Pete Buttigieg

In a recent Democratic presidential candidate debate, South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg was asked whether he would continue the "farm subsidies" that President Trump has authorized to help farmers struggling from the impact of the trade war with China.

We shouldn't have to pay farmers to take the edge off of a trade war that shouldn't have been started in the first place. I will support farmers. But not long ago I was in Boone, Iowa. Guy came up to me. He said, I got my Trump bailout check, but I would have rather spent that money on conservation. By the way, this isn't even making farmers whole. If you're in soybeans, for example, you're getting killed. I don't think this president cares one bit about farmers. He keeps asking him to take one for the team. But more and more, I'm talking to people in rural America who see that they're not going to benefit from business as usual under this president. I believe that so many of the solutions live with American farmers. But we have to stand up for them, not just with direct subsidies and support, but with making sure we do something about the consolidation. The monopolies that leave farmers with fewer places to purchase supplies from and fewer places to sell their product to an American farming should be one of the key pillars of how we combat climate change.

I believe that the quest for the carbon negative farm could be as big a symbol of dealing with climate change as the electric car in this country.