Heather makes some excellent points, though I disagree that it’s not valid to speak about eating habits. Consumer demand can and does drive change; we just have a long way to go. Still she is right, we definitely need to address big ag, and if our media isn’t covering this problem enough, we need to demand that they do.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/opinion/sunday/what-farm-to-table-got-wrong.html?hp&rref=opinion
Thanks for your work, Jay & team - keep fighting the good fight —
Julie

This comment is in reference to the caller who wanted to know why we don’t talk about agriculture when we talk about climate change or environmental issues. Let me first say that I am an agriculture and food systems student at Washington State University. I often find myself wondering about the same thing. Agriculture is our biggest contributor to the destruction of our planet but no one talks about it or fights against it. Your answer I think was not good enough. When talking about the effects of agriculture on our planet it is not valid to talk about eating habits in the sense of vegan, GMO, Paleo, american standard, etc. What needs to be talked about are the practices of farmers. Farmers need to make changes to the way they farm away from conventional to an agroecological (systems) approach or something like it. I get so upset by everyone only talking about the controversial/personal/moral parts of our food system, we will never get anywhere with that. We need to learn how our food is grown and better ways to grow it. For example instead of tilling and tilling tearing up the soil causing erosion we should be minimizing tillage. Instead of using fertilizer inputs off farm we should be finding ways to close nutrient cycles on our farms. There are so many effects from agriculture, loss of biodiversity, run-off, water pollution, arable soil loss, labor rights, on and on. People should be aware that in general we only have enough soil left to sustain our food systems for another 60 years, Until these problems are accepted by consumers and are made to become aware of these issues all talk about solutions to climate change are a big waste of time.

Heather