Growing vegetables for fun and massive profit … really?
Paul and Elizabeth Kaiser went into farming because it seemed like an earth-friendly way to make a living–and they brought a lot of knowledge and innovation to the process. The result: Singing Frogs Farm is a thriving, productive place that has a new harvest every few months, pays good wages, and makes an order of magnitude more money per acre than other farms in the same area–even organic farms and vineyards. How do they do it? It’s all about understanding the big picture. Instead of, ‘I’m going to grow cauliflower,’ it’s more like ‘I’m going to cultivate a farm on which cauliflower will flourish because everything the entire living system around it–soil, bugs, worms, people, etc.–is healthy.’
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Episode 162 – The Robber Barons of Today’s Food Industries
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Episode 161 – Farm Aid: Food, Festivity, and Fighting for Farmers
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Episode 160 – Healthy fish snacks––what cod be better?
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Episode 159 – The Carbon Credit Conundrum
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Episode 158 – At The Table: Chefs advocating for a better food system
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Episode 157 – The six-legged livestock: Bees
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Episode 156 – Bonus episode: Ask Me Anything!
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Episode 155 – Photographing grasslands: beauty, community, life
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Episode 154 – Land, sheep, and the inefficiency of being too efficient
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Episode 153 – Transforming 40 million acres of lawns into thriving ecosystems
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Episode 151 – Words of wisdom from a holistic veterinarian and regenerative dairy farmer
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Episode 150 – Funneling federal ag money to the people who most need it
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Episode 148 – Weathering global change on an Oregon sheep ranch
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Episode 147 – From mountaintops to farm fields: Landscape scale restoration
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Episode 146 – A food forest on an eighth of an acre
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Episode 145 – From corporation to regeneration––a family’s journey
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Episode 144 – Healing the trauma of Black land loss through regenerative rice production
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Episode 143 – Cultivating oysters for ocean health, human health, and economic development
Oysters are delicious and nutritious. They are also a keystone species and an ecosystem engineer, which means that they provide habitat for all kinds of other species, and they filter and clean the water around them, cycle nutrients, and even remove pollutants.
Episode 142 – From urban journalist to country farmer
Beth Hoffman was a college professor and agriculture journalist for years before she and her husband moved his family’s farm in Iowa. Her new book, Bet the Farm, is all about the joys, challenges, and economic realities of farming in the US today.
Episode 141 – Establishing an earth-friendly meat business
Corporate meat producers tout their “efficiency” but actually wreak havoc on the environment, local communities, and the animals themselves. Cole Mannix is all about building resilient ecological and economic systems with the goal of long-term stability and prosperity.
Episode 140 – Taking it to the street––healthy food entrepreneurship
Tina Garcia-Shams is teaching every aspect of food truck entrepreneurship at the Street Food Institute, and their graduates are thriving––and serving healthy, local fare.
Episode 139 – Herding animals for land–and human–health
Traditional pastoral cultures have been living in harmony with animals and land for millennia––and they persist to this day, though with serious challenges. Ilse Köhler-Rollefson‘s new book shines a light on what they can teach us.
Episode 138 – Hydroponics, aquaponics, and sovereignty
Charlie Shultz is teaching students how to grow fish and plants in in mutually beneficial systems, as well as healthy, nutrient-dense greenhouse crops––all year round. It’s all about sustainable, local, healthy, and economically thriving food systems.
Episode 137 – Systems thinking: Coordinating after, during, and before disasters
Many entities, public and private, are working to help agrarians whose livelihoods are disrupted. But what do they do, how do they coordinate…and what are the sticky points?
Episode 136 – Technology-assisted regeneration—a new vision for ecological agriculture
Industrial agriculture imposes a simplified production model onto complex ecosystems––with dire consequences. A new book show how technology is now able to capture nature’s intricacies––and help agrarians to grow food more ecologically and more profitably.
Episode 135 – Wolves in the West: Finding common ground
After being driven almost to extinction, wolves are back in some of their natural habitat. A new podcast explores how ranchers, conservationists, and others are coming together to find paths toward peaceful co-habitation.
Episode 134 – De-commodifying land: Challenging your inner capitalist
As land prices and development pressures rise, agrarians and land stewards have a hard time buying and staying on land. Neil Thapar and Mariela Cedeño talk about strategies to convert land from a commodity to what it really is––habitat, ecosystems, and where we grow our food.
Episode 133 – Healing Grounds: The enduring cultures of regenerative agriculture
In her new book Liz Carlisle explores rich food traditions from the Americas, Asia, and Africa that have survived and thrived in the U.S.—and how they are helping to restore land and climate, and bring about a more just and humane world.
Episode 132 – Innovative approaches to regeneration on a California ranch
TomKat Ranch manager Mark Biaggi talks about dealing with winter floods, summer droughts, and degraded landscapes––and the process of continual experimentation that leads to dramatic regeneration of damaged land.
Episode 131 – Giant bison, mammoths, and eagles: a deep history of the American continent
The land and its creatures looked very different when the first people arrived on this continent. Dan Flores‘ book Wild New World traces human impact up to the present––and the choices we’re looking at now.
Episode 130 – Sustainable development, climate mitigation, and biochar
For decades Brando Crespi has been working in communities damaged by extractive industries. He makes the case that biochar can and should be part of a global strategy do reverse climate change and grow more food with less water.
Episode 129 – Bringing dead land back to life: a filmmaker’s perspective
In 1995 John Liu began documenting the Loess Plateau in China, a landscape ruined by poor agriculture practices. Over decades he documented its return to vibrant life, and filmed many other restoration projects worldwide.
Episode 128 – Sustaining Southwest Agriculture
Gary Paul Nabhan knows how to grow food that’s healthy and profitable––even during times of drought and climate disruption.
Episode 127 – A vibrant pecan oasis in the desert
Coley Burgess didn’t intend to do regenerative agriculture, but a series of happy accidents led him down a path toward healthier trees, a herd of animals, virtually no chemical or tractor use––and a more enjoyable life for himself and his family.
Episode 126 – The food-housing nexus
Professor Phil Warsaw noticed that in urban Black and Latino neighborhoods the price of housing near grocery stores was higher––but the same wasn’t true in more affluent White neighborhoods. Why? And how can planners balance food access and gentrification?
Episode 125 – Leveling the growing field: promoting a fair farm system
Both big ag and small family farms have their problems…but what’s the alternative? We talk with agricultural journalist Sarah Mock about the some possible models.
Episode 124 – Big Team Farms––a new economic model?
Both big ag and small family farms have their problems…but what’s the alternative? We talk with agricultural journalist Sarah Mock about the some possible models.
Episode 123 – The USDA goes after a small sheep farm
Linda and Larry Faillace imported milk sheep following USDA guidelines and started a cheese making business in Vermont––only to have their animals confiscated and killed by the USDA under the pretext of a disease that sheep don’t get. Listen to find out why.
Episode 122 – Making your tax dollars work after fires and floods
New Mexico Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernandez is working not only to help the people and businesses affected by fires and floods, but also to build back land that is more resilient. All of which is easier said than done.
Episode 121 – Place, Power, And Purpose: Pollinators On Western Landscapes
Bees and other pollinators are facing threats from industrialization and habitat fragmentation. Beekeeper, scientist, and indigenous teacher Melanie Kirby knows that bees are vital to the food we eat—and is showing the way forward.
Episode 120 – What’s good for the farm is good for the planet
Carol Ekarius has worked in both large- and small-scale farming, and has written many books for hobby farmers. And she’s led organizations devoted to watershed restoration and sustainable agriculture. She talks about the daunting challenges ahead—and gives us some reasons for hope.
Episode 119 – What is Your Foodprint?
You’ve heard of a carbon “footprint.” The idea of the “foodprint” broadens the vision from the single variable of carbon emissions to the full impact that your food has on the planet––animals, community, soil, water––and helps you to make better choices as a consumer and a citizen.
Episode 118 – Kiss the Ground: A project born of devotion to the earth
When Ryland Engelhart learned that restoring soil health was a key to reversing climate change, he became an advocate for regeneration –– resulting in a film that has been seen by over six million people in 26 languages.
Episode 117 – Food, forests, and farms: an intro to agroforestry
Trees are an important part of most ecosystems, and they can actually make a great contribution to agriculture by providing everything from shade to soil health, water retention, wind breaks, and marketable products.
Episode 116 – Western Wildfires: Facing a hotter and drier future
Wildfires across the West are burning out of control and causing catastrophic losses to landscapes and communities. How did we get here, and how can we better manage fire in the future? Lesli Allison walks us through the complexities and dangers––and the critical importance of land management.
Episode 115 – The path to positive food policy: Making the case for a more regenerative farm bill
For the US to have a resilient food system at a large scale will require changes in national policy. Aria McLauchlan and Harley Cross of Land Core lay out how the Farm Bill, which will be reauthorized in 2023, can stimulate healthy–and long-term sustainable–farming practices.