Economic power vs Health prosperity - and environment sustainability.

From Money and Power to Health and Prosperity: Rethinking What We Prioritize

February 20, 2026 Creative Director INSIGHTS, PUBLIC AND PLANETARY HEALTH

Every durable transformation in human history did not start with policy, but with perspective. If humankind is to build a secure, prosperous, and sustainable society for generations to come, the transformation must begin in our thinking.  Wisdom would move our mind away from money and power as ultimate measures of success, and toward the health and well-being of people and planet.  Progress on the SDGs (the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals) vs growth of a nation's GDP is the true indicator of prosperity. This is the wisdom offered by the late great Hazel Henderson. 

By Chuck Woolery, Rockville, Maryland

Last year a policy proposal advocated by the conservative The Heritage Foundation emphasized expanding organic agricultural production, energy conservation, and reduced use of fertilizer.  These are progressive ideals aligned with human and environmental health - strengthening the US economy and our food security.  That can be applied globally.  The deeper question is not how much we produce, but how we produce it — and at what long-term cost.   

The key question every person and nation must answer - "Are we healthy or are we sick?" In the US too many people and the our nation's agriculture budget is sick. 

And the cure is in the genius of Allan Savory  He laid out the framework in his book Holistic Management: A New Framework for Decision Making (first published in 1988, later revised with Jody Butterfield).  He's documented the objective truth that desertification, climate instability, and declining human health are not inevitable, but largely the result of managing land in ways that violate nature’s patterns. Savory argues that properly managed livestock, mimicking the dense, migratory herds that once co-evolved with grasslands, can regenerate soil, increase biodiversity, restore water cycles, and draw down atmospheric carbon. 

His urgency comes from a stark claim: unless agriculture shifts from industrial extraction to holistic management aligned with ecological laws, we will continue degrading the very soil that feeds us. In his framework, healthy soil produces healthy plants, which nourish healthy animals and people — making land restoration not just an environmental issue, but a human survival strategy for a sustainable planet. 

What's notable is that other institutions like the The Heritage Foundation have hosted discussions highlighting a long-running movement to transition agriculture from high-input industrial systems toward nature-based principles. What makes this significant is not ideology, but convergence: across the political spectrum there is growing recognition that soil degradation, rising input costs, and farmer debt are systemic risks. Regenerative approaches — including no-till or reduced-till practices, cover cropping, diversified rotations, and biologically integrated pest management — aim to rebuild soil organic matter, restore microbial life, and improve water retention. When soils function as living ecosystems, the reliance on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides can be significantly reduced, along with the need for repeated mechanical tillage. This translates into lower fuel costs, fewer chemical inputs, and less wear on machinery. 

Economically, the appeal is straightforward: healthier soils often mean greater drought resilience, more stable yields, and improved long-term productivity. By mimicking natural systems rather than overriding them, farmers can reduce variable costs while protecting the asset that ultimately determines their viability — the soil itself. In that sense, nature-based agriculture is not simply an environmental strategy; it’s a risk-management and profitability strategy. It strengthens farm balance sheets while contributing to broader goals like water quality, biodiversity, and climate resilience — aligning ecological stewardship with economic durability.

Savory has also written Holistic Management Handbook – a more practical, field-oriented guide.  And The Grazing Revolution – a later work emphasizing regenerative grazing and soil restoration.

Meanwhile, American agriculture today is still dominated by large-scale monocropping, particularly corn and soybeans, heavily subsidized through federal farm programs shaped by powerful agribusiness interests. Corn, in particular, has become the backbone of industrial agriculture. It feeds livestock in concentrated animal feeding operations, supplies processed food ingredients such as high-fructose corn syrup, and is converted into ethanol fuel.

The ethanol program was promoted as a renewable energy solution. Yet critics across the political spectrum have long questioned its efficiency and environmental trade-offs. Estimates frequently cited in policy debates suggest that producing ethanol from corn can require substantial fossil fuel inputs for fertilizer production, farm machinery, irrigation, processing, and transportation. Some analyses have claimed that it can take roughly 2.5 gallons of fossil fuel energy to produce the equivalent of one gallon of corn-based ethanol fuel — though life-cycle assessments vary depending on methodology and technological improvements. Even where net energy gains exist, the system still depends heavily on fossil inputs and nitrogen fertilizers that degrade soil and waterways.

The larger issue is not simply energy ratios. It is the structure of influence.

Industrial monoculture farming favors scale. Scale favors capital. Capital favors consolidation. Consolidation favors political influence. When wealth concentrates, so does policy leverage. Large agricultural corporations and commodity groups maintain extensive lobbying operations that shape subsidy structures, crop insurance programs, and biofuel mandates. Meanwhile, small farmers seeking to transition to regenerative, diversified, or non-traditional farming systems often struggle to compete for land access, credit, and distribution networks.

Land prices in many regions reflect subsidy expectations. When federal programs guarantee revenue streams for commodity crops, land values rise accordingly. This makes it increasingly difficult for smaller producers — especially those wishing to practice soil-restorative methods such as regenerative grazing, agroforestry, crop diversification, or organic production — to enter or remain in farming. The result is not simply an economic shift, but a structural narrowing of agricultural imagination.

Yet soil itself tells a different story.

Healthy soil is not an inert medium for chemical inputs. It is a living ecosystem of fungi, bacteria, insects, and plant roots that together create resilience. Practices that rely heavily on synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and repeated monocropping can reduce soil organic matter over time, increase erosion, and degrade water systems through runoff. In contrast, regenerative approaches aim to rebuild soil carbon, enhance biodiversity, and increase water retention — strengthening resilience against droughts and floods.

When we prioritize short-term yield and quarterly profit, we often externalize long-term costs: depleted soil, polluted waterways, rising healthcare burdens linked to ultra-processed foods, and increased greenhouse gas emissions. These costs are not borne equally. Rural communities face economic instability. Downstream communities face water contamination. Consumers face diets shaped by subsidy incentives rather than nutritional wisdom.

This is where the influence of wealth intersects with public health.

Commodity subsidies make calorie-dense processed foods cheaper than fresh produce in many areas. Industrial livestock systems rely on grain inputs that could otherwise feed people directly or support diversified cropping systems. Healthcare systems then absorb the downstream impacts of diet-related chronic diseases. The cycle reinforces itself: profits are privatized, while environmental and health costs are socialized.

A society that measures success primarily through GDP growth or shareholder returns risks missing a deeper measure of prosperity. True prosperity is measured by healthy children, fertile soil, clean water, resilient local economies, and civic trust.

This is not an argument against markets. It is an argument against allowing concentrated wealth to define public priorities without regard for intergenerational consequences.

History teaches that wealth will naturally seek influence. The question is whether democratic institutions are strong enough to balance influence with wisdom. When lobbying power outweighs ecological science, and campaign contributions outweigh long-term public health data, policy tilts toward profit maximization rather than system optimization.

Imagine an alternative framework.

Instead of subsidizing monoculture commodity crops primarily for industrial processing and fuel blending, policy could incentivize soil-building practices, diversified cropping, local food systems, and measurable improvements in land stewardship. Instead of evaluating success solely in terms of export volume, we could measure success by soil organic matter, water quality indices, rural income stability, and reductions in chronic disease prevalence.

In such a system, small and mid-sized farmers would not be forced to compete solely on scale. They could compete on stewardship, nutrition density, and ecosystem services. Markets would still function, but incentives would align with long-term sustainability rather than extraction.

This transformation begins with mindset. If we define prosperity as the accumulation of financial capital alone, we will continue to prioritize policies that maximize short-term returns. If we redefine prosperity as the flourishing of human and ecological systems, policy architecture changes accordingly.

The debate is not capitalism versus environmentalism. It is short-term concentration versus long-term resilience.

The health of a nation is inseparable from the health of its soil. The security of a society is inseparable from the stability of its food systems. And the durability of democracy is inseparable from its ability to ensure that wealth does not drown out wisdom.

When thinking shifts from money and power to health and intergenerational sustainability, profits need not disappear — but they become a byproduct of stewardship rather than its substitute.

In the end, the most enduring wealth is not measured in quarterly earnings. It is measured in the condition of the land we pass on, the vitality of the people we nourish, and the systems strong enough to serve generations yet unborn.