What does food affordability really mean? In the first installment of Carver Center's Five Questions series, Kellie Adesina explores access, nutrition, agricultural innovation, and the policies that shape America’s food system.

The debate over Proposition 12 is not about animal housing standards. It is about whether one state can impose production requirements on farmers in other states as a condition of market access.

The debate over gestation crates is really a debate over interstate commerce: Can one state use market access to regulate agricultural production in another?

Who gets to participate in food and nutrition policy debates? Practical experience and professional affiliations should not overshadow the evidence itself. Serious policy debates require scrutiny, context, and real-world understanding.

When belief replaces evidence in agricultural policy, the consequences can be catastrophic — as Sri Lanka demonstrated when an overnight ban on fertilizers and pesticides collapsed rice yields by more than 30 percent and toppled a government. American farmers deserve a Farm Bill grounded in science and sound economics.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s review of Monsanto v. Durnell is not about re-litigating the science of glyphosate. It is about who decides what appears on a federally regulated product label. Our latest analysis examines the oral argument, the legal path before the Court, and why the case could have implications far beyond one herbicide.

“The Court is not being asked to decide whether glyphosate causes cancer. It is being asked who has authority to decide what goes on a federally regulated label.”

Inside the Farm Bill, Section 12006 addresses when state agricultural standards can extend beyond state borders through interstate commerce. The provision does not limit in-state regulation. It clarifies how Congress may protect national food markets from conflicting state-by-state production mandates.

California’s Proposition 12 was presented to voters as an animal confinement measure, but its broader impact has played out through interstate commerce and national food markets. Congress is now debating where state authority ends and national markets begin.

The issue before Congress is straightforward. With laws like Massachusetts Question 3, should one state be able to use its market to control how farmers in other states raise animals?

In Pork Business, Andy Curliss examines why farming and agriculture remain among the most trusted sectors in America and what that trust reveals about the growing disconnect between everyday Americans and many of the institutions shaping public opinion.

The American Heart Association's 2026 dietary statement arrives alongside newly updated federal Dietary Guidelines, and the two don't fully agree. What's behind the divergence, and what it means for nutrition policy.

Many policymakers now believe America's children are facing a widespread, systemic health crisis. That belief appears in federal commission reports, congressional testimony and media coverage. Taken at face value, and without context, it has begun driving debate over the farm bill and broader agricultural policy on the conviction that the food system is failing children's health.

The data tell a more complicated story.

The current debate in Congress is not about overriding California’s voters (“China-backed Big Pork wants to override 63% of California voters. Even conservatives are mad,” March 12). It is about Congress exercising the authority expressly assigned to it in the Constitution when state rules reshape interstate commerce.

A dispute over Dietary Guidelines isn’t about hidden conflicts — it’s about an effort to turn transparency into a disqualifier.