What we eat, and how we grow it, affects so much that we hold dear — from clean water to healthy soil, wild and scenic rivers, forestland, grasslands, and all the coastlines.
That includes the bison on the prairies, the wolves tracing paths along mountain ridges, the mussels cleaning creeks and inlets, the ancient turtles swimming the seas, and the bees and bats and other creatures pollinating our crops.
But danger is on the horizon.
Amidst a climate emergency and extinction crisis, a new reign of policymakers promises to upend our food system with destructive policies like nothing the United States has seen before. They’re committed to dismantling climate progress and boosting agribusiness at the cost of the planet and all those who share it. Stated agendas include gutting the national school meal program and crop insurance, making life harder for schoolchildren and farmers.
Trump has tapped Brooke Rollins to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Choosing an acolyte to head an agency that affects hundreds of millions of people and our entire food system is in line with his other reckless Cabinet picks. But if Rollins is confirmed, it could mean farmers, rural communities, food security, national security, and sustainable food systems are sacrificed to corporate interests.
Meanwhile the new administration will be facing an agricultural landscape on the precipice of another pandemic. H5N1 bird flu is spreading through hundreds of dairy herds and infecting more than 50 species of animals, including marine mammals, wild birds, barn cats, and even a pig. Dozens of dairy workers have become ill, and recent cases — from H5N1 in wastewater in Hawai‘i to a teen hospitalized in Canada with no clear illness origin or contact with farmed animals — should be accelerating our response.
Instead the administration has nominated an anti-vaccine, anti-science candidate to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. And it has threatened to brutally deport more than 20 million people who make up much of the food- and farmworkers in this country.
It’s cruel and immoral to destroy families and evict farmworkers who may be exposed to H5N1. It also puts the United States at risk of a collapsing food system and a pandemic we can’t track or trace.
And the incoming president has promised to weaken or eliminate the national climate and conservation agricultural efforts made by the previous USDA. Although the Center has been calling for increased transparency in these efforts, we’ve always emphasized that this type of climate action is critical — and now emissions are at an all-time high.
At a global scale, food production contributes more than one-third of climate emissions and is the leading driver of species extinction and deforestation. Yet the incoming administration — climate deniers from the top down — has vowed to weaken our ability to bring our food system into a just transition to food and farming that are healthier, fairer, and environmentally sustainable.
Where we called for more attention to the climate footprint of the food system, particularly from high-emissions foods like meat and dairy, there will be less attention. Where we called for stronger environmental protections, the oncoming administration will try to weaken these stopgaps. And where we called for a food system that protects and prioritizes the fragile biodiversity of the planet — which people need to grow food — wildlife will be in the crosshairs.
So where do we go from here?
The Center vows to fight this administration’s destructive policies every step of the way.
But to hit the ground running, we need your support now.
If you can, please donate to help the Center fight like our lives depend on it.
Thank you for fueling our work to protect biodiversity for future generations.
For the wild,
Jennifer Molidor
P.S. With the new year comes new changes. You can now follow me on Bluesky — and of course follow the Center there too.
