Doctor and professor of public health Wendy Johnson saw in her medical practice people who thrived against all odds, and those who suffered grave challenges due to environmental factors like toxicity, poverty, stress, loneliness, and isolation. Her new book, Kinship Medicine , explores the reality that 80% of our health is determined by factors outside of us—which are largely ignored by our industrialized medical system. What's missing is ecological thinking, and understanding ourselves as part ...
Jul 01, 2025•46 min
Orion Kriegman and his friends started clearing a trashed vacant lot in Boston to create green space and grow food. City hall was not on their side at first, but with persistence and community effort they were able to secure that lot as permanent green space—and so The Boston Food Forest Coalition was born. A dozen more urban lots were acquired and put into Community Land Trust by the coalition, but the stewardship and management of each food forest belongs to the neighborhoods. These are spaces...
Jun 17, 2025•47 min
Montana rancher Amber Smith didn't grow up in agriculture, but ranching became her life's work. As a young adult Kristen Kipp left the family ranch in the Blackfeet but felt a deep longing to go back to her home and the work of raising livestock. Amber is the executive director of Women in Ranching , which was first a part of the Western Landowners Alliance and then later became an independent non-profit, and Kristen is a board member. They talk about raising families on the ranch, about discrim...
Jun 03, 2025•47 min
The Transition Movement is a worldwide network of people working locally to move away from fossil fuel-base infrastructure toward locally-based systems. Projects include community-owned renewable energy utilities, local food security projects and farmers markets, local currencies, conversions of lawns into edible landscapes, waste reduction, ecosystem restoration, social entrepreneurship—all things that cultivate resilient and healthy communities. Don Hall , long-time leader in the Transition To...
May 20, 2025•48 min
Eileen Napier and Stan Hayes of Ramstead Ranch teamed up around their common interests in organic gardening, permaculture, and healthy living. They started on two acres and sold eggs on the honor system, and then the project grew––they bought ranch land in the Pend Oreille Valley, in the northeastern corner of Washington State and soon expanded to 240 acres. Brining in business skills from their own experiences outside of agriculture, they've built a enterprise that employs twelve people and has...
May 06, 2025•59 min
Paul Rice started out as an anti-capitalist labor organizer, working with coffee farmers in Nicaragua in the 1980s. Over time he saw that what growers needed most was a fair price for their product––and so began his work as a Fair Trade advocate. He returned to the US to study business, and founded Fair Trade USA , where he was CEO for 26 years. Winner of many awards for social and ethical innovation, he’s author of the new book, Every Purchase Matters: How Fair Trade Farmers, Companies, and Con...
Apr 22, 2025•48 min
Since the new administration took office, programs benefitting farmers have been slashed, frozen, paused, and canceled––and the effect is leaving agrarians in a tough position. Carolina Mueller , Associate Coalition Director of the National Young Farmers Coalition , and Leah Ricci , Interim Executive Director of Quivira Coalition join us on today's podcast to talk about what they're hearing from folks on the ground, what resources are available to help people navigate, and what ordinary citizens...
Apr 09, 2025•51 min
Minni Jain and Philip Franses are co-founders of The Flow Partnership , and they are co-authors of the new book, The Language of Water: Ancient Techniques and Community Stories for a Water Secure Future . In this podcast they explore the process of helping communities around the world to restore streams and rivers, prevent flooding, and recover local water wisdom. For decades they have been working to help communities regenerate their landscapes, using traditional methods that can be implemented...
Mar 25, 2025•55 min
Bill Zeedyk restores landscapes—streams, wetlands, even rural roads—by using simple, low-tech tools and letting nature do most of the work. The result is healthy, lush desert ecosystems. Filmmaker Renea Roberts' recently released a five-part documentary series about his work, Thinking Like Water .
Jan 21, 2025•49 min
Since the 1930s, Ducks Unlimited has been protecting habitat for ducks and other migrating waterfowl, and has conserved over 18 million acres of wetlands and bird habitat in North America and beyond. Founded by hunters, the organization originally focused on duck breeding habitat in Canadian prairie lands. Over the decades their conservation work expanded to including the US, Mexico, and other parts of Latin America, and embraces both public and private lands. We talk with Billy Gascoigne is DU'...
Jan 07, 2025•53 min
Adam Mason is Senior Manager of Farm Animal Welfare and Environmental Policy at the ASPCA , the American Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In our conversation he talks about their multi-pronged approach to getting animals out of buildings and into cruelty-free lives in which they can express their natural instincts and behaviors. Farmers who make the transition from industrial/conventional livestock practices to animal-friendly practices report better lives for the animals and the...
Dec 17, 2024•52 min
Entomologist, agroecologist, farmer, rancher, and beekeeper Dr. Jonathan Lundgren was a scientist with USDA Agricultural Research Service for 11 years. He left to undertake regenerative agriculture science studies that embraced a larger paradigm, looking at the interconnection of all the living beings on the farm and in the community, from the soil microbiome to the insects to the plants and animals — and the farmers. He's founder and director of the Ecdysis Foundation , and CEO of Blue Dasher F...
Dec 03, 2024•49 min
Virtual fencing is a new technology that employs GPS collars to keep animals in "virtual" pastures—so instead of using physical fences, the fence lines are drawn on a computer screen, and the collars direct the animals' movements through sound cues and mild electrical stimulation. This saves ranchers on labor and materials, allows more adaptive and flexible pasture management, and allows free range for wildlife. The Nature Conservancy , whose mission is to tackle climate change by protecting lan...
Nov 12, 2024•46 min
Don Boyd spent a year on the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in central New Mexico, photographing, living, and finding a deep connection to land, water, and animals—including the many migrating birds that live part-time in this magical desert wetland on the Rio Grande. Boyd connected with David and Hui-Chun Johnson , and together they are working with a small team to restore 38 acres on the refuge that have been degraded by "conventional" agricultural practices and invasive plant spec...
Oct 29, 2024•45 min
Artist and science educator Robert Dash creates art from micro- and macroscopic photographs of food crops. His new book, Food Planet Future: The Art of Turning Food and Climate Perils into Possibilities , explores both the science of our food system and the role of art in finding a more healthy and loving way forward.
Oct 15, 2024•46 min
Hayley and Stephanie Painter grew up on a fourth-generation dairy farm in northern Pennsylvania, and while it was an idyllic childhood, the instability of milk prices continually threatened their family's livelihood. The sisters took it upon themselves to save the farm by creating a yogurt brand, Painterland Sisters , and in the space of two years have gotten their product into stores in all 50 states and are using milk not only from their own farm but from neighboring producers. Hayley Painter ...
Sep 30, 2024•48 min
André Leu is co-founder and International Director of Regeneration International , an organization that promotes food, farming, and land use systems that regenerate and stabilize climate systems. He’s author of the books, Myths of Safe Pesticides and Poisoning our Children, and is co-author with Dr. Vandana Shiva of Biodiversity, Agroecology, and Regenerative Agriculture. He has a Doctorate of Science in agricultural and environmental systems and teaches at universities and speaks at numerous co...
Sep 17, 2024•48 min
Environmental historian Sara Dant ’s book Losing Eden traces the history of the American West from the time of elephants and camels to the near destruction of entire ecosystems—and the movement to bring nature and industry into balance.
Sep 03, 2024•1 hr 2 min
Gwen Cameron grew up on Rancho Durazno , her family's peach farm. She was pursuing a career in journalism when her father asked her if she wanted to come back and take over the farm. She agreed and never looked back; now she's running a farm that uses regenerative principles to keep the land healthy for their 40 acres of peaches, cherries, apricots, plums, and melons. Her Mexican field workers come through a visa program, and together they are building their participation in the Fair Food Progra...
Aug 20, 2024•42 min
P. Wade Ross 's great grandfather was a runaway slave who bought land in Texas. His descendants founded Texas Small Farmers and Ranchers Community Based Organization , a non-profit that helps Black farmers and ranchers to succeed in regenerative agriculture in the face the barriers of structural racism, trauma, imposter syndrome, and the many challenges that all farmers face. Founded by Ross's parents, W. Wade and Anita Ross, the non-profit, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, provid...
Aug 06, 2024•54 min
Women have been invisible in agriculture for too long: not counted in the census, not taken seriously for their work and management achievements, excluded from access to capital and credit––and even farm equipment is not made for their bodies. We talk to Jules Salinas of Women Food and Agriculture Network , which is addressing these issues in ways ranging from political action to storytelling.
Jul 23, 2024•52 min
Doug Fine was an international journalist before he moved to New Mexico to start a polyculture farm and embrace a rural way of life. He's the author of six books, including four on hemp and cannabis, and his film American Hemp Farmer won Best New Mexico Documentary Feature at the 2024 Santa Fe Film Festival. He's a vociferous advocate for hemp as a source of nutrition, healing, clothing and industrial fiber, building material, energy source, and climate change solution....
Jul 08, 2024•56 min
Sarah Wentzel-Fisher is executive director of Quivira Coalition. A native of South Dakota, she came to her work in agriculture and leadership via a circuitous path that included the creative arts, writing, community and regional planning, collective problem-solving. In this podcast we discuss everything from the purpose of scientific inquiry in regenerative agriculture, to Quivira's history and current programs, to her own work in farming....
Jun 26, 2024•52 min
Phoebe Suina grew up on Cochiti and San Felipe Pueblos in New Mexico, where she learned about land, water, and cultural values and practices from her extended family and community. With advanced degrees in engineering and management from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College, she returned to New Mexico to found High Water Mark , a Native American, woman-owned project management and environmental consulting company with a specialty in water resources. She works with local, state, ...
Jun 12, 2024•1 hr 3 min
A decade ago, filmmaker Peter Byck assembled a group of scientists who were looking at agriculture from a whole-system perspective to study regenerative and conventional grazing side by side. The result is an extraordinary new documentary, Roots So Deep You Can See the Devil Down There. It's a fascinating and enormously entertaining journey into the world of family ranchers.
May 28, 2024•47 min
Seed Savers Exchange is a small non-profit that's making a big difference. For a half century, they've been saving seeds, getting them out into gardens, telling their stories––and cultivating biodiversity that has been badly diminished with the rise of corporate agriculture and seed production. Located in Decorah, Iowa, Seed Savers has a large farm where they cultivate genetic diversity, including vegetables, flowers, fruits, and even heritage livestock. You can get and share seeds through their...
May 05, 2024•40 min
Dirt Capital Partners takes a "slow money" perspective on investing, helping farmers get land access and regenerate not only the soil but also their communities. Their goal is to not only transform how agriculture is done in the US, but how investing itself is done, by focusing on the real impact of investment, and the good––or harm––that it does to ecosystems and communities.
Apr 29, 2024•45 min
Matt Skoglund grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, went to law school, and for ten years worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council doing policy work to protect bison in Yellowstone. Always happy in the outdoors and with an interest in both hunting and conservation, he started a bison ranch in 2018 near Bozeman, Montana. North Bridger Bison is a ranch that values biodiversity, wildlife, humane treatment of livestock––and healthy, nutritious meat....
Apr 16, 2024•48 min
Will Harris 's ranch, White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia, has been in the Harris family for over 150 years. His ancestors had a polyculture farm, but when industrial tools came to ranching, his father, and then Will, went all in––corporate ranching allowed their family to make a good living. But one day, in a life-changing moment of clarity, Harris saw that the animals were suffering from the moment they left his ranch until their brutal deaths, and that the land itself was suffering from a...
Apr 02, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Austin Frerick grew up in Iowa, which in his youth had a robust regional food system that offered abundant produce and meat from family farms. But because of one "baron"––that's the name Frerick calls the men whose monopolistic corporations profoundly reshape markets and communities––rural areas were hollowed out, farmers were driven off their farms and into factories or other professions, and the quality of life had declined precipitously, from toxic pollution to low wages, to unhealthy food. F...
Mar 19, 2024•1 hr 7 min
