Fundamentally, Dirty Jobs was a tribute to two industries – agriculture and mining. In the words of a fourth-generation coal miner I met back in Season One, “There ain’t but two jobs in the whole world – farmin’ and minin’. Every thang else is jist a hobby folks get paid for.”
He wasn’t the first to say it, and I won’t be the last to repeat it. Especially today, when so much of what we do for work takes place in spaces that we can’t physically occupy. The cloud, the blockchain, the latest LLM, and whatever other digital layer now passes for a modern workplace would not exist without our ability to extract rare earths and critical minerals and turn them into something useful. Beyond the infrastructure that defines civilized life, every single piece of modern technology – including all of the software and all of the artificial intelligence that’s overtaken the headlines – is wholly reliant on mining. Just as every single miner, regardless of what they’re in the business of extracting, is wholly reliant on modern agriculture – not only to keep them fed, but to keep them clothed.
It’s easy to forget about our reliance on farmers and ranchers when the national pantry is fully stocked with affordable food, but that’s not the case today. In fact, the government – through a presidential proclamation – just agreed to import 300,000 metric tons of ground beef into our national food supply, from places like Mexico and South America. And every rancher I know is alarmed, to say the least.
On this weeks episode, I asked Brooke Rollins, the Secretary of Agriculture, to explain what the administration is doing with regard to cost of beef, and how this decision to import so much beef is good for American farmers and ranchers. Like everyone else who shares my addiction to chewing and swallowing things, I’m appalled by the current price of meat, and curious as to why our ranchers are suddenly unable to provide us with affordable ground beef.
I’m glad the Secretary made time to chat, and hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did.
https://bit.ly/TWIHI505BrookeRollins
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