Meet the People Getting Paid to Feed the World
Dear Friend,
On Tuesday, the New York Times released what they called an “opinion video” entitled “Meet the People Getting Paid to Kill Our Planet: American agriculture is ravaging the air, soil and water.” I pressed play—so you didn’t have to. What followed was 15 minutes of distortions, misrepresentations, and lies about farmers and American agriculture—about what you’d expect from such a liberal rag.
I don’t have enough room in this short email to bust every myth peddled in their propaganda, but I did want to take a second to address a few of the most dangerous and misleading lies.
As many of you know, I’m a farmer. I have been all my life. Since the time I could walk, I’ve farmed with my family up in the northwest corner of our state. So, when the New York Times claimed that agriculture today is all factories run by faceless corporations, I took personal offense. American agriculture has a face. It looks a lot like mine, my family’s, and the millions of other farm families that have been feeding America for generations.
The family farm isn’t a myth. Ninety-six percent of farms in this country are family farms and an overwhelming majority of those family farms are small operations. It’s true that a lot has changed in American agriculture over the last hundred years, but one thing hasn’t changed. Farming in America is a family business. It always has been and, if I’ve got any say, it always will be.
The New York Times goes on to claim that agriculture is responsible for 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions around the world, but that only tells part of the story. In the United States, only 10 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture. That’s because family farmers care for the soil and other natural resources as they would for a member of their own family. Farmers don’t think about how we can turn a quick buck next year. Instead, we’re constantly looking forward into the future to how we can leave our farm in better shape for the next generation. It’s why many have worked to increase the efficiency of their operation and preserve the soil through practices such as terracing and cover crops.
The article also failed to mention the many technological advances in production agriculture in recent years including soil sampling, soil/yield mapping, and variable rate fertilizer application. By utilizing these practices, family farmers are producing more with less on fewer acres than ever before in human history. I call that a win.
Yet, ignoring reality, the Times claims the solution to all this is more government regulation of farms in America. The great irony here is that the kind of new regulations they want will drive family farmers bankrupt so that the big, mean, faceless corporations they claim to be fighting can buy them out for bottom dollar at the courthouse steps.
This isn’t a new attack on farmers. It’s something we’ve been fighting against for decades. What’s concerning is the amount of money, power, and effort that coastal elites are dumping into strangling family farms out of existence these days.
Well, I’ve got news for them. We aren’t scared and we won’t back down. We’re going to keep fighting to protect our family farms. We’re going to keep pushing back on this dangerous propaganda and we’re going to keep telling the real story of how we feed the world.
Sincerely,
Sam Graves
