Essential Listening for New Food Systems Investment and Consumer Choice
A fairly recent interview by Scott Mann with author, researcher, and teacher Eric Toensmeier giving yet more updated information about the best agricultural systems and diet-styles for climate change. The interview covers needed policy change for the next farm bill in the US, and how planting perennials (including tree and shrub crops) can sequester carbon, helping to mitigate climate change. This is the direction for the farms of the future, including intercropping annuals and perennials on farms. There's a lot of talk in the popular public sphere about grazing systems as good carbon sequesterors, but the best systems pair trees with animals or trees with annuals or other perennials. He also shares the stark numbers that reveal how shifting to a plant-based diet offers one of the best strategies for food security, human health, and climate change.
“You can feed a lot of people on a small amount of land if they’re willing to eat a plant-based diet, but if they want to eat a lot of meat, that changes the situation dramatically because you get much, much, much, much less food per acre when you’re raising livestock.””
