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Ray Goldberg died last week at the age of 99.  He was still going pretty strong the last time I saw him last fall at the annual meeting of PAPSAC (Private and Public Scientific, Academic and Consumer Food Policy Group) at Harvard’s Kennedy School.

Edmund O’Keeffe, photo

We were an unlikely pair to know each other for so long and to care about each other so deeply.

When I first met him in the early 1990s, Ray was professor of agribusiness (a term he coined) at the Harvard Business School, as representative of Big Ag as anyone could be.  When he invited me to participate in the newly formed PAPSAC, I could not imagine why he would want me there or why I should go.

Contrary to Ray’s recollection, I did not attend the first meeting. I would have had to pay my own expenses, which seemed outrageous given that so many of the participants were CEOs of multi-billion dollar companies and flew to Boston via private jet.

The second year, Ray said they would pay for my travel and persuaded me that the meeting would be worth attending.  Its purpose, he explained, was to bring food business leaders and consumer activists together to share views and to reach mutual understanding.

My interpretation: Ray thought that if we saw how caring the CEOs of agribusiness firms were about feeding the world, we would not object so much to what they did.  That never worked, but he kept on trying.  And I kept on attending, for more than 25 years.

My rationale:

• Ray was impossible to say no to.
• I could learn how agribusiness leaders thought about what they were doing.
• I could say what I thought in a presentation pretty much every year.

Two highlights:

• I witnessed the CEOs of Pioneer Hi-Bred and other agbiotech companies scream at the CEO of Monsanto for alienating the public about genetically modified crops and ruining their businesses.
• I attended the session when Ray had the bright idea of showing the film Food, Inc to the group (he thought they ought to see it).  This did not go over well, and I joined its director, Robby Kenner, in fielding audience attacks.

Despite what I consider to be a total contradiction between the profit goals of agribusiness and the goals of public healthl, Ray continued to insist that we all needed to listen to each other.

His sunny view of humanity is best illustrated by his book  Food Citizenship, which I wrote about in 2018 when it first came out.

The book consists of Ray’s interviews with dozens of PAPSAC participants, beginning with his interview with me.  [The interviews were videotaped and are  available at the Oxford University Press website.  The video of Ray’s interview with me is posted here.]

I always felt like a total outsider at this meeting, and was surprised to find myself at the core of Ray’s attempts to achieve mutual understanding among participants.

We could all use more of that.

As is clear from our interview and Ray’s response to my responses to his questions, we viewed the world of agribusiness very differently.

But I loved him, and will miss him.

John Seabrook.  The Spinach King: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty.  Norton, 2025 (346 pages).

This book is a memoir by New Yorker staff writer, John Seabrook, about his rich, unscrupulous, and bigoted grandfather and father but there is so much food politics in it that it belongs on my must-read list.  It’s also a riveting story, well told.

Seabrook’s progenitors were notable for having figured out how to grow vegetables at a huge scale in southern New Jersey, and how to freeze them so they could be shipped, stored, and sold at great profit.  Until things went bad, they were the largest vegetable growers on the eastern seabord, if not anywhere.  This book has plenty to say about how they did it—bought seed, planted, harvested, froze, shipped.

It is also about who did the work and how the worker were treated—farm labor as viewed from the owners’ perspective (unshared by the author, who is unsparing in his reporting).

I learned a lot about industrial vegetable farming from reading this book.

C.F. [Seabrook’s grandfather] could not have chosen a better time to build his vegetable factory.  Food prices, already rising in 1913, were further boosted by the outbreak of war in Europe, causing agricultural production abroad to contract severely.  The price of a bushel of corn in Minnesota rose from 59 cents in 1914 to $1.30 in 1919.  Wheat went from $1.05 a bushel to $2.34.  Mechanization was bringing tractors, threshers, seed drillers, and combine harvesters to the cultivation of wheat, rye, oats, and barley, greatly increasing production.  Land prices rose accordingly. (p.79)

I looked up today’s figures: Corn is $4.50 per bushel; wheat $5 to $6.  No wonder our agricultural production system is such a mess and requires so much in subsidies.

The Seabrooks of that era were ungenerous with their workers, particularly those who were Black, and had to deal with a strike in 1934.

Eyewitnesses…claimed the Seabrooks and their henchman crushed the strike using fire hoses, tear gas, mass arrests, and imported gangster named Red Sanders, armed vigilantes, and the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, who spread terror by burning crosses in front of Black Workers’ homes.  One ACLU observer reported seeing my uncle Belford, of whom I had only fond memories, leading a tear-gas attack on a striking worker’s house and setting it on fire with a woman and small children inside. (p. 109)

This must have been one tough book to write.  Seabrook says it took him 30 years to dig out the history of his complicated family and come to terms with it.  He did a great job.  It’s a great read.

Reviews

• New York Times
• Wall Street Journal

If you are wondering about the effects of China’s not buying US soybeans (and the Trump administrations bailout of Argentinean soybeans), Farm Action says the real problem started decades ago.  

Its analysis is well worth reading.

The numbers reveal how concentrated our agricultural system has become. In 2024:

• Soybeans were the number one U.S. agricultural export, worth about $24.5 billion.
• More than half of all U.S. soybeans were exported, and China historically bought more than half of that total (roughly $12.6 billion worth).
• Soybeans contributed $46.9 billion to total U.S. farm income.

The current crisis, it says, is “the result of decades of decisions that put export growth ahead of food security at home.”

Farm Action wants agricultural policies that will break the cycle of overproduction and bailouts.

1. Grow food, not just livestock feed crops: Incentivize production of fruits, vegetables, and nutrient-dense crops for local markets.
2. Reform subsidies: Redirect federal spending away from endless bailouts and toward programs that reward resilience and healthy food production.
3. Rebuild local infrastructure: Invest in regional processing, storage, and distribution to give farmers alternatives to export markets.
4. Break up corporate monopolies: Enforce antitrust laws to restore competition in input and processing markets.

How to do this, it does not say.  But these goals are worth advocacy.

Start on them now.

We might get lucky.

Corporate Climate Resposibility Monitor has published its 2025 report: Food and Agriculture Sector Deep Dive, which looks at measures of protection against climate change.  It doesn’t find much.

It does find:

• Agrifood companies present measures that are unlikely to lead to structural, deep emission reductions in the sector.
• Agrifood companies’ emission reduction targets are currently undermined by the undefined role for land-based carbon removals.
• Standard setters need to anchor the need for deep and structural emission reductions in their voluntary standards and guidelines, guided by key transitions for the sector, and need to call for separate targets for emission reduction and removal.

Overall,

Not much green in this chart.

The report goes into detail for each of the companies it’s tracking.

Not much good news here.  No surprise.  Reducing and cleaning up emissions costs money.

I learned about this report from Ag Funder News: Danone and Nestlé hit back after new report accuses Big Food of ‘corporate greenwashing.’

According to the report, penned by nonprofits NewClimate Institute and Carbon Market Watch, “This focus on CDR [carbon dioxide removal] distracts from their lack of commitments to deep, structural emission reductions, especially regarding methane.

“While the draft GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Guidance recommends setting separate targets for emissions reductions and removals, the current SBTi FLAG guidance appears to allow companies to count removals toward their reduction targets. Danone, Nestlé and PepsiCo seem to be taking this approach.”

It adds: “Companies are exploiting loopholes in voluntary standards like SBTi FLAG and the GHG Protocol, which allow them to blend removals with reductions in a single figure, masking a lack of real mitigation.”

I’m indebted to Errol Schweizer, Grocery Nerd, for pointing out in response to my post on we need more vegetables, that if we want more vegetables, somebody has to pick them.  Raids by ICE on farmworkers are not helping this situation; they are wrong, morally and legally, and must stop.

Schweizer writes:  RFK Betrays/ICE Terrorizes Food Workers.

The Border Patrol and Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) division continue to kidnap, persecute and traffic hard working, law-abiding essential food supply chain workers for no just cause.

Now is the time for the grocery industry, including retail and CPG executives, essential workers, brand founders and Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) advocates to stand up against these flagrant violations of human rights, due process, civil liberties and just plain decency.

From the New York Times: Wilted Lettuce. Rotten Strawberries. Here’s What Happens When You Round Up Farmworkers. 

Bottom line, it isn’t easy for farmers and ranchers to replace farmworkers if they’re deported or don’t show up. These positions require experience, endurance and specialized knowledge; as anyone who has worked on a farm will tell you, farm work is not unskilled labor.

From FoodPrint: How the current immigration crackdown is impacting food and farmworkers

Around 40 percent of farmworkers in the U.S. are undocumented. The numbers are similar in many other parts of the food system, especially meatpacking, where undocumented immigrants fill an estimated 23 percent of jobs. ..For the most part, farmers supported the Trump administration in the election, with many believing the president’s claims that he would spare farmworkers from promised mass deportations, focusing instead on “dangerous criminals”….[But] ICE agents began aggressively targeting worksites, visiting farms and packing sites in California and a meatpacking plant in Nebraska on June 10. Those raids generated an immediate flurry of complaints from farmers and the food industry.

From Civil Eats: ICE Raids Target Workers on Farms and in Food Production: A Running List

Immigration enforcement actions at workplaces are likely to increase as the agencies attempt to meet new White House goals of 3,000 arrests per day. We are keeping a record of those actions here.

Here is Civil Eats’ list for August, with contact information for Lisa Held, who is keeping track of all this.

August 7, 2025 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – ICE detains 16 workers during raids of two Mexican restaurants

August 8, 2025 – Woodburn, Oregon – ICE detains four immigrant farmworkers on their way to work at a blueberry farm

August 11, 2025 – Anchorage, Alaska – ICE officials arrest an asylum seeker outside sushi restaurant

August 14, 2025 – Kent, New York – ICE raids Lynn-Ette Farms—where United Farm Workers have been organizing— and detains seven workers

Want to send us a tip about immigration enforcement in your community? Email tracker@civileats.com or securely contact Lisa Held on Signal at @lisaelaineh.47. (Link to this post.)

Enjoy the Labor Day holiday, but then do what you can to make this stop.

The MAHA Commission released its report last week: The MAHA Report: Make Our Children Healthy Again.  Assessment.

This is one impressive report, forcefully written and tightly documented (it cites my work, among that of many others).

Overall, it paints a devastating portrait of how our society has failed our children.

It begins by stating that “The health of American children is in crisis” due to:

• Poor diet
• Aggregation of environmental chemicals
• Lack of physical activity and chronic stress
• Overmedicalization

The result: high rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, neurodevelopmental disorders, cancer, allergies  and mental health problems among kids.

Here are some selected items I particularly appreciated in the report.  The bullet points are direct quotes.

On poor diet

• Most American children’s diets are dominated by ultra – processed foods (UPFs ) high in added sugars , chemical additives , and saturated fats, while lacking sufficient intakes of fruits and vegetables.
• Pesticides , microplastics , and dioxins are commonly found in the blood and urine of American children and pregnant women— some at alarming levels.
• Children are exposed to numerous chemicals , such as heavy metals , PFAS , pesticides , and phthalates, via their diet, textiles, indoor air pollutants, and consumer products.
• To get into schools , many food companies have reformulated their products with minor ingredient adjustments to qualify for the federal Smart Snack program by meeting the school nutrition standards, which children can purchase separate from school meals.

The driving factors for poor diets

• Consolidation of the food system
• Distorted nutrition research and marketing
• Compromised dietary guidelines

On the dietary guidelines  

They maintain problematic reductionist recommendations, such as:

• Advising people to “reduce saturated fat” or “limit sodium” instead of focusing on minimizing ultra-processed foods.
• Treating all calories similarly, rather than distinguishing between nutrient-dense foods and ultra-processed products.
• Remain largely agnostic to how foods are produced or processed: There is little distinction between industrially processed foods and home-cooked or whole foods if their nutrient profiles look similar.
• Added sugars, saturated fats and sodium are treated as proxies for ultra-processed foods. For instance, a cup of whole-grain ready to eat fortified breakfast cereal and a cup of oatmeal with fruit might both count as “whole grain servings,” and the guidelines do not weigh in on differences in processing.

They also,

• Do not explicitly address UPFs.
• Have a history of being unduly influenced by corporate interests .

On food systems

• The greatest step the United States can take to reverse childhood chronic disease is to put whole foods produced by American farmers and ranchers at the center of healthcare.
• Traditional Field Crops vs. Specialty Crops : Historically, federal crop insurance programs have primarily covered traditional field crops like wheat , corn , and soybeans, while providing much less support for specialty crops such as fruits, vegetables, tree nuts, and nursery plants.

On Corporate Capture 

• Although the U.S. health system has produced remarkable breakthroughs, we must face the troubling reality that the threats to American childhood have been exacerbated by perverse incentives that have captured the regulatory bodies and federal agencies tasked with overseeing them .
• Limited comparisons between industry-funded research versus non- industry studies have raised concerns over potential biases in industry-funded research…Additionally, some industry leaders have engaged in promoting ghostwriting and sponsored reviews to influence the scientific literature.
• Notably, this ghostwriting strategy mirrors tactics used by the tobacco industry to distort scientific consensus is largely propelled by “corporate capture,” in which industry interests dominate and distort scientific literature, legislative actions, academic institutions, regulatory agencies, medical journals, physician organizations, clinical guidelines, and the news media.
• The pharmaceutical industry, with its vast resources and influence, is a primary driver of this capture, though similar dynamics pervade the food and chemical industries.

Research recommendations

• GRAS Oversight Reform: Fund independent studies evaluating the health impact of self-affirmed GRAS food ingredients, prioritizing risks to children and informing transparent FDA rulemaking.
• Nutrition Trials: NIH should fund long-term trials comparing whole-food, reduced-carb, and low-UPF diets in children to assess effects on obesity and insulin resistance.
• Large-scale Lifestyle Interventions: Launch a coordinated national lifestyle-medicine initiative that embeds real-world randomized trials-covering integrated interventions in movement, diet, light exposure, and sleep timing-within existing cohorts and EHR networks.

Comment

The report has been criticized for not getting some of the science right.  The agriculture industry is particularly concerned about the attack on the chemicals it uses.  It is said to be outraged by the report.  The report did throw Big Ag this bone: “Today, American farmers feed the world, American companies lead the world, and American energy powers the world.”

But the report raises one Big Question:  What policies will this administration come up with to deal with these problems?  These, presumably, will be in the next report, due in about 80 days.

This is an extraordinary report, a breath of fresh air in many ways, and I would love to know who wrote it.

But to fix the problems it raises will require taking on not only Big Ag, but also Big Food, Big Pharma, Big Chemical, and other industries affected by these and its other recommendations (the report also says a lot about drugs and mental health).  Big Ag has already weighed in.  Others are sure to follow.

Oh.  And it’s hard to know how policies can be implemented, given the destructive cuts to FDA, CDC, and NIH personnel and budget.

I will be watching this one.  Stay tuned.

Resources

• The press release: MAHA Commission Unveils Landmark Report Exposing Root Causes of Childhood Chronic Disease Crisis
• The Executive Order establishing the MAHA Commission
• The Commission report: Make Our Children Healthy Again Assessment

Additional resource

• Errol Schweizer sent me his analysis on Medium, well worth reading.

I was sent the press release for an annual report from a long list of food trade associations: Feeding the Economy, “Ninth Annual “Feeding the Economy” Report Demonstrates Immense Impact of the American Food and Agriculture Industry Amidst Economic Challenges.”

The 2025 report confirms the agriculture industry is at the heart of the U.S. economy, generating more than $9.5 trillion in economic value, which amounts to 18.7% of the overall national economy.

The report, online and interactive, isn’t really about agribusiness: The big agribusiness companies—Cargill, Bayer, Corteva, Archer Daniels Midland, etc—are not sponsors.  The first six alphabetically are

• American Bakers Association
• American Beverage Association
• American Farm Bureau Federation
• American Frozen Food Institute
• American Peanut Council
• American Soybean Association

They want you to know what they collectively contribute to the economy.  A lot.

They also want you to know that times are tough.

Direct and indirect industry wages have grown year-over-year but have failed to keep pace with inflation, reflecting nationwide economic stressors and the high cost of labor for employers. Additionally, the number of agricultural manufacturing jobs has fallen year-over-year and is down nearly 30,000 jobs since 2020.

Times are tough for everyone these days.  I wish this report had said more about the plight of small farmers and what could be done to help them.

OOPS: A reader alerted me that all links have been taken down by the new administration.

In his last weeks in office, former President Biden issued a Fact Sheet on the food system investments achieved by his administration. A reader, Ethan Wolf, sent in a link from the Wayback Machine. Fact Sheet on the food system investments achieved by his administration

The Fact Sheet divides the achievements into several categories.

• Building new markets and income for farmers and ranchers
• Modernizing the middle of the agriculture and food supply chain: food processing, aggregation, and distribution
• Creating more fair and competitive markets
• Improving food access, nutrition security and health
• Enchancing food safety
• Supporting breakthrough agricultural rewearch and innovation

To highlight just one—food safety:

• USDA issued a rule to classify raw poultry products contaminated with specific Salmonella levels and serotypes as adulterated.
• USDA also finalized a rule declaring Salmonella an adulterant in raw breaded stuffed chicken products exceeding 1 colony-forming unit per gram.
• FDA launched the “Closer to Zero” initiative (C2Z), which sets forth a science-based approach to continually reducing exposure to lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury to the lowest levels possible in foods eaten by babies and young children.
• FDA has issued numerous action levels for toxic elements: draft levels for lead in juices; final levels for lead in foods intended for babies and young children; and a final level for arsenic in apple juice. 
• FDA revoked authorizations for the uses of brominated vegetable oil (BVO) in food because of the potential for adverse health effects in humans.
• FDA also revised its regulations and revoked prior-sanctioned uses of partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs) because studies consistently link consumption of PHOs (industrially produced trans fat) with heart disease. 
• Before the end of the term, FDA also plans to revoke the authorization of Red No. 3, a red dye used in certain medications and various foods and beverages, including candies, cakes, frostings, and frozen desserts, due to studies showing that the dye caused cancer [it did this].

Perhaps coincidentally, Lisa Held at Civil Eats published How Four Years of Biden Reshaped Food and Farming: From day one, the administration prioritized climate, “nutrition security,” infrastructure investments, and reducing food system consolidation. Here’s what the president and his team actually did.

Her categories are somewhat different:

• Taking on Consolidation and Corporate Power, and Supporting Farmer Livelihood
• Tackling the Climate Crisis
• Regulating Pesticides and Other Chemicals
• Focusing on Food Safety
• Linking Hunger, Nutrition, and Health
• Supporting Food and Farm Workers
• Advancing Equity

Here’s my excerpted summary of her analysis of Taking on Corporate Power.