Researching sustainable food & agriculture at Breakthrough Institute. Sustainable food future = lower-carbon livestock, plant-based and cultivated meat, biotech / GMOs, intensive and industrial production. thebreakthrough.org/people/dan-blaustein-rejto
Dan Blaustein-Rejto
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MAHA’s call to eat more meat and “better” meat doesn't add up: more meat means more feedlots.
The math does not work any other way. Existing US pastureland could support no more than 45% of current beef production.
Thank your farmer AND your agricultural scientist
Each new screwworm case reminds me how USDA researchers developed the sterile insect technique that once eradicated the pest. Now they’ve developing genetically engineered male-only flies to improve upon the approach. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/08/s...
The problem with GMOs is not that there are too many, but that there are too few.
Over 40 years after the first genetically modified plant, its nearly impossible to find any GMO fruits or vegetables.
Federal regulations are a big reason why, I explain in @houstonchronicle.com buff.ly/YO3LhET
Here's a new study of organic & conventional farming.
The 2 big findings:
- Organic farms didn't store more carbon; organic matter was the same in both systems
- Organic yields were 31% lower (primarily N availability)
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
No pesticide company should get a free pass.
But glyphosate isn’t the problem most people think it is. After decades of study, regulators around the world (as recently as the EU 3 years ago) keep coming to the same conclusion: it’s one of the safest options.
Dan Blaustein-Rejto
Dan Blaustein-Rejto
Great to hear that Trump dropped Casey Means for surgeon general. Her misinformation about food safety and the risks of modern farming would have sowed unnecessary fear & distrust in science.
Can't say I know much about the newly nominated Saphier though.
Today the Supreme Court heard the Monsanto case about Roundup & cancer. MAHA supporters rallied outside, calling to ban the herbicide. Whatever you think about the court case, restricting the herbicide — one of the least harmful options farmers have — will make people & wildlife worse off.
Right now, if farmers lost access to glyphosate, many would till the soil more and spray worse herbicides.
If we ever want to move beyond glyphosate, we need policy & an EPA that better supports innovation in weed management.
agfundernews.com/guest-articl...
MAHA’s efforts to restrict glyphosate (aka Roundup) would leave not just farmers but also the environment worse off. It‘s lower-impact than most alternatives farmers would use instead, as my op-ed today in the
@washingtonpost.com explains. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
Climatemaxxing livestock can worsen animal welfare. And yet many efforts to make livestock healthier are actually win-win-wins, raising productivity, improving animal welfare, and reducing environmental impacts, as I note in this @epayne.bsky.social article.
Dan Blaustein-Rejto
www.sciencedirect.com
Dan Blaustein-Rejto
Dan Blaustein-Rejto
A new report argues that focusing solely on climate emissions can result in breeding programs that increase animal suffering.
In its push for more meat eating, MAHA faces a challenging truth: current and future meat demand depends almost entirely on massive, concentrated animal feeding operations, CAFOs.
Glyphosate's combination of safety and efficacy makes it the best broad-spectrum herbicide we have.
Of course it can cause harm! It's designed to kill things. But it is safer than anything that farmers would choose to replace it.
@danbr.bsky.social is right.
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
Tamar Haspel
"Driving less harmful farming inputs off the market won’t make people safer or food healthier. Improving these tools will," writes Dan Blaustein-Rejto of the Breakthrough Institute.
Activists want to move beyond glyphosate. But the standard should be improvement, not purity.
www.washingtonpost.com
Breaking news: President Trump announced a new pick for surgeon general, Nicole Saphier, putting an end to Casey Means’s stalled nomination process.
Trump praised Saphier, who made false claims about CDC vaccine mandates, as an effective communicator.
Activists want to move beyond glyphosate. But the standard should be improvement, not purity.
Means’s nomination stalled as some Republicans questioned her credentials. The new nominee, Trump’s third pick for the role, is Nicole Saphier a radiologist and Fox News contributor.
