Adam Calo

My family has paid taxes on our land for 12 generations. We have died fighting and defending our land. We are not the evil monsters that you claim we are. We have successfully managed property across multiple generations constantly battling legislation that takes and takes and takes from us. Can you look me in the face and tell me that I am bad? Do you have generations of family members buried on your property? Do you write the checks to the state and the lawyers to defend every inch of the land that your family had covered with their blood, sweat and tears? I know you love emotional arguments, look at the facts and then tell me to my face that you are going to take my land.

👀This comment on the Civil Eats essay from a “12th generation rancher”

civileats.com/2026/03/03/t...

In case you missed it. Op-ed scrutinizing the letter of warning sent to the California Governor from the USDA Secretary.

The Black Death’s counterintuitive effect: as human numbers fell, so did plant diversity New study finds that plant biodiversity collapsed in landscapes where arable production was abandoned during and after the Black Death era.

“Modern, intensive farming practices have caused substantial biodiversity losses across the globe. Yet, our Black Death findings, in combination with numerous other examples, show us that humans and nature do not always have to be kept separate to conserve and promote biodiversity.”

Op-ed: The USDA Wants California to Abandon Farmland Equity. It Shouldn’t. California can take a creative approach to land policy that would foster a resilient food system and mobilize broad support.

“Rollins is … neglecting the incredible diversity of small farmers, farmhands, fruit pickers, beginning farmers, and small business owners who ... make California’s agriculture the powerhouse that it is,” write professors Adam Calo and Madeleine Fairbairn in an op-ed.

California produced a report proposing policies that would foster more equitable access to farmland. The Trump USDA freaked out and threatened legal action.

Adam Calo and I wrote an op-ed on why these policies are EXACTLY what the state needs to make our food system stronger and more sustainable.

Brooke Rollins' panic over Land Equity Task Force report is a badge of honor.

Op-ed: The USDA Wants California to Abandon Farmland Equity. It Shouldn’t. California can take a creative approach to land policy that would foster a resilient food system and mobilize broad support.

“[Newsom] can choose to abandon principles of equity in favor of appealing to an imagined mainstream voter. Or, he can ... present a vision for an alternative future,” write Radboud University professor @adamcalo.bsky.social and @ucsantacruz.bsky.social professor @landstuff.bsky.social in an op-ed.

Op-ed: The USDA Wants California to Abandon Farmland Equity. It Shouldn’t. California can take a creative approach to land policy that would foster a resilient food system and mobilize broad support.

An agressive warning from the USDA is a sign that creative land governance has political power.

Latest with @landstuff.bsky.social in @civileats.com

civileats.com/2026/03/03/t...

Embedded Pesticide Use: Exploring the Pesticide‐Land Nexus Since the turn of the century, global land grabs, farmland financialization and land-based food sovereignty movements have returned the land question to the heart of agrarian studies. Meanwhile, abid...

"surprisingly little attention has been paid to land in relation to pesticides—to the point of dismissiveness"

Exploring the Pesticide-Land Nexus
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

I was recently told “efficiency = sustainability“ as if it were a great wisdom of how we ought to organize production.

Nyt opinion: Industrial food is fine

Blog headline: learning to love industrial farming

Nordhaus opinion: Big agriculture is best

Nyt op-ed: Sorry, this is the future of food

There’s something happening here,
But what it is ain’t exactly clear.

Amazon deforestation may rise 30% as major traders exit historic soy pact As global soy giants walk away from a landmark pact, land grabbers move in to clear the forest for new crops.

Major soy traders including Cargill, ADM and Bunge are exiting the Amazon Soy Moratorium — a move that could raise deforestation by 30% by 2045.

Observers warn it sends a “green light” to land speculators, even as forest loss threatens rainfall, yields and long-term market stability.

No Jeremy. If we replace all of these “low-yielding” farms with more intensive operations, we will save so much forest acreage.

Against ‘technology adoption’: troubling a dominant concept through biodiverse farmers’ in-difference to digital agriculture - Agriculture and Human Values Agriculture and Human Values - How do small-scale farmers ‘adopt’ digital agriculture technologies, what is their use for diversified farming, and how do they position themselves...

“farmers’ in-difference also troubles a more fundamental paradigm of ‘technology adoption,’ which inevitably assumes technologies to be at the center of analysis, rather than the farm, good working conditions …”

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

This is exactly right. In MG's view, if high productivity = sustainability, then the range of potential limitations to intensive agriculture is smothered. Being beholden to a Global Food Equation produces many such distorted policy formulations.

The NYT's Pro-Big Ag Pundit Gets It Right on Manure, But Misses the Mark on Herbicides A high-profile journalist defends glyphosate, but CLF researchers methodically debunk his claims that growing crops with the chemical is not dangerous.

THREAD: Recently, some colleagues and I including @keevenachman.bsky.social published a critique of some recent work of @mikegrunwald.bsky.social. clf.jhsph.edu/viewpoints/n...

The NYT's Pro-Big Ag Pundit Gets It Right on Manure, But Misses the Mark on Herbicides A high-profile journalist defends glyphosate, but CLF researchers methodically debunk his claims that growing crops with the chemical is not dangerous.

Is it really "fine" that US farmers use 250 million pounds of Roundup on crops, per @mikegrunwald.bsky.social? Some colleagues at @livablefuture.bsky.social and I dig in. clf.jhsph.edu/viewpoints/n...

Excited to share my first CfP for @rgsibg.bsky.social annual conference. Working with the fantastic @veronicaawhite.bsky.social and Alex Heffron, we're interested in hearing about the research around ongoing contestations of Green Transitions in UK agriculture. Deadline is 20th February

Ciska Ulug and I are thrilled to be hosting the summer school for the food commons @w-u-r.bsky.social from June 15-19. We have some amazing lecturers @adamcalo.bsky.social , and inspiring site visits to food commons around the Netherlands wass.crs.wur.nl/courses/deta...

"How do people push back on fossil fuel permitting? These concerns were shrugged off by groups like the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, and the American Clean Power Association, and “abundance” advocates like Ezra Klein, the Institute for Progress, and the Breakthrough Institute ..."

Agricultural intensification increases rather than reduces pressure on the Amazon Forest: Jevons' paradox prevails in the cases of soy and cattle in Brazil (2001–2021) It has been suggested that raising the physical productivity of agricultural commodities should be considered as a strategy to contain the alarming le…

Another study shows intensification increases demand for land.

“Models used to justify intensification as an environmental strategy typically rest on restrictive assumptions.” www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Contemporary Land Transitions in the United States: Critical Questions of Concentration and (Re)Distribution Agricultural land in the United States is currently undergoing a major transition. Seventy percent of land is expected to change hands in the next 20 years, with many existing farmers ready to retire...

“US-style land reform must include not only a more expansive and imaginative view of how property law can operate, but it must also tackle the root causes of land concentration …”

Some useful back and forth on food system reform priorities stemming from:

What do you mean by "ongoing agricultural production land is locked in?" Surely part of the work is drastiically rethinking what happens on and who benefits within exisitng production paradigms? Thanks!

NYAS Publications Maximizing crop yields can lead to irreparable harm. We present evidence that an un-yielding, defined as de-emphasizing the importance of maximizing crop yields alone, is needed to achieve the goal o...

The main problem I have with the "brutal math" argument is when it uses a global accounting view of land use to confidently dictate specific production decisions. For example, as Mike does, implying that farmers ought not choose alternative production methods if it means "yield" reductions.

The empirical evidence implies to me that extractivism and other logics drive production decisions, and that the assertion that at the global level demand "simply must" be met with supply is false, or at least confused about how the food system operates. brill.com/view/journal...

Agricultural intensification, Indigenous stewardship and land sparing in tropical dry forests - Nature Sustainability Intensifying agriculture can, in theory, spare nature from agricultural expansion. This study finds that intensification is not sparing tropical dry forests generally, but is in areas with widespread ...

Useful thread. A question, comment, and clarification. How is one meant to square the tension between empirical data at regional and national scales showing yield intensification contributing to forest lost rather than sparing and the assumption at the global level these trends somehow reverse?

Flachs knows about this.

When sustainable food gets reduced to an equation of yields and land area, there is little room for health or politics.

Interesting podcast...

You state:

"It is true that we eat a lot of shit in the US...but it’s not shit because it’s grown industrially."

Disagree...main goal is maximising profit which means UPFs which are the least healthy for people and planet.

Quality, health, politics strangely absent in pod.