Breakthrough Dialogues

For optimal sustainability, which farming practice is best? Miriam Horn, who worked for the Environmental Defense Fund for over ten years, says: it depends. Don’t choose a sweeping solution; farming smart is place-dependent: where can we sacrifice the least biodiversity, the least sequestered carbon? Agriculture’s footprint is already vast – half of the ice-free planet – so the stakes are high. But taking Miriam’s practical stance toward conservation moves us past political divisions. Her book (now also a film), Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman, pushes against both the myth that conservation is a liberal coastal value and that you must be small and local to contribute to the solution. In this interview, Miriam walks us through the many waves of environmentalism: from the bedrock laws of the 60s to the combative postures of the 80s, from bridge-building partnerships and market leveraging to information technology integration. Tune in for Miriam’s lessons on balancing land sparing with land sharing, how EDF taught Wa