My name is Robert Quinn Holland. I'm a brother, a son, a friend, a boyfriend, a two-time MSU alum, and the co-founder of New Tracks, a company that is helping agriculture take market share from healthcare. I'm here tonight because your health is important to me.Man is what he eats. According to the CDC, chronic disease costs the United States approximately $4.4% trillion annually. Yet, the World Health Organization tells us that about 80% of that is preventable with food and exercise alone, though mostly nu ...

Climate Change & Agriculture - Climate change is causing extreme weather events, leading to an 80% spike in the cost of US vegetables [1] - Current agricultural practices contribute to approximately one-third (33%) of the climate problem, yet receive only a small fraction of climate finance and conversation [3] - By 2050, the world will need to produce 50% more food to feed nearly 10 billion people [1][4] Sustainable Food Systems - The challenge for agriculture is to produce more food over the next 30 years than it has in the last 12,000 years [7] - High-yield approaches to agriculture, including industrial agriculture, are necessary to produce enough food, despite their negative impacts [4][5][6] - Regenerative practices that improve soil health and animal welfare should be integrated into industrial agriculture to mitigate its negative impacts [7] - Kinder, gentler, more natural agriculture may not produce enough food and could require more land, which is not a sustainable solution [8] Policy & Economics - Farm subsidies primarily benefit wealthy farmers, and recent legislation has reduced support for food stamps [9][10] - Democrats should attach strings to farm subsidies, requiring farmers to produce more food while minimizing environmental damage [11]