Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
165 episodes - English - Latest episode: 10 days ago - ★★★★★ - 80 ratingsDown to Earth is a podcast about regenerative agriculture, and it’s for everyone who eats. We invite you to meet the people shaping a healthier food system—farmers, ranchers, scientists, land managers, writers, and many others. Designing a future that draws on both tradition and innovation, they’re on a mission to change the paradigm so that the food we eat is healthy and long-term sustainable—for families and growers, for wildlife and water, for climate and planet. downtoearthradio.com
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Episodes
From suburban Chicago to rural Montana: the journey of a bison rancher
April 16, 2024 01:42 - 47 minutes - 38.1 MBMatt 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 Bisonis a ranch that values biodiversity, wildlife, humane treatment of livestock––and healthy, nutritious meat.
A matter of conscience
April 02, 2024 06:00 - 1 hour - 48.6 MBWill 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 fro...
The robber barons of today's food corporations
March 19, 2024 03:06 - 1 hour - 53.8 MBAustin 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 foo...
Farm Aid: Food, festivity, and fighting for farmers
March 05, 2024 06:04 - 43 minutes - 35.2 MBIn 1985 Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, and Neil Young organized a concert to benefit farmers and spread awareness of the crisis U.S. farmers were facing. The concert raised $7 million and spread awareness across the country. Since then Farm Aid has become a force advocating for farmers, promoting healthy, farm-grown food, providing a hotline and resource network, and giving a voice for policy change that benefits family farms over corporate conglomerates. They continue to produce a concert ...
Healthy fish snacks––what cod be better?
February 20, 2024 03:39 - 48 minutes - 38.9 MBNick Mendoza grew up in a cattle ranching family in New Mexico, but when he moved to San Diego he fell in love with the ocean and got hooked on fish and marine science. Taking the lessons from regenerative cattle production to the oceans, he studied Environmental and Marine Resources at Stanford University, and earned a graduate degree in graduate degree in Sustainable Aquaculture. But eventually he veered away from a career in science when he realized that he could make more of a difference...
The Carbon Credit Conundrum
February 06, 2024 04:52 - 36 minutes - 29.4 MBCarbon credits were designed as a market mechanism to incentivize projects that sequester carbon and reduce carbon emissions. The idea is to pay people who are doing climate friendly projects, and sell credits to emitters. But do they work? Is there independent verification that carbon is really being sequestered? What does it mean when people are being paid for projects they would have been doing anyway? And who's really profiting? Ecosystem scientist Jane Zelikova, director of the Soil Car...
At The Table: Chefs advocating for a better food system
January 22, 2024 21:31 - 43 minutes - 34.6 MBKatherine Miller, author of At The Table: The Chef's Guide To Advocacy, began her work toward a healthier food system with a deep background in political advocacy. She trains chefs to use their position as influencers to make change on issues like healthy and regenerative food sourcing, food waste, sustainability, fair wages, anti-sexism and -racism, and better mental health––in ways that engage the community and work with their already busy schedules.
The six-legged livestock: Bees
January 09, 2024 05:16 - 31 minutes - 25.6 MBBeehives take up little space on the land, but, like other livestock, bees need space to roam, and they need a varied diet. Beekeeper Melanie Kirby is a "landless farmer," who sets up her beehives on farms and ranches, where the bees can thrive and the agrarians can take advantage of their pollination services. In fact pollination services have become essential to American agriculture, as monocrop farms don't provide sufficient habitat for pollinators to thrive, so beekeepers actually ship ...
Bonus episode: Ask Me Anything!
December 18, 2023 21:50 - 55 minutes - 44.5 MBAnica Wong is Quivira Coalition's communications director and she had the idea for an "ask me anything" episode with Down to Earth host Mary-Charlotte Domandi ... and here it is! Listeners asked questions and we answered as best we could, in a wide-ranging discussion about everything from to Anica's urban farm to our favorite podcasts to Plato's Republic. We reference many episodes, books, people, and fun stuff, so see the timeline below for links.
Photographing grasslands: beauty, community, life
December 12, 2023 18:38 - 43 minutes - 35.2 MBPhotographer Sally Thomson's gorgeous new book of photographs and texts, Homeground, is a deep exploration of rangelands in the Southwest––landscapes, livestock, water, wildlife, and the stewards who keep the land thriving. With her deep background in landscape architecture, conservation, and land use planning, Thomson photographs in ways that reveal a deep understanding and love for the land in all its richness and diversity.
Land, sheep, and the inefficiency of being too efficient
November 29, 2023 23:27 - 1 hour - 49.4 MBElena Miller Ter-Kuile is a sixth-generation farmer living in southern Colorado. At Cactus Hill Farm she and her father raise sheep for wool, grass-fed meat and organic grain and hay, and are in the process of restoring their family’s damaged land.
Transforming 40 million acres of lawns into thriving ecosystems
November 13, 2023 22:15 - 48 minutes - 38.7 MBErik Ohlsen author of The Regenerative Landscaper, is helping people, municipalities, companies, and farms create thriving landscapes at every scale––and cultivate native plants, wildlife, and food. His new book, The Regenerative Landscaper: Design and Build Landscapes That Repair the Environment, deeply explores the theory and hands-on practice of repairing damaged land and finding ecological balance––no matter how small or large the project.
Sheep and goats for healthy land, thriving businesses, and fire reduction
October 30, 2023 17:29 - 46 minutes - 37.3 MBCole Bush is a shepherdess, entrepreneur, and educator. Founder of Shepherdess Land & Livestock and Grazing School of the West, she uses a "flerd" (flock-herd) of sheep and goats to restore landscapes and prevent fire. She's also bringing along a generation of new shepherds, and is cultivating entrepreneurial businesses that spring from this work, such as meat, hides, and wool.
Words of wisdom from a holistic veterinarian and regenerative dairy farmer
October 17, 2023 02:18 - 51 minutes - 41 MBDr. Hubert Karreman started out as a soil scientist and then fell in love with dairy cows. He became a veterinarian and a regenerative dairy farmer, following a path of respect and reverence for life. He specializes in holistic and organic methods including homeopathy and plant medicine. He and his wife Suzanne own Reverence Farms, a pasture-based, diversified regenerative farm that includes dairy cows, sheep, pigs, and hens.
Funneling federal ag money to the people who most need it
October 03, 2023 03:28 - 49 minutes - 39.2 MBThe Biden administration has made a great commitment to building sustainable and healthy food systems. But how to get the money from the government to folks on the land who need it but aren't skilled bureaucrats? Dave Carter Director of Regional Technical Assistance Coordination for the Flower Hill Institute, explains.
How to have family business meetings that are productive––and short
September 19, 2023 00:55 - 49 minutes - 39.7 MBJoe and Jenn Wheeling talk about how to avoid the pitfalls of a family ranch business––ego, speechifying, wasted time––and arrive at consensus decisions with the full support of each family member.
Weathering global change on an Oregon sheep ranch
September 05, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 55.6 MBWhen wool processing suddenly moved overseas, Jeanne Carver and her family were left without a market for their products. Through determination and creativity, she turned a setback into a regenerative success story. They pivoted their business to a local/regional model, selling lamb to restaurants and developing an artisan-based apparel and yarn business––and eventually selling to international clothing brands. Now Carver runs Shaniko Wool Company, which comprises multiple ranches across th...
From mountaintops to farm fields: Landscape scale restoration
August 21, 2023 19:15 - 1 hour - 55.2 MBHow do you restore an entire forest, or mountain, or watershed? The key is...collaboration. Jan-Willem Jansens has been restoring landscapes in New Mexico for three decades. Owner of Ecotone Landscape Planning, he is part of a network that works to restore land that has been damaged by generations of mismanagement. Using low-tech methods, they restore soil, ground and surface water, trees, and habitat––for the benefit of large-scale landscapes, including forests and watersheds, wetlands and ...
A food forest on an eighth of an acre
August 07, 2023 03:47 - 58 minutes - 47 MBRoxanne 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, be...
From corporation to regeneration––a family's journey
July 24, 2023 19:12 - 51 minutes - 41.1 MBLorenzo Dominguez was a successful marketing and corporate communications executive in New York City. But during the pandemic he and his wife made the decision to change their lives in order to find a more nature-based and connected way of life. They bought 350 acres in northern New Mexico, called it Chelenzo Farms, and are working to restore the land, grow both market produce and desert plants, and above all to connect with neighbors and regenerative agriculture and restoration practitioner...
Healing the trauma of Black land loss through regenerative rice production
July 11, 2023 04:02 - 42 minutes - 34.3 MBKonda Mason is co-founder and president of Jubilee Justice, a non-profit dedicated to regenerative agriculture, racial justice, cooperative practices, and healing the wounds of Black American land loss and racism. They are in the fourth year of a rice-growing program, the system of rice intensification (SRI), a dry-land technique for growing rice that's healthy for land and consumers and efficient and productive for farmers. They have built a mill and are actively working toward a vertically...
Cultivating oysters for ocean health, human health, and economic development
June 28, 2023 16:07 - 53 minutes - 42.8 MBOysters 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. Native to many parts of the world, Atlantic oysters are a species found from Louisiana to Maine. Rick Karney is a shellfish biologist and Director Emeritus of Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group. Alex Friedman is owner of Snows Point o...
From urban journalist to country farmer
June 06, 2023 14:40 - 57 minutes - 46.3 MBBeth Hoffman was a college professor and agriculture journalist for years before she and her husband picked up and moved from San Francisco to his family's farm in Iowa. In her book Bet the Farm: The Dollars and Sense of Growing Food in America, she recounts the story of transitioning the farm from commodity corn and soybean cropping to grass-finished cattle and produce––and the challenges they faced along the way, from fencing to finances.
Establishing an earth-friendly meat business
May 22, 2023 03:17 - 54 minutes - 43.3 MBCorporate meat producers tout their "efficiency" but actually wreak havoc on the environment, local communities, and the animals themselves. Cole Mannix works with the Old Salt Co-op, which is pioneering vertically integrated models for regenerative, sustainable, and humane meat production––including meat processing, direct to consumer and retail sales, and restaurants––and all the while focusing on landscape health, fair labor practices, and community building.
Taking it to the street––healthy food entrepreneurship
May 07, 2023 21:19 - 39 minutes - 31.9 MBTina Garcia-Shams is executive director of the Street Food Institute in Albuquerque, NM. The program teaches entrepreneurship, food preparation, accounting, marketing, and everything else students need to open a local food truck or catering business. And it's been so successful that it's spreading to other parts of the state and the country, and attracting students from all over.
Herding animals for land––and human––health
April 24, 2023 19:24 - 52 minutes - 42 MBTraditional 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, Hoofprints on the Land: How Traditional Herding and Grazing Can Restore the Soil and Bring Animal Agriculture Back in Balance with the Earth, shines a light on what they can teach us.
Hydroponics, aquaponics, and sovereignty
April 11, 2023 19:01 - 53 minutes - 43 MBHydroponic agriculture systems use water––not soil––to grow crops, and yet they use water with exceptional efficiency and can produce abundantly all year round. When coupled with fish farming, the result is a nearly closed-loop system––aquaponics––in which the plants filter the water for the fish, and the fish provide fertilizer for the plants.
Systems thinking: Coordinating after, during, and before disasters
March 28, 2023 01:26 - 1 hour - 49.1 MBMany federal, state, and local agencies, as well as non-profits and community groups, carry the responsibility of helping people and fixing infrastructure after a disaster, and some of them also work to try to prevent or mitigate disasters before they happen. But how to they coordinate with each other, and how do they really meet the needs on the ground...and what are the sticky points?
Technology-assisted regeneration
March 14, 2023 01:59 - 58 minutes - 46.8 MBIndustrial agriculture imposes a simplified production model onto complex ecosystems––with dire consequences. In the new book, The Great Regeneration: Ecological Agriculture, Open-Source Technology, and a Radical Vision of Hope, co-authors Dorn Cox and Courtney White explore the place where complex technologies and complex ecosystems meet. With today's digital networks, sensors, and computational power, agrarians and land managers can now engage with a far larger community than ever before, ...
Wolves in the West: Finding common ground
February 28, 2023 04:10 - 45 minutes - 36.2 MBAfter being driven almost to extinction, wolves are back in some of their natural habitat. A new podcast, Working Wild University, explores how ranchers, conservationists, and others are coming together to find paths toward peaceful co-habitation. We talk to podcast co-host, Jared Beaver, about the presence of wolves on Western landscapes, and explore the economics of ranching, the importance of working lands for wildlife, the conflicts of values at the working land/wild land interface, and ...
De-commodifying land: Challenging your inner capitalist
February 13, 2023 05:24 - 54 minutes - 43.8 MBThe price of land keeps going up across the country as wealthy investors buy farmland and people move out of cities. This puts untenable pressure on farmers and land stewards who are producing healthy food and maintaining biodiversity, land health, and water cycles. But what can be done against the seemingly intractable laws of supply and demand? Neil Thapar, co-director of Minnow,and Mariela Cedeño, partner at Manzanita Capital, are working to de-commodify land, and they're using a lot of...
Healing Grounds: The enduring cultures of regenerative agriculture
January 30, 2023 03:08 - 1 hour - 52.8 MBLiz Carlisle's new book, Healing Grounds: Climate, Justice, and the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming, is a fascinating exploration of food, agriculture, and cultural traditions of the North American, Mesoamerican, African, and Asian diasporas that have survived against all odds in the United States. Despite brutal social and political oppression, these communities have preserved soil-friendly polyculture techniques and cultural practices, like reciprocity and community participation, which...
Innovative approaches to regeneration on a California ranch
January 17, 2023 04:37 - 50 minutes - 40.7 MBTomKat 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.
Giant bison, mammoths, and eagles
December 15, 2022 16:3866 million years ago an asteroid struck earth, causing the fifth mass extinction of species on earth. With the dinosaurs gone, new species proliferated all over the planet. Now we're in the sixth extinction––this time caused by people. But when did it start? Dan Flores' new book, Wild New World: The Epic Story of Animals & People in America, explores the deep history of the North American continent, which was once populated by giant bison and mammoths, massive eagles and condors, ground slo...
Giant bison, mammoths, and eagles
December 15, 2022 16:3866 million years ago an asteroid struck earth, causing the fifth mass extinction of species on earth. With the dinosaurs gone, new species proliferated all over the planet. Now we're in the sixth extinction––this time caused by people. But when did it start? Dan Flores' new book, Wild New World: The Epic Story of Animals & People in America, explores the deep history of the North American continent, which was once populated by giant bison and mammoths, massive eagles and condors, ground slo...
Sustainable development, climate mitigation, and biochar
November 30, 2022 06:45 - 53 minutes - 42.8 MBBrando Crespi has devoted decades to sustainable development as co-founder and Executive Chair at Pro Natura International and Global Biochar. His holistic approach to sustainable development could be called regenerative––instead of telling poor and exploited people what they should do, it's about recognizing and cultivating local leadership, helping them form a community vision for their future, providing the assistance necessary to achieve that vision, and then getting out of the way. Alo...
Bringing dead land back to life
November 15, 2022 03:22 - 33 minutes - 26.9 MBJohn D. Liu started his career as a journalist and cameraman, covering politics, economics, and culture. In 1995, he began documenting the Loess Plateau in China, a massive landscape that had been destroyed by poor agriculture practices over the course of centuries. He watched and filmed as the landscape––and the people––came back to vibrant life over decades, through an intensive process that involved soil science, engineering, hydrological restoration, and the participation of local commun...
Desert wisdom: sustaining Southwest agriculture using old ways––and new
November 01, 2022 01:39 - 50 minutes - 40.7 MBGary Paul Nabhan, known by many as the "father of the local food movement," is a prolific author, scientist, and activist for a healthy and truly regenerative food system that respects the land and its plants and animals; the people grow food, process, and serve the food and their communities; and to all the rest of us who eat and want our food to nourish us. He's an ecumenical Franciscan brother whose service is devoted to food equity and justice. W.K., Kellogg endowed chair for food and w...
A vibrant pecan oasis in the desert
October 18, 2022 06:01 - 47 minutes - 37.7 MBColey Burgess grew up on a conventional farm, then studied mathematics and electrical engineering...and he brought his scientific rigor and curiosity to a 20-acre pecan farm that he and his family bought in southern New Mexico. The ground was bare and turned to mud––and then cracked, dry earth––after he irrigated. But a series of happy accidents, including the purchase of a milk cow for his daughter's digestive health, led to his growing grass and cover crops and eventually letting go of her...
The food-housing nexus
October 01, 2022 04:08 - 51 minutes - 41 MBProfessor Phillip Warsaw's work is all about the interconnectedness of the systems that keep our lives going––food, housing, transportation, health care. In his research in Milwaukee he discovered that in Black and Latino neighborhoods housing was significantly more expensive if it was near grocery stores, but the same wasn't true in more affluent White neighborhoods. Why? And does this mean that better food access leads to gentrification?
Leveling the growing field
September 20, 2022 02:33 - 38 minutes - 26.5 MBIf you're a small or mid-size farmer, it's nearly impossible to compete against giant food conglomerates. But fairer policy could help smaller farms to prosper, provide healthy food and thriving communities, and keep more profits for food producers––rather than executives and stockholders. Sarah Carden is a policy advocate with Farm Action, a group working to democratize the food system in the U.S. She's also a vegetable farmer, who knows first hand what the barriers are for small and mid-s...
Big Team Farms––a new economic model?
September 06, 2022 01:34 - 1 hour - 50.8 MBBoth 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.
The USDA goes after a small sheep farm
August 23, 2022 02:44 - 35 minutes - 28.1 MBLinda and Larry Faillace spent years at the University of Nottingham in England, where Linda became an expert in Mad Cow Disease (BSE). Upon return to the U.S., they imported sheep from Europe, with USDA approval, and began a cheese making business in Vermont, with their three children active participants in the enterprise. But a few years later, the USDA came after them, claiming that their sheep might carry BSE, and told them to surrender their sheep. Because they had science on their sid...
Making your tax dollars work after fires and floods
August 07, 2022 04:04 - 37 minutes - 30 MBCongresswoman Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM-3), a native of Las Vegas, NM, deeply understands the challenges and strengths of rural people in northern New Mexico. She's been working to bring money to those whose property and livelihoods have been damaged by the recent wildfires and floods, and to build resilience––heathy soil and water practices––to provide more fire, flood, and drought resistance in the future. But getting federal money, and then distributing it to those who need it, is not...
Place, Power, And Purpose
July 26, 2022 04:45 - 53 minutes - 42.8 MBBees date back over 10,000 years on the American continent and are vital to the health of almost every bite of food we eat, but today they face threats from industrialization and habitat fragmentation. Melanie Kirby is a decades-long beekeeper, a scientist, a member of Tortugas Pueblo, and extension educator for the land-grant program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Her diverse background gives a perspective on bees and pollinators that brings together Western and indig...
What's good for the farm is good for the planet
July 12, 2022 04:11 - 41 minutes - 33.2 MBDuring Carol Ekarius's early years in Colorado, the Buffalo Creek Fire burned just under 12,000 acres — and at the time was considered a huge, catastrophic fire. Now fires in the west are consuming hundreds of thousands of acres, and doing inestimable damage to property, livelihoods, and ecosystems. A long-time farmer-rancher, Ekarius has been involved in fire management and mitigation and watershed restoration. She has written nine books for small-scale agrarians, and worked with organizati...
What is Your Foodprint?
June 28, 2022 01:37 - 47 minutes - 37.9 MBWe all know the term carbon "footprint." Well, Foodprint takes this idea and broadens it to apply to our food system; they explore how the foods we eat affect not only carbon emissions, but a whole range of things, like livestock and wildlife, soils and water, communities and human health. Foodprint is a project of the GRACE Communications Foundation, and in today's episode we talk to its director Jerusha Klemperer, who is also producer and host of their podcast, "What You're Eating," and U...
Kiss the Ground: A project born of devotion to the earth
June 07, 2022 02:10 - 54 minutes - 43.6 MBRyland Engelhart came from a family of vegans and vegetarians and knew early on that he wanted to devote his life to the health of the planet. Once he began to see that there is no food –– no life at all –– without the death of animals, he revised his perspective and at 35 ate his first hamburger. (It went well.) This perspective grew into a deeper understanding of the role of soil as the source of all life, and as the best answer to the question of how to reverse climate change, and he star...
Food, forests, and farms
May 24, 2022 04:16 - 52 minutes - 41.9 MBMost of the American Midwest was once a vast savanna, an open grassland with abundant trees and wildlife. As the land was converted to agriculture many of the trees were lost, and with them went countless benefits to the landscape, to air and water, soil health, and wildlife. The practice of agroforestry allows farmers to return those benefits to their land –– and provides profit opportunities and increased carbon sequestration. We talk to Keefe Keeley, executive director of the Savanna Inst...
Western Wildfires
May 10, 2022 04:39 - 48 minutes - 39.2 MBIn New Mexico and across the West wildfires are burning through wildlands, farms, ranches, and communities. Lesli Allison, executive director of the Western Landowners Alliance, has many years of experience in prescribed burn management—and like many New Mexcians she's directly affected by the fires. She helps us to understand how we got to the volatile situation we're in, where "controlled" fires so easily go out of control, and the critical importance of prioritizing good land management ...