What is Agrumentative all about?

Welcome to Agrumentative. A combative community discussion on the present and future of food and ag, where bad ideas come to die. 

What does that mean? We share our semi-regular debates about new trends in food and ag with the smartest, most intentional, most attractive, and most humble people in the industry. We promise these discussions are; always thoughtful, sometimes snarky, occasionally heated, somewhat biased by our life experiences, rarely hilarious, and generally wonky in a way that’ll make you think, “huh, these ladies are smarter than I thought.” And then you, the community, writes back, so we can include your thoughts in the conversation too. They tell us what we got wrong, what we got right, and regularly point out that we misspelled the word “argumentative.”

Why would we do such a thing? We’ve bonded hard over the many “you can’t sit with us if you don’t agree with us” moments we’ve had in the food and ag spaces; online, in person, and in the literal cafeteria. We dreamed of a place where people could go to have measured, thoughtful discussions about genuine disagreements, including about big ideas that underpin the whole industry that we think might be wrong. Here it is. 

The only rules for participating; be kind, be civil, but by all means, disagree!

(And Listen. If you’re still not sold. The world of food and ag is about as big as the space between the ‘e’ and the period at the end of this sentence. Eventually, we all meet, and we might as well get on an email chain together now and get it over with.) 

Each week(ish), we’ll send a newsletter post, and it will include an edited (for clarity & concision) version of our email conversations. Sometimes other people will be involved in our conversations. If you want to continue a conversation with us, email us back (agrumentativeemails@gmail.com.) Be nice, be civil, but by all means, feel free to disagree!

Who the heck are you?

Sarah Mock (@sarah_k_mock) is a freelance ag and rural issues reporter & Connie Bowen (@conniebowen_) is an agrifoodtech impact investor. Follow us on Twitter or reach out at agrumentativeemails@gmail.com if you want to get in touch.

Why subscribe to Agrumentative?

Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and website. We’ll send new posts every 7-10 days. If we don’t…check on us, maybe something has happened! (Or we’re just busy.)