Food & Beverage · August 2026
Hewitt writes about local food economies, and the hosts have been pressing him on what sustainable would actually have to mean; Mark Pascal offers 500 years as his test. Hewitt accepts the test, then volunteers the harder problem against his own case. Pascal immediately counters with studies favouring mid-size diversified farms, and Hewitt says he believes them.
Transcript
Let me ask you them: how long can you do? You have to be able to do something to make it sustainable. I'll settle for
500 years. I'll settle for 500 to 600 years, and I will consider that sustainable. Was that work for you?
Yeah, I think so. Although, my argument, and here you get into even a more difficult conversation, but I'm not certain that there is a form of agriculture that is truly sustainable that is actually going to feed 6.whatever billion people on this planet. You know,
it's funny. There have been some studies that have come out just recently that have talked about the density of food that comes out of large high-input agriculture farms. It turns out in the last couple of years, there are a bunch of studies that say mid-size, organic, diversified farming is the most productive farming that we can have. Isn't that good? I agree.
I believe that.
So I hear all the time these big corporations talk about how, oh, we need genetically modified crops or we won't be able to feed into it. I don't see these genetically modified crops feeding the world. And from farmers that I talk to, their actual output yields in the field don't seem to be any higher to me. And Monsanto and all these big companies do not allow by law, you may not study them whether they actually deliver on their promises or not. So there's no way to verify what they do. What we know is that Roundup-ready crops make you buy more Roundup.