How To Love Our Food: A conversation on the food we eat, how it gets to our plates, and what we can do to make our food production healthier for ourselves and the planet.
Peter Lehner Earthjustice Managing Attorney, Sustainable Food & Agriculture Program
Mark Bittman Former New York Times columnist, cookbook author
Marcia DeLonge Union of Concerned Scientists Agroecologist, Food & Environment Program
Moderated by John Hockenberry, host of The Takeaway.
What You Can Do
A class of neurotoxic pesticides known as organophosphates is poisoning farmworkers and those who come into contact with it in communities near agricultural fields. After multiple Earthjustice lawsuits, the EPA has finally started the process of banning food uses of one of the most widely used organophosphates, chlorpyrifos. It is now time for the agency to ban not just all uses of chlorpyrifos—but to ban this entire class of neurotoxic pesticides, to keep them out of our food, our drinking water, our schools and yards, and our bodies.
We all want the same things for our families and communities—clean air and water, healthy food, a thriving environment.
Thanks to strong environmental laws and the tireless efforts of advocates, our air and water are much cleaner than they were four decades ago.
But the food we eat has become much dirtier—produced by a heavily polluting industrial food system that poisons its workers and our air and water, and floods our diet with unhealthy, and at times toxic, calories.
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Dave Getzschman for EarthjusticeMaria Aguilera, a farmworker for more than two decades, with her son. Aguilera has learned to protect herself from toxic chemicals applied to the fields. Maria's story & others -
Dave Getzschman for EarthjusticeEPA Administrator Gina McCarthy (right) is thanked by Ana Alicia Torres Aguirre, a farmworker and worker safety trainer. The standard intended to protect agricultural workers from pesticide exposure was finally updated by EPA in 2015. The story -
Chris Jordan-Bloch / EarthjusticeThey told Jim Cochran no one cared about healthy food and healthy workers. He decided to prove them wrong. Watch his story
Families and farmers alike have been caught up in this badly broken system—but the good news is that across the country, people are coming together to fight for change.
Earthjustice has launched a sustainable food and agriculture program to support the growing movement by farmers, farm workers, environmental and community advocates, and others to remake our food system into one that nourishes and sustains life.
Building on Earthjustice's long history and tremendous success in targeting agricultural pollution, we’re expanding the scope of our work to contribute to broad-reaching, systemic change.
We’re bringing the power of the law and legal advocacy to a broad range of food system issues, including:
- Banning the most dangerous pesticides and protecting workers, communities, consumers, and wildlife from pesticides still in use.
- Closing dangerous loopholes that allow industrial livestock facilities and other factory farms to poison the air and water in nearby communities.
- Increasing access to and affordability of healthy food for all.
- Removing toxic additives from foods and food packaging.
- Promoting transparency and truly informative labeling in the food we buy.
- Decreasing farming’s contribution to climate change and increasing the resilience of our food system.
Working together, we can bring healthy, sustainable, affordable food to all. Will you join us?
Video title photo by Nathalie Schueller for Earthjustice.
