The Future of Agriculture: 10 Talking Points

The Top Insights from This Week's Tomorrow Today Show

This week on the Tomorrow Today Show, we explore the current state and future prospects of Agriculture. A truly massive topic that touches virtually everything in our world.

My guest co-host was Tina Owens, founder of Snowehaven Regeneration and a multi-generational farmer championing nutrient density in regenerative systems.

We then spoke to the self-proclaimed “human exclamation point,” Stephen Ritz, the inimitable founder of Green Bronx Machine who's revolutionizing urban education through food; Alec Gioseffi, the chef-farmer behind Ironbound Farm who's bridging the gap between field and plate; and Ryan Pintado-Vertner, founder of Smoketown consultancy and a strategist working to scale regenerative agriculture through consumer demand.

Here are the top 10 insights that emerged from our wide-ranging discussion:

1. The Hidden Cost of Cheap Food

Our current agricultural system makes food artificially cheap by not accounting for climate disruption, farmer livelihoods, or long-term soil health. If those things are accounted for at all, they're typically categorized as "externalities," which wrongfully implies their impact is external to anything related to agriculture.

The true cost of food extends far beyond the price tag at the supermarket, accumulating instead as global climate instability, environmental degradation, and mounting public health crises.

2. Nutrition Labels Are Stuck in the Past

Very little known fact: nutrition labels use data from decades ago—we're literally labeling today's foods with nutritional information that can be 20, 30, or even 40+ years old. This applies to produce as well as animal proteins, meaning consumers can't distinguish between conventional and organic products, or account for how modern agricultural practices have changed nutritional content.

The nutritional quality of fruits, vegetables, and animal products has most likely changed significantly since those values were originally measured due to differences in growing methods, soil health, chemical inputs, and genetics.

The nutrition label you read today might be like looking in the rearview mirror—showing you where food used to be nutritionally, not where it actually is now.

3. Slow Wins Add Up

Stephen Ritz's philosophy of "slow wins" in education applies perfectly to agricultural transformation. Small, consistent changes—whether in school gardens or farming practices—create lasting impact. It's not about overnight revolution but building momentum through daily actions that compound over time.

Yet this patient approach often conflicts with the venture capital mindset that has increasingly invaded agriculture, where investors from tech and other industries expect rapid, exponential returns on Silicon Valley timelines.

Plenty, which raised nearly $1 billion, recently filed for bankruptcy after its value plummeted from $1.9 billion to below $15 million. AppHarvest, backed by J.D. Vance and Martha Stewart, promised high-tech farming jobs in Kentucky but filed for bankruptcy in 2023 after accumulating over $341 million in debt.

As one expert noted, "Biology doesn't care how much funding you've raised. Things take time—and you can't just code your way around that."

4. Regional Food Systems Are Our Resilience

The pandemic and recent egg shortage exposed how fragile our centralized food system really is. When a few massive processing plants shut down or face disruptions, entire regions lose access to basic foods almost overnight.

Alec's vision of "farm stops"—essentially seven-day-a-week farmers markets integrated with grocery stores—could help farmers capture more retail dollars while building community food security.

These hybrid spaces would create shorter, more resilient supply chains where local producers can sell directly to consumers year-round, reducing our dependence on vulnerable national distribution networks.

By keeping food dollars circulating within regional economies rather than flowing to distant corporate headquarters, farm stops could strengthen both farmer livelihoods and community resilience against future disruptions.

5. Every Job Is Now a Climate Job

Regenerative agriculture can't scale if we only expect farmers to care about it. Brand managers, supply chain coordinators, and even accountants need to understand their role in food system transformation.

When a procurement manager chooses suppliers based on soil health metrics, or when a marketing team highlights regenerative practices in their campaigns, they're directly influencing agricultural change.

The most powerful changes often come from unexpected places within organizations—the finance team that builds carbon accounting into budgets, or the logistics coordinator who prioritizes shorter supply chains.

True transformation happens when everyone from the C-suite to entry-level employees recognizes that their daily decisions either support or undermine the shift toward sustainable food systems.

6. The Insurance Industry Holds a Key

Climate-smart farming practices are already showing dramatically different risk profiles—farmers using regenerative methods often experience fewer crop insurance payouts after extreme weather events.

These farms demonstrate better water retention during droughts and reduced erosion during floods, potentially translating into fewer claims. Given that crop insurance can represent a significant annual expense for many farmers, even modest premium reductions for sustainable practices could meaningfully impact farm economics.

As climate disruption accelerates, insurance companies may become unlikely allies in pushing agricultural transformation. Forward-thinking insurers are beginning to offer premium discounts for regenerative practices, recognizing that healthier soils and diversified farming systems may represent lower financial risk in an increasingly volatile climate.

7. Raising the Floor Matters More Than Raising the Ceiling

Instead of fighting about whether organic or regenerative certification is "good enough," we should focus on moving all agriculture toward better practices. If every farm in America adopted even basic regenerative principles, the systemic benefits would be transformative.

The environmental impact of getting thousands of conventional farms to implement cover crops and reduce tillage far outweighs the benefits of a few hundred farms achieving perfect regenerative standards.

Progress at scale requires meeting farmers where they are and celebrating incremental improvements rather than demanding wholesale transformation overnight.

8. MAHA Movement Creates a Specific Window

Whether RFK Jr. lasts in his role or not, the Make America Healthy Again movement has dramatically increased public awareness about food system issues. While RFK Jr. remains a polarizing figure whose other views generate significant controversy, his focus on food quality and agricultural practices has brought these topics into mainstream political discourse in unprecedented ways.

The movement's emphasis on reducing chemical inputs and improving soil health could potentially disrupt the established agribusiness interests that currently profit from extractive agriculture—companies selling synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and genetically modified seeds may not be rushing to embrace principles that threaten their business models.

The question is whether this momentum can sustain itself beyond any single political figure and create lasting systemic change. The real opportunity lies in building coalitions that transcend partisan divides, uniting people around shared concerns about food quality, farmer livelihoods, and environmental health regardless of their feelings about specific personalities or politics.

9. Do We Need a "Got Milk?" for Regenerative?

Individual brands shouldn't have to educate every consumer about regenerative agriculture from scratch. Ryan's vision of a master marketing campaign—similar to commodity marketing but for regenerative practices—could help create baseline consumer awareness that all brands could build upon.

Just as the dairy industry pooled resources to make "Got Milk?" a cultural phenomenon, regenerative agriculture could benefit from a unified messaging strategy that explains the core benefits before consumers even reach the grocery store.

This approach would level the playing field for smaller producers who can't afford extensive consumer education campaigns while building the market foundation that larger brands need to justify premium pricing for regenerative products.

10. Agriculture's Future Requires Both High-Tech and High-Touch

While precision agriculture and mechanization are inevitable (and necessary given labor challenges), they must serve regenerative principles rather than replace them. The future isn't choosing between technology and tradition—it's using technology to scale traditional wisdom.

Smart sensors can monitor soil biology in ways that enhance rather than override a farmer's intuitive understanding of their land. Drones and satellite imagery can help identify areas where cover crops are struggling, while automated equipment can plant diverse species mixes that would be impossible to establish by hand.

The most promising agricultural innovations amplify human knowledge and ecological principles rather than attempting to engineer them away entirely.

These topics run incredibly deep—we talked for over two hours but could have easily continued for days. Each thread we pulled revealed ten more questions worth exploring. I look forward to exploring this topic more in the future.

Ready to dig deeper into these insights and hear the full conversation? Listen to the complete episode of the Tomorrow Today Show below.