Michael Pollan: Does The US Need A Third Kind of Agriculture?

#114: Michael Pollan notes that when it comes to climate spending at the USDA, the norm has been to incentivize bandaid fixes for bad agricultural practices instead of focusing on actual emission reductions, which we desperately need.  Listen as he makes his case to Dave for a “3rd Way” in US agriculture, one that attempts to inch conventional agriculture a little closer to good organic practices.
 
Michael Pollan is a journalist and author, as well as a professor and  lecturer at Harvard University. He is also the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism and the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Michael is best known for  his groundbreaking books, The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food, and The Botany of Desire. 

To watch a video version of this podcast with access to the full transcript and links relevant to our conversation, please visit:

https://www.realorganicproject.org/michael-pollan-a-third-kind-of-agriculture-episode-one-hundred-fourteen

The Real Organic Podcast is hosted by Dave Chapman and Linley Dixon, engineered by Brandon StCyr, and edited and produced by Jenny Prince.

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We believe that the organic standards, with their focus on soil health, biodiversity, and animal welfare were written as they should be, but that the current lack of enforcement of those standards is jeopardizing the ability for small farms who adhere to the law to stay in business. The lack of enforcement is also jeopardizing the overall health of the customers who support the organic movement; customers who are not getting what they pay for at market but still paying a premium price. And the lack of enforcement is jeopardizing the very cycles (water, air, nutrients) that Earth relies upon to provide us all with a place to live, by pushing extractive, chemical agriculture to the forefront.

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