Sustainable Food

Our current system of producing food is extremely wasteful and carbon-intensive. To cut emissions and address a host of public health risks, we must create a modern, sustainable system to produce, process, and distribute food.

1. End Factory Farming

End “factory farming” of animals. Mass meat production models currently in use have a massive carbon footprint and degrade the environment.

2. Ban Antibiotics for Growth

Ban antibiotic use for growth promotion. Antibiotics should be used exclusively to treat illnesses in livestock populations; the dangerous overuse of antibiotics in farming is contributing to the development of “superbugs” that resist treatment.

3. Void Seed Genetics Patents

Void all patents for seed genetics. Food crops are not intellectual property; they’re a human need. Advancements in food science belong to civilization, not shareholders.

4. Break Up Big Agriculture

Currently, a handful of companies control nearly all of the seed and chemical production required for agriculture; this monopoly must be broken to allow necessary developments in research to advance.

5. Ban Synthetic Fertilizer

End commercial use of synthetic fertilizer. These fertilizers sterilize the ground and run off into nearby bodies of water, creating toxic algal blooms.

6. Soil Renewal & Watershed Management

Invest in soil renewal and watershed management. We must revive the soil and water in ecosystems that our “modern” agriculture methods have destroyed.

7. Eliminate Overtime Exemptions for Farm Workers.

8. Prohibit raising and processing animals on the same site.

9. Eliminate Monoculture Subsidies

Eliminate subsidies for monoculture crops. We must diversify our food production, moving away from nitrogen-intensive, low-nutrition feed/food crops like corn to a higher percentage share of nitrogen-fixers (legume crops, alfalfa, and etc.)

10. End the Use of Corn for Fuel

Ethanol, while cleaner and cheaper than oil, still releases carbon emissions and pits energy needs against food production in a dangerous way.