Crop Shoot: Farmers Caught Up In Policy Turmoil

Climate One

News, News Commentary, Social Sciences, Earth Sciences, Science

4.7 • 583 Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2026

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Agriculture is directly responsible for 10 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and farmers and ranchers face growing climate impacts every day, from more severe storms to intense droughts, making it harder to grow food. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates emissions from the agriculture sector will modestly increase over the next 30 years. Yet the Trump administration is slashing programs that help reduce emissions, feed people, protect farmworkers and animals and sensitive lands. In addition, the Trump administration’s tariffs and trade wars have affected the cost of machinery and sales of major crops. What will these changes mean for our national food system? How are farmers weathering these impacts? And where are people building resilience regardless of federal policy? Episode Guests: Lisa Held, Senior Staff Reporter and Contributing Editor, Civil Eats Megan O'Rourke, Congressional Candidate NJ07; Former USDA Scientist John Bartman, Illinois farmer Byron Kominek, Owner and Manager, Jack's Solar Garden Highlights: 00:00 – Intro 05:30 – Lisa Held on major climate and agriculture stories in 2025 07:30 – Climate change is making it harder to be a farmer 09:15 – Changes at USDA 15:00 – How SNAP cuts affect consumers and farmers/growers 18:30 – Trump admin penalizing efforts/grants that support DEI efforts in agriculture 24:00 – John Bartman shares his journey to regenerative agriculture 30:00 – Partnership for Climate Smart Commodities Program and cutbacks under Trump 34:30 – Trade war between China and US is hurting soybean sales and Amazon rainforest 37:10 – Byron Kominek on how he got into agrivoltaics and the benefits it offers 42:00 – Agrivoltaics is climate adaptation 51:20 – Megan O’Rourke on research around kernza, a perennial grain 54:00 – Most pressing challenges for agriculture right now 59:00 – Importance of food security at home and abroad, and role of US farmers 1:03:30 – Climate One More Thing For show notes , transcript, and related links, visit climateone.org/podcasts ****** Support Climate One by going ad-free! By subscribing to Climate One on Patreon, you’ll receive exclusive access to all future episodes free of ads, opportunities to connect with fellow Climate One listeners, and access to the Climate One Discord. Sign up today at patreon.com/ClimateOne. Ad sales by Multitude. Contact them for ad inquiries at multitude.productions/ads Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Kusia. So I spent five years living in Nebraska, right? And I moved there for a job
0:07.0	having never even visited the state before. So it was all new to me. And even though I wasn't an
0:11.8	agriculture reporter, my environmental beat did overlap with ag a lot. And being in such an
0:16.9	agricultural state, I just learned a lot about it through daily life. And in thinking about
0:22.5	this week's show, there's one distinct memory that came to mind from probably my third or fourth
0:27.1	summer that I was living there. So, Kusha, are you familiar with the term corn sweat? No, it sounds
0:34.1	tasty. No, it's the opposite. No, it sounds icky.
0:38.7	What is it?
0:39.9	Yeah, so basically certain times of this summer, late in the summer, the humidity in parts of
0:45.7	Nebraska just really ramps up.
0:48.5	And it's because so much of the state, and we're talking millions of acres, is planted
0:53.6	with this one crop.
0:55.3	And corn is doing its like usual evapotranspiration, which is what plants do, but it just really
1:01.7	amplifies the humidity in the atmosphere. Okay. So the corn itself is making the air more humid?
1:08.6	Yeah, because the moisture is leaving the plant going up into the atmosphere.
1:11.6	It's evapot transpiration.
1:13.1	But it also makes you feel sweaty because it's humid.
1:16.7	Okay.
1:17.5	Yikes.
1:21.0	To me, it was just like a distinctly Nebraska thing.
1:25.9	Yeah.
1:26.7	Yeah.
	...

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