculture, organic agriculture, good farming, biodynamic farming, a lot of those practices are the same. So they, it would be like reducing soil disturbance. Applying compost instead of chemical fertilizer, planting cover crops, integrating livestock and the fertility that they bring. I think those specific definitions will all kind of start to be more formalized in the coming years. But I think in the meantime, my goal is still to, to get that next practice on the next acre, regardless of what the label is on the final ingredient.

Ariana Brocious: The practices that are employed by most conventional farmers, these are really to maximize the productivity of their land and get the most crops because that's sort of the incentive system that's been built. So I wanna talk a little bit about why we need to pay farmers to do things better as you're arguing that, better in the sense of maybe better for climate, better at sequestering carbon in the soil and things like that.

Anthony Myint: I think that a lot of modern agriculture and to some extent even like corporate capitalism or whatever, has been evolving in the past few decades towards a certain amount of focus on short term yield and profitability and kind of extraction basically of human and natural resources. And so I think that there are a lot of existing federal subsidies and crop insurance and different things that sort of hold the current system in place, and sort of provide these incentives for practices that may maximize short-term yield and profit, but are definitely not optimal in the long run. And then as society is starting to run up against shrinking resources and extreme weather, the change has to happen. But how it happens and kind of how those incentives and subsidies start to shift, it's complex. And so I think while some of the subsidies, let's just say subsidies for unhealthy soil practices, start to recede, my hope is that there can also be a lot of additional subsidies, for the shift to healthy soil practices.

Ariana Brocious: When we as a nation direct a lot of the federal resources to these practices, that's kind of how we've gotten the bulk of the land in the US being given over to conventional farming, and that's growing things like corn and soybeans and, and wheat and barley. But, you know, some of these crops aren't even eaten by humans. They're eaten by animals or they're turned into fuel for our cars. So how does that affect then what we get to see when we go to the grocery store and like what we can buy and what we end up eating?

Anthony Myint: So yeah, I think basically the current federal subsidy system sort of incentivizes maximum yield and profit and enables kind of cheaper food and sort of externalizes a lot of the costs. And I think that there's some research from the Rockefeller Foundation and others that sort of show that the true cost of American food is like $3 for each dollar. And so sort of just the ideal would be in the long run that the food economy and the food system starts to internalize some of those costs. But then even that doesn't get at sort of the opportunity that the land itself presents. And so some researchers, like Project Drawdown suggest that implementing managed grazing of cattle and implementing regenerative cropping starts to provide something like $40 of benefit for each dollar of implementation costs. And that's between like environment health, et cetera, but then also like resilience and farmer prosperity.

Ariana Brocious: So I wanna get into now what Zero Food Print is doing and what it sort of aims to do, because I think that some of what you describe gives me the sense that it would make food more expensive and some of these systems that we have in place do keep cost down for an average person. And you know, we have inflation pressures going on. So could you explain why zero food print is needed?

Anthony Myint: I think the simplest version would be, imagine if you could just pay one penny more on all your purchases, you're buying a dozen eggs, it's $5. It became $5 and 5 cents or something like that. And so, that 1% at scale across the whole economy would be billions of dollars. In the restaurant industry alone, it would be like $8 billion a year. That 8 billion could essentially just be subsidies for healthy soil practices that start to be like an off ramp for federal subsidies, for unhealthy soil practices that are currently in place. And so not judging anybody and how that got to be the case, but as we're trying to make progress, then there could start to be city and county and state programs that started to kind of create transformative change in how the food has grown in the city and the county and the state. But it wouldn't rely on people paying huge premiums. And then that trickling back and sending like weak kind of pull mechanism signals to producers to maybe take out a loan and maybe start changing your practices. This, there is an opportunity to just directly get that penny directly, get that 1%. to the next practice on the next acre. And so that's what zero footprint is focused on.

Ariana Brocious: So sidestepping essentially some of the federal incentive programs and offering a different financial incentive to get farmers to adopt these practices that would help climate as well as environment.

Anthony Myint: Yeah, exactly. And to me, the best analogies are in renewable energy. And so in renewable energy you have programs where a city council might make a decision and then create an opt-in program and then citizens might start sending a dollar per month on the energy bill to the local Green Energy program, you know, and anecdotally you would refer to that as like improving the grid. And so to my understanding, like those programs didn't even exist, you know, 10, 12 years ago and they're just starting. And in California that kind of work has helped shift the grid to like 36% renewables. And so compare that to 1% after 50 years, you know, or something in the organic movement. And so if we could just essentially start improving the grid of food, there's no reason you couldn't just have a dollar per month on the trash bill, 1% at restaurants or hotels or wineries or something, you know, where it's like an affordable luxury industry just going directly to that transition.

Ariana Brocious: So you've given an example when we chatted before about a Subway franchise in Colorado, I think, that's adding 1% to the bill. So when someone comes in and buys a sandwich, they see that on their receipt. It's an opt out model. So can you explain that and why that is valuable to make it opt out?

Anthony Myint: Yeah, so that's actually drawing on this renewable energy analogy too. What's happening at Subway is the business has opted in to participate in this program, and it's basically a franchisee who cares about his community, wants to do the right thing, has always been an advocate of composting. So, he agreed to join the program. He posts on the menu and, you know, table tents and different things, just letting his customers know that Subway is participating in this program. And then at checkout, you know, if you buy a sandwich, it's $10 or something. The receipt says Restore Colorado, you know, 1% and then there's a 10 cent charge. And so that 10 cents essentially is collected by Zero Footprint. And then we aggregate that over the course of a year, which turns into like tens of thousands of dollars. And then we're giving grants to farmers in the Boulder region and across the state of Colorado to start planting cover crops, applying compost, getting the next practice on the next acre. For the consumer, you know, I think the vast majority may not be paying attention and may not notice. The ones that do, we find most consumers are excited that someone's kind of like actually taking local climate action, and then if anybody wants to opt out, I think he's got like a cup of dimes on the counter, you know, so you could just grab a dime if you don't feel like participating in the program. Anecdotally he said literally zero people have opted out in a year.

Ariana Brocious: Well, and I like the idea of the dime because it does help sort of give you a visual representation of how little it is for that particular meal. Right? How small of an amount, when we think about the costs accruing over a lot of people and a lot of time. So Zero Food Print aims to revamp our farms one meal at a time, one acre at a time. Do we have time for that approach? How do we scale this?

Anthony Myint: Yeah, that's a great question. So in Boulder, Colorado right now, there's gonna be a program launching called Cool Boulder. And so that represents a community led natural climate solutions citywide program. And so Zero Food Print has partnered with the city to kind of operate that program. And so food businesses in Boulder can start to sign up for Cool Boulder, but basically it means you are sending 1% to local regenerative ag projects. And so, you know, it may feel dire with like extreme weather every year, seeming more and more serious fire seasons and things. But 1% actually adds up to quite a lot. And so basically at the, you know, whole entire, like society level, 1% of GDP would generate a trillion dollars a year towards climate solutions. And according to Project Drawdown, you know, that 1 trillion a year between now and 2050 would actually be enough to lower global temperatures.

Ariana Brocious: So I looked at the list of participating restaurants and grocery stores and some of these other groups that you work with, and I noticed that the bulk of them for now are in Colorado and California. Not surprising, since those states are more aggressive for climate action and their populations tend to support these types of policies. But I'm wondering how long you think it'll take or how you're gonna begin to get, if the, the vast majority of our food comes from the heartland and the Midwest, at least in terms of these commodity crops, how do we get people there on board and, and get them enrolled?

Anthony Myint: We're ready to start in any region, you know, any business that wants to participate, we could start, um, working with you on that. And then I think as there starts to be critical mass in each region, tens of thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars, then we can start to organize farm projects in that region. We haven't historically been providing this incentive for this transition in the field. Let's start. It could even be a penny. You know, just start doing it and then we'll add it up and start getting it to the next best project in each region.

Ariana Brocious: Have you encountered any resistance from consumers either at the restaurant level or the, maybe the grocery store level or something who say like, well, I don't wanna pay more to support some farmer. I don't even know who's, maybe not even in my region. You know, like I, I just wanna have food that I can afford.

Anthony Myint: You know, we talked to tons and tons of chefs and operators in the restaurant industry is a very, very low margin industry to begin with. And, you know, so 1% might be someone's whole profit or something, you know, and especially amidst covid, a lot of people are in debt and understaffed and struggling. And so it's, it's tough. But by the same token, almost every single operator who joins the program later says like, geez, I don't know why I waited. Like it was kind of all in my head. Like, customers are actually excited. And you know, when they learn about it, they're like, oh, can I give more? And we've seen like inflation raise prices 20%. And so like, does it really matter if it's 19% or 21%? You know, like maybe if you are low income and on a tight budget, I totally get that, but then that person could just opt out. And so I think where, where we see it, Society is almost like, you know, stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like our backs are against the wall. There's nothing we can do. But make these changes. And so for it to be as nominal as 1%, almost feels like a value.

Ariana Brocious: In 2020, national chains like Chipotle and Panera started to put carbon labels on their food. I'm curious what kind of an impact do you think that has?

Anthony Myint: Zero Footprint actually began with a similar mindset where we were doing life cycle assessments for businesses. And so we very much supported that in the past. I think it really helps consumers make a better choice in terms of reducing their individual impact, let's say. Where things start to feel a little bit, I guess just less productive is at the systems level. And so you can imagine a consumer has the choice of like the salad with the, you know, grilled steak or the tofu or something, and they choose the tofu because it has a lower carbon footprint. Ultimately, you know, the meat company like Cargill or JBS or something, you know, I don't think they produce one pound less as a result of that or something. They produce the same amount. Maybe they ship it to India or China or something like that. So, you know, it starts to feel a little bit like misplaced effort when that same consumer might be willing to pay 10 cents more or something. But you could start to use that 10 cents to implement climate smart agriculture practices, maybe even on that ranch where the cow, you know, came from and ended up in the feedlot. And so, the trillion dollar question or whatever for me is how can we get Chipotle and Panera to almost internalize the externalities and just start incentivizing climate smart ag and sort of like, you know, asking consumers to change, I think it comes down to more like the economic incentives to make the land management changes.

Ariana Brocious: I would push back a little and say that I do think people choosing to eat less meat, even if it means foregoing the steak on their salad, you know that those choices can add up similar to what you're describing at scale. If you know we adopt a less meat centered diet, then we would collectively, hopefully, reduce some emissions.

Anthony Myint: Yeah, totally. It's a yes and. Don't just leave the lights on at home. You know, all the things switch to more efficient appliances and let's also start improving the energy grid. Like we need both of the things. But I think that the improving the grid of food piece doesn't exist yet aside from the beginning work that Zero Footprint is doing now. I've not really heard of a lot of transition finance mechanisms basically that consumers can engage with kind of at that everyday level. I think what we're trying to offer is those two options. You can make the better choice and you can also just directly pay to have that change start occurring.

Ariana Brocious: Anthony Myint is Executive director of Zero Food Print. Anthony, thank you so much for joining us on Climate One.

Anthony Myint: Thanks so much, Ariana.

Greg Dalton: On this Climate One... We’ve been talking about climate smart agriculture and ways to incentivize those practices on the farm.

To hear more, subscribe wherever you get your pods. Talking about climate can be hard-- AND it’s critical to address the transitions we need to make in all parts of society. Please help us get people talking more about climate by giving us a rating or review. You can do it right now on your device. You can also help by sending a link to this episode to a friend. By sharing you can help people have their own deeper climate conversations.

Brad Marshland is our senior producer; Our managing director is Jenny Park. Our producers and audio editors are Ariana Brocious and Austin Colón. Megan Biscieglia is our production manager. Our team also includes Sara-Katherine Coxon and Wency Shaida. Our theme music was composed by George Young (and arranged by Matt Willcox). Gloria Duffy is CEO of The Commonwealth Club of California, the nonprofit and nonpartisan forum where our program originates. I’m Greg Dalton.

2:25 Secretary Tom Vilsack on methane reduction

6:20 Tom Vilsack on Climate-Smart Commodities and voluntary incentives

13:13 Tom Vilsack on using less fossil-based fertilizers

17:30 Tom Vilsack on working collaboratively with tribes for forest stewardship

20:00 Tom Vilsack on addressing USDA’s history of racial discrimination

27:30 Jeremy Martin on corn ethanol versus gasoline

31:20 Jeremy Martin on updates to renewable fuel standard

40:00 Anthony Myint on current agricultural subsidies and incentives

43:20 Anthony Myint on Zero Foodprint’s mission and work

Play

Digging Deep into the Next Farm Bill

Otto Pilot — Fri, 10 Jun 2022 07:01:00 +0000

Digging Deep into the Next Farm Bill

06/10/2022

Surprising Connections

Roughly every five years, the U.S. designs and implements a new farm bill, which sets federal policy on agriculture across a huge swath of programs, including subsidies, food assistance, land practices and more. As the discussion around what to include in the 2023 farm bill intensifies, many are pushing for climate mitigation and adaptation measures to be a primary focus of the legislation. These measures would include support for more environmentally-friendly practices like cover cropping — planting crops to cover the soil and not meant for harvesting — no-till farming to reduce carbon emissions, as well as agroforestry or planting trees near crops to help boost yields and sequester carbon. In February of this year, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack announced $1 billion in funding for climate-smart agriculture pilot projects that claim to reduce emissions and sequester carbon.

Jonathan Coppess, Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois and a farm bill historian, says the crop insurance program, a significant part of the farm bill, becomes increasingly complicated when a widespread drought can wipe out an entire region:

“Where we’re gonna see climate change really the most concerns could be around the crop insurance program, because we are trying to run an insurance program that covers losses and as climate change drives more and more losses…”

Scott Faber, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs at the Environmental Working Group, argues both for safety nets for farmers and for limits on how much support wealthy farmers should receive, “ I think everyone agrees that we need a farm safety net. We need ways to help farmers weathers the ups and downs of agriculture, especially now that extreme weather is impacting farmers livelihoods. And I think also it’s the case that most farmers agree that there ought to be reasonable limits on who receives those payments and how much they receive. If you’re very, very successful you probably reach a point where you no longer need the government support.”

Chuck Conner, President and CEO of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, feels there is a chance to address climate issues that didn’t exist in the past, “I think there's a sentiment out there that this can be win-win. We can be pro-climate, we can be pro-farmer, pro-farm income and we weren’t there 10 years ago.”

Historically, the USDA has denied loans and subsidies for nonwhite farmers. John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association, shares his personal experience trying to get a loan from the USDA:

“Trying to get a farm operating loan was just an uphill battle. This person spat on me during a loan exchange, called me racial epithets, tore my application up and tossed it in the trashcan. And when I was finally able to get someone to look into it they asked that man, ‘did you have any problems do you have any problems making loans to black farmers?’ And he said, ‘well yes, I think they’re lazy and look for a paycheck on Friday. But it doesn't have anything do with me doing my job.’ And this person after he was found guilty of discriminating against me and many others in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, he was still allowed to keep his job and moved to another county where he was allowed to retire. And that’s the whole thing with discrimination in USDA. No one was ever penalized or held accountable for the active discrimination.”

This episode is supported in part by Bank of the West.

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Guests

Jonathan Coppess

Assistant Professor, University of Illinois

John W. Boyd, Jr.

President, National Black Farmers Association

Chuck Conner

President and CEO, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives

Scott Faber

Senior VP, Government Affairs, EWG

Greg Dalton: This is Climate One. I’m Greg Dalton. How realistic is it to expect climate policy to be part of the next Farm Bill?

Jonathan Coppess: We have done big and difficult things in this country. But it is difficult. And our current political state I think you'd have to be blind to not just acknowledge that it's not getting any easier.

Greg Dalton: Since the 1930s, the Federal Government has supported farmers with subsidies, credit, and crop insurance, but historically Black, Indigenous, and other farmers of color have been excluded from these benefits.

John Boyd: We got to find a way around that circus, and circle, to really put some real hard programs into effect so that farmers of color can start receiving some benefits.

Greg Dalton: Can we make progress on equity and climate now that we couldn’t in the past?

Chuck Conner: This can be win-win. We can be pro-climate, we can be pro-farmer, pro-farm income and we weren’t there 10 years ago.

Greg Dalton: Digging Deep into the Next Farm Bill. Up ahead on Climate One.

Greg Dalton: This is Climate One. I’m Greg Dalton. Roughly every five years, the U.S. designs and implements a new farm bill, which sets federal policy on agriculture across a huge swath of programs, including subsidies, food assistance, land practices and more. As the discussion around what to include in the 2023 farm bill intensifies, many are pushing for climate mitigation and adaptation measures to be the primary focus of the legislation. These measures would include support for more environmentally-friendly practices like cover cropping — planting crops to cover the soil and not meant for harvesting — no-till farming to reduce carbon emissions, as well as agroforestry or planting trees near crops to help boost yields and sequester carbon. In February of this year, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack announced $1 billion in funding for climate-smart agriculture pilot projects that claim to reduce emissions and sequester carbon. Today we’re exploring what the farm bill can do to further incentivize carbon management practices while helping farmers and ranchers adapt to the increasingly disruptive impacts of climate change. This episode is supported in part by Bank of the West. Jonathan Coppess is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois and a Farm Bill historian. Climate One’s Ariana Brocious asked him where he sees the clearest avenues for incorporating more climate policy into the next Farm Bill.

Jonathan Coppess: It is a very complex and certainly an omnibus legislative vehicle. When we think about bringing climate change into federal agricultural policy, probably the first and most direct route is through what we call the conservation programs. So, these are a series of different types of assistance that we make directly to the farmer to do things like conserve natural resources, you know, to protect against soil erosion or improve water quality maybe reduce the amount of water they use in irrigation systems all the way up to things that might help protect habitat and some of the wildlife benefits we might see out of, say, retiring acreage for a set of time or rebuilding a wetland or things like that.

Ariana Brocious: So, within those conservation programs as you mention, there's a lot of them. And even farmers who take advantage of these, it might be a pretty small percentage of their overall acreage that's actually enrolled. How much room is there to grow them or put more money in them or encourage more farmers to actually take advantage of them?

Jonathan Coppess: The tough reality with conservation programs is that they're oversubscribed. So, they have pretty vast reach. I mean there's no sort of regional or statewide or crop-based limits on this. Any farmer, any farm landowner can conceivably enroll in a conservation program. Different ones have different priorities or things they try to accomplish. Like and the difference when you say a wetlands program that tries to restore wetlands and something like the environmental quality incentives program, which pays farmers a cost to share sort of offset the cost of say putting in a grass waterway, or if it's a livestock operation to address handling the manure and storage and sort of cleaning up things like that. So, they can apply very broadly. I think our biggest problem is funding. In fact, the biggest challenge for a Farm Bill debate will be the politics around the budget. And the fact that these are kind of stuck if you will, into kind of a fit box or a fixed boxed of funding. So, there’s not a lot of additional money to move out. And so, if you’re gonna increase demand or increase usage of these dollars we’re just spreading the same amount of dollars over more and more efforts, in that case more acres, more farmers.

Ariana Brocious: So, if we were trying to encourage something that we know has climate benefits like no-till agriculture where you’re helping not release carbon emissions. Is it just about getting more funding to kind of go with the existing programs and really make those more widespread?

Jonathan Coppess: In the conservation title, yes. I mean most of that is gonna be around how do we expand the funding for you know pick your acronym, pick your program and try to get more acres more farmers enrolled but to do that you need more money? When we think about getting climate change or practices that help address climate change. So, things that may capture greenhouse gas emissions and kind of hold them in the soil. To do that we need to be on the massive land acreage footprint that is in production now. So, we’re talking somewhere between 340 to 350 million acres that are used every year to produce crops. the more traditional conservation programs aren’t gonna hit that kind of acreage. We’re gonna need something that goes in and says, let’s help farmers you know combine things like no till or cover crops and nutrient management so the fertilizers are not contributing to both water quality challenges, but also climate change. So, then we're talking about a much larger acreage footprint and we start looking elsewhere in the Farm Bill for a way particularly thinking about creative ways in which we can blend some of the other programmatic assistance to farmers with climate change goals or outcomes.

Ariana Brocious: So, another major avenue for climate policies within the Farm Bill would be subsidies or crop insurance programs, right. Can you give us a sense of how climate disruption is already impacting yields and thus some of those programs?

Jonathan Coppess: Where we’re gonna see climate change really the most concerns could be around the crop insurance program, because we are trying to run an insurance program that covers losses and as climate change drives more and more losses. One of the things I’d like to talk about crop insurance, the reason why it's so challenging and the reason why we have a lot of federal involvement and frankly federal dollars going into subsidized and help the program is we all have some familiar insurance, you know, car insurance. But it isn’t the situation where an entire region wrecks its car at the same time. You have a drought where you have a widespread prevented plant scenario in the spring. You could wipe out an entire region. 2012 for example, we took a massive hit because of the drought in the Midwest in the crop insurance program. So, to be able to sort of run that kind of actuarial science and all the rating and issues they use to try to make insurance policy and program work. It is drastically complicated by that you know not unusual or out of the complete ordinary kind of massive event, a water shortage in the West, those sorts of things. And so, people that are looking forward, and trying to sort of put these pieces together are very concerned about what climate change may mean around the crop insurance program because of the way it’s designed now and because the implications we see for a variety of production challenges.

Ariana Brocious: Right. And part of that is because we are growing so many acres of the same crops, right, where a lot of this is monocropping. We have millions of acres of corn and soy and wheat and rice and other things like that. So, what's the argument then for maybe as a way to reduce the liabilities among crop insurance and losing a given crop you know, with increased climate disruption and uncertainty, further diversifying farms then. So, you're not putting all of your yield for any given year in one crop.

Jonathan Coppess: That's a tough question. I mean part of it is we have developed this way over decades. This is not a you know we’re not gonna turn this sort of thing around very quickly. And we’ve consolidated farming and so your operations are bigger and that sort of diversification cuts against all the push that we've seen for decades to try to get better, you know, efficiencies and economies of scale and those sorts of things that the economists love to talk about. But that also we do sort of lead us down into this path and then you’ve got again layered on top of that, not just the farmer but the way the whole system sets up. So, you’ll hear time and again farmers who do try to diversify, by maybe adding a crop. So, let’s add wheat into our corn and soy rotation. Oh, I’ve got no elevator to sell it to. I can’t get a good price for it. There's no market, you know, say in Central Illinois maybe for that kind of diversification. So, there's no easy way to sort of unravel or unwind those things and look towards diversification. Again, one of the examples tying back in the climate change are some of the conservation practices that do promote diversity. So, resource conserving crop rotations where we try to work in, you a different third or fourth crop. Cover cropping, which is a conservation practice where we would go in, if you take your typical corn and soybean operation you go in harvest the corn and soybeans in the fall and then you plant in overwinter crop. Because normally they’re gonna leave that field bare fallow over the winter and into the spring. And now you're doing things that hold soil, keep nutrients from leaching into river’s waterways. And a growing green crop will pull down carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses. So, it begins to help capture that. So, that would be one way to diversify conservation that isn't just going from two commercial crops to three or four. And that could be a step along that process.

Ariana Brocious: So, let's step back and take a look at the bill kind of you know as this, large kind of behemoth puzzle that has a lot of moving parts. where have we seen past successes in introducing new component pieces to the Farm Bill or you know new programs, things that do actually change kind of how the money is spent.

Jonathan Coppess: Probably the best historical example for what you just asked is the 1985 Food Security Act. And that was landmark legislation and it’s fascinating when you look at the history because the ‘85 Act came in in the middle of it where the depths of the 1980s farm economic crisis. So, we had a lot of farmers going bankrupt and the markets had struggled and it was a mess. They had high inflation. They had high interest rates. Just a series of economic challenges. At the same time in the 70s we also vastly expanded production. then is expanding acres where erosion is a problem or they’re less productive or there's other challenges to that. So, by the 80s we've gotten not only a farm crisis we got an erosion crisis. We've got soils moving into waterways with pesticides and fertilizers in them, and things like that. So, this ’85 Act is a massive change because we created what we call the conservation reserve program and that was about 45 million acres was the goal to take land out of production for up to 10 years or 10 to 15 years, actually depending on the practice you put on it. So, the conservation reserve program is designed ‘85 to really pull back those acres that shouldn't be in production because they have some environmental sensitivity. The other big one and is in 1985. We added what we call conservation compliance to the farm subsidy programs. And this is key if you think about the politics and the economic situations. So, farmers in the depths of a crisis. And at that time because erosion problem was so significant, Congress attached conservation compliance. So, basically telling a farmer if you did not comply with the way you're supposed to treat highly erodible ground for example, so it doesn’t erode you’ll lose your farm subsidy payments. Or if you drain a wetland to farm it, you'll lose your farm payments. That’s a pretty big move. Now, we can argue about how effective it is and so forth. But in terms of the politics of getting massive change not only was it a big political step, it doesn't cost any money. It doesn't have a hit in the budget because it's not creating new program payments. It's just adding requirements onto the payments that would've been triggered anyway. And so, I think that's kind of an example where you can think about blending some outcomes, farm subsidy payments in particular, are you know taxpayer-funded direct assistance to producers. Are there arguments around that that there should be something coming back in some benefit to the general public who is helping to fund the programs that say look, we want to see better climate resiliency practices undertaken to help. Let’s look at that acre as more than just the crop you're producing but the crop you're producing and ecosystem services they can provide on top of it. The water quality improvements. The habitat improvements or pulling down carbon pulling down greenhouse gasses and storing in the soil for a stretch of time.

Ariana Brocious: I think that's a great example, and I'm wondering what you see from sort of a political standpoint as to the will to do more of that in this next round. Who's pushing for adding more compliance, more requirements, you know, bolstering some of the programs we’ve talked about, what are the sort of political factions that you see playing out.

Jonathan Coppess: Now you’re asking me very tough questions. Because the politics are very difficult around this. You do not see a lot of farm groups or interests you know wanting to expand conservation compliance or take it in a new direction because of course it’s gonna impact or could potentially impact their assistance. It certainly gets even more controversial if you try to apply it to crop insurance. I don't want to leave any impression like this is an easy thing to achieve. It is a straightforward, relatively simple kind of policy concept, but the politics were difficult because we’re impacting so many producers and potentially large amounts of funding. I don't wanna ever sound like a pessimist because we have done big and difficult things in this country and congress has found ways to do big and difficult policy achievements. But it is difficult. And our current political state I think you'd have to be blind to not just acknowledge that it's not getting any easier. And in fact,we are pretty actively making it more difficult if not kind of tearing apart some of the political muscles the things that we need to exercise and use like negotiation and compromise, like deliberation and debate. We've done a lot more damage to those in recent times, than we've improved them and things like a Farm Bill as you've mentioned and those complex and many moving pieces and parts and big federal budget numbers and things like that requires an awful lot of deliberation, good-faith negotiation and ultimately compromise. And we just have not seen much of that lately.

Ariana Brocious: Jonathan Coppess is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois. Jonathan, thank you so much for joining us on Climate One.

Jonathan Coppess: Ariana, thanks for having me. It’s great to talk to you.

Greg Dalton: You’re listening to a conversation about the climate implications of the Farm Bill. Our podcasts typically contain extra content beyond what’s heard on the radio. If you missed a previous episode, or want to hear more of Climate One’s empowering conversations, subscribe to our podcast wherever you get your pods. Coming up, how do subsidies in the farm bill actually affect farmers?

Scott Faber: Everyone agrees that we need a farm safety net. We need ways to help farmers weather the ups and downs of agriculture, especially now that extreme weather is impacting farmers’ livelihoods. And I think also it’s the case that most farmers agree that there ought to be reasonable limits on who receives those payments.

Greg Dalton: That’s up next, when Climate One continues.

Greg Dalton: This is Climate One. I’m Greg Dalton, and we’re talking about the climate and equity implications of the upcoming Farm Bill. Scott Faber is Senior Vice President of Government Affairs at the Environmental Working Group, and Chuck Conner is President and CEO of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives. 10 years ago Conner said that he couldn’t talk about climate with his member farmers. I asked him what those conversations are like now.

Chuck Conner: I would go far as to say most American agriculture today when this issue came up in the 2009, 2010 period there was great fear among farmers. There was just a thought that climate debate and climate if you will, friendly policies just simply meant somebody was gonna be standing there looking over their farmer shoulders, telling them how to farm and, you know, sort of micromanage kind of situation. And I think over time we have shown them that is not the case. This is about providing the right information to them. This is about providing you know efficiency options. This is about doing it the best that you possibly can. But all in a manner that gives them complete and total control over their land and their farming operations and they're supportive of that and they’re growing stronger every day and I think there's a sentiment out there that this can be win-win. We can be pro-climate, we can be pro-farmer, pro-farm income and we weren’t there 10 years ago

Greg Dalton: Scott, the environmental working group keeps a database of farm subsidies and crop insurance payments. What is your data shown on who gets those payments? Most of those dollars have gone to complex farming operations in households. Tell us where the money goes.

Scott Faber: Yeah, I think everyone agrees that we need a farm safety net. We need ways to help farmers weather the ups and downs of agriculture, especially now that extreme weather is impacting farmers livelihoods. And I think also it’s the case that most farmers agree that there ought to be reasonable limits on who receives those payments and how much they receive. If you’re very, very successful you probably reach a point where you no longer need the government support. And unfortunately, we don't have meaningful limits on our subsidies. There have been efforts to place a real means test in place. Chuck led some of those efforts when he worked for the Department of Agriculture. And the result of those loopholes if you will, is that some very, very large operators are getting millions of dollars every year. I don’t think anyone probably, except perhaps the family members and friends of those operators think that makes much sense. And I think there's probably a consensus between environmental groups and taxpayer groups and farm groups that we need a safety net it needs to really be a strong safety net. But we also need to have reasonable limits on who can get subsidies because they’re so successful. And then the amounts that they get that I can imagine any situation or any individuals who get millions and millions of dollars from the taxpayer; that just doesn't make much sense.

Greg Dalton: Chuck, if the farm bill is written with the notion that we produce too much and need to keep the brakes on. Help me understand the role of subsidies. Are we paying farmers to not produce crops, livestock, or dairy and why?

Chuck Conner: Well, this has been a paradigm of farm policy, Greg, since the 1930s where we really began to make some large crop subsidies during the Great Depression. And, you know, I think you could make an argument in that during those early years of paying at a time that you are trying to get less production. There could be some conflicts there and for many years we had to have government-sponsored set-asides, the sort of keep that check and balance. But having said that, we’re not paying a tremendous amount in farm subsidies right now, Greg, and that's a mischaracterization by some out there. Compared to the farm bills that I worked on for the Senate ag committee in the 1980s we’re playing really a lot less in farm subsidies. So, I don't see those subsidies having the market impact, like they did 15, 20 , 30 years ago.

Greg Dalton: Scott, your colleague, Anne Schechinger found that between 2001 and 2020 farmers received 1.5 billion in crop insurance payments for planting crops in flood prone parts of the Mississippi River basin. Her analysis argued that money could have been spent to retire or restore lands for carbon sequestration benefit instead. Are we spending taxpayer money in the best way in the flood prone areas of the Mississippi?

Scott Faber: Yeah, well and let me reiterate that we need a strong farm safety net; that includes helping farmers obtain crop insurance so they can manage their risks. But there are some important lessons to be learned from the flood insurance program that property owners participate in that ought to be applied to the crop insurance program. Especially where you have folks who are getting repeatedly flooded who have or are farming very wet grounds and because of their repeat indemnities from the crop insurance program are increasing the cost of crop insurance for everyone else. So, there are probably some opportunities to adjust rates to send the right market signals to folks who are farming places that they might not otherwise farm without the government-subsidized crop insurance subsidy. There are also some opportunities to probably make better use of the conservation reserve program, the land retirement program that's been around for many decades so that we’re better targeting those acres at those frequently flooded floodplain lands partly to avoid those government payments right you know if those are lands that are hard to farm, they’re frequently flooded marginal lands. Let's use our CRP dollars our land retirement dollars to try to offer those farmers an easement in part to again avoid the taxpayer cost but also to get all the environmental benefits, especially the long-term storage of carbon in the soil and the wildlife benefits the water quality benefits that would come from restoring some of those lands.

Greg Dalton: Chuck, your thoughts on reforming that. We all know that the National Flood Insurance Program is broken. Congress has tried and failed to fix it. How about climate resilience in terms of crop insurance?

Chuck Conner: Well, crop insurance is a complicated issue, Greg. I'm not discounting any of Scott's points on their face. I think these are always things that we need to look at. There’s been a number of attempts in the past to reflect, to have rates reflect that risk in that particular region in that floodplain so that you know a farmer in McLean County, Illinois, sort of the prime farmland in the United States, is not paying the same insurance for his operation to someone who's farming in the Wabash River floodplain, sort of thing. And I think we've achieved some of that. You know would I stand up here and absolutely pound and say, we’re there, no, I wouldn’t do that at all not even close. But I do appreciate Scott's comments on the CRP conservation reserve program. And I do hope that down the road CRP continues to be a vehicle whereby we can farm as is described the most valuable land and where land is highly sensitive, be able to use programs like the CRP to take that land out of production.

Greg Dalton: Chuck, your group as part of the Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance which has expressed support for climate smart policies under the US Department of Agriculture, which are voluntary incentive-based and focused on commodity crops. Learning from other sectors where the industry of course, prefers voluntary measures first, and those only go so far. What do you expect from those policies can accomplish voluntary, incentive-based?

Chuck Conner: I think they can fully accomplish our objectives here, Greg. And I don't in any way, accept that this is a precursor to something mandatory coming down the pike. I believe we can achieve those objectives. We've done it in the past in agriculture, you know, we had the recollect back to the dust bowl years and all the problems we had with soil erosion, you know, through voluntary incentive-based programs to technical assistance from soil specialists, we have curbed a great deal I would say almost all of those kinds of conservation problems. I see no reason to believe that we can't stem this problem with climate change and the problems that we have out there using the same model.

Greg Dalton: Scott, the two biggest sectors of emissions in the US are the utilities electricity buildings and transportation mobility. Those industries have also said we got this voluntary incremental comfortable we’ll get there without government regulation. That didn't really prove the case. Is it the case in agriculture that voluntary incremental would get us to our climate goals?

Scott Faber: Well, there's no question that farmers can take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and many are already doing so. The real tragedy of our policy right now is that two out of three farmers who go to USDA and ask with their own money, bringing their own money at the table and asked the government to help share the cost of practices to use their nitrogen fertilizer differently or change how they're using nitrogen fertilizer or change how they're feeding the animals or how they’re storing animal waste. Two out of three farmers who asked for government assistance are being turned away because of our misplaced spending priorities. That is ridiculous. And I think every American from across the political spectrum would agree that it should be a big priority for the government to share the cost of those practices. They’re not free, they're not free to the farmer and they work. And I think to their credit, Chuck's organization joined with groups like EWG to support a big increase in spending for this climate smart practices in the Build Back Better Bill that has passed the House and is still pending in the Senate. But we need to make better use of the $6 billion a year we already are giving farmers. We have right now that USDA is giving farmers Too little of that money is going to practices that reduce emissions and too much of it is going to practices that either don't do much to reduce emissions or in some cases even increase emission. So, we need to I think while Sec. Vilsack and his team has done a lot to make climate smart practices a priority and we need more money as has been proposed in Build Back Better. We need to make much better use of the money that Congress is already provided in the last farm bill.

Greg Dalton: Chuck, some of the biggest optimists I talked to across the climate spectrum are people who are interested in soil regeneration. The soil can capture water, carbon, all sorts of things. It's tough to scale. That's pretty upsetting to hear, Scott say that farmers go and asking for climate smart help and they’re not getting it from the federal government. What ‘sbroken? What's wrong?

Chuck Conner: Well, Greg, we’ve had too few resources. I think Scott laid out the problem and what he just answered I wholeheartedly agree with it. I would like to see us you know not only rework some of our existing programs in the farm bill to really give them a climate focus, but obviously we also, you know, part of the reason so many people are being turned away is just you know not enough resources.

Greg Dalton: Well, let's talk about the political and economic context for that. We’ve seen some really big legislation trillion dollars used to be a lot of money in Washington. Now, we’re seeing several trillion-dollar bills go through for COVID. What’s the political and economic landscape right now for a more ambitious farm bill? What do you see in there, Scott?

Scott Faber: Well, you know, I think probably as all of us are talking and your listeners are listening in. Senator Manchin and other senators are meeting to discuss the energy package that would be sort of an alternative, if you will, to the Build Back Better Bill that has passed the House. Congress still has five months they have plenty of time to pass the Build Back Better package or some version of it that includes the $27 billion that the House approved and that Senator Stabenow has so effectively championed in the Senate for these climate smart practices. So, that would be an enormous missed opportunity if we left $27 billion in funding to help farmers reduce greenhouse gas emissions on the table. What a waste that would be. And I think there's not just a really powerful environmental case, right. We know that spending $27 billion on better use of fertilizer, better use of changing what we feed animals, changing how we manage manure. We know those things will reduce nitrous oxide emissions and methane emissions. There's also a really strong business case for making these investments. And that’s because right now US agriculture accounts for at least 10% of US emissions. But every other sector, mostly because of policies we've adopted like renewable portfolio standards and CAFE standards. Every other sector of the economy is taking steps to reduce their emissions except for unfortunately our farmers. The emissions when you look at the EPA's greenhouse gas inventory over time. Those emissions are going up and that's no fault of the farmer. It’s simply because we are eating more and more meat. We are producing more and more meat for growing population around the globe. And when you fertilize animal feed and when you raise animals, you’re gonna increase nitrous oxide, and methane emissions. So, I think there's not just an obvious environmental case for helping to share the cost of these practices. I think there's a real reputational risk to our farmers if we don't help every way we can and use every tool in the toolbox to reduce emissions soon. But, you know, consumers have a big role to play here too. And again, if we double animal protein production and consumption. There's no way we’re gonna meet the goals that we set for ourselves for the climate whether it's the goals that we recently restated in Glasgow. So, we've got to make it easier for consumers to occasionally just once in a while the 94% of us like me who eat meat. I had bacon and eggs for breakfast. The 94% of us who eat meat to occasionally try and replace an animal protein with a plant-based protein to get a little bit more of our protein from plants. And that's not just good for our health or personal health or cardiovascular health. It's not just good for the planet because it would help reduce many of the emissions we talked about the emissions from fertilizing animal feed and the emissions from the animals themselves. It's also really good for farmers because it turns out that America's farmers and the companies that turned plants into a plant-based food here in America are number one in the world. We are the best in the world at producing plant-based foods. There are already 55,000 jobs across the country, mostly in rural places producing plant-based foods. That's a great opportunity for our farmers. And it's one we will lose if we aren’t smart because other countries, especially China, no surprise, are making huge bets because they see what we’re talking about. We need to make some bets in the next farm bill.

Greg Dalton: Chuck, you say the farm bill is about leveling the playing field. Does addressing systemic racism have a place in the farm bill?

Chuck Conner: I think so. Absolutely, Greg, I think we need to make sure that every farm program that we reauthorize in the farm bill, every new program we put in place, whether that's climate related or anything else there has to be a key element of that of serving the interest of the farmers of color. Having served the, you know, a stint at the Department of Agriculture this is not an idle problem. It's been a problem and it proceeded Sec. Vilsack. But I will tell you as well I think Tom Vilsack is working very, very hard to try and reverse some of these patterns at USDA that have roots going back decades and decades.

Greg Dalton: Thank you, Chuck and Scott.

Chuck Conner: Thank you, Greg. Enjoyed it.

Greg Dalton: You're listening to a conversation about the upcoming Farm Bill. This is Climate One. Coming up, historically, black farmers have been excluded from the benefits of the farm bill and faced discrimination from the USDA.

John Boyd: Many Blacks weren't even given a loan application, you know. I was given one, mine was tossed in the trashcan and all kinds of stuff that I personally faced. But the further I went south the more egregious and more blatant the discrimination was for black farmers.

Greg Dalton: That’s up next, when Climate One continues.

Greg Dalton: This is Climate One. I’m Greg Dalton. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is tasked with implementing the programs in the Farm Bill. Historically, the USDA has denied loans and subsidies for nonwhite farmers. I asked John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association, to share his story.

John Boyd: Well, my personal experience with the USDA as far as it relates to discrimination goes back probably 39 years ago to 1983 a very, very long time. My dad and grandfather were totally against going to USDA and doing business with the government. And they always thought that the government and black farmers didn't go together, just never mixed. And maybe I should have listened to him, you know. That’s how I got introduced to it and it was a spiral downhill, so to speak. As far as how they treated black farmers this lender would only see black farmers on Wednesday. One day a week so we would all be in the hallway. I knew these older black farmers in the community they were leaders they were deacons. A couple even held local positions in the county. But this person didn’t waive the discrimination for any of that. He talked low to them as far as bold and downward. Called them boy and negro. All sorts of racial slurs is how it began. And then trying to get a farm operating loan was just an uphill battle. This person spat on me during a loan exchange, called like I said racial epithets tore my application up and toss it in the trashcan. And when I was finally able to get someone to look into it they asked that man. Did you have any problems do you have any problems making loans to black farmers? And he said, well yes, I think they’re lazy and look for a paycheck on Friday. But it doesn't have anything to do with me doing my job. And this person after he was found guilty of discriminating against me and many others in Mecklenburg County, Virginia. He was still allowed to keep his job and moved to another county where he was allowed to retire. And that’s the whole thing with discrimination in USDA. No one was ever penalized or held accountable for the active discrimination. Although we had two federal lawsuits one in 1999 and the other one December 8, 2010 when then former Pres. Barack Obama signed the Claims Remedy Act 2010 into law. So, we had two settlements but nobody was ever fired. No senior person at USDA or no local person for that matter was ever fired for the active discrimination. And as I organized further, I went South Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana. The discrimination was more pervasive. And so, with many Blacks weren't even given a loan application, you know. I was given one, mine was tossed in the trashcan and all kinds of stuff that I personally faced. But the further I went south the more egregious and more blatant the discrimination was for Black farmers.

Greg Dalton: Well, you mentioned a couple of those settlements 1999 settlement in Pigford versus USDA that was an agreement of about $1 billion where government agreed to pay black farmers. Have Black farmers received what they are owed under that settlement and the other one you mentioned?

John Boyd: Yes, but it took too long. And, you know, it took me 30 years on that complaint. there was a few bills as well that went along with those settlement. So, we have all of the claims were too old, including mine when I first started suing the government. My two years of statute of limitations had expired, so I had to go to Congress and get that lifted, got that passed that allowed all of the cases to go back to 1981 to have their cases. So, any black farmer that filed a case between 1981 and 1997, would be able to participate in the first lawsuit. USDA, one on the motion that they didn't have to notify any Black farmer about the class-action. So, therefore 83,000 Black farmer families came after the filing deadline. The judge wouldn't allow them to be a part of the case. So, I went back to Congress again to have that measure included in a bill that with the help of Chuck Grassley and George Allen some Republicans heading it. And the leader at that time was Ted Kennedy and as he became ill then Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Biden believe it or not were the lead sponsors of that bill. And they both went on to become president and I didn’t know that was gonna happen but that bill came about. And the bill only let them have those 83,000 Black farmers cases heard based on merit. They didn't divide any compensation. So, I had to go back to Congress again to get the settlement funded for $1.25 billion. And those cases were finally heard and adjudicated.

Greg Dalton: Pres. Biden has directed $4 billion in COVID relief funds toward Black, Indigenous and other farmers of color. Is that money making a difference and is USDA acting more appropriately responsibly this time around?

John Boyd: Well, there’s a few things that I would like to address there. One is then Vice President Biden in South Carolina that we desperately needed a new face at USDA to take on the bureaucracy at USDA. But instead we got Secretary Vilsack for a third term. And I did express to then then President-elect that I thought that Sec. Vilsack was the wrong man for this time in history. And he pressed for us to support Secretary Vilsack. And if things didn't work out to let him know. I don't think that things are working out in my opinion. The bill that provided the 5 billion 1 billion for to improve systems and outreach and set up all these other things at USDA. And then 4 billion for debt relief in the form of guaranteed loans and direct loans. So, 14,000 plus farmers of color were eligible to proceed there. There was no entity involved. It was a government to government transaction. So, why did it take so long? There is no need to hold listening sessions when you already knew who these persons who are eligible, the farmers of color to receive the debt relief. So, why not do it the same way you do subsidies for primarily large-scale white farmers. When the president signs it. It's in the checking accounts of those large-scale corporate farmers within weeks of it passing. So, it took almost a year and then white farmers started suing us or reverse discrimination and 12 different complaints in federal court. And the National Black Farmers Association, and the Association of American Indian Farmers really started fighting back in those federal courts. Two of the courts, Texas and Florida, issued a temporary injunction blocking the aid to the farmers of color. So, right now I'm in federal court in 12 different states. 12 different complaints in various states. Now, the white farmers were very crafty at this, I hate to use this term. They picked very conservative judges very conservative courts that they thought would look favorably upon what they were saying that it was reverse discrimination some new loan program that excluded whites. But they never said they were the ones, they, being white male farmers that were getting the debt relief. The whole 30 years I was asking for it, it was those farmers who are actually getting the debt relief. That's what I was trying to get because black farmers want it. We were getting 30-day loan acceleration our lenders which means they were foreclosing on us. And white farmers were provided with other options under the 1951-S which is the loan servicing for agriculture in this country at USDA. They were getting debt all re-amortizations debt writes down debts written off. And they were getting these options with ease. And Black farmers if where weren’t able to hustle up what we owe the government those that were lucky enough to get loans within 30 days we lost our farms.

Greg Dalton: Well, that’s quite a tale. Thank you for sharing that. Are there measures in the farm bill to address these inequities?

John Boyd: I’m glad you brought up the farm bill because it's something that I would like to see a lot of changes in how they address Black and other farmers of color. And some of the bills that recently passed it gives the secretary of agriculture full discretion to implement. I would like to see that changed. Instead of giving the secretary whoever that secretary is full discretion to implement, give them time ramifications in which to complete the task. For instance, if there was a timetable for debt relief. This should be executed within 30, 60 and 90 days. We wouldn’t be probably wouldn’t be in the boat that we’re in. And the programs that are targeted for farmers of color. We always have to have matching funds from some outside organization to participate in those federal programs. I would like to see those measures taking out of the farm bill. And what’s happened to us historically is we don't receive the checks from corporate America and the others who manage these retirement funds that quickly help other causes have been slow to help the National Black Farmers Association. And if they do, it’s very, very small monetary contributions. Not to say as the president that we’re not appreciative of that – I don't want anyone listen to this say oh my god this people don’t appreciate the help. We appreciate the help at any amount. But for us to really save our farm from foreclosure the average size of a farm mortgage is $300,000. Someone has to be able to write that in order to save that farm and get that farmer a second chance. And we need the form of more direct assistance for farmers such as infrastructure and equipment to facilitate any outside contractor. And that’s something Congress continues to turn a deaf ear to. So, they would give 40 million to food hubs and food banks and 100 million to food banks, but they won't invest in the actual farmer himself, that is the person growing the food. And I’m gonna stop talking there.

Greg Dalton: You mentioned land loss, you know, Black run farms were about 14% of the total in the US in 1920 and today down to around 2%. And small and medium-sized farms have a harder time getting access to capital and technical support. Can you explain the challenges that present to new farmers and farmers of color.

John Boyd: That’s what we’ve been fighting right there. The government needs to invest heavily in new and beginning farmers. And if we don’t, I’m telling you right now this not only will Black farmers be facing extinction but all farmers in this country will be facing extinction if we don't invest in the next generation of farmers.

Greg Dalton: And do you see change at USDA now you talked about the impunity particularly in local offices. Do you see a change now?

John Boyd: Not only local level. And that’s where the changes have to happen. And I’m gonna try to explain this quickly for, 101, for people who don't understand how the government works. You have a new administration that comes in. They have some great ideas that could help all farmers and even maybe even Black farmers and farmers of color. It takes them a year or two to get those ideas into the administration. And by the third year those persons who are career bureaucrats there who are supposed to be implementing this. So, you know, what I don’t like this and I’m gonna slow roll this and I'm going to do this the way I’ve been doing it for 30 years at USDA. Those career bureaucrats always seem to outlast the great ideas and mindstreams of the new incoming administration. And that's what's been happening to Black farmers. We got to find a way around that circle to really put some real hard programs into effect so that farmers of color can start receiving some benefits. And new and beginning farmers can receive some incentives to actually become farmers people. It’s the hardest occupation known to man. And if we don't do some things to do that to entice as my son said, daddy make farming sexy. If we don’t find a way to do this in a hurry, we’re gonna lose a generation of farmers.

Greg Dalton: What avenues do you see in the next farm bill for increasing climate resilience among all farmers, Black farmers, Indigenous white farmers.

John Boyd: Yes, well, you know, climate is a very big issue here. I think it’s an issue that should have been addressed 25 years ago. But we’re just now getting to it. It's just now front and center. When I first started farming in 1983, we were planting corn in March. Now, I’m planting corn in May and it’s all due to the changing seasons. When I first started farming, I would be finished harvesting soybeans by October 15th. Now I’m just getting in the field at November because it starts to rain and then I can’t get out there. The seasons are changing. Planting season is shorter. And the harvest season is shorter. All of those things are due to climate change. These severe summers, maximum heat, you know. As a kid you didn’t see 110, 111° days when I was a kid. You know, if you got up to 100 man, we thought all hell was breaking loose, you know. So, now you see triple digits and some of us were like, oh it’s gonna be a hundred again today. Crops can stand two days of hundred-degree heat and then you have to do something. You’re gonna have to irrigate or you begin to lose or take damage in your crops. But I'm saying that because the climate is changing. We need to address it. We need to help fix it. And it's not just a farmer thing. It's a world thing. Where the whole world is gonna have to participate in order to make our climate better. It’s something that we can’t continue to take for granted people. my grandfather said, if you don't take care of the land the land won’t take care of you.

Greg Dalton: John Boyd, Jr. is President of the National Black Farmers Association. John Boyd, thank you for sharing your story and your insights on the farm bill on Climate One

John Boyd: Thank you very much for having me.

Greg Dalton: On this Climate One... We’ve been talking about the equity and climate implications of the upcoming Farm Bill. Climate One’s empowering conversations connect all aspects of the climate emergency. To hear more, subscribe to our podcast on Apple or wherever you get your pods. Talking about climate can be hard-- but it’s critical to address the transitions we need to make in all parts of society. Please help us get people talking more about climate by giving us a rating or review if you are listening on Apple. You can do it right now on your device. You can also help by sending a link to this episode to a friend. By sharing you can help people have their own deeper climate conversations.

Greg Dalton: Brad Marshland is our senior producer; our producers and audio editors are Ariana Brocious and Austin Colón. Megan Biscieglia is our production manager. Our team also includes Steve Fox and Sara-Katherine Coxon. Our theme music was composed by George Young (and arranged by Matt Willcox). Gloria Duffy is CEO of The Commonwealth Club of California, the nonprofit and nonpartisan forum where our program originates. I’m Greg Dalton.

Play

Jonathan Coppess

Megan Biscieglia — Thu, 09 Jun 2022 20:01:54 +0000

Jonathan Coppess

Assistant Professor, University of Illinois

Jonathan Coppess is on faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, director of the Gardner Agriculture Policy Program and author of The Fault Lines of Farm Policy: A Legislative and Political History of the Farm Bill. He has served as Chief Counsel and special counsel for the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, Administrator of the Farm Service Agency at USDA and Legislative Assistant to Senator Ben Nelson. Jonathan grew up on his family’s farm in Western Ohio, earned his Bachelors’ from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and his Juris Doctor from The George Washington University Law School in Washington, DC.

Chuck Conner

Brad Marshland — Mon, 09 May 2022 22:31:17 +0000

Chuck Conner

President and CEO, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives

Chuck Conner was named President and CEO of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives in January 2009, and he brings more than 25 years experience in national and state government and agricultural trade associations to the position. Prior to joining NCFC, Conner served as Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a position that he had held since 2005. From August 2007 to January 2008, Conner served as both USDA Acting Secretary and Deputy Secretary, helping to shape the Administration’s agricultural, trade and immigration policies. Conner is a graduate of Purdue University, with a Bachelor’s of Science degree and is the recipient of Purdue’s Distinguished Alumni Award.

Scott Faber

Brad Marshland — Mon, 09 May 2022 22:28:04 +0000

Scott Faber

Senior VP, Government Affairs, EWG

Scott Faber leads EWG’s government affairs efforts, in which capacity he has frequently testified before Congress on food, farm, energy, water and chemical policy issues. Faber is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center. Faber is one of EWG’s top spokespeople and is a frequent source for journalists with national and regional media outlets. Faber has appeared on network and cable news programs and in documentary films, and he is regularly quoted in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, Politico and CNN.com, among many others.

Allen Williams

Brad Marshland — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 22:00:33 +0000

Allen Williams

Founder, Understanding Ag

Allen Williams is a 6th generation family farmer and founding partner of Grass Fed Insights, LLC, Understanding Ag, LLC and the Soil Health Academy. He has consulted with more than 4000 farmers and ranchers in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South America, and other countries, on operations ranging from a few acres to over 1 million acres. Williams pioneered many of the early regenerative grazing protocols and forage finishing techniques and now teaches those practices and principles to farmers globally. He is a “recovering academic”, having served 15 years on the faculty at Louisiana Tech University and Mississippi State University. He holds a B.S. and M.S. in Animal Science from Clemson University and a Ph.D. in Livestock Genetics from LSU. He has authored more than 400 scientific and popular press articles, and is an invited speaker at regional, national, and international conferences and symposia.

He and his colleagues specialize in whole farm & ranch planning based on the concept of regenerative agriculture. Their approach creates significant “value add” and prepares the landowner for multiple enterprise/revenue stream opportunities that stack enterprises and acres. This approach allows for enhanced profitability and/or investment value. They routinely conduct workshops and seminars across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

Vandana Shiva and the Hubris of Manipulating Nature

Otto Pilot — Fri, 30 Jul 2021 08:00:00 +0000

Vandana Shiva and the Hubris of Manipulating Nature

07/30/2021

Visionary Guests

What are the limits on how much humans should meddle with the natural world?

Vandana Shiva is an eco-feminist, activist, editor, and author who has spent much of her career opposing corporate-led globalization, particularly in agriculture. She is the founder of Navdanya, a movement for biodiversity conservation and farmers’ rights.

Her activism began in college, when she volunteered with the nonviolent grassroots Chipko movement led by women aimed at stopping deforestation in Northern India.

“And the women said these forests are not timber mines. These forests are sources of solar water and oxygen and every day we realize how that is the basis of life,” Shiva says.

She studied physics as an undergraduate, and holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Western Ontario focusing on the philosophy of physics. She’s received numerous awards for her work and has also been called “anti-science” by her detractors, which include prominent scientists.

Shiva is highly critical of how humans have changed our relationship with the land through industrial monocrop agriculture. She fiercely opposes the use of genetically modified crops, and has called seed patents “bio-piracy.”

“Because what nature created you claim as your creation, and GMO in that worldview means God Move Over, GMO,” she says. But it’s not just the technology she’s critical of.

“I’m critical of the world view of arrogance. The worldview that came with colonialism, the mechanistic mindset of the conquering man being the creator of the earth and creator of the wealth,” Shiva says.

She argues for a renewed focus on biodiversity and regenerative agriculture to help solve the climate crisis, as well as improve our nutritional health.

“Small farms produce more, biodiversity produces small because it works in cooperation...the more you intensify the flows of nutrition in the system, the soil regenerates, the plants regenerate, the pollinators come back and you actually have more nutrition per acre rather than yields per acre,” she says.

“So, this debate that's been created ‘oh, you’ll need more land’ is a false debate. It's chemical farming that needs more land. It's commodity farming that needs more land. Otherwise why would the soil lobby have invaded into the Amazon [rainforest] just to grow GMO soya? Most of it for animal feed and biofuel? The expansionism of GMO soya I should tell anyone that this is not about feeding the world, but it is feeding profits.”

Despite her criticism of the global power structures, she believes we have the power to change for the better.

“And if we are able to make that leap from monocultures to diversity, from superiority to equality, from destruction as creation to co-creation in nonviolence, then humanity has a hope,” Shiva says.

Guests

Vandana Shiva

Director of the Foundation for Science, Technology & Ecology

Greg Dalton: This is Climate One. I’m Greg Dalton. Today, Indian eco-feminist Dr. Vandana Shiva talks about her opposition to industrial agriculture and genetically modified crops. She’s called seed patents “bio-piracy”:

Vandana Shiva: So, why do I call this biopiracy? Because what nature created you claim as your creation and GMO in that worldview means God Move Over, GMO.

Greg Dalton: But it’s not just the technology she’s critical of.

Vandana Shiva: I’m critical of the world view of arrogance. The worldview that came with colonialism, the mechanistic mindset of the conquering man being the creator of the earth and creator of the wealth, that they basically stole.

Greg Dalton: Vandana Shiva on tapping biodiversity to counter the hubris of corporations manipulating nature. Up next on Climate One.

Greg Dalton: What are the limits on how much humans should meddle with the natural world? Climate One’s empowering conversations connect all aspects of the climate emergency. I’m Greg Dalton.

Greg Dalton: My guest this week is Dr. Vandana Shiva. She's an eco-feminist who has spent much of her career opposing corporate-led globalization, particularly in agriculture. She holds some controversial opinions, and has been called “anti-science” by her detractors, which include prominent scientists. Although she studied physics as an undergraduate, she holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Western Ontario focusing on the philosophy of physics. In fact checking this interview, I found some of her numbers to be problematic. We edited the show to focus on her larger themes rather than specific figures, which lacked precision. At the same time, I found Dr. Shiva to be provocative, controversial and insightful, especially when she was questioning my own linear and western-centric thinking. During the 1970s Vandana Shiva was active in the grassroots Chipko movement led by women aimed at stopping deforestation in Northern India. I asked what drew her to that cause.

Vandana Shiva: Greg, I’ve grown up in the forests of the Himalaya. I was born in the forests of the Himalaya. My father was a forest conservator. And before leaving for Canada for my PhD in the foundations of quantum theory, I just wanted to carry a bit of my home with me so I went for a short trek. And this oak forest that I used to walk in had disappeared. And the stream that came from it, was a trickle. I was of course taking a flight the next day to Canada so I continued. But while talking to, you know, waiting on the road for the bus, chaiwala started to talk of how Chipko had started and now there’s hope. And I asked more and he knew a little bit about women’s action. But I took a pledge in my mind that every vacation I’ll come back and I’ll meet the people and volunteer for this movement. So, that's what I did. Every summer, every winter I would come back from Canada and volunteered for the Chipko Movement. So, it’s the disappearance of a forest that led me to it. And now while the forests are burning in California, in Canada, I’m thinking of the slogans of the women who never went to school. They defended the oak tree and they sang songs and said the oak gives us water. The oak leaves become the streams and they were talking about humus and they were fighting against monocultures. And the women said these forests are not timber mines. These forests are sources of solar water and oxygen and every day we realize how that is the basis of life. People died during COVID for lack of oxygen. People are dying for lack of water. A billion people and more are dying for lack of food. This is exactly the message that women simple women from the Himalaya would give me and I say they gave me; they became my professors of ecology and biodiversity. I did a PhD in Canada but a non-PhD learning that has lasted me my life from the Chipko university.

Greg Dalton: So, I wanna get back to Chipko. But you said a billion people dying from lack of food that sounds like bit of an exaggeration, a billion people dying?

Vandana Shiva: Oh, a billion, sorry, a billion people are hungry. And not just undernourished really denied. If you take the undernourishment figure, you know, there are two sources of undernourishment. One is you don't have access to food. And this is happening also to the farmers who are growing food. Half of the hungry people of the world are agricultural people who are growing rice with chemicals for which they had to borrow money so when they grow the rice they have to pay back the agent of the chemical fertilizer and the pesticide and the seed agent. So, they grew the rice but they can’t eat it. And when they sell it, it sells for very low. When they buy the same rice it’s four times more. This is the polarization of prices that globalization has created. And that means the same farmers who grow the rice starve. The second is the food itself is now nutritionally empty because the soils are depleted of nutrition. And the nutrition in our food comes from two sources. The seeds we are not breeding for nutrition we are breeding for weight. It's the ultimate Cartesian victory, you know, how big is the apple, how heavy is your soya bean, not how much nutrition is in. That’s why I shifted to nutrition per acre and we can feed two times the world if we conserve biodiversity. The third reason why people are hungry we are not eating food anymore. It's empty food. You know this junk food like stuff. So a billion people are hungry, but 2 billion are sick because of these food-like substances where the industry is growing and stuffing it down, and the American diet is now being spread and everybody have diabetes you have cancer you got metabolic disorders.

Greg Dalton: Yeah, sometimes I think about yeah there’s a food industry that gets us sick and then there's a medical industry that wants to sell us drugs after we get sick from the food that is sold to us. Much of your work has been to promote biodiversity and agriculture, just as you articulated, specifically fighting against corporate patents on seeds and the use of GMOs. You’ve called seed patents biopiracy how much of your objections of the technologies themselves versus who controls it the consolidation of power so much power in few hands.

Vandana Shiva: The technology and patenting are wedded from birth. The patenting was the aim, the technology was the means to achieve that aim. The false claim was made that by tweaking one gene or shooting one toxic gene, a bt toxin, a Roundup Ready, we are the inventors and creators of life and therefore we own the seed, this seed and its 20 generations to come. And these are cases that have gone to the Supreme Court there’s a very famous case of Monsanto versus a farmer in US where they actually ruled that the seed is a self-replicating machine. And even if you didn't buy the seed from Monsanto you bought the grain in an elevator, it is still intellectual property. Having done my doctorate work on nonseparation. Having done my doctorate work on potential. I said, but the seed is self-organized autopoiesis in making billions of years of evolutionary history in it. The farmers have bred these seeds, the qualities of the seed, the true qualities outside the toxic qualities. The aroma of our basmati, the known gluten properties of our wheats. These weren’t created by Monsanto or genetic engineering. They were bred by the farmers. So, why do I call this biopiracy? Because what nature created you claim as your creation and GMO in that worldview means God Move Over, GMO. God Move Over. Creation is us. The second is all indigenous people, the minimum we can claim is 10,000 years. 10,000 years we farmed we have bred seeds, one grass, oryza sativa became 200,000 rice varieties with the brilliance of Indian peasants. Maize, one teosinte became the thousands of maize varieties in Mexico and in Peru and in the first nations of America. That brilliance of breeding is denied and the corporations here when I shoot a gene, I create a seed. It is so ontologically wrong, but it's also ethically wrong and epistemologically wrong. So, when you asked me what I’m critical of, I’m critical of the worldview of arrogance, the worldview that came with colonialism. The mechanistic mindset of the conquering man being the creator of the earth and creator of the wealth that they basically stole. So, you know, there's a way in which in our age, the religion that was the colonizing mission. The first colonization, oh I got to be a Christian all those little kids from the indigenous peoples the first nations thrown into boarding schools. Thousands died; the graves are just being found. That is all to make them civilized through Christianity. Today’s civilizing mission use the mysterious word technology. But technology is merely a tool at any point humanity is brilliant enough to have 5, 10, 20 tools to choose from. That is technological democracy. And the minute you put technology at the level of religion with a capital T in the hands of five men, then that's when hubris substitutes democracy.

Greg Dalton: And one of the biggest seed controversies has been over golden rice, a variety genetically engineered to provide vitamin A. According to the WHO vitamin A deficiency is responsible for 1 to 2 million deaths a year plus another half million cases of blindness. This sounds like a pretty good idea to fortify rice with vitamin A.

Vandana Shiva: Well, it would be a good idea, Greg, if there was no other source of vitamin A. One, when you need vitamin A what do you eat? You eat curkman. Why is vitamin A the precursor called Beta carotene? Carrot is there --

Greg Dalton: Yeah, leafy greens, right. But if it’s so readily available then there wouldn’t be such a vitamin A deficiency.

Vandana Shiva: So, why is there a vitamin A deficiency? Let's go back to the green revolution Norman Borlaug who took mixed farming with lots of vegetables, lots of greens, lots of pulses, and lots of oilseeds. And then said, no, I want to sell my fertilizers the leftovers of the war and therefore we must have monocultures. When you have an external input system you have to have a monoculture.

Greg Dalton: Those fertilizers based on fossil fuels partly, right?

Vandana Shiva: They are based on fossil fuels 1 kg of urea fertilizer requires 2 L equivalent of diesel. The same companies made the explosives and ammunition and made the fertilizers. And, you know, it’s the same buyers and you talked earlier about some of them make us sick and then others make a profit it’s the same people who make us sick. But coming back to the issue of vitamin A deficiency. So, you create monocultures and what is Roundup, Roundup as the debates in the biodiversity convention used to show Monsanto would get up and say we prevent the weeds from stealing the sunshine. Well, the sun is so generous and it grows biodiversity. The beautiful amaranth, which is being made a superweed with Roundup resistant soy and Roundup resistant corn in the fields of America and now they’re using dicamba and more and more virulent herbicides. What was called weeds are sources of food, are sources of vitamin A. The second big reason is that when you do so-called high-yielding varieties with chemical fertilizers. First, your high-yielding variety is merely taking more out of the farm destroying the straw which would go back to the soil to make the nutrition. You've destroyed the nutrition cycle of the earth, you've destroyed the nutrients in the soil, the zinc, the iron, everything else that makes us healthy. So, you’re having nutritionally empty food. So, you have a monoculture, you have nutritionally empty food then you do milling, industrial milling is a way to take nutrition out but they’re so clever then they sell the bran as a separate product. They sell rice bran oil as another product. So, they dismember a product which you would eat in wholesome ways. So, it's a dysfunctional system to make more and more money for a few people, and we have watched how to dump GMO soy on India. The industry just ganged up and banned our edible oils. They banned our local cold pressed virgin mills, 5 million just made illegal overnight. And there’s a woman who came to me and said bring back our mustard. We cannot eat food cooked in GMO soya. And we have to do a satyagraha, satyagraha is Gandhi’s word of noncooperation. Satya, truth. Agraha, force. He told us how to throw the British out.

Greg Dalton: On GMOs. I hear your points about control and the mindset and the worldview. Though the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, the US National Academy of Sciences, the British Royal Society have all examined the evidence and concluded that consuming foods containing ingredients derived from GM crops are no riskier than consuming the same foods containing ingredient from plants modified by conventional improvement techniques. So, acknowledging all the things you said about GMOs and control and power. Will you acknowledge that as a scientist GMOs are safe for humans to eat?

Vandana Shiva: But we never even started talking about it as food. We were talking about it in the field as a crop. And the reason I played a big role in writing, working with governments to write Article 19.3 of the Convention on Biological Diversity which led to the biosafety protocol on which I was appointed as an expert. Biosafety is about the impact on biodiversity. What does it do what does Bt toxin do to the bees and the butterflies? What does Bt toxin do to the soil organisms? So, the impact on biodiversity, the impact on public health and now added to it is the social economic impact on farmers. In India, we’ve lost 400,000 farmers to suicide. 85% of them this is from government data, you just have to do the Bt cotton map the GMO map and map the suicides. 85% are in the cotton area 95% of it Monsanto so --

Greg Dalton: I did read a Brookings Institution report that said that per capita kind of questioning with some of the trends of the Indian farmer suicide. So, there is some debate there, tragic, there are some debate about whether it's out of proportion to other countries, etc. but that is certainly something that's very serious.

Vandana Shiva: Yeah. But let me come back to the GMO question. To talk about food means it's all right if you do lose your biodiversity. I think the biosafety question is about the relationship of the crops we grow and the evidence is now so clear that GMO crops have failed to do what they were claimed to do Roundup Ready crops were introduced in order to control weeds, American farmlands are overtaken by superweeds. A plant is a self-organize complex system. And the weeds they evolved resistance just like antibiotics, resistance is growing. The more antibiotics used in the animal farms in your factory farming you’re gonna have antibiotic resistance. So, we come back again to the signs of living systems, the technology where it was applied has failed. I don’t think big scientific institutions should be looking at the wrong place. We're talking about crops and biodiversity. No one talked about food safety and in the early days of course no one died of DDT immediately. Rachel Carson was attacked because she pointed out the harm. Today we know. So, I mean neither GMOs nor chemicals have instant impact. The impact builds up over time. But on life on earth it does have impact. Poisons kill immediately and are the basis of the extinction crisis. So, anyone who cares about diversity of species should be looking at the tools that are driving species to extinction. So again, we have to think in systems ways we have to think in interconnections.

Greg Dalton: You’re listening to a Climate One conversation about the hubris of manipulating nature with Indian ecofeminist Dr. Vandana Shiva. If you missed a previous episode, or want to hear more of Climate One’s empowering conversations, subscribe to our podcast wherever you get your pods. Coming up, Shiva shares more about how she sees industrial, globalized agriculture hurting our natural systems, including those like the Amazon rainforest that are essential to the planet’s resilience:

Vandana Shiva: It's commodity farming that needs more land otherwise why would the soil lobby have invaded into the Amazon just to grow GMO soy. Most of it for animal feed and biofuel. The expansionism of GMO soya I should tell anyone that this is not about feeding the world, but it is feeding profits.

Greg Dalton: That’s up next, when Climate One continues.

Greg Dalton: This is Climate One. I’m Greg Dalton, and we’re talking with Indian ecofeminist Vandana Shiva. We pick up our discussion on industrial monocrop agriculture.

Greg Dalton: So, I certainly see the capitalism is about creating revenue streams and intellectual property helps lock up technology that secures revenue streams and therefore profits for the capitalistic system. But the system you’re describing are so entrenched and complex how do we change them? Some people would say organics are more nutritious and counter many of the things you’re talking about. Others would say organics require too much land, that organics cannot scale and feed the world.

Vandana Shiva: So, you know, that was the word when Europe was the center of the world. We used to talk about the Eurocentric worldview. And I think now that the US thinks it’s the center of the world that’s a very American centric worldview. But most of the farms of the world are not like what has been made of the American farmlands. Agribusiness has destroyed farming in America. Small farms produce more, biodiversity produces small because it works in cooperation. So, the more you intensify chemicals, you intensify commodity production which doesn't feed you. But the more you intensify biodiversity, the more you intensify the flows of nutrition in the system the soil regenerates the plants regenerate the pollinators come back and you actually have more nutrition per acre rather than yields per acre. So, this debate that's been created oh, you’ll need more land is a false debate. It's chemical farming that needs more land. It's commodity farming that needs more land otherwise why would the soil lobby have invaded into the Amazon just to grow GMO soy. Most of it for animal feed and biofuel. The expansionism of GMO soya I should tell anyone that this is not about feeding the world, but it is feeding profits.

Greg Dalton: And climate is disrupting agriculture small-scale agriculture large-scale agriculture. Lot of small-scale agriculture as you know is done by women. Is there a technology that can help provide food security and help women farmers isn’t some of that positive? What kind of technology can you see helping?

Vandana Shiva: So, Greg, I think the first issue is it's not just that agriculture is being impacted by climate change. Industrial, globalized agriculture based on fossil fuels and fossil fuel-based chemicals is 50% of the climate problem. The figures are there it just usually they look at only agricultural production. But in agriculture production itself when you see those giant machines moving, they’re all fossil fueled driven. When you see the urea applied to the fields it's emitting nitrous oxide which is 300 times more damaging to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide and it is the planetary boundary more structured. I do not know why nitrogen is not in the discussion on climate change.

Greg Dalton: In this part of our conversation, Dr. Shiva cited several figures that I thought to myself, we better check that. And we did. It is true that nitrous oxide is 300 times more damaging to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide and nitrogen is not a big part of the climate discussion. Her claim that agriculture is half of the climate problem is problematic.

Agricultural emissions have been hotly debated since a 2006 report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization called Livestock’s Long Shadow. That report pegged agriculture at 18 percent of global emissions, and the FAO later lowered the number to 14- percent. But direct emissions from growing food and harvesting it with machinery burning fossil fuels is only part of the story. Indirect impacts - such as clearing forests to grow corn and soy to feed to cows to make burgers - is also a significant part of the equation. The math gets complicated fast. A recent Mckinsey study based on IPCC data pegs agriculture emissions at 20 percent and land use changes and forestry at 7 percent. That means the total for ag, forests and land use change is 27 percent - almost as big a source of emissions as industry.

Vandana Shiva: I think that's where people need to become a little more thinking. The third is processing why are we taking good healthy food and turning it into junk that makes us sick and destroys the planet. Ultra-processed food is the single biggest cause of chronic diseases which are making us more vulnerable to infections like COVID. So, processing we could do with much less, and more. Transport, we don’t have to move food miles we call it food miles. This shipping containers of green and vegetables across the world we need to localize more. And then retail, Mr. Jeff Bezos just went for 10 minutes into space all over the place comes down and says two things that everyone should be outraged with, all listeners of Climate One should be outraged with. The first he says, oh, now after my 10-minute ride we can put all the polluting industry into other planets. Are you crazy? Are you crazy? You've destroyed this planet and you with your shipping a one parcel for one hairpin are big polluter. No one has done the ecological footprint of Amazon distribution. But more importantly he sits there arrogantly and says, while people are fighting for day wages, workers compensation. He sits there and says; I want to thank all the customers and workers of Amazon who sent me for a 10-minute flight. That irresponsibility is the hubris.

Greg Dalton: Right. Stephen Colbert just said he wants Jeff Bezos to pay some taxes.

Vandana Shiva: But let me complete the figures of the emissions from industrial, globalized agriculture, not agriculture, but industrial globalized agriculture. 20% from turning food into rubbish that is destroying the planet and our health. And then because you're privileging long-distance movement and uniformity you have waste. If I’m growing food locally there’s no waste. I can feed my cow. I can compost it. No food goes waste. But long-distance transport makes waste. Now, when you asked me is there a technology that's where I think for the Western industrial civilization the big quantum leap in their minds has to be technology is any transformation. So, when a person breed seeds they are involved in breeding technology. Breeding doesn't begin with Monsanto poisoning the seed. When a leaf, a beautiful leaf takes the sunlight and the carbon dioxide and through photosynthesis transforms this into the oxygen that we breathe and keeps us alive, and the carbohydrates that are the basis of all the food and fiber of the world that is the most sophisticated technology for taking common dioxide out of the atmosphere, putting it into plants turning it into food, putting it back into soil, turning it into fertile soils. Our assessments the community that created the regeneration movement. We have the regeneration international all the scientists were working on the link between the biosphere and the atmosphere are showing that if we stop fossil fuels today and don't lead to new emissions and I do believe polluter should pay and not make tricks through like net zero, we can talk about that later, but we basically can if we stop the pollution in agriculture, if we stop the chemicals in a 10-year timeframe, we can feed the world, regenerate more wilderness. We can have more nourishment and the bees can come back and have the habitats, but most importantly we can do this all in 10 years, 10 tons is the amount we can add every year. The research is showing this. And on our farm at Navdanya we do these studies on how with biodiversity intensification intensifying photosynthesis biomass, biodiversity you can actually heal the cycle and regenerate rather than degenerate the planet.

Greg Dalton: Dr. Vandana Shiva is ecologist, activist, author and director of the Foundation for Science Technology and Ecology. We’re talking about the hubris of manipulating nature. I’d like to ask you Dr. Shiva, you know, I was quite relieved when I received my first and second COVID-19 vaccine. Have you been vaccinated? I know that it was quite bad in India.

Vandana Shiva: I’ve been vaccinated, but the data is not very reassuring. In England more people have died, who were vaccinated than those of who are not.

Greg Dalton: Well, that could confusing causation and correlation because someone vaccinated and died, they could've died from a heart attack or cancer or something else. It doesn't mean that the and this is I think the kind of statement that sometimes causes people to say you’re anti-science.

Vandana Shiva: But there’s multi causation in any system, and therefore we need to look at the system as a whole. And that's why people like Fritjof Capra who was also a physicist and has written amazing books and is in the Bay Area. We talk of system science and system science means all relationships must be taken into account, and Cartesian logic is what is the block to understanding both the causes of climate change and the impacts. Understanding disease multi factoral and therefore we talk of all dimensionality. The three dimensions of space, not just the two-dimension of Cartesian space and time unfolding. You know, 400 years later we’re still stuck with a linear one-dimensional mechanistic paradigm, which says the nature is dead. One thing has one impact. And we are making our body sick. We are making the planet’s body sick because of the wrong paradigm that suited colonization.

Greg Dalton: And we’re not taught that in school. But back to the COVID vaccine. The COVID vaccines are mRNA vaccines they teach our cells how to make a protein that triggers an immune response inside our bodies. You received it. I received it. Is that manipulation of cellular protein?

Vandana Shiva: No, no, no, no. Again, you are Americanizing the world. America has some vaccines. India has others. We have Covishield and we have Covaxin. So, I don’t think, you know, like the Eurocentric obsession that the whole world would be shaped by a European mind. I do think you have to learn to be earth citizens in America. There are indigenous cultures all over the world. There are sovereign countries making decisions on seed, food, agriculture, medicine, vaccines, most of the countries don't have patents on seed, I help my Parliament write laws. Seeds are not human inventions therefore they cannot be patented. So, countries like India have sovereign laws, and we are the biggest vaccine makers of the world. But we also have sovereign decisions about which vaccines we will choose.

Greg Dalton: Fair enough. And India is now the world's third largest emitter of carbon dioxide after the US and China. Granted India still living in the shadow of colonialism. There’s also a rising middle class in India and China that is aspiring to higher levels of consumption material comforts. What responsibility does India have with regard to its own emissions?

Vandana Shiva: Well, I think the first thing is we need to remember that while we are politically sovereign. Globalization made the economic system one integrated corporate production machine. Which outsourced everything at that time to China --

Greg Dalton: Emissions were exported. Manufacturing and emissions were exported.

Vandana Shiva: So, that is why it’s wrong to talk merely about consumers. We got to look at the production system. We got to look at the corporate role. It’s the industrialized countries. If you take the shared production into account. Not the geography, you know, if you followed Lawrence Summers at the Earth Summit where he said, oh, the Third World doesn't have enough pollution and we must export pollution to them and shift our polluting industry like Jeff Bezos wants to shift polluting industry to other planets. So, this idea of exporting toxics exporting pollution exporting waste is based on basically a racist divide an apartheid that you take the sickness and this is the debate of environmental justice and climate justice all over the world.

Greg Dalton: Sure. That definitely happened, exporting manufacturing, exporting the emissions and there are still rising middle class that have their own domestic emissions and that is part of it. There's 300 million people who’ve come out of poverty, into the middle class in China. I don't know how many in India and that is a real force for growing emissions. Most of the historic emissions are red, white and blue which means they’re French and British and Russian and American. But there is I’m trying to get to the point of some, there’s a lot can be blamed on colonialism. A lot can be blamed on exportation and globalization, which may be driven by the forces you cite. But what responsibility do emerging economies have, they have some don’t they?

Vandana Shiva: Yeah, Greg, so if I have a vegetable vendor outside my door and I just go step out and buy my fresh tomatoes and my fresh cucumbers. And that option is destroyed because Mr. Jeff Bezos comes and shifts everything so that during the lock down the vegetable vendor is not able to sell but Mr. Bezos continues to sell and these are debates, they are ongoing debates right now on retail, yeah, on retail issue. So, when you talk consumption, Greg, is extremely important to think about forced consumption. Forced consumption in food it is always forced. The second is, you know, we’re a land of clothing, India was colonized for its spices and textiles. But you think changing in the clothing system is not part of the fast fashion industries big propaganda machine. You know, consumers are not little atoms by themselves, they are when they are made unthinking consumers of advertising signals and options that are closed for them. They will make choices that suit the profits of the corporate world. When they are free citizens who are able to think culturally in the civilization, able to think about the footprint of their actions. That's why I talk about earth democracy. That's why I talk about earth citizenship rather than consumerism. Again, we come back to Mr. Descartes. We separate consumers from production but it's one system. We separate corporate profits from the choices consumers make. Why are the young people of the world rebelling? They’re seeing the links the fact that young people on the streets and striking is they are seeing the links.

Greg Dalton: You're listening to a conversation with Indian ecofeminist Dr. Vandana Shiva about how far we should go in manipulating nature to suit our needs--agricultural, climate, or otherwise. This is Climate One. Coming up, her belief that we can all change, for the better:

Vandana Shiva: Everyone has potential. You know it's not the fact that you're born white and you're stuck in white superiority. The potential to be earth citizens is in you.

Greg Dalton: That’s up next, when Climate One continues.

Greg Dalton: This is Climate One. I’m Greg Dalton. I’m talking with Dr. Vandana Shiva about the concentration of power by corporations. Some criticized the Trans-Pacific Partnership supported by President Barack Obama for being too all-encompassing--in one example, local regulations restricting the sale of tobacco to young people could be seen as an obstruction to trade. President Donald Trump did away with the TPP. I asked Dr. Shiva if she agreed with that move.

Vandana Shiva: Well, I basically think that globalization and free trade whether it is the World Trade Organization or the TPP or The Atlantic Treaty or the bilaterals being worked out are really corporate rule, that’s how we call it in the international forum on globalization. Now when corporations write the rules, they will write rules against democracy. They will write rules against constitutions. They will write rules against the environment. They will write rules against worker’s rights and these are rules of deregulation. So, what you've just cited is part of all the new free-trade agreements. Interstate dispute settlement mechanism and this is wonderful right just like Columbus got a charter or East India company got a charter saying go take those lands. They write their treaties and then say all of this is ours for profit. And if a government makes a decision according to its Constitution and according to its people's will. Then we will sue them for stealing our markets that don't exist, but they are our right. And I'll give you just two examples. You gave the example of tobacco. But remember after Fukushima the Germans were out on the street and they insisted that all the nuclear plants be phase out. And Germany had to take that decision under huge democratic pressure. So, the nuclear plant was shut and a Swedish company, which had a nuclear plant sued Germany billions of dollars that we have lost so much profits now you pay us. So, this industry dispute settlement clauses are basically been set at home. We write a treaty, the violation of the treaty because the Constitution doesn't allow it or the people don’t allow it will be, we will have so I’ll give you one example. I’ve been part of the movement for water as a commons and against water privatization. And we stopped the privatizing of the Gangla by Suez, the World Bank was trying to push it. Again, we did civil disobedience we marched the streets I brought water pots to the World Bank. But Bolivia, its water was privatized by the World Bank and it is given to Bechtel, which the American company. And Bechtel of course increase the price six times but when people started to harvest on their rooftops, they said even the rain you cannot harvest. When people started to dig wells so they wouldn’t have to pay huge price they said even the groundwater is ours.

Greg Dalton: Yeah, I think there’s a movie made about that one, yeah.

Vandana Shiva: And the fact that indigenous people then came into governance is because of that movement of people in Bolivia. When Bechtel was thrown out, but Bechtel is still demanding compensation. So, you know, corporate rule is the problem. Corporate rule is the problem.

Greg Dalton: They have contracts. And I may agree with you about how corporations have assumed an unhealthy amount of power or international system legal system having the rights of individuals and yet the climate emergency is urgent. It is severe. It is affecting everyone. And there are some corporations that are moving using their power to move away from fossil fuels toward cleaner energy. We may not like the system but isn’t it good that some large corporations are moving toward cleaner energy isn’t that a positive force? Are corporations always bad is everything big bad?

Vandana Shiva: Well, everything big where there is a small as an alternative is not the most desirable option. So, you know, again, sadly the energy question has been reduced to an external input system. Just like in agriculture where you give organic matter to the soil and then the soil organisms make your fertility, the soil is living, they forgot the soil is living. They forgot that the plants are living. They forgot that the earth as a whole Gaia is living.

Greg Dalton: So, you’re challenging the way I'm asking the question. Because I asked a question about shouldn’t we change the energy inputs and you’re saying that that’s the simplistic linear Cartesian way to look at the system. I should be looking more holistically, systemically, that you’re challenging my narrow question.

Vandana Shiva: No, I’m talking about we’ve been given because of corporate rule and a fossil fuel civilization, a highly centralized external input system for everything we do. We can shift to a fossil fuel free and a poison free agriculture. This is what I’ve done 37 years of my life. We produce more food we regenerate soil health we brought back biodiversity we have six times more pollinators in our farm than in the forest next door. Our water level has come up 70 feet. We don't do one thing we do many things.

Greg Dalton: And is that economically viable?

Vandana Shiva: Of course, it is. Our farmers, I’ll tell you a title of a book. We’ve done a true cost accounting book called Wealth Per Acre because we were always told farmers make more in a chemical system. We did the true cost accounting. What is a farmer growing Bt cotton earn? What is a farmer growing organic cotton earn? What is a farmer growing millets earn, what is a former growing soya bean earn? And on an average, if the farmers have their own seed if the farmers have their own ecological agriculture production with internal input systems. If the farmers have economic sovereignty to shape the market where we need the bigness of the global market to step out of this way because we have local markets. Farmers have to eat. When you shift that the farmers are earning 10 times more than those participating in the production of chemical commodities for a global supply chain. So yes, farmers earn more but you have to do a true cost accounting and you have to change your measures because the problem with globalization is it only measures trade. It doesn't measure production. The problem with the economy anyway that came out of commerce of colonial commerce is it basically says if you produce what you consume, you don't produce. And this is how nature's production was wiped out. This is how women's production was turned to zero, and this is how peasant production, which is what feeds the world was reduced to zero. So, we have too many false assumptions in our systems. And once we shift out of them and you can only shift out of them by looking at the big picture. What we find is the inevitability that the bigness of the problem requires big corporate control as a solution when the solution lies in decentralized democratization of the food system, the energy system, the mobility system, urban systems. And those are the initiatives taking place all over the world. All I'm saying is let’s not assume bigness as an inevitability. The only thing where bigness where you don't know when to stop growing that bigness the only entity that has that property outside corporations is the cancer cell. Every other cell knows how much to grow and when to die off and be replaced. So, bigness is not a virtue. Schumacher, brilliant thinker, co-worked a lot in India. Schumacher said and wrote a book called Small Is Beautiful.

Greg Dalton: Certainly, small businesses are the backbone of the US economy. And speaking of small, you said that individual should never give up their power in the face of climate change. Many people, even those with institutional power feel inadequate. So, what do you say to regular people who think they have no power to affect something so colossal as these systems you’re talking about?

Vandana Shiva: Well, I would basically say to ordinary people, but the havoc, I’ve never called it climate change because climate change makes you think in a comfortable way, you know, temperature will rise in this way. No, look at the floods in Europe.

Greg Dalton: Climate disruption, climate chaos, sure.

Vandana Shiva: I call it climate chaos from the beginning when I wrote my book, Soil Not Oil I called it climate chaos. You don’t know when the next extreme event will take place and what its form will be. There is no model, no matter how big your supercomputers be.

Greg Dalton: We’re certainly seeing that this summer with floods and fires. Yeah, it’s devastating.

Vandana Shiva: Well, the three things are I think all of us should have a deeper understanding that the disruption of the earth's climate systems comes from not just the use of fossilized material which the earth buried over 600 million years and should have been left underground. But the way it fossilized our mind to me that's the serious question. It fossilized our mind to imagine that this is the only way things can work. But once we get out of the fossil carbon idea.

Greg Dalton: How do we retrain our minds?

Vandana Shiva: We retrain our minds by moving from the mechanistic mind and the monoculture of the mind to the ecological mind and the diversity of the mind. And that is available in the science it’s available in cutting edge science and it’s available all indigenous cultures. All indigenous culture and it’s available in the will of women to sustain community in the earth in spite of patriarchy. That's why I always say, you know, women will show the way, and if there is a future it's because women are showing the way. So, women, indigenous people and Gaia herself, the earth. We’ve got to learn much more to listen to them to learn from them. The second is if you look at the images of Germany, what is happening? The floods came, and if you look at the pictures where was the worst flooding where American-style agriculture has created barren large fields and the storm and then the soil erosion takes place, we are turning the planet into a dustbowl. And when you have extreme rain events a dustbowl creates flats. When a dustbowl is dry, it creates dust storms, but it creates the kind of floods that we are seeing with mudslides. People were helping each other so we need much more solidarity, we need much more community building. And third, we need much more multilayered governance. We need to reclaim the power of community; we need to reclaim the power of the local. We need to reclaim the power of the regional governments. We definitely need to reclaim both the responsibility and the rights of our sovereign governments who cannot be prevented and should not be prevented from doing the right thing. There are false solutions coming from global corporations who say only we have the money. Only we have the money, only we can solve the problem. And they just floated this idea of net zero and Bill Gates has it in his book net zero. And they say it so clearly, we’ll continue to pollute, net zero doesn’t mean zero pollution. It doesn't mean we’ll end pollution which is the principle. Polluters should stop polluting and should pay for the damages caused by past pollution. But most importantly, this net zero is on the one hand they’re saying we won’t reduce our pollution we still have our private jets. We still fly around. We still do global production and when I want to go into space I’m still going to space. But you will adjust to be our offsets.

Greg Dalton: Do you still fly yourself?

Vandana Shiva: Well, we can’t fly anyway but I don’t think -- I think the time is over I’m anyway a very senior citizen, Greg. And I think at some point, you know, I mean it's a good moment to make a shift and I'm talking to you . And then, you know, I’m able to give much more attention to the conservation work the biodiversity work on Navdanya farm or to our colleagues I just spent a week with our colleagues from across India on how not only will we continue our biodiverse conservation we’ll continue organic farming, we’ll continue building local markets. But we are working with farmers becoming the climate gods so that the reports on the impact of the damages and the reports on the experience of resilience which seeds are resilient what organic practices are resilient that people emerge from the ground as climate experts that's our next decade of work.

Greg Dalton: And speaking of god, do you see environmental destruction as inherently patriarchal. I was a little surprised to see you praise Laudato si’ the encyclical from Pope Francis on care for our common home that urged a move away from consumerism. The Catholic Church is the pinnacle of patriarchy, so are there powerful white men you think are positive forces on climate and perhaps even have feminine sensibilities?

Vandana Shiva: I've written so much about the fact that Pope Alexander wrote the papal bull to conquer the lands. Well, the Pope before him wrote the bull to burn 9 million people as witches just because they believe we are part of nature. And, you know, being part of nature was made illegal, you are engaged in witchcraft if you thought you’re a part of nature. You had to separate yourself. So, the burning of witches, colonialism all goes hand-in-hand. I do believe very sincerely and again, I come back to my quantum training. Everyone has potential. You know it's not the fact that you're born white and you're stuck in white superiority. The potential to be earth citizens is in you. The fact that Popes and the church has been part of the crimes against humanity over history doesn't mean a current Pope doesn't have a potential to realize that he can correct the church and the encyclical is a correction. So, potential, potential, potential means all of us can be earth citizens equal but diverse. All of us can be feminist men and women, all of us can be indigenous and that's the major, major shift we need to make. And if we are able to make that leap from monocultures to diversity from superiority to equality from destruction as creation to co-creation in nonviolence then humanity has a hope.

Greg Dalton: Thank you, Dr. Shiva.

Vandana Shiva: Thank you, Greg.

Greg Dalton: On this Climate One... We’ve been talking about the hubris of manipulating nature with Indian ecofeminist and activist Dr. Vandana Shiva.

Greg Dalton: To hear more Climate One conversations, subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your pods. Please help us get people talking more about climate by giving us a rating or review. It really does help advance the climate conversation.

Greg Dalton: Brad Marshland is our senior producer; Ariana Brocious is our producer and audio editor. Our audio engineer is Arnav Gupta. Our team also includes Steve Fox, Kelli Pennington, and Tyler Reed. Gloria Duffy is CEO of The Commonwealth Club of California, the nonprofit and nonpartisan forum where our program originates. I’m Greg Dalton.

Play

Extreme Heat: The Silent Killer

Otto Pilot — Fri, 25 Jun 2021 08:00:00 +0000

Extreme Heat: The Silent Killer

06/25/2021

Last week’s heat wave across the western United States busted more records – a trend that doesn’t seem to be going away.

Despite the serious threats extreme heat presents to our health, livelihoods and economy, we tend to perceive intense heat events differently from other climate disasters, says Kathy Baughman-McLeod, senior vice president and director of the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center.

“[Heat events] don’t have the drama that a flood or hurricane has. It just doesn’t have the visual nature,” she says.

In 2020, the center created the Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance, which aims to build a network of city leaders and experts to tackle the growing threat of extreme urban heat around the world.

“One of the misconceptions is that it's the hot places, but really it's the places least accustomed to heat who are least prepared to withstand it,” Baughman-McLeod says. We don’t track heat-related deaths very well, nor the other associated impacts of heat, like the economic cost of a heat wave, she says.

Because heat disproportionately impacts low-income communities and communities of color, “a chief heat officer wakes up every day thinking about how to protect people and their livelihoods, especially vulnerable people,” Baughman-McLeod says. “We need to be heat risk informed: what are the risks, who is most at risk, where are they, what are the interventions that can help protect them, how much they cost, how do we pay for it, how do we coordinate and learn from other cities that are doing this?”

Miami-Dade County is one of the places that has joined the alliance. Physician Cheryl Holder is co-chair of Miami-Dade’s new Heat-Health Task Force and has spent decades working with populations more at risk for heat impacts.

“The people who are doing the work outdoors, the people who work at the service level, the people who you hear about the coronavirus who are now called the ‘frontline workers,’ that's always been my people that I’ve cared for,” Holder says.

Holder says she uses a mnemonic with her patients to understand the myriad effects of heat.

“It’s called HEAT WAVE and each of those letters stand for the main areas that this climate is impacting us,” she says, from heat illness to worsening allergies to waterborne and vector-borne disease and the exacerbation of mental health complaints.

Holder says she’s working to convince her peers, particularly older doctors, about the risk of extreme heat and climate change on their patients and practices. She also advocates for better heat warning systems and equity-driven education outreach measures.

Meanwhile, farmers in the nation’s heartland are trying to figure out what their future holds. Dennis Todey is director of the USDA Midwest Climate Hub. He says the region is experiencing more heat, especially in the form of higher overnight temperatures and higher humidity.

“That humidity actually is helpful for crops,” like corn and soybeans, he says. “But that humidity issue for humans and livestock or animals is a whole other set of problems.”

Todey says farmers are aware of the changing conditions and working to figure out how to respond to them.

“We know that there are natural variabilities and varies from year to year. So, agriculture does try to deal with those. The problem we’re having now is some of those variations and some of those changes are becoming larger and harder to deal with."

Guests

Kathy Baughman-McLeod

Director, Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center; Senior VP, Atlantic Council

Cheryl Holder

Physician, Co-chair of Miami-Dade’s Heat-Health Task Force

Dennis Todey

Director, USDA Midwest Climate Hub

Greg Dalton: This is Climate One. I’m Greg Dalton. It’s the middle of summer… and it’s hot. Really hot. Last week’s heat wave across the western states busted more records--a trend that doesn’t seem to be going away. Some places are used to triple-digits, but in other places, lower temperatures can be deadly. Despite the serious threats extreme heat presents to our health and economy, we tend to perceive intense heat differently than other climate disasters.

Kathy Baughman-McLeod: They don’t have the drama that a flood or hurricane has. It just doesn’t have the visual nature.

Greg Dalton: A Miami doctor says heat impacts can be cumulative and slow-moving:

Cheryl Holder: So it’s not simply that you’re going to get a heat stroke and pass out. That’s the worst portion of heat. But it’s the earlier insults that many of our physicians are missing.

Greg Dalton: Meanwhile, farmers in the nation’s heartland are trying to figure out what their future holds.

Dennis Todey: Agriculture is not going to go away in these regions because there are good soils and they’re highly productive lands but it probably becomes we grow something else. And what that else is we don't know at this point.

Greg Dalton: Climate One’s empowering conversations connect all aspects of the climate emergency. Today, we explore the impacts of extreme heat. What does extreme heat mean for human health, our cities and our farms? Climate One’s empowering conversations connect all aspects of the climate emergency. I’m Greg Dalton.

Greg Dalton: Kathy Baughman-McLeod is Director of the Atlantic Council's Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center. Last year the center created the Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance, which aims to build a network of city leaders and experts to tackle the growing threat of extreme urban heat around the world. Between 2000 and 2009, heat killed more Americans than hurricanes, but we hear a lot more about hurricanes and other dramatic climate events. Kathy Baughman-McLeod says there are several reasons for that.

Kathy Baughman-McLeod: And I think the top of the list is the fact that they are quiet they don't have the drama that a flood or hurricane has just doesn't have the visual nature. And if you think about something that rips the roof off of the house imagine the weather channel and how they're able to cover those storms and the meteorologist stand in the wind in the action and their hair is blowing sideways and it is dramatic. And if you do an aerial photograph of a place that's had a deadly heat wave from one day to the next there's not a difference. And so, it's hard to compete with that drama in terms of the visual understanding of what damages it's you know it's wreaking over a community.

Greg Dalton: Yeah, quiet, slow, kind of less visible. How are the heat impacts distributed across regions across the demographics within a region? I looked at the CDC map of regions affected by unusual heat events and it looked pretty dark red across the country except for a little piece up in Alaska.

Kathy Baughman-McLeod: Yeah, it's really far-reaching and one of the misconceptions is that it's the hot places but really it's the place least accustomed to heat who are least prepared to withstand it. And the number of days at a certain temperature threshold just continues to grow and you can look at Miami and say the number of days at what feels like 105°F is growing from I think it's 17 days to 45 days. In the climate scenarios you see those days rising to where a third of the year people are experiencing 105°. But if you live in Minnesota you are not accustomed anywhere near 105° and so a lot of heat planning and addressing extreme heat it’s about the human body. Your underlying conditions, your age, the elevation, the humidity, pollution, all sorts of things factor into the way humans experience heat.

Greg Dalton: And recent update from the U.S. EPA shows that heat waves in major cities occurred three times as often in the 2010s as they did in the 1960s and heat waves are becoming more frequent. So, it seems like anyone over 30 would be experiencing and feeling this personally. So, why does heat still not get the attention it deserves?

Kathy Baughman-McLeod: I think in part it is about the slow creep of the increase in temperature. It is dramatic, it is disrupting us now, but the biggest if you look at the deaths, a lot of times elderly people who die alone who are alone in their apartments who they may be un-air-conditioned or they may feel like they can’t afford to run the air-conditioning. We don't record heat death the way we do other things. And so, there's not a box to check. If you take yourself to the hospital, they might say oh your heat has exacerbated your condition, but the box to check is renal failure, kidney failure, heart failure. And so, we don't really know and I think one of the biggest challenges is the data.

Greg Dalton: So, you said that heat is the biggest threat that climate crisis offers and we don't have a handle on it. If the data is so clear and it happens, why don’t we have a handle on it?

Kathy Baughman-McLeod: Well, the data is clear that it's getting hotter. And the way our cities are built is not helping. So, we have the urban heat island effect we have asphalt that absorbs heat and then it emanates at night. We have the they call it the diurnal range you know the range of temperature from the daytime to the nighttime it’s shrinking. The human body rests, and cleanses the brain at night and when you have temperature still high at night we don't rest and we wake up tired and we make mistakes and hurt ourselves at work and things like that. I think we also don't have a handle on it because there is still this lack of data that I referenced just a minute ago of really understanding yes, it's hot, but then how does it play out. We've read a few stories about how the airplanes in Phoenix can't fly when it's a certain high temp and how many days do we expect that that will happen and what is that economic impact that it has. We don't really have those numbers either. So, how much is the cost to have a heat wave or to prepare for one or to respond to one. Those are all things that we need suss out.

Greg Dalton: And some cities are more prepared, you expect Houston and Miami to be really hot and you said the people there, kind of accustomed to it. What about cities that you mentioned Minnesota, that are less accustomed to heat waves and the population is less accustomed to living through them and knowing what to do and how to hydrate and when to go to a cooling center or what to do outside or not do outside.

Kathy Baughman-McLeod: You’re exactly right. And those populations, they need that education and they need to build that culture of preparation that we've built for hurricanes and fires. We think that naming and ranking heat waves is a good way to do that to trigger those behaviors and to bring in all of those interventions. When the UK last summer lost 2500 people to heat, they put out a new heat health warning system and it failed because it came out too late. And so, for certain people with certain medical conditions 16 hours or 10 hours makes all the difference. And if the warning doesn't come out in time, people die. And so, knowing that and knowing what to do and having the public officials and health department all working together to share those messages is essential.

Greg Dalton: So, what is the chief heat officer program and what do you hope with city's chief heat officer will actually be able to do?

Kathy Baughman-McLeod: A CHO, chief heat officer, wakes up every day thinking about how to protect people and their livelihoods, especially vulnerable people. And I think one thing we need to say right at the top is that heat does not affect people and communities equally and it is preying upon low-income communities and communities of color all across the world and especially in the US. And so, if you look at a map of tree cover which is one of the best ways to cool community looking at a map of tree covers like looking at a map of race in American cities.

Greg Dalton: And redlining, yeah.

Kathy Baughman-McLeod: And redlining and racist housing practices all show up in the tree cover and the leafy cool neighborhoods versus the neighborhoods that are mostly concrete without tree covering green space the temperature difference can be as much a 17° in the same city and there's a big equity issue here. But the chief heat officer will focus on those communities, but also work that’s going on already can be coordinated, new work to address heat and understand the heat risks and a lot of times this is just about not understanding what the risks are. So, we need to be heat risk informed: what are the risks, who is most at risk, where are they, what are the interventions that can help protect them, how much they cost, how do we pay for it, how do we coordinate and learn from other cities that are doing this. All of that would fall within the remit of a chief heat officer.

Greg Dalton: My guest today is Kathy Baughman-McLeod, Director of the Atlantic Council's Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center. The Rockefeller Foundation previously created a program of chief resilience officers I think there was 100 cities around the world. The idea to create these positions the first time in city government and those were actual new positions within city government. And the chief heat offices are not positions funded by this new program. And I remember one of the problems of the chief resilience officers was they didn't have a budget they didn't have a bureaucratic army. There were, this one person in this government bureaucracy and it’s hard to move if you don't have that kind of muscle behind you. So, how can you expect cash-strapped cities to add more responsibility to existing staff without increased funding. What can these heat officers really get done other than kind of, I don’t know, issue press releases?

Kathy Baughman-McLeod: That's a good question. So, the first thing is to acknowledge right from the front they are cash-strapped. These cities are facing so many pressures and the economic impacts of COVID at the top of the list, but also responding to climate crises and all sorts of things, and local government’s mayors are at the tip of the spear for handling all these things that are impacting people's lives. So, our approach is to first of all acknowledge that and say where can you find the capacity that you have that can aggregate your efforts around heat. So, this person sits right next to the mayor and that's the difference between somebody that is trying to coordinate that doesn't have the power of the mayor behind them and not to say that CROs didn't because many of them sat right next to their mayors and were empowered to act. But in the partnership that we have part of our role as the Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance and we have an initiative specifically for mayors called the city champions for heat action. Specifically, we are raising money to invest in the CHOs and the work that these cities are doing. And the best approaches are coming out of the Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance with this group from around the world. And so, we expect that the mayor supports the CHO and the mayor is also actively involved and that's the deal for us is that you have that power.

Greg Dalton: And how do you decide which cities to support?

Kathy Baughman-McLeod: Well, we’re looking for places where we can be successful. So, you know, we always talk about the enabling conditions. So, where is there a climate leading mayor to start. A mayor that is already talking about climate change, acting on climate change and is facing heat risk and needs help, but is ready to spend time and effort on it. That's the first. Also, where is the heat risk and where are people most vulnerable.

Greg Dalton: I read an article once in the New York Times titled How Air-Conditioning Conquered America. It’s something we take for granted but the south would be, you know, unlivable in many ways and that really after World War II there's this big expansion of air-conditioning. It noted that now central air-conditioning is rising in new homes constructed in the West it’s already pretty much everywhere in the south but is rising in the West in places like the Bay Area where we never used to have air-conditioning before. So, as it gets hotter what are the impacts of people getting air-conditioning using it more on our national emissions of carbon pollution?

Kathy Baughman-McLeod: This is a serious concern and those are real numbers. Those numbers going up and then the key thing is, what's the source of the power that is creating the air-conditioning. And so, is it fossil fuels, and if it is, we’re increasing our emissions, period. Part of the approach of the Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance and some of our interventions, you know, there’s nature-based solutions like tree cover. They reduce your power bill. They reduce your need for air-conditioning. So, there are these passive solutions that we are promoting. And then there are the energy-based solutions. And so, that means we got to push to shift to as much renewable energy as we can to be the source of that power, but I think we also we’re facing a bigger conversation about where can people continue to live. There was an incredible work done by Abrahm Lustgarten with ProPublica and the New York Times several months back about how much of the world will be uninhabitable because of the temperatures. And we’ll be going from 2%, which is currently uninhabitable to 19% uninhabitable. So, a fifth of the world is uninhabitable. What does that mean and how do you move people and do food systems collapse or economies collapse before we move. And so, we’re not taking that on right now we're trying to protect vulnerable people. That's a, you know, that's what's in front of us right now, but those are big questions we’re gonna have to answer.

Greg Dalton: You mention the economic impact of heat. Is that economic impact of heat being recognized by governments, companies and citizens?

Kathy Baughman-McLeod: No, no, and there's another great paper that's coming out in July about workers comp data and the economic impact. So, similar economic impact of the health, the morbidity and mortality outcomes from workers who are hot and that’s both people working outside and in warehouses where they’re un-air-conditioned. So, we don't have a national heat protection standard for workers in the US and that’s something we'd like to see put in place. And so, you think about Phoenix as I was saying and the airport being shut down, you know, what are the reverberations of the airport being shut down. And you can calculate how many more days given the climate scenarios where the airplanes just can't fly. Does that mean fewer businesses come to Phoenix because there's instability in the transportation of goods and people? So, those are big questions.

Greg Dalton: How can finance and insurance be used to reduce climate and heat risk?

Kathy Baughman-McLeod: When we think about access to capital for cities how do we create affordable access, easy access and project preparation facilities and get finance moving quickly in the cities to invest in these things like changing over your pavements so that they are reflective or investing in urban forest. But then on the risk side you want to have some money before the heatwave comes just like you'd like to have money before the hurricane comes so you can get ready. And so, we're looking at risk transfer products, you know, there’s a certain type of product called the parametric insurance policy. It pays on a trigger, an event, not the damage which is the way indemnity insurance works, which is what we have in our homes. So, you have damage they assess the damage and then you have a payout. This happens when a certain thing happens. So, if the heat index is 104° for three days, money drops into the treasury of the city. But what we want to do is have the money drop on the forecast. And so, we are building forecast-based insurance and so the trigger is the forecast, the money drops, in you have generators, you have cooling centers, you have people going door-to-door to make sure folks are safe or can go someplace safe. And so, we're experimenting with all of the risk and finance tools and approaches that can help bring more protection and reduce the cost and suffering.

Greg Dalton: That’s interesting because insurance of course, is probabilistic. It's all based on math and probability and we know it’s gonna get hotter and so get the money before it happens when cities need it rather than having to wait afterwards.

Kathy Baughman-McLeod: Well, there's a great example that inspired us and that is a program called the Kenyan livestock insurance program and in short, farmers were having their cattle die and their insurance would pay out when you sent photos of the dead cattle and then money would come to the cell phone of the farmer and they would replace their cattle. And so, Swiss Re and the Kenyan government and others got together and said this doesn't make any sense there must be some way to get in front of their deaths. And so, they use remote sensing to estimate the vegetation's hydration level and when it drops to a certain point that’s dangerous for the cattle, it brings cash to the farmer to their phone beforehand and then they are able to buy water and buy what they need to keep the cattle alive. And so, the idea of moving forward in the chain of the instrument is what we're trying to do for heat.

Greg Dalton: Well, we do have some things to learn from the rest of the world. Kathy Baughman-McLeod. Thanks for coming on Climate One, I appreciate your insights today.

Kathy Baughman-McLeod: Thank you, Greg.

Greg Dalton: You’re listening to a Climate One conversation about the impacts of extreme heat. If you missed a previous episode, or want to hear more of Climate One’s empowering conversations, subscribe to our podcast wherever you get your pods. Coming up, a Miami doctor shares some of what she’s seeing in her exam room:

Cheryl Holder: I use a mnemonic with my patients and all the docs I see. And it’s called HEATWAVE. And each of those letters stand for the main areas that this climate is impacting us.

Greg Dalton: That’s up next, when Climate One continues.

Greg Dalton: This is Climate One. I’m Greg Dalton, and we’re talking about the numerous impacts of extreme heat, which is becoming more prevalent in our disrupted climate.

Dr. Cheryl Holder is very familiar with the direct and indirect impacts of heat on human health. She’s worked in Miami for 30 years, starting with the National Service Corps Payback program.

Cheryl Holder: And I was assigned to Miami working in Overtown, Little Haiti, Little Havana these are all small poor communities in Miami and eventually I worked in Opa-locka Miami Gardens, another poor black community for 20 years. Now my practice for the last 10 years has been back at the main hospital in the outpatient division and we are the only safety net hospital in the county. So, we take uninsured undocumented. So, that's my population. So, it's the people who are doing the work outdoors, the people who work at the service level, the people who you hear about the coronavirus who are now called the frontline workers. That's always been my people that I’ve cared for and I tried to serve as best as possible.

Greg Dalton: I’ve talked to various doctors over the years about climate change and they often don't see it, you know, related to their practice. They say it is something kind of far away. What are the human health impacts of extreme heat?

Cheryl Holder: Well, heat alone that’s just one aspect of the climate, the direct impact of climate change. But since you heard my population, I see people who come in because of the heat, the complaints. I just had a patient recently she works 12 hours in a very, very hot nursery. And her diabetes was uncontrolled and I kept increasing the medicines. I said you gotta get some breaks, you got to drink more fluids. And I follow her numbers and it just could not get it under control. I saw her recently. The numbers were almost, almost where I want them. I said, what happened, you're taking all your medicines? She says I quit the job. She realized that because we've been working it was just too hot. My other patients that I see come in where they feel dizzy and then they come in with a sprained ankle. They were hot, they're a little dizzy, they trip. But I was treating this for years. It wasn't like 2016 when my one patient came in and couldn't pay her light bill because she was running up the AC because it was so hot and her COPD was decompensating. And it all came together in 2016 because then all the headlines this is the hottest year hottest year and I’m like, oh my god. And so, once you become more aware you start expanding the differential we say in medicine, starting using more reasoning of their other reasons why this patient’s COPD is worse, why their sugars can’t come under control. It can all be that everybody's eating and cheating when especially I have patients who I know are adherent because I followed them for years. And my women weren't sleeping at night because it's so hot at night and they can’t afford to run ACs all night and they’re like it just doesn't get cool like it used to. And I can't really open up my windows as much because they don't live in the safest neighborhoods, then the screens aren't there because their landlords don't put screens and then you have mosquitoes. So, the constant areas that climate can impact us is that affecting this population. I use a mnemonic with my patients and with all the docs I see. And it’s called HEAT WAVE and each of those letters stand for the main areas that this climate is impacting us. And you mentioned heat, H. That is one of the biggest things that we experience in South Florida. So, it's not simply that you gonna get a heat stroke and passing out. That's the worst portion of heat, but it's the earlier insults that many of our physicians are missing.

Greg Dalton: What are the eight -- spell out heat what it stands for.

Cheryl Holder: Okay. H, for heat illness. E, exacerbation of heart and lung disease. A, worsening asthma. T, Traumatic events which comes during these extreme weather events. W, waterborne illnesses. A, the allergies worsening allergies. V, vector borne diseases. Then the last E is exacerbation of mental complaints, just worsening of mental health.

Greg Dalton: Right. So, we think about heat as direct, but it sounds like it's also very indirect. Someone who's tripping on a hot day or can't sleep at night that heat is sort of not recognized as a climate related health impact. I’m wondering if your patients make the climate connection when they come to you about these underlying affecting their sleep or their other aspects of their health you just outlined.

Cheryl Holder: No, not at all. And not in the beginning I do see more now that we're talking about climate and health more. But in general, no, in general I have to help them recognize it. It's like my patient who I told you earlier who I wanted her to keep working because she needs to work to pay all her bills but she accepted that she just couldn't tolerate the heat. And we started educating her more on ways that she could survive while she was working, taking more breaks. And that's when she started to click that it is much hotter now than even last year when she worked at the same job. So, that's when we started introducing the topic that yeah, the climate is changing.

Greg Dalton: How about your peers, your medical peers and colleagues are they seeing climate as a health concern much the way that we’ve talked about framing gun violence as a health concern. Are your peers in the medical field seeing climate as a health concern?

Cheryl Holder: The older docs not so much but I must say the younger docs that are coming out the medical students and the young docs are. And they are our biggest voice right now in pushing the curriculum, pushing the health systems to acknowledge it and then pushing for decarbonizing the health systems. So yes, there is a groundswell that is coming from the younger docs. Much of the older docs, what I’ve really tried to show them is that as these extreme weather events happen, how is your practice going to survive these extreme weather events? Because here we’re in Florida and if our hurricanes get more intense, even if they don't get more frequent that basically takes you out of practice for a while. And if your insurance rates go up so your day-to-day practice of medicine is going to be impacted. So, I am working with them on the economic side and then as they look at it, I said, think about what's happening with you. Think about your patients. The doctors who work with poorer patients are much more aware of it. The National Medical Association did a survey of its physicians and the National Medical Association physicians are African-American physicians and we serve primarily an African-American community and poorer patients. And a majority of those doctors identify climate as one of the big issues, but a lot of the African-American doctors are in the South and we have always been part of the environmental justice movement for very long because we were caring for the patients who live along the Mississippi who were exposed to all the environmental dangers. We work with patients who are in redlined areas and were presenting with the children with more asthma and the more decompensated COPD. So, we’re much more aware of it because of the population that we serve.

Greg Dalton: Yet another example of how people of color are closer to climate impacts and more on board with recognizing the risks. Dr. Cheryl Holder is a physician on the faculty of Florida International University's Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, and cochair of Miami-Dade's new Heat Health Task Force. Dr. Holder, you've talked about climate gentrification. What do you mean by that and I think that’s happening in Miami and other coastal areas and how is that also health impact?

Cheryl Holder: Yeah, climate gentrification is the term that climate advocates have noticed that where the richer people if they're more impacted by the climate change and in our communities anything along the coast, sea level rise is causing more degradation of the coastline, the waters are rising. So, the population is going to start moving to areas that are safer. In Miami and South Florida, the safer regions are on the higher ground along our ridge. The railroad tracks were put in some of the highest areas so that might be 13 to 15 feet above sea level. You remember Miami was developed post-civil war, Jim Crow era, total segregation, poor people, Black people were left at the worst spots in the land which is by the railroad tracks. These railroad tracks are on high ground. So, when a population that cared for Liberty City, Little Haiti that have endured hurricanes and never flooded because they're higher are now unable to pay their rents. Their property values are going they can’t pay their property taxes. They’re being lured to sell if they do own and many don't own but a few that own are also lured out of these neighborhoods. But the worst part really is that as the value goes up, they can’t afford to rent and their landlords are evicting them and moving them out. So, we're having climate gentrification on land that was undesirable at the beginning but the rich folks can afford to move in. And my population is now moving unfortunately to the low-lying areas because that's now the cheaper places. And so, where I really worry about a hurricane and major flooding that this population that had been protected for so many years are now in the low-lying and I dread a Katrina happening because we do not have the road infrastructure and the public transportation infrastructure to be able to evacuate them from low-lying regions.

Greg Dalton: And a lot of those populations originally came from the Caribbean. You talked in your TED talk about emigrating from Jamaica. I’m curious on a personal level, how you came to view the climate emergencies as a health emergency?

Cheryl Holder: You know, I guess because I tell everybody hashtag not my first pandemic. I was around with HIV-AIDS in the 80s. We just had 40 years. And at that time, it was similar issues the same poor population marginalized population because many of the gay people who were infected were and may not be poor but they were the same marginalized group that we’re not recognized early enough until it became a crisis. And so, as I saw more and more my patients it became evident that this seems just the same thing that we’re experiencing what I experienced back in the 80s with HIV that these folks are going to feel the brunt of it. It's happening now. Just like when we saw my HIV patients. It was something that was happening now and we had to move the governments we have to move everyone to recognize it. And I was back then and I was a young doc with ACT UP and all the groups like we had to scream for people to say people are dying now we have to do something.

Greg Dalton: Right. And as we saw recently with the 40th anniversary of the emergence of the AIDS crisis. AIDS got to a pretty good place with a lot of pain and a lot of death but now people are living with AIDS the drugs are down to one pill per day. It's contained in most places where humanity slowly responded. How do you compare that to the climate response?

Cheryl Holder: Well, as we talk about, I said saw so much improvement but think about the time, we’re talking about 40 years. We don't have 40 years with climate. So, in the model that the HIV world showed us that we can mobilize our forces we can get political will, we can get the dollars if we combine the nonprofit organizations and nongovernmental organizations the private world and the government world. We can get them all together and we can make major changes about a disease like HIV-AIDS and it was worldwide. There was a commitment also for poor people. That took 40 years. If we use the same pace for climate change, we’re not going to do very well and the population that's most vulnerable is going to have a higher death levels than we saw with coronavirus because that is the same population worldwide.

Greg Dalton: As cochair of Miami-Dade's new Heat Health Task Force, what are your main recommendations for what regional government should do to address heat and other impacts of climate disruption?

Cheryl Holder: Well, we talk about already that the population isn't quite aware of the dangers of heat. So, I think we do have a responsibility to educate. Our current system of warning is when it's very high and we know that is just too late. So, we need to change how we warn the population about heat and then when they're warned where do they go for help. And so, the government also I see have to lead in identifying the inequities in the response because if we do not use equity, we will leave a population that's very vulnerable, which will then stress the remaining people. And so, hopefully we can do it in a strategic way that involves public, private, NGOs, everything. It cannot be one, the government answer only. So, this heat health task force is about bringing everybody included at the table from the beginning.

Greg Dalton: So, as we wrap up here, I’m curious as you're taking care of vulnerable people affected in all sorts of visible and invisible and direct and indirect ways by heat driven by the burning of fossil fuels. What do you do yourself to take care of yourself and stay healthy in the growing heat of Miami?

Cheryl Holder: Well, the beautiful thing about climate solutions and anything we do to make the climate better is a health solution. So, I tell my folks I eat even more vegetables than I ever thought possible. Because if you eat less red meat, you're already improving our climate. If I find a safe way of doing physical activity and I do it in the evening or in the day or trying to incorporate more physical activity less car. I'm already improving the climate. Most of all, I tell my patients stop buying stuff. If you can do one thing for the climate and save some money is stop buying things you don't need because you end up using too much packaging, you end up with a lot of junk in your house that you don't meet. But I also tell them don't think that's going to save us. The individual things is the beginning but we really have to push our country, push our policymakers to make the big steps because it's the big things that we do like really cutting down on fossil fuel, really finding ways to price it that we can get the benefits now and help out the poor communities, those are the thing that's going to save us in 10 years.

Greg Dalton: Yeah, well, that’s what we talk about here in Climate One is connecting the individual action with the systemic and connecting the personal and the systemic. Dr. Cheryl Holder, thanks for coming on Climate One today appreciate your insights about heat as a silent climate threat. Thank you.

Cheryl Holder: Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure.

Greg Dalton: You're listening to a conversation about the impacts of extreme heat. This is Climate One. Coming up, how are farmers and ranchers dealing with more hot days and nights?

Dennis Todey: We know that there are natural variabilities and varies from year to year. So, agriculture does try to deal with those. The problem we’re having now is some of those variations and some of those larger changes are becoming larger and harder to deal with. (:14)

Greg Dalton: That’s up next, when Climate One continues.

Greg Dalton: This is Climate One. I’m Greg Dalton. Extreme heat can have big effects on crops and livestock, and the people who produce our food. Climate One Producer Ariana Brocious spoke with Dennis Todey [toddy], director of the USDA’s Midwest Climate Hub in Iowa, about the climate changes affecting farming and ranching in the heart of the country.

Ariana Brocious: So, Dennis most of the attention on the effects of extreme heat tends to focus on people in cities. But how does heat, especially extreme heat, affect crops?

Dennis Todey: You somewhat can't separate crops from drought because extreme heat is problematic for a large number of crops. But if crops can handle some extreme heat if they have enough water available. If they don't have enough water available then even moderate heat can start stressing crops. And then it becomes another issue is to what different types of crops are you talking about and what is extreme for those crops. Like crops that are developed for the Southern Plains or the Southwest they can handle higher temperatures. But when you have some different types of food crops or specialty crops that grow in the upper Midwest or maybe around the Great Lakes area extreme heat, you know, 90s can be difficult or problematic for them based on when they grow and the kinds of conditions of those times of year.

Ariana Brocious: What about humidity. How does that factor in with heat?

Dennis Todey: That is another part of what we’re seeing more in the upper Midwest is that we're seeing not as high of temperatures high daytime temperatures as maybe we did during the 30s and 50s. But we’re seeing warmer overnight temperatures and that's because we’re more humid. The overall humidity is increased. So, even though the daytime temperatures might not be as high. The heat issue is still there and it's still extreme, especially for humans and animals. That humidity actually is helpful for crops because part of the problem you have when you have limited water and you have extreme heat is the crop is trying to grow. And as part of that growth process it's using water and transpiring water to the atmosphere. And if you have very dry air the crop will transpire or use a lot of water, but if you have higher humidity that slows that transpiration down the crop doesn't have to use as much water and therefore can handle some of those higher temperatures a little bit better. But that humidity issue for humans and livestock or animals is a whole other set of problems.

Ariana Brocious: Yeah, there was a summer I lived in Nebraska and we experienced corn sweat and I recall just never having been so uncomfortable driving around in that humid heat. I have really felt like it amplified the feeling of whatever did, you know, the thermometer was telling us but we felt a lot hotter than that. And so, is that a real phenomenon, I mean maybe it sort of it’s cast that way but is that something we’re seeing more of?

Dennis Todey: Definitely it's a bit of a media construct of calling it corn sweat. But it really is the case that when you have especially field corn or soybeans in the midst of their growth period, especially corn when that tasseling period, it is using a lot of water out of the soil, transpiring a lot of water into the atmosphere. So, it’s putting a lot more of that moisture in the atmosphere. The reason it feels so uncomfortable is that our bodies when they try to cool, they try to evaporate water. And when you have higher humidity, you're not able to evaporate as much water so it’s much more dangerous for humans to be in that kind of situation. So, it's a real thing. It's crops doing what crops do, but it's a reality of the growth process of corn and soybeans.

Ariana Brocious: And we’re talking about this in states like Nebraska and Iowa which are predominantly corn, soy, this, you know, huge fields of the same crop of one crop. Is that, I mean have we affected or influenced the climate locally in those places because we put so much land into these specific crops?

Dennis Todey: We really have, and in a couple different ways really interestingly. You mentioned Nebraska, Eastern Nebraska for example, is still mostly rain-fed. They grow most of their crops with the rain that falls naturally. As you get further out in the western part of the state they irrigate. They were able to use groundwater, they’re able to use water from river sources to be able to irrigate in that area. So, you automatically change what's going on there because you're taking water that was in the ground and putting it into the atmosphere. So, you're making it more humid that way throughout the season. Now, from a crop standpoint, how we changed what we’re growing and where we’re growing and changing some of the local atmosphere around it, yeah, we definitely have especially in that northern plains I’ll say even Northwest of Iowa, Dakotas area. Because if you think back about what grew there when we first settled, when white men first moved into the area was mainly prairie is what was growing there. And prairie would grow in the early part of the warm season to the middle part of the season and then when the rain starts to fall off the grass would stop growing as actively and it would transpire less moisture. Now, we’ve put corn and beans into a lot of northern plains and they grow throughout the whole season. They continue to transpire moisture later in the year. So, we really have affected a change in that area because we’re using water available in the soil and putting it into the atmosphere later in the season when it didn't used to happen and what was growing here before we put all these crops.

Ariana Brocious: That’s so interesting. So, what are you hearing from farmers about the changes that they may be seeing or experiencing as it pertains to heat?

Dennis Todey: When we talk to people here, heat is not the first thing they bring up. Water is the bigger one that people talk about at first. We do talk about heat because the overall warning that we are seeing means that our last freeze in the spring is getting on the average earlier and the first freeze in the fall is getting later. So, our growing season is expanding. So that's providing producers maybe an option of growing a longer season hybrid something that has a longer growing that is changing. The stress that we use to see on crops because of the extreme high temperatures doesn't happen quite as much so they are aware of that. But warm overnights the warm overnight temperatures are something that people are really becoming aware of when they’re out managing their fields.

Ariana Brocious: Are you hearing farmers be concerned about changes that they’re seeing?

Dennis Todey: They are aware of the changes and they are aware how it is impacting them. And that's part of what agriculture does to is it tries to adapt to changing conditions. We know that there are natural variabilities and varies from year to year. So, agriculture does try to deal with those. The problem we’re having now is some of those variations and some of those larger changes are becoming larger and harder to deal with. So, that's the real issue that we’re dealing with. It's not just well okay the dry this year was very dry or, you know, it was very wet this year. We had flooding and it was very difficult for us to get in the fields. So, people are aware of them they're talking about them. And there's been a lot of survey work that’s understanding that the understanding things are changing is producers definitely agree with, it’s the causes behind those there's less understanding or less agreement about those.

Ariana Brocious: Interesting, yeah. So, how are they responding then if they’re seeing these changes, are people putting things in the ground earlier? Are they looking at different seed varieties that might be better adapted to changing conditions? What are some of the specific ways that they’re responding?

Dennis Todey: Yeah, I mean those are some of them. A big push in some corn varieties for example, is to ones that are more drought tolerant that we can deal with drought issues when they do happen. When the things are excessively wet, more fields have drainage put in the drain water from the fields. You have people changing crops. This has been more so in the northern plains where the warming has been you know where they would grow those wheats, ryes what we call them small grains and have gone away from those to growing more corn and soybeans which are longer growing season. But a big back stop to all this is that they make sure they have crop insurance because crop insurance is a big coverage for some of these variations and problems that you have from year to year.

Ariana Brocious: Right, yeah. Well, there's also a lot of livestock in the Great Plains in the Midwest and I recall reading some research that was predicting as the climate warms that for example ranching and livestock production in southern Texas is going to move northward into the Great Plains, particularly because they may be depleting the Ogallala Aquifer their main water source in some places. So, have you been, I know you're more focused on crops but are you seeing changes, and similar stress is coming to the livestock industry?

Dennis Todey: Well, some of that has occurred already. Because of some drought, some longer-term drought problems in the southern Plains in about a decade ago we saw some fairly larger relocations of some livestock herds further north into parts of Iowa because drought was impacting their ability to have feed for the animals so we’re just gonna move the animals to a place where there's more feed available. But we do have some of those stressful conditions for livestock already. We talked earlier about warm overnight temperatures and more humidity. Those are real problems for livestock because livestock let’s say cattle to start off with, you know, they have an ability to handle a hot day but they need to cool down at night when you have these very warm nights you then you have this stress period that extends over several days and that can be very problematic. You can get to extreme issues where we've had several events where we lost a thousand head of livestock in an extreme event where you had warm and humid conditions, and other things that occurred. And that's an unfortunate loss of life and loss of money for these producers.

Ariana Brocious: Yeah. I’m speaking with Dennis Todey, Director of the USDA Midwest Climate Hub. So, between crops and livestock we’re talking about huge economic engines for this part of the country. So, when these extreme events occur do you hear about financial stress from farmers and ranchers, you mentioned the crop insurance which is sort of a safety net. I mean, are there people who are worried that they’re gonna have just be, especially when it comes to ranching I would think that’s your whole industry. If you lose your herd you’re in a tough spot.

Dennis Todey: You are correct and we’re seeing this right now. If you're looking at this right now in North Dakota they have very severe drought. And I just saw on Twitter a couple days ago where one livestock sale barn was, I don’t know I can’t remember the numbers, but there are huge sales of livestock because they were not going to have enough feed or water for them so they’re reducing the size of the herd to try to deal with that issue. So, you are correct, drought, particularly and heat events are very high stress time periods for producers because drought, you know, the people who deal with drought, particularly talk about it’s, you don't know when it’s going to end it just keeps going and keeps going keeps going. If you have a tornado the tornado comes through it's damage, it's bad, you pick up and you move on. Drought keeps going and keeps going and when that doesn't end that adds to the stress of people you know just getting their livestock through it worrying about the finances.

Ariana Brocious: So, I kind of want to get to like a big picture question here because as we’ve said this is basically the economic engine largely of the heart of the country farming and ranching, but we’re seeing these stresses, these big changes to what can be grown where, at what time of year, for how long. So, do you see a continued future for cropping as it's been in the Midwest as we get through as this climate crisis unfolds. Or are you gonna see, do you think we’re gonna see a reduction in the agriculture or big changes in the industry?

Dennis Todey: That's an interesting question, and if I have the answer to that one I could, you are right and it's a question that some producers are trying to ask and we’re starting to ask ourselves is where do we go from here? As the climate changes and other issues come into play, what happens next? Do we keep growing the same things that we do? And we’ll probably keep growing some of the same things that we do for a while. And I mentioned earlier we've seen the corn and soybean area shift northward as the climate has changed. We would expect as things change we will probably see the southern area of where we grow corn and soybeans, and that's, you know, Kansas, Missouri over to parts of Illinois and Indiana. Maybe those areas start to, we grow something else in those areas. Agriculture is not going to go away in these regions because there are good soils and they’re highly productive lands but it probably becomes we grow something else. And what that else is we don't know at this point. We’re actively thinking about that and talking about that looking at what comes after this.

Ariana Brocious: We’ve talked mostly about how extreme heat can impact crops and livestock but of course there’s people as well that are out there on the land. And though there's been a big transition away from more field labor into machine combines and those kinds of things in the Midwest there are still people out there. So, are you concerned or are you hearing about impacts to people who are working in the agriculture industry?

Dennis Todey: Certainly. It’s something we’re very concerned about. The unfortunate aspect is the data is not great on this. We don't have, you know, the government does collect some data on human mortality in the agricultural industry. The one fortunate advantage we have in the upper Midwest is that we don't have as many crops that need to be hand harvested. The bigger problem areas for these tend to be in the Southwest, California, particularly where you have a lot, much higher concentration of these crops and you have hotter temperatures throughout the year. So, it is a serious concern and the USDA and other federal agencies put a lot of guidance on the way of what to help workers do to be able to manage this how to adapt to it and other things they need to do to deal with this.

Ariana Brocious: Well, Dennis Todey, thank you so much for joining us on Climate One.

Dennis Todey: Thanks for having me.

Greg Dalton: On this Climate One episode... We’ve been talking about the impacts of extreme heat on our food system and on human health. To hear more Climate One empowering conversations, subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your pods. Please help us get people talking more about climate by giving us a rating or review. It really does help advance the climate conversation.

Brad Marshland is our senior producer; Ariana Brocious is our producer and audio editor. Our audio engineer is Arnav Gupta. Our team also includes Steve Fox, Kelli Pennington, and Tyler Reed. Gloria Duffy is CEO of The Commonwealth Club of California, the nonprofit and nonpartisan forum where our program originates. I’m Greg Dalton.

Weather Whiplash

10 Episodes

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Carol Van Strum

Brad Marshland — Fri, 28 May 2021 00:11:02 +0000

Carol Van Strum

Writer & Activist

Carol Van Strum is a writer, editor, farmer, parent, and self-described chronic thorn in the side of those who endanger the health and safety of people and the environment. A recipient of the David Brower Lifetime Achievement Award, her work was instrumental in the passage of the first voter-approved ban of aerial pesticide spraying in the nation. Publications include A Bitter Fog: Herbicides and Human Rights, and No Margin of Safety.

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