New York Times article on Americana highlights Organic Carbon Capture
We arrive at Coyote Run Farm late on a Sunday morning, the sky the kind of gray that makes every plant and flower look more alive.
Matt Russell comes outside to meet us in rubber boots and his Sunday best, a blue plaid shirt tucked neatly into belted jeans. He’s used to visitors: Beto O’Rourke and Tim Ryan have been here, reporters too. Kamala Harris’s campaign staffers are staging the barn for her visit this afternoon. All of them want to talk to Mr. Russell about climate change.
A fifth-generation farmer with a master’s degree in rural sociology, Mr. Russell, who is 49, has been working on issues of economic and environmental sustainability in agriculture for nearly two decades. Led by his religious faith, he has spent his life teaching, organizing and preaching. Over the past couple of years, he has taken an increasingly public role in organizing farmers to drive climate change policy in industrial agriculture.
Both Republicans and Democrats treat farmers as victims, Mr. Russell says. Republicans flatly refuse to address the problem of climate change but address farmers as wounded heroes, unappreciated and undervalued. “And the Democratic message,” Mr. Russell says, “is, ‘You guys are all committing suicide.’”
The solution they have to offer involves policy planners parachuting in to save American agriculture from itself. Mr. Russell says that American farmers are in the best position to respond quickly to the climate crisis. “Not agribusiness, not the oil companies, not the food retailers,” he says firmly. “Farmers.”
Comments
Post a Comment