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Food Security Is National Security: Agriculture Policy for a New Era
The S2G Podcast • Ep. 43
Food Security Is National Security: Agriculture Policy for a New Era
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In this episode, we navigate the broader food landscape, covering the intersection of production, health, security, and policy.
The Farm Bill, our country’s cornerstone for farm and nutrition policy, has long been a rare beacon of bipartisan success. But the recent deal to reopen the government quietly tacked on yet another extension of the 2018 Farm Bill that has had a series of extensions since 2023.
So the question is whether we are watching the end of big bipartisan legislation? Or is it time to rethink the playbook entirely, bringing in new stakeholders and connecting more of the issues that shape the system to build a broader coalition?
Consider the landscape we’re navigating. This year, USDA projects an agricultural trade deficit approaching $50 billion. Meanwhile, defense, Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and interest on the debt account for roughly 70% of federal spending. At the same time, 70% of Americans are overweight or obese, and the One Big Beautiful Bill proposes cutting $186 billion from SNAP over the next decade. These are enormous, interconnected challenges, and maybe the only way forward is to bring them to the same negotiating table and design solutions big enough to match the moment.
Sanjeev Krishnan sits down with Randy Russell, President of The Russell Group, a bipartisan government relations firm focused exclusively on food & agriculture public policy, and Grant Leslie, S2G’s new Operating Partner for Government and Policy. Together, they break down how linking agriculture, nutrition, healthcare, and fiscal realities could unlock better outcomes for American producers, communities, and national security. But doing that requires a systems mindset. It means widening the tent. It means seeing farm policy as far bigger than agriculture alone.
And ultimately, the people who will succeed here will be the ones bold enough to think differently.
Key Takeaways
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Randy and Grant explain how the historic alliance between farm and nutrition advocates no longer holds, and argue that policymakers are at an inflection point: either keep trying to force a “classic” Farm Bill, or rethink the model entirely with new coalitions and potentially new types of bills.
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The conversation highlights how few truly rural districts now exist in Congress and how that structural reality fuels polarization. At the same time, the guests stress that when you actually spend time in both rural and urban communities, you find shared concerns around energy, broadband, healthcare, and opportunity that could be the basis for a new bipartisan agenda.
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Randy walks through the swing from a $37 billion ag trade surplus in 2012 to a nearly $50 billion projected deficit today, driven by changing global trade dynamics, China’s deeper alignment with Brazil, labor constraints, and shifting demand patterns, forcing the U.S. to rethink what it produces, for whom, and how it maintains competitiveness.
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Sanjeev, Randy, and Grant frame U.S. agriculture, chronic disease, and the debt and deficit as three linked crises. They argue that if we design policy with a systems lens, treating food security as national security and connecting farm policy with healthcare affordability and entitlement sustainability, we could unlock better outcomes for farmers, families, and taxpayers.
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The guests see an “Evergreen Revolution” driven by data, technology, and entrepreneurship, and they emphasize that startups and innovators need a seat at the policy table.
