Episode 88: our land problem

CultureHealth

Nov 18

Written By Joanna Lepore

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Looking Outside is for curious people looking for a fresh take on familiar topics, in business and beyond.

The food system isn’t broken. But it has a big problem. That is land – and how little of it we have. Journalist and author Michael Grunwald joins us on the show today to talk openly about the elephant in the food ecosystem. Regenerative agriculture, precision fermentation, vertical farming, meat alternatives … we have no shortage of innovative ideas in the food system. But very quickly, a ‘quick fix’ turns out to be just a dumb idea. Despite a growing population, climate change challenges, and a human hypocrisy problem, Mike says we can feed everyone with the land we have, we just can’t keep taking more of it for agriculture. Perhaps, then, the biggest consideration facing food businesses today is not to chase the ‘next big thing’, but as we scale nascent ideas, to consider land in that equation - and not as a ‘free’ asset. Because as Mike says, with the land we have, the math sucks.

To look outside, Mike recognizes where he is ‘spectacularly ignorant’ and what he needs to do to become less ignorant. In this case, he speaks to everyone, on all sides of an issue, in his research and reporting. That is a pivotal journalistic trait; to come in with no pre-conceived notions, to look for the truth, anywhere it may lie.

Michael Grunwald is a best-selling author, award-winning journalist, and a contributing writer for The New York Times opinion section. Simon & Schuster just published his third critically acclaimed book, We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate.

Over three decades in journalism, Mike has covered American policy and politics as a staff writer for The Washington Post, Time Magazine, and Politico Magazine. He has won the George Polk Award for national reporting, the Worth Bingham Prize for investigative reporting, and many other honors. Mike is also the author of he Swamp:

The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise (2006), which was made into a PBS documentary, and The New New Deal: The Hidden History of Change in the Obama Era, which made The New York Times best-seller list.

Mike is married to Cristina Dominguez, a former lawyer turned mind-body-spirit healer. They live in Miami with their son, Max, their daughter, Lina, and their clinically insane dogs, Cookie, Wags, and Wim.