Advertise on podcast: Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

Frances Whitehead is an award-winning transdisciplinary environmental artist who integrates art with plants, soil, food, and agricultural sustainability. Having spent much of her career in cities of the Great Lakes Basin, she moved to New Mexico five years ago because she wanted to live in a dry climate and work on what she calls "arid reworlding" — which is all about responding to climate change by building a healthy future that uses less water. On a trip to Mexico, her life was changed by an encounter with the Nopal cactus, which has been a staple of Mexican culture for millennia. This led to her project, Nopalogy, which addresses the potential role of Nopal as a future food in colder climates. In this podcast we explore the work with Nopal, as well as the role of the artist in agriculture and the food system, the latest research on Nopal, and the new field trials she's initiated in Santa Fe.

Karl Thidemann is co-founder of Soil4Climate, a non-profit that advocates for regenerative agriculture, with a focus on grazing and the restoration of grasslands. In this podcast he makes the case, supported by extensive scientific research, that the restoration of grasslands can provide a multi win-win––for the climate, biodiversity, soil health, good nutrition, farmer profitability, the water cycle, rural communities, anti-desertification, and maintaining traditional agrarian practices worldwide. He also challenges vegan narratives about food and climate, and, with a poem and a song, reminds us that the arts are an important part of the change toward a greener, healthier world. Thidemann makes references to many farmers and ranchers during this podcast, and I've linked to their work in the timeline below.

Gary Paul Nabhan is an agricultural ecologist, ethnobotanist, Ecumenical Franciscan Brother, and author of thirty-four books who has devoted his life to understanding the relationships among species in ecosystems and between human beings and their environments. His work spans regenerative agriculture, habitat conservation, indigenous communities, and so much more. In addition to his work in science, for which he has won many awards, including a MacArthur "Genius" grant, he is a poet, artist, and writer. In this podcast we talk about his latest book, Water in the Desert: A Pilgrimage.

Roxanne Swentzell was a young mother on a small piece of land at Santa Clara Pueblo when she was introduced to permaculture design principles––which dovetailed with indigenous patters of thinking and land use. She turned her yard from hard, sun-scorched earth into an agroforest that provides food, wood, fiber and habitat. She founded the Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute, which focuses on teaching principles and practices of desert gardening, composting, seed saving, animal husbandry, beekeeping, building, and maintaining cultural knowledge--based on principles of integrity, love, reciprocity, communication, work, and consideration.

At last year's Regenerate conference, I attended a session about climate emotion, led by Addie Candib of American Farmland Trust, in which participants were asked two questions: What is one thing you have lost to climate change? and What helps you build resilience in yourself/your land/your world?  The answers were profound and fascinating. So I decided to ask some of the participants in that session to speak with us on the podcast. Addie Candib introduces the podcast, and then we talk to: Jonathan Cox,Policy Manager with Painterland Sisters Organic Yogurt in Westfield, Pennsylvania Alex and Clare McKeon, Father and daughter ranchers in Oakdale, California Laura Paskus, Environmental writer based in Albuquerque, New Mexico Adrienne Dorsey, Land steward from Durango, Colorado Craig Conley, Land steward in Northern New Mexico

In today's podcast we bring you an episode of the podcast Landed, from our friends at American Farmland Trust. It's called "We Need A Plan," and it's all about the issue of succession—addressing the question of what happens to our food-producing lands when the people who've been working them retire or pass on.

Beth Robinette is a fourth generation rancher in Eastern Washington State, where she and her family run a grassfed beef operation, the Lazy R Ranch, based on holistic management principles. She's co-founder of LINC Foods (Local Inland Northwest Cooperative), a local food hub based in Spokane Washington; and she runs the New Cowgirl Camp, an intensive ranching retreat for women.

Today we're sharing a conversation from the Down to Earth archive. We talk to Kevin Watt, who at the time was strategic advisor at TomKat Ranch in Pescadero, California, about the the practice and benefits of regenerative agriculture, how to incentivize it, and the dire long-term consequences of the degenerative practices of industrial agriculture—and the evolution toward new ways of thinking about productivity, healthy food, and thriving on a crowded planet. We recorded at the 2019 Regenerate conference, and the program posted in January 2020.

Anthropologist Ashanté Reese's new book explores Black community gatherings—and the nourishment, fellowship, and strength they cultivate. Reese is an anthropologist, author, and Associate Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches and writes about food studies and food justice. Her new book is called: Gather: Black Food, Nourishment, and the Art of Togetherness. Reese looks at Black church gardens, family reunions, funerals, and activist spaces—in all of which food plays a powerful role. She shines a light on how food can play a role in everything from nourishing body and soul to building power and food sovereignty.

Mimi Casteel grew up on a vineyard in northwestern Oregon, where her family made wine as much for the passion as for the livelihood. She left home to study forestry and worked as a botanist for the forest service, but the pull of agriculture brought her back to the family farm, where she introduced regenerative practices and eventually started her own vineyard, Hope Well Wine.  For Casteel, the practice of wine-making begins with the land—a complex ecosystem teeming with wildlife, cover crops, and livestock—all of which contribute to healthy soil. That soil is the basis for robustly healthy vines, which keep pests in balance without the use of chemicals, and keep the ground cool in the heat, warm in the cold, and resilient in the face of droughts and floods.  Casteel is a scientist, a close observer of nature whose perspective pushes the limits of science, and an artist in the millennia-old tradition of wine-making. She's also a passionate advocate for regenerative agriculture and regional food systems.

Six college students are bicycling from Washington State to Washington, DC, stopping at farms, restaurants, truck stops, and classrooms along the way, and asking, "What is the future of food?" In this podcast we talk two of them,  Augusta Halle and Molly Moore. Their plans are to make a portrait series and short documentary based on what they find.

Anthropologist Andrew Flachs's new book explores the food system through the lens of values like soil health, human health, biodiversity, and rural communities—not just profits and yields.   In his new book, Feeding the World as if People Mattered: How Small Farms Produce Value Beyond Yields, he shows how we could, by expanding our accounting to include people and the biosphere, have a thriving food system that actually benefits life itself.

Bees live at the foundation of our food system—but they are imperiled by industrial agriculture. Sarah Red-Laird is helping to revive farm and ranch lands by cultivating healthy and diverse bee habitats. She teaches bee-friendly practices, including cover-cropping, no-till, and reduction of chemical use, which help farmers and ranchers to cultivate both abundant pollinators and healthy soil. Her work includes data collection, storytelling, teaching, doing bee-retreats (beetreats), and nature-based art.

Nate Chisholm is in a lifelong exploration of the savanna ecosystem—the landscape in which the first human societies evolved, and some of the most biodiverse places on the planet. Savannas are where we learned to hunt and gather. Ironically, as human beings developed technology, starting with stone tools, we altered these landscapes by over-hunting large animals, leading to degradation of the land and eventually the loss of most of the savannas themselves.  According to Chisholm, the degradation of land through technology is the root of all our modern problems—but we can return to balance by restoring savanna landscapes, and restoring the savanna roots of our own psyches.  Chisholm is a livestock grazer,  with a background in forestry and ecologically based land management. He started two ranching businesses in the US and is currently living in Kenya and working on a book called Savanna.

Mary-Charlotte has bronchitis, so this week we will be joined by Kristina Britt, the new podcast host of Regeneration Rising, as she interviews Taylor Muglia, the former host and previous New Agrarian Program manager. (Regeneration Rising is the other Quivira Coalition podcast; you can find it here, or wherever you get your podcasts.) In this heartfelt episode, Taylor shares her unique journey into regenerative agriculture, her experiences running and eventually closing a small farm, and the emotional struggles and triumphs along the way. While we talk a lot about how to get started in regenerative agriculture, it is also important that we talk about the challenges of working in agriculture as well as what it's like to make hard decisions to shut down your operation. We hope this honest conversation highlights the importance of community, resilience, and adaptability.