Highlights from from both his talks (He did a smaller Q&A earlier in the day).

• An uncritical worship of nature leaves you vulnerable to pests.
• Its amazing how entitled we feel to get our way with nature.
• Our intelligence is no match for 3 billion years of evolution. There must be way to deal our relation to nature. It’s not a contest or a war.
• Let’s restore Ag to its standing as a solution to many societal problems. Ag may be the most important thing you can do.
• In the whole discussion in the Ag system we worry more about the animals and land than the workers. Its a problem at different levels. And at the same time we still have this agrarian ideal that farmers still have control over their destiny, which is being chipped away.
• Our current situation is the result of our food policy to drive down costs. The cost is to the welfare of the people involved. We have to step back and realize cheap food externalizes costs. The problem is bigger than the food system.
• We need to make food more affordable, rather than cheap. We are subsidizing the least healthy food, which isn’t fresh produce.
• No other industry boasts about the cheapness of products (The focus rather is on quality). We need to (including the Ag industry) focus on the quality of our food, not just the quantity. Yield amount per farmer is amazing when supported by petroleum products. But there is many hidden costs to that model, and quantity hasn’t necessarily worked!
• What about international food? The challenge is not the amount of food, but where it is, who has access and how much it is to obtain it. Free trade regime, may be good for cars; but food is different. You don’t want people’s bellies at the mercy of Wall Street and the White House.
• Urban Ag, specifically in Detroit? It provides local fresh food, also employment. You will be amazed at the yields. The key is labor.
• Genetic engr will prob. have to be dealt with by Supreme Crt. The way patent laws were drawn are mistaken, which allows Monsanto to control. Monsanto & climate change genes? Look closely at what they are saying, there is less there than meets the eye. There model supports a monoculture system, which isn’t sustainable. Plus they haven’t delivered on their miracle gene products. The problem with Monsanto inventing new plants,  they make money the more units of the same thing they can sell.
• We need biodiversity. Going down the path of the targeted solution may not be a good solution. We need to think in terms of resiliency of the whole plant cycle.
• 2 ways to get people interested in farming: Pay farmers higher wages, Change the esteem for farmers. We have mocked farming for decades. Govt. policy wanted more workers in factories and fewer farmers. In the progressive era farmers threatened the powers that be.
• Yet, the prestige of farming is going up. We need to look at farmers as people doing intelligent, important work in our society.
• What is the role of Corps? The cost of fuel will drive us to a regional food system. The regional farmer might become really interesting.
• Water issues? Places where water is located will once again become valuable after small bubble where we were able to be where water wasn’t.
• Enviro movement has made a big mistake not to align with hunters and farmers. Worshipping untouched land doesn’t help us negotiate.
• Human and nature must deal with each other. We have to put our energy into the land we have already changed.
• For some enviros, once the land has been changed, it is no longer interesting for the movement, which is problematic.
• GMO? GMO’s we have is only enhanced for the farmer, not the consumer.
• Subsidies aren’t bad if they mean govt. support for farmers. We do it bc its important (think depression era).
• Our farmers are doing what we ask them too. Overproduction has been too much of a good thing. Reward for crop diversity, or clean water. Farmers will respond. It is up to us to design good incentives. Eliminating subsidies would be a disaster, it is how we craft them that is important.

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