The carcinogenic classification of glyphosate faces new pressure

Glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide in the world, is a controversial product in agriculture due to its potential carcinogenic effects. In 2015, the International Agency on the Research for Cancer (IARC) published a monograph concluding that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.” However, in February 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued an interim registration review decision (ID) finding glyphosate poses “no risks of concern to human health when used in accordance with its current label.”

© Kristy Ardalan 2024.

On March 20, 2020, the Natural Resources Defense Council challenged the EPA’s ID in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In May 2021, the EPA requested—and the court granted--a partial voluntary remand without vacatur of the ecological portion. The EPA later withdrew the entire ID, and the status of glyphosate remains under reconsideration.

As of 2026, the EPA maintains that there is no evidence glyphosate causes cancer in humans; there is no indication glyphosate is an endocrine disruptor; that residue on food items are safe for consumption; and that ecological risks are low, with the exception of potential harm to bees.

Despite these conclusions, public skepticism remains high. The widely publicized Monsanto Roundup litigation—through which Monsanto has paid nearly $11 billion to tens of thousands of plaintiffs alleging cancer caused by Roundup—has intensified doubts about the EPA’s classification. Additionally, organizations such as the Environmental Sciences Europe and the World Health Organization have criticized the EPA for failing to adequately consider individuals with heightened exposure, such as farmworkers and nearby residents. The Center for Food Safety has also cited emails between an EPA scientist and a Monsanto officer that suggest “coordinated efforts to undermine the legitimacy of IARC’s… determination.”

White House Easter celebration 2023.

© Kristy Ardalan 2024.

On February 18, 2026, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Promoting the National Defense by Ensuring an Adequate Supply of Elemental Phosphorus and Glyphosate-Based Herbicides.” A related fact sheet states that the order is intended to “protect domestic production of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides” which are “essential to military readiness and America’s agricultural strength.” The fact sheet emphasizes that currently only one domestic company produces elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides. It also notes that the demand in the U.S. far exceeds current output, which “gravely endangers national security and defense” including food-supply security.

A particularly controversial provision of the order grants immunity to domestic producers that comply with federal law.

The famously polluted Potomac River in Washington, D.C.

© Kristy Ardalan 2023.

Environmental groups, such as the Waterkeeper Alliance, have strongly criticized the order arguing that “it puts chemical industry profits above public health and clean water.” Granting immunity for industrial chemical producers that follow federal directives makes it harder to hold them accountable for harm to human and environmental health. As discussed in this prior blog post, critics also point to broader legislative trends—such as provisions in the recent farm bill—that may weaken environmental protections, including removing dozens of pesticides from health and environmental safety reviews, granting the USDA power to block EPA health and environmental safeguards, removing Clean Water Act protections that limit pesticide pollution, etc.

However, there are signs of legislative pushback. On February 20, 2026, Representatives Thomas Massie (KY) and Chellie Pingree (ME) introduced the bipartisan “No Immunity for Glyphosate Act” to Congress in effort to undo the February 18 executive order. Representative Pingree stated “If there was ever any doubt about whose side this Administration is on, this Executive Order makes it crystal clear: Big Chemical comes first, and the health of Americans comes last.” Representative Massie similarly argued that “If the goal is to 'Make America Healthy Again,' the federal government should not be using its authority to promote or protect the production of glyphosate.”

© Iowa Environmental Council and The Harkin Institute, Environmental Risk Factors and Iowa’s Cancer Crisis, p. 9. Data from the National Cancer Institute state cancer profiles.

The No Immunity for Glyphosate Act was introduced to Congress shortly before a disruptive report from the Iowa Environmental Council and the Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement titled “Environmental Risk Factors and Iowa’s Cancer Crisis” was released on March 25, 2026. The report focuses on pesticides, PFAS, Nitrate, Radon, and other industrial contaminants in Iowa. The Executive Director of the Iowa Environmental Council stated that the report “demonstrates clear links between environmental pollution and our health and well-being.” As found in the 2020 census, the majority of Iowans live in rural areas and the rural areas are surrounded by endless fields of corn all likely sprayed with glyphosate. The graph below shows that rural residents in Iowa experience and live around the most dense pesticide application areas in the United States and the cancer rates reflect that.

A map of counties depicting high and low cancer rates

© Investigate Midwest, National Cancer Institute, and the CDC

Iowa’s cancer rate exceeds the national average by more than 10%, with a particularly elevated rates among individuals under 50. The state has the highest number of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in the country, a number more than 2.5 times as many CAFOs than the next highest state. With emerging research linking glyphosate and other environmental contaminants to adverse health outcomes, pressure is mounting for legislative action—and soon.

Back-to-the-land has come...back?

Barn in Benton County, AR.© Lisa R. Pruitt (2011)

If you're a young woman on TikTok, the algorithm likely feeds you some flavor of "tradwife" content. Names like Nara Smith and Hannah Neeleman have become household names among twenty-somethings in the last few years. These women use their online platforms to play out a fictional reality of subservience to their husbands on gorgeous rural acreages, all while raking in millions from sponsorships and $70 bone broth powders. They espouse live simple, pared-down lives, cooking everything from scratch for a big, happy family, while finding time to spend their afternoons barefoot in the grass. They want you to believe that their life is good, and that more young women should aspire to be homemakers and homesteaders. 

These young women are the most visible group of young people promoting a modern "back-to-the-land" movement. They often root their desire in religion and "traditional" roles of men and women. Many scholars and commentators criticize the tradwife movement, saying it is regressive and uninformed. You can read excerpts of a New York Times article about modern "rural" aesthetics centered in patriarchy here. While some of the criticism rings true, this practice isn't new. Americans have demonized processed foods and dreamt of homesteading for decades. Back-to-the-land movements have drawn people's attention since their inception, inspiring families with traditional values as well as environmentalists and counterculturalists. 

The origins of back-to-the-land

America began its foray into the homesteading movement with the Homestead Act of 1862, which offered full title to government lands taken from Indigenous tribes to any settler who lived on and improved the land for five years. The back-to-the-land movement, however, originated in the 1900s. 

Many scholars cite Bolton Hall, an American lawyer and activist, as the origin of the movement. In the early 1900s, he formed the Little Land League, which wanted to make land ownership and homegrown food a reality for low-income New Yorkers. This organization existed to "assist in the acquisition of land and show how to make the best use of it." He allegedly planned a $70,000 endowment for a program that would teach people how to farm and help them purchase the land. His book, A Little Land and Living, extolled the virtues of rural living and explained how to begin to make a living for yourself off the land. 

John Korvola's Homestead in Valley County, ID from the early 1900s. Credit: Jerrye & Roy Klotz, MD under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

A group of reformists picked up Bolton Hall's work, arguing that subsistence farming could help white Americans survive during the Great Depression and avoid the dangers of urbanization. Their writings sparked a the "third wave" of back-to-the-land in the 1960s and 70s. The third wave originated from the protest movements of that era, and grew into a "rural antimodern counterculture". As Jinny A. Turman-Deal's article We Were an Oddity: A Look at the Back to the Land Movement in Appalachia identifies, many third-wave participants were driven by non-economic factors: a desire to "leave the rat race" or political and social turmoil in the city. Their migration created a 4.5% increase in West Virginia's population. 

A New York Times article from 1975 posits that these new, young farmers desired hard work and an escape from American capitalism. They generally eschewed tractors and other "labor-saving devices." This movement reached across the country, with people from Maine to Oregon allegedly growing up to 75% of their food in their backyard. While this article states that most farmers relied on their families' middle-class incomes to make this a reality, a 1991 article states that only about 48% of participants came from a middle-class background. 

Modern takes on back-to-the-land

Homesteading, a popular part of the back-to-the-land movement, has picked up considerable steam in the last 10 years. A November 2024 report from Fannie Mae shows that interest in rural mortgages has increased almost 80% since the start of COVID-19. Homesteaders of America, a conservative, Christian-adjacent homesteading advocacy group, conducted a poll in 2022 to assess the state of homesteading in America. They found that approximately 50% of their respondents were under 40 years old, and about 50% identified as conservative. Most were employed full-time, making at least 50,000 a year. Over 80% were married.

These findings align with the prevailing modern conception of homesteading. Conservative, young families with enough capital to secure property are the ones moving out to a subsistence farm. While I used the example of tradwives as the group most visible in mainstream media, queer and trans homesteaders utilize social media to share their experiences of living off the land, too. A recent CNN article highlighted some of these influencers, who stated they didn't see homesteading as a "conservative, separatist" movement, but rather a community-centered endeavor to build something they're proud of. 

Regardless of politics, many young aspiring farmers and homesteaders take up homesteading for similar reasons: increased health and well-being, an escape from tumultuous politics, and a desire to be more in touch with nature. These groups face a common challenge: a daunting rural real estate market. A 2022 Study from the National Young Farmers Coalition, however, found that 59% of young farmers stated that finding the land to farm was their biggest hurdle. Young farmers are being outbid by more established farmers, as well as large agricultural corporations. This statistic has been true for decades (as this 2012 blog post explains in an analysis between the United States and Greece). In some communities, leasing from community members or land trusts makes homesteading more accessible. In major cities, organizations exist to help low-income residents urban homestead in community co-ops. 

Despite the obstacles, homesteading and back-to-the-land movements draw new converts every day. While the media continues to criticize the tradwives from a feminist perspective, we should recognize that their lives resonate with so many young people. So many of the political pressures of the late 60s and 70s exist today: high inflation, declining trust in politics, and foreign wars impacting oil.

Back-to-the-land has come and gone as a desirable life path for over a century. It seems as if proponents, for decades, have thought it is the cure for societies' ills. Interestingly, the draws are the same, regardless of politics, though each group seems to try and fit their politics to their reasons. At the end of the day, tradwife or drag queen, some people want to put their hands in the dirt.

The Grange: Community building in rural America

                      

Credit: Anderson Valley Grange

Some of my earliest memories are attending the yearly variety show at the Anderson Valley Grange in Mendocino County, California. During these performances the bustling Grange hall felt like the busiest gathering of the year, besides the county fair. The Grange gives fair warning that “this is a variety show NOT a talent show.” In catching up with my grandma about the Grange, which she was a member of for many years, she remembered most performances as “really bad,” noting affectionately that the emcee was “extremely corny.” She and her hippie friends were often among the acts of the night and may have been at least in the neighborhood of “really bad” also.

Regardless of the varying quality of the performances, the Grange provided a sense of community in a place where many people lived too deep in the woods to see their neighbors regularly. There was always some friend of my parents or grandparents who had apparently known me since I was a baby, and I likely would not see them again until the next variety show. Unbeknownst to me as a child at the variety show, the Grange had been playing a similar role in rural communities across America for almost 150 years.

The origins of the Grange

The Grange, formally known as National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, began as an organization dedicated to agriculture when it was founded in 1867 by Oliver Kelley, a Minnesotan with an interest in reorganizing and educating agricultural workers. Kelley had been sent to the South after the Civil War by President Andrew Johnson to assess the agricultural conditions of the region and formed the Grange partially in reaction to this tour.

I Feed You All! Image Credit: Library of Congress 

The Civil War had marked the culmination of a rapid series of changes to farming communities. The draw of urban economies and the increasing efficiency of agricultural technology had steadily reduced the share of the US population engaged in farming, declining from 90% in 1790 to 42% in 1880. This demographic shift brought changes to the social fabric of rural communities.

Once, farmers had engaged in subsistence agriculture and frequently labored together if one member of the community needed help planting or with harvest. Now, innovations like the cast iron plow greatly reduced the need for farmers to work together in the fields. Additionally, most farmers had shifted from subsistence farming to commercial farming, rendering them competing market actors rather than a community with shared goals.

Kelley began the Grange with the increasing obsolescence of traditional farm life in mind, and his vision for a new farming community was a rather radical one. The National Grange claims that “[s]ince our founding in 1867, we have lived by our motto, “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.,” and that “[w]e have always welcomed and invited people of all races, creeds, religions and nationalities into our membership.”

The Grange did in fact embody principles of equality in many ways. The institution not only welcomed women, it required that at least four members elected to the board be women in order for a Grange to be chartered. Recognition of the labor that women provided in agricultural life was central to the Grange from its inception.

In addition to the social principles espoused by the Grange, the group was strongly motivated by Kelley’s longstanding interest in developing and proliferating farm technologies in an equitable manner. Kelley saw people engaged in agriculture being left behind. In his words, "Everything is progressing. Why not the farmers? The inventive genius of the country is continually at work improving tools, and farmers remain passive."

A particularly interesting feature of the Grange is their Masonic-inspired secrecy and ritual. Kelley had found that his membership in the Masons was a helpful foot in the door during his time in the South. He believed, quite correctly it would seem, that “[t]he secrecy would lend an interest and peculiar fascination.” Grangers ascended through a variety of ranks, known as “degrees”; wore sashes, badges, and regalia corresponding to their rank; and had secret handshakes and passwords. These features faded in modern Granges, but my grandmother still recalls a secret handshake and being given a “goddess name” when she joined in the 80s.

Expansion, goals, and advocacy

The Grange was a near-immediate and explosive success, with over 24,000 chartered local Granges and almost one million members within eight years of its founding. While Kelley had founded the Grange with central planning in mind, hoping to eventually incorporate the Grange into the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Grange chapters quickly became extremely independent, with the National Grange exerting little control over their operations. The Grange was focused on farmers, but were very lenient regarding who could become a member. Even from shortly after its founding, Granges members often included lawyers, judges, and educators.

The early National Grange strongly advocated for cooperative farming. While we commonly think of cooperative farming as groupings of producers, the Grange additionally endeavored to unify production and sale of agricultural products to extract greater profits, a practice known in economics and antitrust law as vertical integration. At the peak of the Grange collectivization attempts in 1877, about 30,000 co-ops existed. The Grange also operated the infrastructure necessary for these co-ops, facilities like mills, grain elevators, and warehouses.

Though the Grange is ostensibly non-political and discourages discussion of politics at their meetings, their concern for the agricultural class manifested in advocacy for a variety of political causes, especially in their early history. Perhaps most prominent was the effort of the Grange to combat the high rates charged by railroads, an effort that resulted in the Granger Laws and inspired modern antitrust law. A contribution that perhaps has the most lasting impact on rural communities is their campaign for rural free delivery of mail.

A critical view of the early Grange

While many accounts of the Grange dote over its inclusivity, Prof. Charles Postel provides a rather scathing perspective on the Grange in his book Equality: An American Dilemma. He notes that gender equality was a relatively palatable position in Washington D.C following the Civil War, where seven of the eight founding members of the Grange were working as members of the federal government at the time of the founding. While women did occupy prominent leadership positions in some Granges, many female members were relegated to secretarial roles.

Additionally, the Grange was somewhat wavering in its support for suffrage. The National Grange came out in support of suffrage in 1885, but the next year reverted to support for state rights to set suffrage policy. Granges did provide an audience for suffragettes, and the National Grange finally backed the suffrage amendment in 1915.

The Grange did not explicitly discriminate against African-Americans; it was nevertheless clear to many that they were not welcome. Kelley was a lifelong Democrat, and many Granges made quite obvious overtures to white Southern farmers. Prof. Jenny Bourne of Carleton College notes in her book In Essentials, Unity: An Economic History of the Grange Movement that the National Master of the Grange in 1873 said that admitting “colored” members was a question best left to local interests. Unsurprisingly, many communities in the South answered this question with exclusion. Black farmers responded by creating the Colored Farmers’ National Alliance near the end of the 1880s.

Many positive accounts of the Grange’s early history acknowledge and discuss the exclusion of African Americans, but the relationship of the Grange to Native Americans is often left unexplored. Prof. Postel notes that Kelley was largely disinterested in the Civil War because his “deep antipathy towards the Indians of Minnesota” motivated him to cooperate with Republicans, despite being a lifelong Democrat. While the Grange performed a variety of charitable work for Native Americans from the 1940s onwards, it must be acknowledged that the interests of white farmers were often in direct opposition to those of Native Americans during the early history of the Grange.

As aptly put by Prof. Bourne, “the history of the Patrons of Husbandry exposes the classic tension between the desires for achieving overall economic success and for dictating how the spoils are split.”

The fall, rise, and second fall of the Grange

While declining profits from farming rendered cooperative efforts very attractive, Grange efforts to collectively sell and purchase agricultural products suffered from defection by individual farmers. A lack of effective cooperation between the National Grange and local and state Granges was an additional challenge. Additionally, the cooperative methods employed by the Grange often required an upfront investment that many farmers were unable to afford as the economy became increasingly strained in the late 1800s.

Grange membership had fallen precipitously in the 1880s and 1890s, as many members found that the costs of their membership outweighed the perceived benefits. It did not help that some members apparently found the agricultural programming “dull as well as not worth the money.”

In terms of rural political advocacy, the space once occupied by the Grange had been effectively co-opted by new organizations like the Farmers Alliance, the Farm Bureau, and the Greenback Party by the late 1800s. While the Grange thus receded from national politics, it was a significant influence on these successor organizations and on modern farm interest advocacy groups, like the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and state dairy marketing boards.

   Combined Grange and Farm Bureau Facility in Del Norte County, California

 (c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2019

While the Grange had largely withdrawn from the political stage by the early 1900s, membership had begun to rebound as Grange organizations started to offer important services to rural communities. In particular, the Grange began offering insurance and created power cooperatives in the 1930s.

While nonprofit utilities and insurance providers initiated by the Grange still serve rural communities, these enterprises are now mostly under non-Grange management and no longer exclusively serve Grange members. The fact that these services gradually stopped being linked to Grange membership and decreasing rural populations has caused a steady decline in Grange membership. Since the 1955 Grange membership has fallen from 850,000 members to 140,000.

The National Grange currently advocates on the level for relatively modest and non-partisan goals, like increased spending on agricultural research. They maintain their longstanding anti-tariff views and have generally favored immigration, but the organization seem to be tempering their language to assuage Trump voters in recent years.

The Anderson Valley Grange and the new role of Granges

The Anderson Valley Grange has a particularly Northern California themed history. This wonderful article by Lisa Morehouse, published recently by KWED, the San Francisso details the initial frictions at the Anderson Valley Grange in the 70s and 80s as the longtime residents of the area, largely loggers, apple farmers, and sheep herders, were suddenly overwhelmed by hippies hoping to use the Grange, home of the best dance floor in town.

The Anderson Valley Grange, Mendocino County, California

 (c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2022

The current head of the Anderson Valley Grange is a man known around town as Captain Rainbow who “wore a loincloth [and] lived up in the woods” when he first moved to Anderson Valley. He tells the story of how a crisis led to a reconciliation of this "old-timer" vs hippie conflict. 

In his early days in Anderson Valley, “if you were a hippie, you weren’t particularly welcome here.” He didn’t go to the local bar, nicknamed “the Bucket of Blood” for about 10 years “because it was chainsaw haircut time if you did." 

Things changed in 1985 when the old Grange hall, built in 1939, burned down. When the Grangers came together to build a new building, the hippies begged the Grangers to include a dance floor and offered to help rebuild the hall if the insurance money ran out.

Captain Rainbow recounts that even if you had a bad encounter with an old timer, “The next day, hungover, both of you would be hanging sheetrock together, and you’d find out that, hey, you’re all right.” After the hall was built, Captain Rainbow was delighted to receive an invite to join the Grange, along with the many other hippies who had been involved in the effort to rebuild the hall.

A post buried about half way down this archive of the Anderson Valley Advertiser shares a similar sentiment, noting that running out of insurance money, “was a blessing in disguise, forcing us to rely on each other, it forged new friendships and respect.”

My grandmother recalls joining after this cultural divide had somewhat mended. She joined because she wanted to find a venue for her Congolese dance teacher to offer lessons, and both were welcomed with open arms.

Today, the Anderson Valley Grange still acts as a center of community for the region. They host their annual variety show, monthly pancake breakfasts, dances, and quinceaneras. The Grange maintains ties to its agricultural roots, collaborating with Anderson Valley Brewery, using the hall for agricultural education, and hosting seed exchanges. Mendocino County Grangers also started a retirement facility that houses 170 people.

Food Bank Sign at the Anderson Valley Grange (c) Lisa Pruitt (2022)

While still lively, the Anderson Valley Grange faces the same issues as Granges nationwide. In Captain Rainbow’s words, “We need some fresh blood.” The Grange is active, but the membership is aging. “When my generation came in and became part of the Grange, the old-timers, they needed us. And [], I’m a geezer now!”

While Grange membership has been on a long downward trend, there has been some incremental growth in the last few years. The Anderson Valley Grange, like many in California, has an increasingly Latino membership. It is also making overtures to Native Americans in the area.

Conclusions

The Grange is an institution with an extremely rich and complicated history that this post has barely scratched the surface of. While its political relevance has faded, local granges still remain as a hub of community in many rural areas. Living in the city, it is easy to forget how crucial simple infrastructure like a large hall with a stage is to cultivating community. As rural communities struggle and decline, we should be mindful of the role that organizations like the Grange play in supporting them.

A 2026 Farm Bill enters the House…

On February 13, 2026, the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, an updated version of the Farm Bill, was introduced in the House of Representatives. Shortly afterwards, on March 4th, the House Agriculture Committee voted 34-17 to advance the bill to the House floor, marking the first major legislative step in process likely to be long and contentious, given the recent extreme polarization on the U.S. Congress.

Supreme Court of the United States in 2023

It's high time for a new farm bill-- the last official version, the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, was authorized for 5 years, spanning from 2018 to 2023. Updates to the Farm Bill after 2023 were stalled by political gridlock. Instead of passing a new Farm Bill in 2023, Congress opted for two consecutive one-year extensions of the outdated 2018 framework.

At last, lawmakers are attempting to move forward with a new Farm Bill that will update how the federal government supports or defunds a range of programs affecting agriculture, food systems, conservation, and rural communities across America.

Farm bills have been introduced to Congress starting in 1933. The first one followed the catastrophic impact the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl had on American farmers. In response, the federal government created programs designed to stabilize farm income, conserve land, and ensure a stable food supply. You can read more about the history of the farm bill here or in this prior blog post. Indeed, many posts going back to this blog's inception in 2007 mention the Farm Bill.

Throughout the years, the Farm Bill has grown into one of the federal governments largest and most comprehensive policy packages, typically spanning hundreds or thousands of pages. Programs housed under the Farm Bill include SNAP funding, crop insurance, conservation programs, rural development programs, agricultural research, food distribution programs, and beyond. 

This Farm Bill claims to “expand investments in rural communities, bring science-backed management back to our national forests, and restore regulatory certainty in the interstate marketplace.”

Within the report, two sections specifically caught my eye—the MAHA section and the discussion surrounding California’s Proposition 12. Both sections highlight how the Farm Bill increasingly serves as a platform for broader political debates.

Somerset, El Dorado County, California

(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2025

MAHA Section
The highlighted MAHA section references the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement within the current administration led by Robert F. Kennedy. MAHA aims to address national health issues. As expressed in the one-pager released by the House Agriculture Committee on MAHA in this Farm Bill, the goals of MAHA are to “renew our lands, reforming dietary guidelines to focus on sound nutrition science, ensuring that rural America has access to quality healthcare, and making whole foods such as fruits and vegetables more affordable and accessible for everyday Americans.”

This Farm Bill codifies recent reforms to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs) which include prioritizing whole, high-quality protein and full-fat fluid milk and hard cheeses. This Farm Bill also proposes the incorporation of these guidelines into SNAP which may impact which foods are promoted within federal nutrition assistance programs. 

Sign in Sonoma County

(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2024

Another initiative highlighted in this one-pager is the establishment of a “local procurement program” that will in theory strengthen partnerships between local producers and the “food distribution community” in effort to ease fresh food distribution.

On paper, the idea sounds promising. Strengthening local food systems could support farmers while improving access to healthier foods. However, the proposal remains vague-- it is not clear (at least to me) who, how, or where these programs will take place.

Another major component of the MAHA section focuses on rural healthcare, an issue that has become increasingly urgent as rural hospitals close and rural healthcare systems become increasingly stressed, as I discussed in this prior blog post.

Clinic in McCloud, California

(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2018

This bill proposes expanding programs affecting rural healthcare including the Distance Learning and Telemedicine Program, the Community Facilities Program, and the Rural Hospital Technical Assistance Program (RHTAP). RHTAP is codified within the bill with the goal of “improv[ing] the financial and operational sustainability of rural healthcare facilities, bolstering essential health services for rural residents and preventing hospital closures in their hometowns.” This program originally received funding through the Rural Development Hospital Technical Assistance Program Act of 2025, which appropriated up to $2 million per year from 2025-2029. The proposed Farm Bill extends that funding window, restating the maximum funding for the fiscal years 2027-2031. As I mentioned in this blog post, politicians use policy packages such as this to signal their support of rural farms, families, systems, etc.. Yet the monetary value proposed in each case is insignificant to the cause. Here, $2 million spread among the countless rural healthcare systems that are in serious need is negligible.

Proposition 12 Section
Another section highlighted by the House Committee on Agriculture focuses on California’s Proposition 12 (Prop 12), one of the most controversial livestock welfare laws in the United States. Passed by 63% of California voters in 2018, Prop 12 prohibits the sale of certain pork, veal, and egg products in California unless they are produced according to certain animal welfare standards. These standards focus on enclosure size compliance. 

Chickens in transportation truck in Northwest Arkansas

(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2017

Corporations like the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) advocate for repealing Prop 12 to allow for the sale of animal products from animals raised in smaller and confined spaces. The American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Pork Producers Council brought suit against the California Department of Food and Agriculture asserting that Prop 12 violated the Dormant Commerce Clause. The Supreme Court upheld Prop 12, yet the current administration and House Republicans have attempted to overturn the decision and influence public opinion or legislatures not to support it anymore—for example, through this one-pager. In this one-pager, the House Committee on Agriculture calls Prop 12 “arbitrary and unscientific.” They state that “retail pork prices in California have increased 18.7% compared to a 6.3% increase nationwide. They then state that “[c]ompliance costs disproportionately affect small and mid-sized producers, who face tighter margins and less access to capital.” While small or mid-sized facilities may be affected more than large ones, Prop 12 has been fully in effect since 2022. I support Prop 12 and find that since the majority of California voters supported it, the NPPC and the MAHA movement should reassess their priorities.

Ultimately, the Farm Bill has increasingly incorporated broader policy debates, but the 2026 rendition highlights how influential national debates and administrations can be on this hallmark legislation. Programs initially intended to support farmers, rural communities, and ecological conservation are now debated at length in an effort to gain an inch of power or influence. However, a new Farm Bill was desperately needed to address the everchanging landscape—especially post-COVID and entering a likely recession.

NYS Agricultural Resiliency Against Tariffs Program: Is it enough to support the dairy and specialty crop sectors in New York?

On January 13, 2026, New York Governor Kathy Hochul proposed the Agricultural Resiliency Against Tariffs Program, a $30 million initiative aimed at supporting farmers and agricultural businesses in New York hit by the ongoing effects of federal tariffs. The program is designed to provide direct payments to specialty crop growers, livestock producers, and dairy farmers—sectors that have often been left out of federal assistance programs.

According to the press release, these payments are intended to provide financial support that the USDA’s national relief programs fail to deliver, especially for specialty crops and dairy farms, which the announcement notes receive “no meaningful support.”

This statement likely references the Farmer Bridge Assistance (FBA) Program, a one-time federal relief program announced on December 8, 2025. While the FBA provides $12 billion in one-time direct payments to farmers nationwide, assistance is not available to dairy farms and merely $1 billion is available to specialty crops and sugar nationwide. Additionally, the FBA payments are capped at $155,000 per producer, limiting assistance for mid-size and large farms. With this context, Governor Hochul’s program attempts to fill a noticeable gap for New York farmers…but is $30 million enough to make a meaningful difference?

In New York, the dairy industry is the largest single segment of the agriculture industry. The nearly 3,000 dairy farms in New York produce the largest quantity of yogurt and cottage cheese in the United States and New York is the fifth largest dairy state. The dairy industry has seen significant change in New York over the past ten years, with the number of dairy farmers dropping from 4,955 in 2014 to 2,864 in 2024. However, over the same 10-year span, the average number of cows in the state has increased from 615,000 to 630,000. These statistics indicate that small farms are closing, and larger farms are increasing in capacity. This trend, known as farm consolidation, reflects broader pressures on family farms that are struggling to survive in a rapidly changing agricultural economy.

According to the New York State Tariff Disruptions Report, over 20% of a farmer’s income typically depends on exports. The report also highlights that more than 80% of agrochemical imports and 70% of farm machinery are imported from countries subject to the administration’s tariffs. Farmers income reliance on exports may lead to heightened revenue volatility and retaliatory tariffs may raise production costs through raising the price of importing machinery, seeds, fertilizer, and other necessary equipment. Smaller farms that operate on thin margins often with less access to capital are left particularly vulnerable. If tariffs persist, these pressures could accelerate consolidation even further, leaving fewer, larger farms controlling even more of the state’s dairy sector.

To provide context for the Agricultural Resiliency Against Tariffs Program, currently approximately 2,800 dairy farms operate in New York state, excluding specialty crop growers. When the proposed $30 million in direct payments is divided amongst just the dairy farms, each operation would receive roughly $10,000. Once specialty crop growers are factored in, the assistance will be significantly lower per farm. While the assistance will likely be welcomed by farmers, will it be enough to make a meaningful impact? It may provide temporary relief in the industry, but any long-term benefits seem unlikely, especially with no end in sight of the tariff war.

 

Beyond immediate financial relief, the Agricultural Resiliency Against Tariffs Program demonstrates tension between state-level intervention and federal trade policy. Negative impacts from tariffs, such as increased input costs, are often disproportionately felt on individual producer or small producer levels. While direct payments from the government can temporarily offset losses caused by retaliatory tariffs or increased import costs, they do not address underlying structural pressures. Smaller farms continue to face rising input costs, labor shortages, and operational challenges that may not be alleviated by one-time or short-term payments.

The central policy question is not merely whether $30 million is sufficient in the short term to bolster the dairy, livestock, and specialty crops sectors in New York, but also whether state-level relief can bolster industry resilience without broad reforms. Ultimately, state-level measures to support farms can mitigate, but not fully counteract, the effects of federal trade decisions.

When a broken tractor becomes a legal issue, the right to repair is critical

For farmers, the ability to repair equipment quickly is more than just a convenience; it's essential for making a living. Yet, as farm equipment has become more technologically advanced, the legal and contractual rules governing the right to repair ("RTR") have changed, restricting when, how, and by whom repairs can be done. What was once a mechanical issue has increasingly become a legal matter. 

Photo Credit (2026): John Deere Utility Tractor

RTR is the principle that owners should be able to repair products they lawfully purchase or choose who repairs them, without being forced to use the manufacturer's authorized services. This seems like a straightforward concept that would benefit both rural and urban consumers by preventing a manufacturer's monopoly in the repair market. However, in a 2022 paper on RTR legislation, researcher and Assistant Professor Luyi Yang cautioned that: 

[RTR] legislation can potentially lead to a lose-lose-lose outcome that compromises manufacturer profit, reduces consumer surplus, and increases the environmental impact despite repair being made easier and more affordable. 

Yang's argument complicates the idea that expanding repair rights automatically helps consumers. For rural communities, this raises the question: even if broader RTR legislation changes markets, who is paying the price for limited RTR access right now, and who benefits from it?

These market dynamics are not overlooked by the federal government. In its 2021 report, Nixing the Fix, the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") addressed concerns about RTR in the auto industry. While acknowledging the manufacturers' justifications, the FTC noted that many restrictions lacked empirical support. The report concluded:

Although manufacturers have offered numerous explanations for their repair restrictions, the majority are not supported by the record...[R]epair restrictions have made it difficult for consumers to exercise [the RTR].

The FTC's stance indicates a willingness to view RTR access through the lens of fair competition, rather than through contractual obligations or restraints. 

While much of the early debate over RTR focused on consumer electronics and automobiles, similar conflicts have occurred in rural America. A 2023 blog post explains that farm equipment owners have long resisted companies like John Deere, seeking the ability to repair their own machines instead of relying solely on manufacturer-controlled repair networks. 

This conflict mirrors rural legal battles over water access, as discussed in a 2026 blog post, where formal legal rights exist on paper but are limited in practice by geography and concentrated market power. In both contexts, laws interact with rural conditions in ways that can weaken rural economies. 

Steelhead Creek - Sacramento, CA (2024)

In 2025, the FTC sued John Deere over its repair practices. Plaintiffs alleged that the company's RTR restrictions created unfair barriers to competition by limiting access to diagnostic software and tools. FTC Chair Lina Khan stated:

Illegal repair restrictions can be devastating for farmers, who rely on affordable and timely repairs to harvest their crops and earn their income... The FTC's action... seeks to ensure that farmers across America are free to repair their own equipment or use repair shops of their choice. 

Here, the law is seen not just as a neutral enforcer of contracts, but as a way to shift bargaining power between manufacturers and farmers. For the latest update on the FTC's suit against John Deere, click here.

Farm Action, a farmer-led advocacy group, expressed views similar to Khan, stating that manufacturers have taken away farmers' meaningful repair autonomy by withholding diagnostic software, stating:

By withholding the software to diagnose and repair, manufacturers force farmers to go to the nearest authorized dealership, which might be hundreds of miles away. 

Efforts to improve RTR access through state legislation have produced uneven results. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 33 states and Puerto Rico considered RTR legislation during the 2023 legislative session. As of today, Colorado is the only state to have enacted legislation extending RTR protections to agricultural equipment, setting an example for other states considering similar measures. 

The legal frameworks governing RTR access have obvious impacts on rural livelihoods. As the RTR movement advances, the ongoing question is whether legal systems will recognize RTR access as essential to rural economic independence or continue to frame it as an optional feature within privately controlled equipment markets. 

Literary Ruralism (Part L): Farming debates and farmer decision-making in Louise Erdrich's "The Mighty Red"

In a prior post about Louise Erdrich's The Mighty Red, I highlighted some excerpts about small-town life.  In this post, I'm going to feature some excerpts about farming decisions, in particular the debates about soil health and how to deal with weeds.  For those who read the first post, you may recall that the crop of choice in this area of North Dakota is sugar beets. 

I found the commentary on different types of farming--and on urban ignorance of farming--fascinating.  A few reminders about who's who:  Winnie is Gary's mother (see prior post).  We start with part of hte story of how Winnie's family lost their farm to the Geist family, into which Winnie married.

People in towns and cities had strange ideas about farming. People thought you just put a seed in the ground and it grew. Winnie Geist’s husband, Diz, called farming a war, but Winnie said it was a conflict. True, something was always trying to kill your crop, but there were ways and there were ways . . . she drifted off thinking of her parents’ ways. Driving to town over the summers, she had looked out to either side and seen that a field of sugar beets was going to be a good stand, that corn was growing unevenly, that soybeans had been planted too early or too late, that the sunflowers were outstanding. She knew who owned each field too, and so she was glad for or irritated by various families along the way. Now, driving toward the book club meeting, she let her mind relax. 

* * * 

While she was in high school, the government accelerated her family’s loan payments and blow after blow had landed. They’d lost their home, their farm, everything. Except one another, they kept saying, except us.

Sport Geist, father of Diz, had bought Winnie’s family farm from the bank for half of nothing. Her parents had sold their cattle at a loss, the equipment at an auction, moved out of their hand-built home into a rickety little white house in town. Her father had held her shoulders, looked into her face, said that as long as they worked, no job too menial, they’d hold their heads up. She held her head up. And anyway, in town people didn’t care. Most of the town kids had no idea what life on a farm was like. Losing a farm had no meaning for them. Winnie had kept her girlfriends and stayed Diz’s girlfriend, in spite of everything. She’d always loved Diz as much as she hated his father. Sport had mostly regarded his sons as free labor and rarely addressed them except to give an order. All through high school, Diz asked her to marry him. She said the best she could do was go to the local junior college and take bookkeeping so she could keep books for the farm. It was a kind of promise but she wouldn’t marry him until after Sport was dead and buried—in the earth he didn’t deserve to inhabit.  (pp. 84-85) 

This chapter is about Diz and his brother Gusty, both farmers.  The date is 2009.  

As boys they were husky. As men they are bulky. They loom like monoliths. They are chainsaw art. As Diz and Gusty lumbered across the yard, strong bulwark guts atop leg beams, they talked. Their thin exquisite lips barely moved. Their handsome wind-whipped faces were impassive in the shadow of billed caps. They had survived their father by sticking together. They never discussed the past. To speak about the way their father, Sport, had treated them, would be like grabbing an electric fence. 

The sun was fierce, the ground already kicking up heat. Their narrow blue eyes of Roman generals glinted as they entered their shadowy arsenal. Diz unlocked the back room of the tan and green metal pole barn, switching on the light, and the brothers frowned at the supply. Gusty lifted his hand and counted containers, which were kept in a chain-link enclosure with a padlock. 

Dual Magnum. Roundup. Warrant. Outlook.  Chloroacetamide. Betamix. Ethofumesate. UpBeet. Gramoxone. 

‘We should scout again. But I know what we’re gonna find,’ said Gusty. 

Diz switched off the light and they adjusted their hats before they walked into the field planted with his non-improved seeds. In that field the beets were past the emergent stages, the soil dry and powdery despite the recent flood and rain, and the sun was now relentless as hate. But worse than the glare of sunlight was the presence of the 2009 weed of the year, Chenopodium album, one of the most noxious and difficult to eradicate. 

‘Hot damn,’ said Diz. 

His shoulders sagged, and Gusty even took off his hat. They’d sprayed proactively, pre-emergence, using the big guns. But lambsquarters was back. Such a meek name, but their devil had a lot of names—goosefoot, pigweed, shitweed, baconweed, wild spinach. Cheerful shallow lobed leaves, silver undercoat winking in the sun. The men turned. Trundled or strode back toward the same outbuilding and the ninety-foot-boom self-propelled sprayer they had gone into deep debt to purchase. 

In some places, lambsquarters is considered the Prince of Greens, one of the most nutritious greens ever analyzed; it was one of the earliest agricultural crops of the Americas. It also resembles amaranth, but the brothers rarely spoke of that. The rough-cut men were preparing to eradicate one of the most nutritious plants on earth in favor of growing the sugar beet, perhaps the least nutritious plant on earth. Evolution thought this was hilarious.   (pp. 220-221).

This is Kismet's interaction with her mother-in-law, Winnie, Gary's mom, about Kismet's desire to plant a small garden on their propert: 

Kismet started by raking the dirt in the yard smooth. The nice loamy soil that she’d clutched earlier on had disappeared. Scratching at field dirt, she broke up clumps of gray grit and spread the dust around. She was wearing lots of sunblock and a big straw cowboy hat. She would need more sunblock to live out on the land. And for later, she would need more beer to reward herself through the long evening and keep herself in a trance. 

‘Honey, that won’t work,’ said Winnie, coming up behind her. 

Kismet straightened up, holding the rake. 

‘What won’t work?’ 

‘That dirt.’ 

‘What do you mean? It’s dirt.’ 

‘It’s not real dirt. It’s that dirt.’ 

Winnie pointed out into the field. ‘This is sugar beet dirt. Don’t you see? To plant anything else we have to get a pile of real dirt.’ 

‘Dirt’s supposed to grow anything,’ said Kismet. 

‘Regular soil dirt, sure, but this is sugar beet dirt, like I said. Diz and Gusty get this fertilizer that helps the dirt work for the seed. The seed is fixed up so the beet won’t die when it’s sprayed for weeds. Also, bugs. See, it’s all a system they have with the companies.’ 

‘Okay.’ Kismet threw down the rake. 

‘My farm had a lot of real dirt,’ said Winnie vaguely. ‘When I was a kid, my mom had us spreading chicken shit on the garden.’ 

‘Let’s go in and make iced tea.’ 

‘It sounds ridiculous,’ Winnie continued. ‘But we can call up Prairie Lawn to get the dirt. I was going to make a garden someday. But you can do it. I’m going to the grocery so let’s make a big list.’  (pp. 228-229) 

Fast forward to Diz and Gusty in 2023.  This chapter is titled "Evolution." 

Diz said to Gusty, ‘Follow me.’ They drove out to the field that had been the first field where they had used the Roundup Ready sugar beet seeds. He’d never forgotten how after spraying that year, 2009, there just wasn’t a weed in sight, and how the weedless wonder continued until they’d lifted out the beets. Since then, they had rotated the beets every three years with barley. Every time they planted beets the seeds lost some magic. 

‘Remember?’ Diz asked. 

‘I do,’ said Gusty. 

They walked out to the rows. Here and there dead pigweed had nearly melted into the earth. But also, here and there something else was happening. Some of the dead plants were turning green again. A few were lifting their heads. Across the field, as the brothers turned their great bodies, faces keen, eyes implacable in the shade of their caps, hands cupped at their hips, Diz and Gusty saw the resurrection. Silhouetted against the white haze of August heat there were spears of Palmer amaranth. Just here and there. But those plants could mean a million next year. 

‘The goddamn stinkers just pretended to die,’ said Diz. ‘They were dead a week ago, I swear. But now it’s their Easter Sunday out there. Pardon my’—he choked a little on his words—‘irreverence,’ he mumbled. 

‘It’s just a fuckin’ dickens of an outrage,’ said Gusty. 

Diz grabbed his hat and threw it on the ground and stamped on it. ‘There. I feel better,’ he said. He reached down to pick it up. Gusty noticed how his hand shook. Diz dusted the hat off by slapping it on his thigh. He put the hat back on his head. Put his hands in his pockets to try and still them. 

‘If we could grow that monster,’ said Gusty, almost in admiration, ‘bombproof crop.’ 

‘Maybe,’ said Diz, as they walked back to the truck. ‘Soon as we figured out a market for it, yeah. I think it’s something like quinoa. Quinoa ain’t sugar. And there’s nothing on it like a price protection.’ 

‘Sure not. Soon as we tried to grow it, some bug would come along and clean it out anyway.’ 

‘I know,’ said Diz. ‘Nobody ever said farming was easy.’ 

‘It’s not for dummies,’ said Gusty. 

They laughed silently because they’d said exactly this a thousand times before. To outwit nature for even a few years, you had to be a brilliant SOB. 

‘I can see a lot of steps ahead and this weed is gonna win.’ Gusty plodded along, kicking at the half-living weeds. 

‘Ichor says it’s actually metabolizing the poison now. Just eating it. Whatever you throw at this thing, it can break it down. We’re gonna have to handpick. Pay a church group or a football team or hire a bunch of kids and migrant labor like back in the day.’ 

‘Darva’s book group,’ said Gusty. 

‘Oh. wouldn’t that be . . . didn’t Darva hoe beets when she was a kid?’ 

‘Didn’t everybody?’ 

‘What goes around . . .’ 

‘What does go around?’ 

‘Weeds.’ 

‘Believe it.’

That night Diz lay awake staring into the bedroom gloom, Winnie softly burbling and snorting beside him. He saw himself running the thresher on one of those bright cool fall days and the obedient crop was falling into the rolling blades and the amaranth seeds were hissing onto the conveyer belt and down into the bed of a giant grain truck. He and Gusty were slapping their hands together, the way they did that time they’d temporarily beat the weeds. He was talking to Gary at the screen of a computer and they were looking at drone footage of the Red River Valley covered with amaranth. Field to field, that was all there was. His arm was big, a smooth honey bear arm, but he had the sudden childish sense of how tiny their farm was on its plot of earth, and on that plot a house, and in that house a bed with two people on it no bigger than gnats. He felt the weight of all he couldn’t control, tiny little human that he was, working and striving, without really knowing how big it all might be.  (pp. 362-64) 

There is more on weed control in the next chapter, Evolution 2024. 

Look at this,’ said Winnie. She pulled up an issue of Agweek on the computer. The magazine featured a firm of young fellows from the Northwest, based in Fargo now, who’d programmed their robots to recognize weeds and leave crop plants alone. There was a video of the robots plucking weeds out early on at the sugar beet two leaf stage. Winnie called Gary over. Grace came too, her wan crooked little face round now, her eyes bright, cheeks apple red and shiny. 

‘We should hire these guys,’ Gary said to Grace. 

‘Probably an arm and a leg,’ said Diz from his chair. 

He had a special weighted coffee cup because his tremor was getting worse. 

‘I bet you get a good deal for being one of the first,’ said Winnie. ‘And you’ll cut down, maybe cut out, dicamba or whatever.’ 

‘Why not call Ichor?’ said Grace. ‘He must know.’ 

‘Weed resistance,’ said Ichor. ‘Give it a try.’ 

Diz and Gusty talked about the pigweed resurrection and decided why not. 

A few weeks later, they invited people over. Eric held hands tightly with Orelia DeSouza, whom he’d met in college, and Bill and Bonnie stood together with their arms crossed, grinning. Spiral pulled up honking. Ichor brought a pan of bumble bars. Everyone stood at the end of the field watching the robot van pull into the yard. Two thin young men with an urban vibe shook hands all around, then rolled up the back of the van and attached a ramp. Three smallish contraptions came rolling out. The technicians tapped information into their laptops, then guided the robotic weeders onto the first field, ninety acres of beets. There was something appealing about the mechanisms as they trundled along, something earnest, sturdy, slightly comical. The watchers nodded, laughed, broke out in soft applause. (pp. 365-366). 

Here's the last part of the bit about different types of farming:  

Although he got farmers to use them all the time, Ichor didn’t like crop protection chemicals, the ’cides—fungicides, molluscicides, insecticides, rodenticides, bactericides, larvicides, and, most of all, herbicides. The world needed food, but farmers couldn’t keep going this way, ratcheting up the kill strength, adding layers of product. No chemical could be precise and there was no way to really quantify the overall effect. Nobody could adequately factor in the big picture, which was really big, being all of creation. Sometimes he woke at 3 a.m., sweating, having absorbed, say, a new study about the link between the herbicide paraquat and Parkinson’s disease. Glyphosate and depression. Insecticides and schizophrenia. The plunge in insect life was disturbing. The velocity of loss was exponential. He kept going by hoping better things than more chemicals were coming along. He saw no way for things to end well unless they changed course. Most farmers knew this or were becoming aware of it or even agreed, but nobody liked anyone not trying to survive off farming to tell them what to do. 

There were other ways to manage the most pernicious weeds around. In fact there were some methods that made him happy. Take for instance the nemesis of pastures—leafy spurge—a plant to reckon with, sinking roots down fifteen feet and spreading top root systems too, shooting seeds out over twenty feet. The spurge had been considered almost ineradicable, it had taken over whole pastures, crowded out the good forage, killed cows and horses. Poisons had to be applied and reapplied, to only modest effect. Then Ichor started hearing about how leafy spurge beetles went to town on the spurge. Season by season you could see those yellow pastures turn green. 

A while ago, Ichor had been to a barbecue hosted by another weed control officer, Ron Manson Jr. There he ate famously well and took home a cooler of those beetles. Now Ichor was turning those caramel-colored beetles loose regularly on all the pastures in his county, and beyond, too. The beetles went wild eating the stuff they were named for, and better yet, multiplied and sent their larvae down to eat the roots. Every year Ron, and now Ichor too, express-mailed tens of thousands of beetles to farmers and ranchers with infested ranges. The rancher would open the cooler of leafy spurge beetles, release them out onto his problem, and bugs would start eating the problem. After a few years the bugs would be so numerous that Ichor would drive over to shake them off the plants into his tarps. The pasture he was going to was even restoring a section of the river it sloped down to meet. One thing he especially liked about the beetles was that they controlled the weeds but never quite ate all of the spurge, never ate themselves entirely out of existence. They weren’t like people. They respected their existential limits.  (pp. 341-342).

Here's Gary (son of Winnie and Diz) talking to Ichor, the farmer from the passage above who is committed to sustainable practices, about his thinking on how farming should be done.  The first quote is from young Gary, the second from Ichor.

‘Used to be my mom’s pasture.’ 

‘I know.’ 

‘She talks about how farming’s going off a cliff; she wants to farm like her dad and mom farmed, more like Eric’s dad and mom.’ 

‘What’s your dad think?’ 

‘He won’t say it to her, but I know he thinks it’s bullshit. It won’t work at the scale we’re farming.’ 

‘What do you think?’ asked Ichor. ‘Me? Nobody asks.’ Gary cleared his throat. ‘But I read stuff. They’re both right. First, I’d get out of beets, over time because we have a contract. I’d plant nitrogen-fixing crops, plowing them back in, using less fertilizer. I wouldn’t go full-on organic, not for a while, but for every problem that comes at us I’d look for a solution that gets us further along, like toward a goal of getting certified. I think the fastest-growing market’s in organics, so I want to get in there. I haven’t told anybody.’

 It took a second for Ichor to ask, ‘Why not?’ 

‘Obviously,’ Gary said, ‘I’m a dumb jock.’ (pp. 347-348). 

What follows is Diz ruminating about farming with fellow farmer and brother, Gusty:

‘Nobody ever said farming was easy.’ 

‘It’s not for dummies,’ said Gusty. 

They laughed silently because they’d said exactly this a thousand times before. To outwit nature for even a few years, you had to be a brilliant SOB. 

‘I can see a lot of steps ahead and this weed is gonna win.’ Gusty plodded along, kicking at the half-living weeds. 

‘Ichor says it’s actually metabolizing the poison now. Just eating it. Whatever you throw at this thing, it can break it down. We’re gonna have to handpick. Pay a church group or a football team or hire a bunch of kids and migrant labor like back in the day.’ 

‘Darva’s book group,’ said Gusty. 

‘Oh. wouldn’t that be . . . didn’t Darva hoe beets when she was a kid?’ 

‘Didn’t everybody?’ 

‘What goes around . . .’ 

What does go around?’ 

‘Weeds.’ 

‘Believe it.’  (p. 363).