On Tuesday, Politico published a feature on the Department of Agriculture’s failure to prepare the nation’s farmers for climate change. Of the USDA’s $144 billion budget, Politico reported, just 0.3 percent is dedicated to helping farmers adapt to the increasingly volatile climate conditions.

The devastating truth that permeated the piece—that the most powerful government in the world is actively turning a blind eye to those situated on the economic front lines of the encroaching disaster—prompts a number of questions. How has pervasive top-down climate denial persisted in the USDA for this long? Could Democrats in 2020 capitalize on this moment to retake the agriculture vote they so painfully bled over the last half-century?



But there are other urgent questions one could also ask about modern American agriculture. While Politico’s piece offered an insightful analysis of the future of farmers, it focused on business owners. The viewpoint was that of the employers charged with balancing and capitalizing on their annual budgets, who are now worried because their politicians of choice continue to refuse to take proactive measures. As is typical in mainstream coverage of agriculture, there was not a single line about the effects on the workers and laborers that fill the fields, or how climate change will affect the places they hail from.

As farming in the U.S. continues its decades-long descent into an industrialized system rife with inequality, Americans are still focusing on the American farmer of old. Here’s another question one could ask: When are conversations about American farming going to start worrying about the exploitative house of cards the entire agricultural industry currently teeters on?

Sixty years ago, if you were a farmer, there was one thing you needed more than a tractor or fertilizer: kids.