Latest / REAP/SOW / Cory Booker finds hope in food policy
Transcript
- This transcript was exported on 05/08/2026 - view latest version here Theodore Ross: Welcome to Forked. I'm Theodore Ross, editor in chief of the Food and Environment Reporting Network, and I'm joined by my co-host, Helena Bottemiller Evich from Food Fix. Senator Cory Booker is taking a leading role in the Food and Ag issues that we care about at Forked, and we're excited that he's our guest on this episode. We get his take on what Democrats should be doing about food policy, whatever happened to the farm bill, and whether his party can grab food issues back from Republicans before the midterms. Helena, welcome back to Forked. How are you? Helena Bottemiller Evich: I'm doing well. How are you? Theodore: I'm doing just fine. Senator Booker, we are very, very happy to have you here as well. Senator Booker: I'm really, really excited to be here because you guys have a whole podcast about something I'm very passionate about, about our food system. Theodore: A lot of times, hosts on a podcast will say, "Oh, I'm so excited you're here. It's so great to have you here." Who knows if they really mean it? I think I can prove it because we're taping this a little bit in advance. It's Wednesday, May 6th. It's 8:04 in the evening. The Knicks are now playing, and I am here taping the podcast with you, Senator, instead of watching the Knicks. I think that is proof of my dedication to the things that you care about. Senator Booker: My God, man. You make me feel like Bruce Springsteen in New Jersey for crying out loud. That's a big sacrifice. Theodore: In that case, let's get right to it. Helena. Helena: I'm not missing a sporting event for this, but I've covered you, Senator, for a long time. I've covered food policy for a long time, and I'm delighted that you're joining the podcast. You'll just have to take my word for it. Theodore: You get the first question. Helena: I think this is a good place to start. You have been talking about Food and Ag policy and reform, and the need to rethink how we do things in the US for so long. You're really an early adopter on this. I've heard you talk about this for many years. I remember back with the White House conference that Biden had, we talked about the work on sugar reduction. You've been doing this for a long time. This is a question I ask a lot of folks in this moment. Now that we are in a MAHA moment, a lot of these issues have gone more mainstream. What is this moment like for you now that everyone is at your party? Senator Booker: When I got on the Ag Committee, I was stunned at how even some of my colleagues didn't understand what was at stake. I moved on to the Ag Committee because I found that food policy was at the center of everything that I've been fighting for since I was a City Council person, from food deserts to the fact that my kids walk into corner grocery stores and find Twinkie products cheaper than apples. The demand for healthcare is so high because we have a food system that's so sick and so destructive. I did a farm tour, now more than a decade ago, and I was just meeting people losing their farms that had them for five, six generations because of the horrible policies, frankly, of both Democrat and Republican parties. For me, as a guy who's lived this since I was doing urban farming in Newark, New Jersey, to now see the country as a whole, something's clicking out there. It's just exciting for me. I am loving the MAHA movement. I will tell you that right now, just grateful that there's this growing movement of people that are very focused on a lot of the food policy issues I felt a little lonely fighting on for years. Theodore: Let's follow up on that little bit. This moment is now, where food issues have come to the fore. It seems somewhat bipartisan, at least among the public if not among our elected officials, agreement that these food issues matter. There is, however, the problem that you might look at the Democratic Party and say they fumble the ball on these issues and allowed the MAHA movement to move to the Republicans and for them to take control of it. What do you say to a somewhat cynical person like myself who believes that, and what can you do about it, is also the question from now and until the midterms? Senator Booker: I know this is not this podcast, but I was just down in Alabama talking about voting rights issues. I turned to my comms director when I walked off stage. One of the biggest applause lines was me saying that the Democratic Party has really failed this historic moment on a lot of issues. I think many Americans are just tired of this left-right politics, tired of both parties, and feel like they both come up short, and that Americans who are struggling right now to afford food, that Americans who are struggling to afford the healthcare, are just really frustrating. Count me as among them, that a lot of the issues we're seeing in American agriculture are part and parcel of the failures of both parties. Remember when my grandfather, who went to an agricultural college but then moved to Detroit, in the Depression, he would tell you that the Democratic Party became the party for everybody, from rural farmers to urban factory workers, but somewhere along the generations, we lost the trust of rural America and lost the trust of the farm community. The reason why I go visit farmers, the reason why not only in my state, but outside of my state, I meet with people who grow the food we eat, it's to try to begin to talk to them and regain that trust and let them know that as many of the bills I've been putting forward over this last decade would really address the pain points of Americans. I want my party to get on board, but more importantly, I want people to realize it's actually not a left-right issue. This is really about what food system is America going to have? One controlled by big corporations who are poisoning us, or really controlled by the people who all want the same for their families, access to fresh, healthy food. Theodore: I know you have mentioned rural people. Helena, I know you have a question about the Farm Bill, which is very important. Helena: No, I want to talk about glyphosate, actually. Theodore: Oh, go ahead. Sorry. Helena: Sorry. Before we move too much past this MAHA moment, because I was at the Supreme Court rally recently, where you spoke, you were one of the Democrats that spoke. There were also Republicans speaking. There were a lot of advocates outside of the Supreme Court protesting the case there, which, of course, the Trump administration is siding with Bayer in this key preemption case about how we handle pesticides. This case would block a lot of the litigation that Bayer is facing for thousands and thousands of cancer lawsuits. You spoke really forcefully at that event. You have actually backed, or you were on the other side of the case. You filed an amicus brief in that. I am just wondering what you think after watching the House vote down to pull that pesticide language out of the bill, the same issue, this preemption issue. What did you think about that moment? It came right after the Supreme Court rally, and to actually see a vote on the House floor, it was 280-142 against Bayer, basically on your side of this issue, but it was bipartisan. What did you think about that vote? What does it mean in this moment where you do see this left-right, galvanizing force coming together? It's hard to explain, and it's an interesting moment. What did you think about that vote? Senator Booker: It was a triumph, really a celebration and a relief because I know where the American people are on this. I loved that rally. It was the people versus poison. What side do you stand on? I'm astonished that Donald Trump decided to be with the people poisoning us. This was really just a flat-out, where do you stand? I'm a big believer that change does not come from Washington. It comes to Washington. We didn't get suffrage because a bunch of men on the Senate floor all put their hands in a huddle and said, "Fellas, suffrage on three." It really came because people fought for it and demanded with it. Same with civil rights, it came from the people. This is a movement that is people-driven, and thank God, a bunch of politicians on Capitol Hill had their chains being yanked. The Republicans had this a part of their Republican farm bill because they were listening to the corporations. They were listening to the big money. Finally, they started listening to the people because they feared them. That's where we have to get out. There's a quote that's attributed to Jefferson. He actually didn't say it, but it basically goes, "When people are afraid of their government, there is tyranny. When the government is afraid of people, there's liberty." Many people in Washington are more afraid of lobbyists, big corporate donors, and the like than they are of the actual people. This grassroots movement that is cutting across the usual left-right divide is something that's starting to exercise more and more power in Washington. Actually, a lot of bills I introduced years ago, I'm beginning to have this confidence that we can actually get them passed. As the Farm Bill now moves to the Senate side, my red lines, which are against what's called preemption, and it's preemption on states' rights to pass bills that fight big corporations. Corporations don't like that. They rush to Congress to say, "Let's preempt all these state laws." The Republican Party is usually behind them, which kills me because they often talk about states' rights. It's giving me this confidence now that these poison pills, whether it's on Prop 12 and other preemption like that that stayed in the farm bill or the pesticides laws that we're trying to pass on state levels. I actually think we have a real shot now at keeping those poison pills out of the Senate side's Farm Bill as well. Helena: Just real quick on this, just to follow up. Did you see the reporting that the MAHA moms and different advocates on social are already preemptively pushing the Senate to keep that pesticide preemption language out of the Farm Bill, even though you're very early in the process and they're pissed? Senator Booker: Yes. It's giving me strength when I get in the scrum of the Senate Ag Committee, and again, both sides of the aisle. I am fighting the same fight, but it's nice when you show up to a rumble, and you have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of angry moms and families behind you. I just feel the tide turning in the direction to stop this preemption that Republicans have been pushing for a long time, and that the corporate money is clearly on the side of. Theodore: I want to change gears a little bit and talk about something that I do think reflects debate about food policy in the United States to a degree, but is about something else. Recently, it was earlier this week, actually, Donald Trump's Attorney General, Todd Blanche, and the head of the USDA, Brooke Rollins, announced a criminal antitrust program probe of JBS, the largest meat processor in the world. Now, do you think they're serious? We know that JBS, via Pilgrim's Pride, was the largest donor to the presidential inauguration, to Donald Trump's reelection, and his inauguration. As somebody who's been on the record of opposing some of the actions of JBS over time, what do you think about that antitrust investigation? Do you think it's the real deal, or do you think it has legs, as they say? Senator Booker: I am deeply skeptical of the Trump administration using the antitrust enforcement power that they have. Why? Because they have eviscerated the antitrust division. They have shrunk it, brutalized it. People have been fired. I'm thinking of one official in particular that I've gotten to know well. I know in the first Trump one, the only time he really used what's called the Defense Production Act, which is to try to exempt and force corporations to do the right thing, was for meatpacking workers in COVID. The only time he did it was that, which was a gift to the corporations to get around safety requirements for these people that were dying of COVID in the meatpacking industry, and to speed up their lines and cause even more danger and harm to them. He'd show that of all the issues around COVID, that the only people he was willing to move for was this very industries that they're claiming to be going after right now. I'm sorry, Donald Trump has failed the test over and over and over again. I've gone down to Duplin County, North Carolina. I have seen the horrors being visited upon the people doing pig farming and the communities, often low-income communities, often Black communities that have to suffer these big CAFOs, concentrated animal feeding operations. The stench in the air there, the cancer clusters or disease clusters that surround JBS's facilities and other of these big multinational corporations. The massive lagoons of feces, to see them and to know that when storms come, it pollutes their water. To see people in their homes are prisons now. They can't sell their homes. They can't run their air conditioning. They can't put their clothes out on the line. These are awful, awful corporations that need people to stand up to them. Donald Trump has failed the test. He's been in league with them. We'll see on this one. I'm happy to be pleasantly surprised, but this is a bad corporation that has done bad things to America and Americans, and they should be investigated. Again, I'm praying this goes someplace. Theodore: Do you think, much like the MAHA movement, you could look at this as a moment for bipartisan cooperation? You're both going in the same direction, you both want action taken against JBS. Or you just think that there's just not a lot of credibility there? Senator Booker: Again, there's no credibility there, but I will tell you this. I don't care who you are if you're willing to stand up for Americans, for small farmers, for justice. Two of the biggest bills I've ever passed in my lifetime were Donald Trump's first term. One was around the First Step Act, liberating thousands of people from prison. The other one was called Opportunity Zones, it got investments in rural and urban poor areas. I will partner with anybody. My history shows you that, but this Trump administration has not only disappointed me, they have worked against the interests of people in the MAHA movement time and time again. I take you back to the protest in front of the courthouse. They chose the side of glyphosate. They chose the side of Monsanto and Bayer. They were on the side of the poisoners then. We, the people, were fighting for justice. Theodore: I think it's very notable that you were there, but not Bobby Kennedy Jr., the secretary of HHS, who is also a major opponent or has been in the past a major opponent of glyphosate. Helena: He couldn't be there because his boss is on the other side of that fight now. Theodore: Anything's possible. Senator Booker: I've known people that have resigned over less when you have a real moral issue. Remember, he knows this because he was on the right side before he joined the administration. There are people dying from diseases that have a correlation or connection to glyphosate. This is a life-or-death issue for many families. This is something that would be noble to resign over. Frankly, his status would go up so much higher as a change agent, but again, he will choose to be an apologist for Donald Trump's wrong action, or on some things he's doing on ultra-processed foods. Some things he's doing are really things that I've cheered, and I will continue to cheer, but he's got to make his decisions, and this one was really, really difficult for me to swallow, knowing the suffering that glyphosate is associated with. Theodore: One question that comes to mind when we talk about glyphosate and what's happening at the court is what would a post-glyphosate world look like, or the agriculture in the United States look like? 90%, I believe, of the corn that is raised in the US is from genetically modified glyphosate-ready seed. You and people in the MAHA movement, what would be next if this were to go away? Senator Booker: I think our farm bill needs massive reimagining. Since the last farm bill we passed, we have lost 150,000 farmers, farms. We are seeing the slow extinction of the American farmer. These are small- and mid-sized farmers who want to do farming. Programs that I've championed and frankly expanded, through my leadership, along with other people, programs that have acronyms like EQIP, but really what they are is to make resources available for farmers that want to change their farming practices to things that we would all want, things that sequester carbon better, things that are more resilient, more organic. We can actually begin to help farmers to transition away from glyphosate-dependent crops to other crops, and frankly, away from the big commodities and towards the things that Americans eat most, which is fruits and vegetables. This is not complicated. We've done things like this before, and this could be a part of a larger movement to save the American farmer, which is slowly growing extinct. Families have had their farms for more than a century. The math isn't mathing because of the massive corporate concentration that's going on and the big conglomerates that are putting so much of a higher cost on people's input costs and a downward pressure on the amount of money they're getting for their crops. Helena: Yes. There is so much pressure in farm country. I think it's really been under-reported. You're starting to hear people talk about 1980s farm crisis vibes. There's so much pressure. One thing I have not seen from this administration is any plan to transition away from glyphosate or move toward more regenerative. It's interesting, though, there's a lot of public support for that. The Farm Bill, it was going to be interesting to see in the future if it ever moves in that direction. Theodore: The "Farm Bill", the potential farm bill. Helena: If we ever have another farm bill. Senator Booker: It's not just public support. Farmers are the best stewards of the land. They know the land. They know that what we're doing right now to our soil nationwide is toxic, what we're doing to our rivers with all the runoff. I have fallen in love with farmers since I've been a senator because I've gone all over my state and all of the nation and met people who love the land and know so much more about it than anybody else. That's why a lot of these programs I've been fighting for are way oversubscribed. They are dying for a little bit of help to switch to regenerative practices, to switch to practices that are more environmentally friendly, that will stop soil erosion. There's so much wisdom and yearning out there. What has the federal government been doing both sides of the aisle too often? They're doing the bidding of big corporate Ag and not the American farmer, who is losing at rates that are stunning. Again, I know the way out of this, away from glyphosate. Listen to farmers. So much of my policy is informed by them. There's a way out of this trap that would also end the nightmare that American families have, which is the Twinkie product is cheaper than the apple. The McDonald's drive-through meal is cheaper than the bucket of salad that our doctors tell us to eat, because only about 7% of our Ag subsidies right now go to the foods our doctors tell us to eat the most out of, and we wonder why Type 2 diabetes has exploded to the point where nearly half of our population now is diabetic or has prediabetes. It's stunning the demand for healthcare, and that demand from healthcare feeding those corporations really goes back to a food system that is designed for our sickness, designed for profits of a few companies. Again, who's poorer of it? American families and American farmers. Helena: There's no question that we have not aligned our nutrition policy and our Ag policy in the US. They are not aligned. We're not following the dietary guidelines. Senator Booker: No. Helena: I want to ask you, because you're on the Ag Committee about USDA, and I'm hearing a lot of concern about there's plans to reorganize and move staff outside of DC, and there's a lot of concern about mass attrition, particularly at FNS, which of course, runs SNAP at a time when we're seeing some numbers coming out of the Trump administration where four million Americans have been dropped from the SNAP program. How are you thinking about this right now? Do you think the Ag Committee will need to do oversight of some of these moves? How are you approaching this from the Senate? These are some pretty big changes they're looking at. [00:22:32] Senator Booker: Everything you said was true, but I wish we could put the real faces behind, where people could see who's being affected with all the SNAP cuts that have been made. Food insecurity is growing. The richest country in the world is just not feeding people. Helena: We stopped measuring food insecurity as well. USDA stopped measuring it. Senator Booker: It's stunning. I understand even in our public schools, nobody would think that kids should have to pay for desks or pay for books, which are essential to their learning, but so is food. Food is essential. We know that kids that are well-fed and fed healthy foods do so much better than kids that are food insecure or eating junk. Yet, we're making it harder and harder. This president, who seems to find money for foreign wars and massive tax cuts to the wealthiest, is cutting the programs that families depend upon to feed children. It's stunning to me. Fundamental, I know this amongst Dems on the Ag Committee in the Senate, is restoring some of these resources. Let me connect a tissue to this with just a simple story. When I was mayor of the City of Newark, we were turning entire city blocks, major plots of land, into urban farms. One of them, I went back to visit as a senator, not that long ago, for one of these documentaries, it was called Food, Inc. 2. Helena: Oh, yes. I moderated the panel for that premiere. Senator Booker: Yes. When I went out to stand in this urban farm, I had these two African American women come up just spontaneously and tell me their story. One had these gut problems. Her doctor said she was going to be on these prescription drugs for the rest of her life. They got $700 a month, $100 co-pay, so taxpayers were picking up the other $600. She said she started sourcing all of her food from this urban farm, and her doctor called it a miracle cure. It's not a miracle cure. It's actually having access to fresh, healthy foods. Then the other woman was an 80-year-old, or she was in her 80s. She had a funny Instagram handle about the octogenarian vegan. She went to a plant-based diet, sourced all of her food. Her diabetes completely went away, reversed her diabetes. Now the thing, though, the connective tissue, is they both were participating in something, terrible name, I don't know why politicians are such bad marketers, but it's called the GusNIP Program that you guys know, but it's the Double Bucks program that you could bring your SNAP, your food stamps, to an urban farm and get double the money the value for produce. When I looked at it, because I bought some produce that day, what you could buy if you had double that, it was extraordinary. That program more than pays for itself in the kind of medical costs that's being reduced. These two women were testifying to that. SNAP and fresh healthy foods, all of these things are connected. Why is 20% of our economy, $2 out of every $5 in our economy, is being spent for healthcare? Why? Because our food system is choking, and taxpayer subsidies going to junk food, ultra-processed food. All of this is connected. If you want to heal our country, heal our food system. If you want to create more affordable food, heal our food system. If you want our children to learn more, heal our food system. What I'm seeing, and unfortunately, this is very partisan, Republicans continue to write farm bills that do the exact opposite. I have to fight to preserve programs like GusNIP. I have to fight to get more access to healthy foods for our children. I have to fight to protect farmers who are growing the food that people actually eat. It's ridiculous that we don't have more of a consciousness amongst legislators in how we can solve so many of our problems. It's because, again, it's all connected. We have a corporate system in our politics that allows food companies and pesticide companies to flood, literally tens of millions of dollars of lobbying money, to people in Congress. That's why I think one of the most immoral things, and this is why I do not take corporate PAC money, is that we see these people who have only financial interests, not the health of our people, at the table helping to write these farm bills, when it really should be families helping to write these farm bills and farmers helping to write these farm bills. Theodore: I don't want to take you too long. I'd like to ask you one last question, which is a quickie, and then we'll get to our final segment, which we talked about. You can punt on this one if you want. Helena: Oh, no, we can't punt. Don't give him an out. Senator Booker: He's giving me a football analogy. He knows I'm a former PAC-10. Theodore: I know you played for Stanford. I'll try the question anyway. Senator Booker: When I say former PAC-10 player, I also mean former PAC-10, but that's a different podcast. Theodore: That's right. We talked a lot about how food issues have come to the center of the political and cultural, and social imagination in the United States. I want you to imagine a United States that, in a couple of years, is having a presidential election. Could you imagine a food issue being part of a presidential election debate? Senator Booker: I am telling you right now, I'm running for re-election. I'm on the ballot in November. I have not made a decision about '28. If I am running for president in '28, if I am doing it, I'm going to try to center these issues in the debate. If I'm on a debate stage again, and they're talking about how do you pay for healthcare, I'm going to butt into that debate and say, "Everybody wants to talk about how to pay for healthcare. Let me talk to you about why we have such a demand for healthcare in the first place. It's because we never talk about how broken our food system is." Then I'm going to call, should I be running for president, or should I not be running for president, for a new movement in this country around health that starts not with the doctor's office when we're already sick, but starts with the food we eat to make us have sustainable health and not get sick in the first place. Theodore: All right. I would call that not a punt. That's not a punt. Do you want to follow up? Helena: I want to slip in one more question. Theodore: Go ahead. Helena: Just on this note of how the conversation has turned in Washington, because it definitely has. I've been here 15 years, and it's changed a lot. I'm actually in Chicago right now, so I'm not here. I've been in DC for a long time. It's shifted a lot. Who else in the Senate asks you about this stuff, or who pulls you aside and is like, "Hey, do you want to work on a local food thing?" Do you have more colleagues? Senator Booker: Yes, I've got people I love. Helena: Who's your list? Senator Booker: Ben Ray Luján is one of the best people on these issues. That brother, he's a hero to me and a partner. There's another guy who has got the same condition I have, a bald brother of mine. Brother Ross, I know you're part of our club. His name is Raphael Warnock. I've got people that share my spirit. I'm so excited about the Ag Committee in the coming cycle or two. Helena: Are you going to lead that committee one of these days, you think? Senator Booker: Who knows what the future holds for my leadership? Obviously, I'm focusing right now on the work before seven, eight months from now, when there's a change in senators going out, senators coming in, but I'm excited to be a part of a movement. I've been laboring on these issues since 1998. I'm the only senator that goes home to a Black and brown community in a district that's below the poverty line. I see hardworking families that do not understand why it's so hard to feed their families healthy food. Then we belittle and infantilize families, and shake our fingers at them when we don't understand how hard it is for a single mom trying to raise her kids to just get affordable food that could help her kids have a better life than they do. This is the American dream. So much of it comes back to our food system. It's why I'm fighting so hard in this space and just so pleased right now. I could not believe. You saw me in front of the Supreme Court. I was just feeling such joy to be out there with people from a lot of different backgrounds than me, but all share the same passion. Helena: One second. It was so loud that Sheryl Gay Stolberg, The New York Times health reporter, her Apple watch started alerting her that she was in a hazardously loud environment. Senator Booker: I love that. I didn't know they had that on their phone. Helena: I put that in the newsletter. It was a ruckus. Theodore: We like to end every episode of Forked with something we call the Good Vibe, which is anything that's happening in the food, politics, or policy world that we can take a note of hope from. A lot of times, it's tough for us to come up with. We struggle with this sometimes. I wonder what you think would be the good vibe out there for all of us to learn about. Senator Booker: I'm a child of civil rights activists, and my parents told me that real hope is wounded, it's scarred, it comes back after church bombings, and Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner being found in a swamp in Mississippi, people being beat viciously on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. How did you turn around, and then the next day they're linking arms and singing songs, defiantly joyous and determined? My parents taught me that hope is the active conviction that despair is not going to have the last word. For me to feel like I'm a part of a movement now, that I could stand in front of the Supreme Court, and you can feel the energy, it's crackling, it's setting off Apple Watches. You want to talk about a happy guy that the day that I found out hours after that, that Republicans allowed a vote on the Senate floor that stripped out a piece of preemption policy that seems arcane, but so many people know exactly what that was, I felt a sense of triumph, and joy, and hope that this is a harbinger of great, great food policy to come. Theodore: That's a good note to go out on. Senator, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate having this conversation with you. Just before we close, I'd like to remind everyone that this is it, that Forked is available wherever you get your podcasts. You could subscribe on our website, anywhere you like. We also have it on YouTube at our channel at FERN News. Helena, why don't you tell these good folks out there about your good old newsletter? Helena: I have a food policy newsletter called Food Fix, not to be confused with the other books and things that are called Food Fix, but Food Fix newsletter, Google it, you can get on the list, all about food policy in Washington and beyond. There is so much going on that my most recent newsletter last week was literally called ''Total Chaos." That is what you're seeing, a list of everything, because last week was so, so crazy. We're taping this on May 6th, so I'm referring to maybe two weeks ago now, but so many things happened in that week. It was the glyphosate vote, the Farm Bill passed, there was a SCOTUS rally. They're going to move USDA office. It was just complete and total mayhem. Lots going on, never a dull moment. Read the newsletter. Theodore: Read the newsletter. Helena, Senator Booker, thank you so much. Senator Booker: Get to that Knicks game, man. Helena: Yes, get out of here. [laughter] Theodore: All right. I'm gone. Helena: Good. Theodore: Forked is a production of the Food and Environment Reporting Network. Our executive producers are me, Theodore Ross, and Tom Laskawy. Our sound engineer is Lauryn Newson. Our producer and video producer is Amanda Vicari. Our hosts are Helena Bottemiller Evich and me, Theodore Ross. To find out more about FERN and donate to support our independent, non-profit reporting, go to www.thefern.org. Forked Ep 22.mp3 (Completed: 05/08/2026) Transcript by GoTranscript.com