Podcasts about how we can prevent it

The American approach to food production is negatively impacting the environment and depleting natural resources like topsoil and groundwater at an alarming rate. Top agriculture author, journalist, and Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future research associate Tom Philpott highlights these problems on this episode first by discussing two regions where such impacts are acutely felt, the Central Valley of California and the Great Plains, and then explains how these problems are spreading to the rest of the globe. But the author of Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It, Philpott also says there's hope via sustainable practices like agroecology and agroforestry, new land tenure models, and more. A former food reporter and editor for Mother Jones and Grist, he discusses steps that can be taken to reform our food systems for a healthier and more sustainable future at this moment as a new growing season is about to begin in the Northern Hemisphere. “We don't have to have an agriculture that consumes the very ecologies that make it possible, and leads to this catastrophic loss of species that we're in the middle of right now,” our guest says. Related reading: From traditional practice to top climate solution, agroecology gets growing attention ·      ‘During droughts, pivot to agroecology': Q&A with soil expert at the World Agroforestry Centre ·      American agroforestry accelerates with new funding announcements Please invite your friends to subscribe to the Mongabay Newscast wherever they get podcasts, from Apple to Spotify, or download our free app in the Apple App Store or in the Google Store to get access to our latest episodes at your fingertips. If you enjoy the Newscast, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep the show growing, Mongabay is a nonprofit media outlet and all support helps! See all our latest news from nature's frontline at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by searching for @mongabay. Please share your thoughts and feedback! submissions@mongabay.com. Image caption: Corn is a common food and fodder crop of the Great Plains, and has also long been used to make ethanol. But its most common cultivation methods lead to massive soil erosion, pollution of waterways, and heavy use of chemical herbicides and pesticides. Image courtesy of Tyler Lark. 

Tom Philpott, a Senior Research Associate at The Center for a Livable Future joins the podcast to discuss his book "Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It."

Hot summer huh? Well, farmworkers around the US, a grand majority Latinx, are feeling the heat, with fatal results. Many of us tend to brush off the consequences of climate change, but the reality is this is just the beginning, and it's a symptom of many more things to come that will affect all of us. To discuss the consequences and action points of this issue, we have a special guest, Tom Philpott, the food and agriculture correspondent for Mother Jones and author of Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It. 

In 1929, the booming prosperity of the flapper era vanished in the wake of a catastrophic stock market crash. Banks failed, and millions of people lost their life's savings. Poverty rates soared, and a ten-year depression crippled towns across the globe, setting the stage for the second world war.    But what if poverty wasn't just a result of sudden economic upheaval? Before the Great Depression, many Americans, including children, labored under grueling conditions for 12-15 hours a day. Work came with risks—threatening workers' safety, and even their lives. At a time when debt could lead to a prison sentence, most people had little choice but to work to survive.    What if the tale of poverty devouring Americans' wealth overnight is a myth—or only half the story? In the first episode of the American Compassion podcast, we uncover the lives of the many Americans who never lived in avant-garde mansions or purchased opulent yachts. Most Americans didn't lose the American dream in the Depression era, since it had always failed to catch them when they fell deeper into poverty.   Our story begins with Erine Gray's inspiration to rebuild the American Safety Net. We'll start in the early 2000s, before turning back the clock to the early 20th-century to explore how profound changes in technology, communication, farming, and industrialization reshaped the ways that people thought about wealth, poverty, and how to catch Americans in freefall.    Brief Backstory Americans born in the 1840s and 1850s would experience rapid changes in the course of their lives. During their lifetime, kerosene lamps replaced candles; and electric light bulbs replaced kerosene. Steam-powered locomotives, electric trolleys, and gasoline-powered automobiles replaced horsepower. And the Wright Brothers were hard at work on a flying machine.    By 1900 cities became lit up with bright lights, films, and radio. Even time itself was changing. Americans were disengaging from seasonal work rhythms, exchanging nature's cycles for factory schedules. As the Industrial Revolution grew, the telephone and telegraph revolutionized communication, and high-speed transit revolutionized Americans' sense of geography. Both required a reevaluation of time in order to synchronize an increasingly connected world of industrial trade and transportation. In 1865, the US train system had 75 different time zones; by 1918, the government reduced American mainland time zones to four.   All along, the rich were getting a lot richer. John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust dominated the world's petroleum markets and soon controlled more than 90 percent of the nation's refinery capacity. And Andrew Carnegie's steel mills earned him millions.   But desperation belied the affluence of the Gilded Age. While Rockefeller and Carnegie's fortunes grew, a new definition of poverty was emerging. Workers were tied to their labor, including children as young as 8 years old. For some of the 15 million people who immigrated to America between 1910-1915, coming to the United States meant being able to determine their own destiny. Yet for others, like many who were born in America, it meant being shackled to life-threatening labor.    Join executive producer Rebecca McInroy, historian H.W. Brands, historian, and journalist Marvin Olasky, and farmer, journalist, and agricultural writer Tom Philpott as we begin the story of the American Safety Net.   Resources  T. R.: The Last Romantic by H.W. Brands Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by H.W. Brands Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It by Tom Philpott The Tragedy of American Compassion by Marvin Olasky The Global Transformation of Time: 1870–1950 by Vanessa Ogle Recordings From The Dust Bowl Findhelp.org    

Small and mid-sized farms in America have been dwindling for decades. Often these farms are bought up by larger conglomerates. One relatively recent example is Perdue's purchase of Niman Ranch. You can read my post about the buyout here and my concerns about CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) taking over companies with higher standards of production.  In the episode, we learn that it's not only Big Ag that's getting into the small farm business. Financial institutions have been in the farmland game for years. My co-host James Connelly interviews Madeleine Fairbairn, an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz about her latest book. Fields of Gold: Financing the Global Land Rush explores the financialization of farmland and how financial institutions began treating farmland as investment opportunities. You can download the ebook for free here. James and Madeleine start their discussion in the 1970s with skyrocketing crop prices, quickly followed by overproduction and inflation, making farmland attractive to wealthy investors. This situation coupled with financial deregulation in the 80s and 90s caused changing mindsets in companies and consumers that now make finance a part of our everyday lives.  Their conversation concludes with our current landscape where we see major investment companies like Harvard Management Company and TIAA owning huge swaths of farmland, often to the detriment of the local community.  Tune in to learn more about: - Financialization and how it affects all areas of our lives - The Global Land Grab - The Shareholder Value Revolution - Congress's bipartisan measure to prevent institutions from taking over farmland and how those measures went away in the 1980s - California's water shortage problem - How Harvard Management Company bought a vineyard - The rise of ESGs (Environmental, Social, and Governance) or socially responsible investing - Madeleine's skepticism of ESGs Resources: Fields of Gold by Madeleine Fairbairn (free ebook) The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth by Tom Burgis Greta Krippner  The Great Grain Robbery The Last Supper for Malthus: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It by Tom Philpott Connect with Madeleine: Website: Madeleine Fairbairn and UC AFTeR Project LinkedIn: Madeleine Fairbairn Email: mfairbai@ucsc.edu *** Episode Credits: Thank you to all who've made this show possible. Our hosts are Diana Rodgers and James Connelly. Our producer is Meg Chatham, and our editor is Emily Soape. And of course, we are grateful for our sponsors, Patreon supporters, and listeners. A big thanks to Nakano Knives for their support of my work and the podcast. I've been using their knives for a couple of years now and I love them. They are beautiful, easy to hold, and a fantastic value. And just in time for the holidays, you can use my offer code DIANA for 10% off plus get a $25 voucher toward your next purchase. Who doesn't love a new knife, right?

Did you know that food and food production are central to our discussion about climate change? Join Food Sleuth Radio host and registered dietitian, Melinda Hemmelgarn, for her interview with Tom Philpott, food and agriculture correspondent for Mother Jones, and author of Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It. Philpott focuses on two key areas of U.S. food production: California and the Midwest, and these regions' water scarcity and soil degradation, respectively. He explains how industrial agriculture creates social injustices and environmental wreckage, and how agricultural reform is critical to climate resilience. Related website:   https://www.motherjones.com/author/tom-philpott/ 

Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020) is an unsettling journey into the disaster-bound American food system, and an exploration of possible solutions, from leading food politics commentator and former farmer Tom Philpott. More than a decade after Michael Pollan's game-changing The Omnivore's Dilemma transformed the conversation about what we eat, a combination of global diet trends and corporate interests have put American agriculture into a state of "quiet emergency," from dangerous drought in California--which grows more than 50 percent of the fruits and vegetables we eat--to catastrophic topsoil loss in the "breadbasket" heartland of the United States. Whether or not we take heed, these urgent crises of industrial agriculture will define our future. In Perilous Bounty, veteran journalist and former farmer Tom Philpott explores and exposes the small handful of seed and pesticide corporations, investment funds, and magnates who benefit from the trends that imperil us, with on-the-ground dispatches featuring the scientists documenting the damage and the farmers and activists who are valiantly and inventively pushing back. Resource scarcity looms on the horizon, but rather than pointing us toward an inevitable doomsday, Philpott shows how the entire wayward ship of American agriculture could be routed away from its path to disaster. He profiles the farmers and communities in the nation's two key growing regions developing resilient, soil-building, water-smart farming practices, and readying for the climate shocks that are already upon us; and he explains how we can help move these methods from the margins to the mainstream. Jenny Splitter is an independent journalist covering food, farming, science, and climate. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/animal-studies

Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020) is an unsettling journey into the disaster-bound American food system, and an exploration of possible solutions, from leading food politics commentator and former farmer Tom Philpott. More than a decade after Michael Pollan's game-changing The Omnivore's Dilemma transformed the conversation about what we eat, a combination of global diet trends and corporate interests have put American agriculture into a state of "quiet emergency," from dangerous drought in California--which grows more than 50 percent of the fruits and vegetables we eat--to catastrophic topsoil loss in the "breadbasket" heartland of the United States. Whether or not we take heed, these urgent crises of industrial agriculture will define our future. In Perilous Bounty, veteran journalist and former farmer Tom Philpott explores and exposes the small handful of seed and pesticide corporations, investment funds, and magnates who benefit from the trends that imperil us, with on-the-ground dispatches featuring the scientists documenting the damage and the farmers and activists who are valiantly and inventively pushing back. Resource scarcity looms on the horizon, but rather than pointing us toward an inevitable doomsday, Philpott shows how the entire wayward ship of American agriculture could be routed away from its path to disaster. He profiles the farmers and communities in the nation's two key growing regions developing resilient, soil-building, water-smart farming practices, and readying for the climate shocks that are already upon us; and he explains how we can help move these methods from the margins to the mainstream. Jenny Splitter is an independent journalist covering food, farming, science, and climate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/food

Tom Philpott is the food and ag correspondent for Mother Jones. Before that, he covered the food system for Grist. His reporting has appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek and the Guardian. He’s worked as a bona fide farmer and now splits his time between Austin, Texas, and North Carolina. He has a new book out from Bloomsbury Publishing. It’s called Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It. The book is the culmination of an impressive career spent holding industry and government accountable. Perilous Journey tells the story of two U.S. farming powerhouses — California’s Central Valley and the Corn Belt of the Midwest. Through this lens, Philpott makes the case that current agricultural practices and policies are leading us down the road to environmental ruin. And yet, there’s still hope on the horizon. To find out more about Tom Philpott visit www.tomphilpott.net/ Tractor Time is brought to you by Acres U.S.A. and Barn2Door. Subscribe to our channel on YouTube, iTunes or anywhere podcasts are available. Also, find us at acresusa.com, ecofarmingdaily.com, and don’t forget to subscribe to our monthly magazine.

We know that U.S. industrial agriculture has had monumental effects on our climate, but how has climate change reciprocally impacted our agricultural system? And, an even more pressing question, how close is our agricultural system to total collapse? In his new book, “Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It,” Tom Philpott looks for answers in the nation’s primary farming hubs: California’s Central Valley and the Corn Belt of the Midwest, both of which are in a state of accelerating ecological decline. Host Jenna Liut sits down with Tom to talk about California water barons, toxic petrochemical stews, and why we should make almonds a special occasion snack.Photo Courtesy of Tom Philpott.Eating Matters is powered by Simplecast.

Relevant or Irrelevant is honored to have journalist Tom Philpott as our guest for the 387th edition of this series. This week, the panel discusses Philpott's book, Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It.Relevant or Irrelevant is recorded at the studios of KALA-FM, Davenport, IA-Quad Cities.

Centralized, uber-efficient, industrialized agriculture is often presented as necessary to “feed the world.” In his new book, Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It, veteran food, agriculture, and climate journalist Tom Philpott argues the opposite: that “industrial agriculture, as currently practiced, threatens the food security of everyone who now relies on it for sustenance.” In this episode, he talks to host Lisa Held about his reporting on the US’ resource-consuming systems—from a water crisis in California’s Central Valley to soil loss in the Midwest’s corn and soy fields—and what more resilient systems might look like.Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support The Farm Report by becoming a member!The Farm Report is Powered by Simplecast.  

Food writer Corby Kummer joined Boston Public Radio on Wednesday, where he discussed new data from the Massachusetts Restaurant Association indicating the state has already lost a fifth of its restaurants to revenue losses resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.  Kummer warned that while the numbers are tragic, this forthcoming winter season could prove even grimmer for Mass. restaurants. "Until Spring… we’re not going to have an accurate count, an accurate figure – and I think that’s the news we’re going to be bracing for,” he said. “Many restaurants this winter, unless something changes dramatically, will die." During the interview, Kummer also touched on his recent New York Times review of Tom Philpott’s “Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It,” and an NPR report about the alarming percentage of low-income kids not getting government-subsidized meals through the pandemic.  Kummer is a senior editor at The Atlantic, an award-winning food writer, and a senior lecturer at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition and Policy.

Today on Boston Public Radio: MIT economist and Affordable Care Act architect Jonathan Gruber discussed concerns that a rushed COVID-19 vaccine could exacerbate vaccine skepticism in the U.S., and other political quandaries surrounding Operation Warp Speed.  We opened lines to ask listeners: what would it take to get you on board with an American-made coronavirus vaccine?  CNN’s Brian Stelter discussed his latest book, "Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth.” National security expert and CNN analyst Juliette Kayyem discussed controversial acknowledgments made by the president in a forthcoming book from veteran journalist Bob Woodward, and her latest piece in The Atlantic, called "The Emotionally Challenging Next Phase of the Pandemic."  Medical ethicist Art Caplan weighed in on the thousands of Americans attending Donald Trump rallies without masks, and ethical questions raised by a new drug claiming to treat a common form of dwarfism.  Food writer Corby Kummer discussed data from the Massachusetts Restaurant Association indicating that 20% of Mass. restaurants have closed permanently because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and thoughts on fellow food writer Tom Philpott’s new book, “Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It." We opened lines to ask listeners: are you ready to continue eating outside at restaurants during the fall and winter?

On “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg,” Dani talks with Tom Philpott, author of the new book Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It. They discuss the many perils the U.S. agricultural industry faces and solutions that can save it. While you’re listening, subscribe, rate, and review the show; it would mean the world to us to have your feedback. You can listen to “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg” wherever you consume your podcasts.

Tom Philpott is a veteran journalist, a former farmer, and the current food and agriculture correspondent for Mother Jones. Philpott has spent years researching how and why American agriculture has gone so disastrously wrong and all the ways our political and economic infrastructure exacerbated its downfall. But as grim as the situation is now, Philpott believes there is much to be hopeful about—including the many farmers and communities who are paving the way for change and laying the groundwork to avoid disaster. Philpott is the author of a new book called Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It. He joins host Elise Loehnen today to talk about how this all got out of control and what we can do to begin to mend the damage. (For more, see The goop Podcast hub.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

(8/10/20)More than a decade after Michael Pollan transformed the conversation about what we eat, a combination of global diet trends and corporate interests have left American agriculture in a state of emergency. In his latest book, “Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It” former farmer and food and agriculture correspondent for Mother Jones Tom Philpott exposes the small handful of seed and pesticide corporations, investment funds and magnates who benefit from the practices that are putting our food supply in danger and the farmers and activists who are valiantly pushing back. Join us for a look at how to preserve one of the nation’s most critical resources in this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI.

Anat Admati is a professor of finance and economics at Stanford University, and is well-known for her work on leveraging debt in our financial system and how it makes our economy more susceptible to shocks. She’s also a co-author of the popular book, *The Banker’s New Clothes: What Went Wrong with Banking and What to Do About It*. Anat joins Macro Musings again to talk about the COVID-19 crisis from the debt perspective, how the Fed and Congress have responded so far, and how their relief efforts should have been focused differently.      The transcript for the episode can be found here: https://www.mercatus.org/bridge/tags/macro-musings   Anat’s Twitter: @anatadmati Anat’s website: https://admati.people.stanford.edu/   Related Links:   Bonus segment with Anat: https://youtu.be/4xHmmgoURqg   *The Banker’s New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It* by Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691162386/the-bankers-new-clothes   *The Leverage Ratchet Effect* by Anat Admati, Peter DeMarzo, Martin Hellwig, and Paul Pfleiderer https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jofi.12588   *Macrofinancial History and the New Business Cycle Facts* by Oscar Jorda, Mortiz Schularick, and Alan Taylor https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/files/wp2016-23.pdf   *Coronavirus Crisis Lays Bare the Risks of Financial Leverage, Again” by Martin Wolf https://www.ft.com/content/098dcd60-8880-11ea-a01c-a28a3e3fbd33   *House of Debt: How They (And You) Caused the Great Recession, and How We Can Prevent It from Happening Again* by Atif Mian and Amir Sufi https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo20832545.html   *Collateral Frameworks: The Open Secret of Central Banks* by Kjell Nyborg https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/collateral-frameworks/DE8BACD87F364A66DD496F601BE92FE7   *Bankruptcy for Banks: A Sound Concept That Needs Fine-Tuning* by Mark Roe and David Skeel https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/17/business/dealbook/bankruptcy-for-banks-a-sound-concept-that-needs-fine-tuning.html   David’s blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com David’s Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

My guest today is Frank Milne of Queen's University. Our topic for today will be unintended consequences. Frank has written a paper directed at policymakers to help them understand some of the pitfalls that economists have identified. The paper is directed at Australian policymakers, so some of the examples are Australia specific, though they generalize quite well to other countries. We start where the paper starts, with a discussion of Australia's heavy investment in commodity exports to China in the wake of the 2008 crisis. Many people mistook the temporary increase in demand for Australian mineral exports for a permanent change, leading them to over-invest in developing the Australian mining industry. We go on to discuss many topics, with a particular focus on housing. We also touch on Frank's work on Systemically Important Real Sectors (SIRS), which he is working on with co-author John F. Crean. SIRS are sectors with the potential to cause systemic problems in the banking sector. They feature high volatility of costs and revenues, which create the potential for large losses to lenders. Related links: The Diamond-Dybvig model (Wikipedia) and the original paper. The Arrow-Debreu model (Wikipedia). House of Debt: How They (and You) Caused the Great Recession, and How We Can Prevent It from Happening Again by Mian and Sufi.

The largest asset class in the United States is owner-occupied real estate, yet options for homeowners accessing this are very binary right now: either own 100% of your home (with a mortgage), or own nothing. And when people do “own”, that ownership is often skewed by debt. Of course, debt works out great for some, given their risk profiles and potential upside (if the house keeps appreciating); but the downside risk and costs are disproportionately borne by the homeowner. And millennials can't even enter the housing market in the first place. So how can technology help address a system skewed by debt financing, by letting homeowners sell fractions of equity to unlock wealth without necessarily borrowing against their homes? How can such new approaches help homeowners and financers better align risk and incentives, and unlock a whole new asset class for all kinds of investors? How can they help avoid mortgage crises around the world, and the macroeconomic impact of reduced spending, lost jobs, and more? And finally, what is the role of policy here … especially since the government is de facto subsidizer of certain home finance products over others. We discuss all this and more in this episode of the a16z Podcast, featuring general partner Alex Rampell; CEO & co-founder of Point, Eddie Lim; and Atif Mian, professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University who also co-authored (with Amir Sufi) the book House of Debt: How They (and You) Caused the Great Recession, and How We Can Prevent It from Happening Again — in conversation with deal and investing team partner Angela Strange.

This multi-disciplinary symposium brings together leading scholars who will share their research and engage in conversation about the role of religion in addressing rising income inequality—an issue that impacts millions of people. During the 1960s and 1970s, 9-10% of total income went to the top one-percent of Americans. By 2007, this share had risen to 23.5%. Even before 2008 and the so-called Great Recession, the wages of the average worker in the U.S., adjusted for inflation, had been stagnant for three decades. How are the religions contributing to the complex mix of factors responsible for this state of affairs? Part 2 includes a presentation by Amir Sufi, the Bruce Lindsay Professor of Economics and Public Policy University of Chicago Booth School of Business Amir Sufi's research focuses on finance and macroeconomics. In addition to his position at Chicago Booth, Sufi is also Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He serves as an associate editor for the American Economic Review and the Quarterly Journal of Economics. He has written articles published in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Finance, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics. His recent research on household debt and the economy has been profiled in the Economist, the Financial Times, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. It has also been presented to policy-makers at the Federal Reserve, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, & Urban Affairs, and the White House Council of Economic Advisors. He is the co-author, with Atif Mian, of House of Debt: How They (and You) Caused the Great Recession and How We Can Prevent It from Happening Again (2014 Sponsored by the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion.