Farm To Table Talk

Farm to table can be a journey that matters. This podcast appreciates the listeners who have downloaded over a million episodes and for the often inspiring guests who have generously shared the story of their journeys, from farm to table. Over the years of producing this podcast, I have been asked about my own journey that has brought us together. Well Greg Peterson, the host of the Urban Farmer p...

With current global, political and societal crises, the urgent need to fight climate change is being pushed to the edges.  It’s not happening with Farm To Table Talk as we re-visit a podcast classic and the claim that Agriculture will reverse the dangerous levels of greenhouse gases in the environment, if Ag follows a report prepared by leading scientists, reviewed by  CAST (Center for Ag Sc...

Sourcing food locally is an important frontier for the food system, from Farmers Markets, to Farm to Fork restaurants,  schools,  hospitals and more. Santana Diaz is the Execuctive Chef and Director of Culinary Operations at UC Davis Health in Sacramento, where it is a priority to source as much food as possible from area farmers and what that means tor patients, medical staff and the local commun...

California voters approved Proposition 12 by a decisive 63% margin, establishing minimum space requirements for farm animals and restricting the sale of pork, eggs, and veal produced from animals confined in spaces smaller than those standards. For pork producers, the law effectively prohibits the sale of meat from pigs born to sows housed in gestation crates that fail to meet California’s re...

Food is a national security issue and passing an updated farm bill is of critical importance to both farmers and consumers, especially the food insecure. Rodger Wasson visits with Congressman Jim Costa, a leading member of the House of Representatives Agriculture committee, who voted for advancing the long overdue ‘work in progress” to the US Senate. Rodger Wasson and Congressman Costa...

Coffee is good for us! Especially when it connects regenerative growing practices that stretch from indigenous tribes to our barista or home brewed for the cup to start every day. Andrew Salisbury found proof of the health benefits of coffee from the Vanderbilt University Institute of Coffee Studies and found the source of beans with indigenous tribes in the Amazon.

Regenerative means understanding the cycles of nature and operating within those cycles of nature, producing a bounty that is true profit created from sunlight, microbial life in the soil and rain water,  generating more than was there. Will Harris practices what he preaches on his family’s White Oak Pastures in Georgia. While specialists may be necessary in many ventures, Will says that it&...

Disruptions in shipping lanes such as in the Strait of Hormuz creates havoc in food supply and demand. This episode of Farm to Table Talk features Peter Friedmann from the Agriculture Transportation Coalition discussing the complex global supply chain challenges in moving agricultural products from farms to tables around the world. Peter explains how U.S.agriculture relies heavily on international...

You can’t dream big enough was a challenge often heard from the widely acknowledged voice of Agriculture, Orion Samuelson. Just after graduating from college the host of Farm To Table Talk, Rodger Wasson had the good fortune to host a Radio Farm Show in Normal, Illinois and subsequently become acquainted with the legendary host of the Chicago based clear channel WGN Radio Farm Show. Orion Samuelso...

Natalie Bogwalker, c0-author of The New Natural Food Garden, discuses her journey from living in a log cabin to selling her business Wild Abundance and focusing on gardening education. She shared insights about her new book, which features beautiful photography and practical gardening advice, and discussed her approach to cooking with homegrown ingredients. The conversation explored how gardening...

Getting enough iron from the food we eat is something most of us take for granted, but about 2 billion people worldwide have an iron deficiency, the Number 1 nutritional deficiency globally. An international research team led by scientists in Brazil have come up with a way to boost iron content in rice, which is one of the most consumed foods. Farm Table Talk talks with Dr. Felipe Ricachenevsky ab...

In May of 2014 The Noble South opened its doors and began crafting a restaurant based on a fresh farm-to-table approach. With a clear vision of incorporating the highest quality seasonal ingredients with style, The Noble South leans into relationships with local farms that use organic practices, culinary collegaues and consumers resulting in the rich tradition of Southern fare with a lighter and f...

A new farm bill has passed out of the House Agriculture Committee to be considered by Congress. If successful it will be the first Farm Bill passed since 2018.  Commodity programs, crop insurance and foreign market development  are increased but nutrition programs are not. SNAP cuts from recent legislation were not recovered, yet. Nor have corn growers gotten the expansion in ethanol programs that...

In this episode of Farm to Table Talk, Rodger interviewed Jeremy and Stacey Hill about their homesteading practices and food preservation techniques. The Hills, who operate Gooseberry Bridge Farm in Missouri, shared their journey from suburban gardening to homesteading a 12-acre farm with dairy cows, goats, pigs, and an extensive vegetable garden. They discussed their use of freeze-drying as a mod...

The United States Supreme Court by a vote of 6 to 3 has struck down President Trump’s tariffs, to the relief of most farmers who have experienced severe financial losses and rising costs of farm inputs. T he 2025 tariffs, imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IIEPA) covered nearly all trading partners , but China faced rates exceeding 100 percent. In response, Beijing esca...

The future of agriculture will utilize the development and application of robotic technology.  Jaisimha Rao explains a robotic machine that uses AI and cameras to distinguish between crops and weeds, then sprays herbicides specifically on weeds. There is potential of humanoid robots in agricultureJ. Their AI system identifies weeds using visual recognition, contrasting it with text-based AI models...

At a time when America’s meat industry faces increasing consolidation, fragile supply chains, and the closure of rural processing facilities, Better For Butchery’s acquisition of the Princeton Kentucky plant represents a rare, forward-looking investment in independent meat infrastructure. Backed by USDA Rural Development financing, the facility will serve as a scalable, high -integrity co-packing...

2030 will be here before you know it with a new world for food. . Ozan Ozaskinli is a Food Futurist and manufacturing strategist who’s asking questions about the future of what we eat and how we’ll produce it. He’s led transformation projects across 17 industries, spent 20+ years at firms like BCG, and now runs Value Gene , where he helps U.S. manufacturers modernize before tech...

For the first time in 30 years America’s top Agriculture state, California, finally has a member on the Agriculture Committee of the US Senate, Senator Adam Schiff. Speaking to over a thousand farmers at Eco Farm, Senator Schiff called on farmers and consumers to engage and to make their voices heard. Senator Schiff spoke with Farm To Table Talk and addressd over 1,000 farmers at Eco Farm.

There is something good about local farms supporting schools, distributingCSA (Community Supported Agriculture), hosting a market at the farm and selling organic produce at area Farmers Markets. A farming program that delivers goodness in all these ways is aptly named Something Good Organics. Carolyn Givens shares why they do what they do and why the school and local community they supply are glad...

Each year, about 32% of the food produced across the world is lost or wasted. Tackling food loss and waste has been on the global agenda for decades, with policymakers citing it as a contributing factor to issues like food insecurity and environmental degradation. Despite this attention, food loss and waste remain a challenge across the world. A new book from researchers at the Tata-Cornell Instit...

Farmers across America are beginning to worry that 2026 is bringing a Farm Crisis comparable to the early 1980’s when Willie Nelson launched Farm Aid to draw attention and support to the plight of farmers.  Ray Yeung has been farming for over 40 years in northern California and although recently experiencing really good yields, he sees farming costs exceeding returns and that is simply unsus...

While nutrition science knows about 150 well-documented nutrients, there are approximately 135,000 additional molecules in foods that have health impacts but are not tracked in nutritional databases. Laszlow Barabasi, a physicist and network medicine researcher at Northeastern University and Harvard Medical School, explains how these compounds work in the body, noting that many have therapeutic ef...

Rebuilding our regenerative supply chain is a priority focus of Eco Farm, where a panel of women lead the way in sharing what they’re doing to make a difference. Led by “Reaping What She Sows” author Nancy Matsumoto, the keynote EcoFarm panel reveals how transparency and equity in the food system must progress. Nancy Matsumoto’s book and the Eco Farm panel fights for a heal...

Farmers are supoosed to share $12 billion dollars to make up for lost markets, higher costs and lower prices due to President’ Trump’s global trade war. The Wall Street Journal editorial said President Trump said he was “delighted to give American Farmers $12 Billion” in economic Assistance. The President of the the American Soybean Assoiation told CNN  that this was just &...