Uprooted

Josh talks with Shefali Sharma and Laurel Levin about their experience at the COP24 in Katowice, Poland. You can read Shefali's COP dispatches from the COP here: 

Josh talks with Ben Lilliston about a recent conference on anti-trust work in the agriculture sector.  

Josh, Dr. Steve Suppan, and Karen Hansen-Kuhn were guests on AM950's Food Freedom Radio with Laura Hedlund. This show, on the NAFTA renegotiation, will air over Thanksgiving, but we're thankful to Laura for letting us put it out on the podast as well! 

Josh talks with Ben Lilliston, Director of Rural Strategies and Climate Change, about climate change initiatives on the ballot on November 6, and other activities some states are up to in addressing climate change. Update: It appears both measure discussed in the podcast have failed. 

Josh talks with IATP collaborator and sustainable agriculture consultant, Doug Gurian-Sherman, about agroecology in the context of the UNFCCC report, and the CLARA report, which he was a contributing author on, and how agroecology is not just necessary for our climate but in providing sustainable livelihoods for farmers around the world. 

Listen to a special podcast of Pakou Hang of HAFA, and IATP's Erin McKee talking about the forum and local food work in Minnesota:

Josh talks with Steve Suppan about how the aid, intended for farmers to ease the pain that was inflicted due to the trade war with China, is, in fact, likely ending up in the coffers of a Chinese owned corporation, Smithfield, and other ways in which the giant hog corporation is pushing its costs onto tax payers. 

Josh talks with IATP Intern, Kelly Kramer, about OSHA's failure to adequately address heat related death and injury in the agricultural sector, especially in the face of global warming.   

Josh talks with Shefali Sharma, Director of IATP Europe, about IATP's contribution to a report by the Climate, Land, Ambition, and Rights Alliance (CLARA). The report details how the 1.5° C target of the Paris Climate Accord is achievable in a way that respects human rights and agroecological practices. They also discuss the recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  

Late on Sunday evening the text of the re-negotiated North American Free Trade Agreement was released, renamed the United States Mexico Canada Agreement, or USMCA. IATP will be producing detailed analysis of the new agreement's impacts on food and agriculture, but for a cursory analysis, Josh talks with IATP Senior Attorney, Sharon Treat, about how much of the text is from the failed Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the haphazard process through which this agreement came about. 

Josh talks with Tara Ritter about the rollback of the Clean Power Plan, which was proposed by the Obama administration and held up in the courts. The replacement, the Affordable Clean Energy Rule is a thinly veiled attempt to prop up the dying coal industry at the expense of the expanding clean energy sector, including the job boom it would create in rural areas. 

Josh talks with IATP Executive Director, Juliette Majot, about one of IATP's foundational documents, Crisis By Design, written by IATP's founder, Mark Ritchie, with Kevin Ristau. The piece showed how the farm crisis of the 1980's was the result of purposeful actions by corporate executives to undermine government policies that ensured family farmers get a fair price. They also discuss how the landscape has changed in the last 32 years, and what an update to this document might look like. 

In a quickly put together special episode, Josh and Karen Hansen-Kuhn talk about what has happened this week with NAFTA as today's deadline looms to submit the intent to sign the deal to Congress. You can read Karen's Op-Ed in The Hill here: http://thehill.com/opinion/finance/404566-opaque-nafta-talks-leave-farmers-in-the-dark 

Josh talks with Ben Lilliston about the growth of the grass fed beef market, and how global agribusiness is using labeling loopholes to sell imported grass fed beef as "product of the U.S.A." You can read Ben's comment to USDA here. 

Josh talks with Sharon Treat about the troubling food safety aspects of the latest UK government white paper on Brexit and how it may affect trade with the U.S. and Europe. 

Josh and Steve Suppan talk about the $12 billion aid package to farmers who have been affected by tariff retaliation. We're also talking about Steve's blog on how USDA helps High Frequency Traders now; promises help for farmers later, dealing with how the release of the World Agriculture Supply and Demand Estimate has been changed by USDA to benefit high frequency Wall Street trading firms. 

In our recent report Emissions Impossible: How big meat and dairy are heating up the planet, we teamed up with GRAIN to analyze the greenhouse gas footprints of the largest meat and dairy corporations, and debunked the idea that decreasing emissions intensity would, by itself, lead to an overall reduction in emissions.

Note: This podcast is being released a couple of weeks after it was recorded.  Josh talks with Ben Lilliston about reforms to the Farm Bill and trade policy that could help support farmers stuck in the current low-price, export-dependent system, while responding to growing consumer demand for more sustainable food. While conventional markets struggle, the U.S. has fast-growing, high-value markets and a reformed Farm Bill could help aid farmers in their transitions to access those markets. Read our full report here. 

Latin American countries have enshrined several progressive rights in their constitutions, however, the push for natural resource extraction has put those rights in conflict with the economic development pushes of their governments. Josh talks with Karen Hansen-Kuhn about the history of extractive industry in Latin America and how global trade and development policies are influencing the conflicts between industry and social movements. Karen recently attended a conference on the subject of Neo-Extractivism in Ecuador.

Josh talks with Katie Costello about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The nutrition title of the Farm Bill makes up nearly 80% of its total cost, helping to feed over 46 million people. We're talking about why SNAP works, how it improves health lifestyles, and why the House Farm Bill, which would have instituted stricter work requirements to receive SNAP, is a failing for American families.