Chapter 4: It's Highway Robbery

In our final episode, host Sarah Mock acknowledges that while obtaining property may look bleak for aspiring farmers in 2026, there are plenty of reasons for hope. As she astutely points out, American agriculture has taken countless twists and turns since its inception — we have no idea what the future holds.

After 8 episodes of The Only Thing That Lasts, looking at the deeply complicated history of farmland in America, host Sarah Mock brings us into the present day, with an episode on the factors working to both a) lessen our collective amount of farmland and b) make it more challenging for aspiring farmers to get their own plot. It's a challenging situation, but Sarah doesn't despair: She speaks to farmers and farmland investors who are working to consider new ways to approach the land question. Not all hope is lost!

We tend to think of farmland and nature as distinct and easily distinguished, but in this episode, our host Sarah Mock poses the question: What if these boundaries are far more fuzzy than we imagine? How do the effects of intensive agriculture bleed into the surrounding environments, and how do our natural ecosystems dictate what can and can't be farmed? This may sound like a philosophical exploration, but it's also highly practical. Let Sarah explain why "farmland" — the very subject of this podcast — is an exceedingly complicated descriptor.

You probably know about the trolley problem, where someone is forced to make a decision between inaction that kills five people, or making an effort that kills only one. In this episode of The Only Thing That Lasts, host Sarah Mock looks at this quandary from an agricultural lens. As in, when do we let nature simply take its course, or when do we take action to minimize harm — even when there can be other, peripheral harms? It's an episode that explores differing views on conservation, and how we manage agriculture in America.

"As through this world I’ve wandered,  I’ve seen lots of funny men. Some will rob you with a six gun, And some with a fountain pen." Woody Guthrie's lyrics are a fitting frame for this episode of The Only Thing That Lasts, looking at the government taking land from its rightful owners — and the outlaws who fought back.

Let's talk about the Dust Bowl. This distinctly American sliver of history, which most of us were schooled on with The Grapes of Wrath, was more than an act of God — it resulted from a host of short-sighted policy and farming practices. But the Dust Bowl's cloud of consequences have persisted to this day, helping shape virtually every element of modern agriculture. In the latest episode of TOTTL, Sarah Mock explores this complicated legacy, and how many mistakes are doomed to be repeated.

Long before "populist" became a nebulous buzzword used to describe everyone from Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump, the farmer-founded Populist Party was a formidable force in American elections, fighting against monopolies and corruption in defense of the everyday citizen. In this episode, host Sarah Mock looks back to look forward, connecting the fiery history of agrarian politics with the elections of 2020 and 2024.

The Homestead Act of 1862 changed the path of many thousands of Americans, who were given $1.1 trillion in free land to farm. Their descendents, who make up 25% of the U.S. population today, are still living off the legacy of those valuable gifts.

In the first episode of our 8-episode limited series, agriculture journalist Sarah Mock unpacks the dire warnings advocates are making — namely, that we're losing thousands of acres of U.S. farmland every day. What does this loss actually mean, contrasted with issues like our lack of affordable housing? And, perhaps more importantly, should we be worried about our food supply?

In the second episode of our 8-episode limited series, agriculture journalist Sarah Mock takes us on a journey to the origins of what we think of as farmland today — and with it, the very definition of private property. Your house, your land, and your concept of owning them, have everything to do with the agricultural origins of the United States.