To transcend infighting in the food movement, finding our common ground is as important as targeting our common enemy.

The food movement is amazingly diverse. From personal health and animal rights to protecting worker's rights and precious ecosystems, our why's for wanting to radically transform our food system widely differ. So do our tactics and our strategies.

That diversity may just be the food movement's greatest strength, yet it also risks being its biggest weakness.

Infighting is as invasive as it is destructive. The 'circling fire squad' - where people with common enemies choose to shoot one another instead - is deeply counterproductive.

To transcend infighting, finding our common ground is as important as targeting our common enemy.

Tom Newmark - co-founder of The Carbon Underground - sees an answer in Regenerative Agriculture - and a focus on soil as our common ground.

Tom and I discuss:

What led him to regenerative agriculture and why its focus on outcomes rather than practices is transformative
How common ground exists between seemingly insurmountable visions in the environmental food movement
The differences that do matter: the case for remaining vigilant not only against the expansion of factory farms, but also against the new discourses of 'sustainable intensification' and 'Climate-Smart' Agriculture

Links:

"The Story of Soil Is the Story of All of Us" - Tom Newmark & Annie Leonard
"A Call to Arms to Fight Factory Farms" - Matteo De Vos
The Carbon Underground website
Chico Center for Regenerative Agriculture and Resilient Systems
Tom Newmark's blog/journal at Finca Luna Nueva
Greenpeace 1-minute video
Greenpeace Agricultural vision "Less is More" report

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FFS 042 - Finding our Common Ground