Garrett Downs is a food and agriculture reporter for POLITICO.

Garrett previously worked for Agri-Pulse Communications, where he covered Congress. He broke news on efforts to overhaul ocean shipping laws, tracked early movers and shakers in the lead-up to the 2023 farm bill and scoured the halls of the Capitol to dig up ag scoops for Agri-Pulse’s daily newsletter, Daybreak. He has also covered international trade policy and agricultural trade at Inside U.S. Trade.

Garrett previously worked with POLITICO as an intern on the New York team. Covering Albany from Maine during the pandemic, he tracked the odds of gambling legalization, scrutinized state energy policy and broke a story on progressive state legislators planning for the downfall of then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo on the app Clubhouse.

While in college at St. John’s University, Garrett worked as a copy kid at the New York Post. Though his day job was manning the copy machine, he found his way onto the streets of NYC searching for stories. His first scoop on sticky-fingered costumed characters led to a spiderman in handcuffs.

Garrett was raised in the seacoast region of New Hampshire. Though he did not grow up on a farm, his first job was selling sweetcorn out of a pickup on the side of the White Mountain Highway.