@danbr
Researching sustainable food & agriculture at Breakthrough Institute. Sustainable food future = lower-carbon livestock, plant-based and cultivated meat, biotech / GMOs, intensive and industrial production. thebreakthrough.org/people/dan-blaustein-rejto
Important new @worldresources.bsky.social research shows that agricultural expansion isn’t only leading to forest loss - it’s leading to loss of grasslands, savannas, & wetlands too.
From 2005-20, the 🌎 lost 95 Mha of non-forest natural ecosystems to annual crops, and another 95 Mha to pasture. 1/
The Surgeon General nominee may be concerned, but you shouldn't be. Glyphosate isn't faultless, but its one of the most studied pesticides and deemed not to pose a health concern by regulators in the US, Europe, Canada and other countries.
USDA approved most biotechnology crops 2x faster last year than before, even though a court ruling in favor of anti-GMO groups had forced the agency to change its regulations, shows this new analysis from @TheBTI.
thebreakthrough.org/issues/food-...
Love this movie. Must have been a trip shooting on location for this.
UPDATE: The Supreme Court just decided to hear the case. Our piece on the case (above) explains why this is a good thing, regardless of what you think of pesticides. apnews.com/article/supr...
The issue with restricting glyphosate isn't just cost. A) The weight of the evidence indicates its not carcinogenic in humans at the rates used. B) Alternative herbicides farmers would replace it with are equally or more toxic. C)Reduced use would increase tillage thebreakthrough.org/issues/food-...
The issue with restricting glyphosate isn't just cost. A) The weight of the evidence indicates its not carcinogenic in humans at the rates used. B) Alternative herbicides farmers would replace it with are equally or more toxic. C)Reduced use would increase tillage
thebreakthrough.org/issues/food-...
UPDATE: The Supreme Court just decided to hear the case. Our piece on the case (above) explains why this is a good thing, regardless of what you think of pesticides. apnews.com/article/supr...
The Supreme Court is considering whether to take up a case on glyphosate. They should.
Otherwise, the growing state patchwork of pesticide labeling laws could force glyphosate or other pesticides off the market, costing farmers over $1 billion. thebreakthrough.org/issues/food-...
While some grazed land is arid, much is not & could store more carbon if not grazed. Our research shows that the large land footprint of grass-fed beef means it has an even bigger carbon footprint than typically thought. It also means improving productivity has big benefits. t.co/51DzPkAypR
No. Grass-fed beef actually has a larger carbon footprint than conventional beef. Not only do grass-fed cattle emit more methane, but they also use more land, which has a big climate cost.
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/c...
A Poland- or Germany-sized area of land is used to produce biofuels already. Despite the push for electric vehicles, biofuel use is only growing larger. That's a big problem since biofuels are often worse for the climate than fossil fuels.
Link to the full article: www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/california...
You can follow Lauren (or bug her to join bsky) on X @lrntex
But even if the LCFS discredits crop based fuels entirely, it should reconsider whether to keep subsidizing biofuels at all. After all, isn’t the future electric vehicles? Why keep paying to put soybeans and beef tallow in the tanks of cars? Is this the best use of resources?
If California wants to fix its frankly scandalous record on the LCFS it needs to take a VERY hard look at the program. To start, it should make sure we don’t end up forcing Californians to pay for crop-based SAF, which has all the same problems we previously detailed:
It also credits biofuels with lowering emissions by *decreasing global food consumption*. Of course, leading people to go hungry indeed produces fewer emissions. It’s also morally wrong!
Why does GTAP produce such low carbon intensities? It’s rather Orwellian. The model simply does not allow producers to convert unmanaged forest (something that happens all the time in the real world).
Surprising no one, empirical studies now coming out find land use change effects orders of magnitude higher than the ex-ante estimates produced by GTAP. Biofuel subsidies are indeed spurring significant deforestation and land conversion in the US and around the world.
How did this happen? It’s a classic tale of regulatory capture with a healthy dose of technocratic hubris. Captured CARB members insisted on the use of black box general equilibrium models (namely GTAP) that spit out astonishingly low carbon intensities for crop based biofuels.
Today, we tell the infuriating story of California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard, a program that was supposed to decarbonize transportation but ended up forcing CA drivers to pay 18 billion dollars for biofuels that are worse for the climate than fossil fuels. My coauthor Lauren's excellent X thread:
Here's a win-win: California could cut gas prices AND emissions by backing away from corn & soy-based biofuels.
Studies consistently show these lead to far more land conversion than the state has projected. www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/california...
It has the food & agricultural establishment worried too. As this article notes, Means urges people to opt for more expensive, labor-intensive, and land-intensive organic food w/ unproven health benefits (and to limit whole grains).
Exactly. The Guardian authors created that graph. The original results in the paper report percent change in yield "relative to counterfactual yields", not change in yield from today. They dont report predictions of actual yields, but note innovation will likely keep raising yields
Slower yield growth is still very important. Cutting emissions will help reduce hunger. But this is misrepresents the study, whose authors wrote "Our projections are deviations from local baseline yield trends, which have historically been positive and will probably remain generally positive"
This Guardian article makes a big error, reporting that crop yields are projected to fall lower than current levels due to climate change. But the study they use just projects slower yield growth. Slower ≠ Lower.
Grassley: RFK better not listen to Calley Means and criticize pesticides!
RFK: Please. I’m just making his sister, Casey Means, America’s top public health messenger.
United is running ads with Oscar the Grouch, promising to turn trash into “sustainable aviation fuel.” But most SAF won’t be trash. It will be crops, and it will be a disaster. Running 25% of our planes on crops would use 40% of our cropland.
Billions of dollars go to agricultural innovation & development, but too few solutions ever reach the farmers who need them.
Our new report outlines how AIM for Scale could change that, identifying cost-effective innovations and convening orgs to scale them up. thebreakthrough.org/issues/food-...
For all their talk of making America healthier, MAHA’s leaders have proposed little to actually make healthy food more affordable.
Cutting tariffs, funding research, and modernizing regulations would all help make fruits & vegetables cheaper to produce and buy. t.co/47mdlFD06y
Cutting food tariffs in general, however, is still good. Food prices have been up since Trump levied additional tariffs.
But it shouldn't be one-sided. The U.S. should continue to pair tariff reductions with opening new markets for its own farmers.
