Welcome to FERN’s Friday Feed (#FFF), where we share the stories from this week that made us stop and think.
Will a Blue Wave reach farm country? These races will tell the tale.
FERN
From the dairy farms of Pennsylvania and New York to the commodity growers in the Midwest and the produce fields of California’s Central Valley, the farm-country vote is very much in play as the midterms approach. In two new stories, FERN takes a closer look at a handful of contests that will determine whether Democratic challengers can flip the farmers who helped elect Donald Trump.
How Slow Food drove me to McDonald’s
Eater
For one conscientious eater, espousing the rigid, self-righteous principles of eating “slow food” drove her to a regular McDonald’s habit. “Working for a restaurant with such strong and strict values, like those of the Slow Food movement, can be exhausting,” writes Suzanne Zuppello. “I needed to live the values we impressed upon our guests, but occasionally, I wanted to eat food without suffocating rules as to where it came from or the speed with which it was prepared.” McDonald’s, she says, “has perfected what Slow Food has yet to uncover: allowing people the opportunity to enjoy a meal on their own terms, no baptism required.”
Why the Farm Bureau failed to help farmers prepare for climate change
InsideClimate News
In the first of a series on agriculture, climate change and the Farm Bureau’s influence, reporters Georgina Gustin (a FERN contributor), Neela Banerjee, and John Cushman describe how the lobbying group has, for decades, used its power to thwart action on climate change. “It calls itself the ‘voice’ of American agriculture, but the Farm Bureau has left its own members ill-prepared to cope with intensifying droughts, rain, heat and storms that threaten their livelihoods. The group’s agenda has blocked farmers’ opportunity to benefit from the agricultural transformation the climate crisis demands.”
When eating ‘natural’ becomes a quasi-religion
Vox
For some, eating “natural” food has assumed an almost religious morality, argues religion professor and journalist Alan Levinovitz. “The way that we create identity for ourselves is — in part, at least — through rituals, and the ritual of eating is a really important one,” Levinovitz says, in conversation with Rachel Sugar. “[A] lot of the really intense debate that we see around food and what we should eat and what we shouldn’t eat is bound up with larger questions of our identity and how we understand really broad moral questions, like our duties to the environment or our duties to animals.”
What an ICE raid did to one small farming town
BuzzFeed News
In O’Neill, Nebraska, where hundreds of immigrant agricultural workers live, a sweeping raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement has divided the town and separated families. “The ICE operation on Aug. 8 resulted in the arrests of 118 suspected undocumented workers — mostly in Nebraska — at multiple worksites, including a hydroponic tomato greenhouse, a pork producing plant, a potato factory, and a cattle company,” writes Hamed Aleaziz. “It was one of the largest worksite raids in years and part of a major push by the Trump administration to increase enforcement efforts at workplaces across the country.”