I’ve flown back and forth across the US several times, and always get a window seat to check out the world below. On June 1st, 2026, something below caught my eye- a noticeable number of fields were left unplanted. It was actually expected, I’d watched the tariffs ruin commodity agriculture and knew there’s no place to store new crops of soy, corn, and wheat. Gas prices have left an industrial food system on its knees and farmers can’t spend the money to keep their heavy equipment running in the fields. This economic system uses the most fuel of any in our nation. I call it an economic one, because food is not really the outcome- it’s subsidies. The money in commodity agriculture lies in exports. We send food to aid other nations, well, not any more- and hey, stabilizing the price of soy by locking in foreign investment keeps profits predictable in a practice that has always been at the behest of nature. Megalomania says otherwise, and through some tactical post war finagling, a green revolution brought us stable crop yields and sometimes embarrassing abundance.
I’ve seen milk spilled out on the ground because there is too much and the cows don’t stop producing, in western Oklahoma, peanuts dumped on the roadside. Overflow harvest over-tops granaries. Right now, the unsold soy, corn, and wheat are sitting in the silos. Farmers already see the writing on the wall for next year’s crop prices– which are never fully locked in. This is the financial difficulty in farming, there is not a predictable market. When volatile crashes, like 2008 occur, we can track downturns and upturns in the agricultural industry related to energy costs, export delays, and geopolitical shifts. The later is severely diminished in recent months. We’ve alienated many trading partners, causing rifts in time honored agreements between alleys, while allowed social politicking to enter our financial world. Farmers watch these global actions, but sadly, tend to vote for social conservatism, being rural voices, but mostly white, and therefor, receiving cultural representation in their fellow white patriarchies.
Being from the heart of this country in Oklahoma, I can speak to tired old white man syndrome. He’s old, crotchety, mean, and spiteful- all embraced as tough survival minded ego, all good things for domination. Women keep the train of ornery kin birthed, fed, clothed, and cultivated for better or worse. Men just run the fun stuff and avoid responsibility for their actions. We have to fight those over there because the military industrial complex says so. We send our young people to fight for our country- who is attacking us? Why are we so afraid? That’s the message I feel from middle America fear. And no wonder; it’s drying up- literally and figuratively, the emotional left long ago. Now this agricultural flyover remains white bread white bred wholesome god head following submission to authority. We are the sports ball beef smoking gun toting nightmares in under-educated masses. Because it’s better to watch man sport than read a book or even have a conversation. Eat fuck drink truck and everyone else- get out ‘ the way. What a selfish revelry- imagine when women choose themselves first and become godless, childless, cat ladies. Two are curled up beside me right now- and I don’t think of them as fur babies.
So, more unplanted- left bare. Wow, that took a turn right? Did you think we were just talking about crops and stocks? Yeah- the whole world is lit. Lit with the fire of industry- that’s not a good thing in LOTR. Speaking of colonial privileged white men, Canada is planting its fields. I noted this on the flight back to Seattle 10 days later. Sorry the quality is not so clear, but this window was a little fogged.
I’ll put USA and Canada side by side to compare- the fields of gold on left are the stubble from last year’s harvest, they should be cover cropped or tilled and replanted with young green crops sprouting up. In Canada, young green sprouting and freshly tilled and planted fields go on as far as the eye can see. Our northern neighbor is not struggling with tariff wars of blundering
The difference is uncanny. I also want to clarify that these pictures are roughly the same place longitudinally in North Dakota and Manitoba using OnX while flying. June 1st should find fields across our northern hemisphere planted and well into growth towards late spring harvest, or maximum summer sun production. Warmest temperatures happen over the next few months, and in farming, timing is everything. I was concerned, thinking about the trickle down pricing as storage stagnation continues. How can population grow further if maximum grain storage has been reached? Are we at capacity as a society? Might there even be a drop in value to level out our delusions of grandeur. Wheat futures certainly think so.
What if, instead of leaving fields bare, we thought of planting some more land in fruit and nut trees, food forests, wild grasslands, wildlife corridors- that’s my own special vision for these empty places, signaling a need for change in the environment. Maybe a coalition of rewilding can begin, opening up migration corridors for animals, and a Renaissance in native plants and habitat to refill landscapes with wildlife throughout North America? What if there were walking trails connecting across the continent? There are vast opportunities if we think in a restorative mindset. Of course, a lot of private land would have to be re-designated, and people would have to be willing to agree to these changes to public, along with local stewardship, and some kind of trust for transition costs- or in some cases, just initial replanting of native species. It could be a dream, but there is land available now, and if we don’t start rewilding places, there will not be enough finite resources left to thrive as a population. Industrial greed is willing to plunder everything, at the cost of our natural world.
How can we make the change a reality? Do you have a local tribal movement for land back? Are they leading with restoration and stewardship for the protection of the natural world? Could you partner with such people and learn ways to better your local environment? Here in The Snoqualmie Valley, the tribe had land restoration meet ups open to the public. At these publicized events, people come with gloves and work cloths to tend the land by removing invasive species, replanting natives, and stewarding forest and understory to repair the land. These events are for the local public to help take part in restoring natural habitat to the landscape, repairing literal damage caused by colonial greed by replanting, but also spiritual and emotional damage caused by continued abuse and ignorance of the first nations living here in harmony with the land for thousands of years. Our cultural grief cannot be addressed and repaired until we as human kind, understand the history of colonial abuse around the world.
Industrial agricultural genocide is coming to an end, and if we cannot pivot to smarter, grounded restoration to refill the incredible cup of abundance that these lands already offer in their glorious native ecology and culture, tended with community and connection. We the people will continue to fade into the maws of corporate greed legacy and socially engineered fear mongering towards otherness if we cannot move the agenda back to humanity’s dependency on mother nature to survive. No computer AI could possibly run the global ecosystem and create the resiliency that humankind has the capacity to undertake, and in some rare cases, continue to undertake in our day to day lives. Look to those who still live closely with the earth, within her limitations, and still evolving and maintaining thriving culture in community through deep connection to place and people.
The more immediate implications of empty fields, is empty plates, empty wallets, and economic downturn. With the cost of farming at an all time high- I just bought half my annual hay- staggering that purchase to keep costs manageable through the next 6-8 months. I may have most of my flock in the meat locker before breeding season to weather the current costs. Luckily, the farm can make such flexes. For people with children, a lot of debt, no insurance, or month to month hand to mouth- the future will be bleak. How did we get here? How did we get to a place where farmer’s rely on export and subsidies, forsaking the natural world for an industrial one and still expect limitless production? We know we can’t make something out of nothing, but already, our addiction to fossil fuels is paying us back in microplastics, forever chemicals, and cancer. Think of the empty fields and missing pieces of ourselves.
What will fill in the gaps? Hunger? Economic ruin? Recession? Famine? Why speak in such fears? Well, the ecological collapse is already well on its way, and without major effective change in our own actions, we the people will be facing quite the hunger pang, and not just on the table- also in our earnings, retirement, healthcare, generational stability- the list is endless. So, if you have read this far down, how are you shifting your own life towards resiliency in community? Who are your people in a pinch? How are you earning and spending your social currency? Money certainly has a place, but relationships and shared vision are imperative to long term adaptation and flourishing. Our tech can only take us so far in this endeavor, face to face wins in the end, so look to your family, friends, and neighbors for the basket of community that allows us to thrive together, even in the lean times to come.
EEC Forest Stewardship 