Dirt Road Discussions

Send us Fan Mail Leslie Edgar grew up in a large family Kuna, Idaho, where her parents emphasized the importance of hard work and education. Back then, she probably never knew that her life would take her to multiple states only to return as the J.R. Simplot Endowed Dean of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Idaho. What a journey. In this podcast, Dean Edgar breaks...

Send us Fan Mail While most farmers are trying to get their crop out of the ground by October 15th, Geoffrey and Jana Yockey are working to get their garlic seed in the ground before winter hits. The funny part is that they hope its a frigid winter with lots of snow covering their precious crop. Years ago, the Yockeys returned to Jana’s hometown from Florida to continue her family's five-gene...

Send us Fan Mail She was a girl who grew up singing at church in her Amish community. He was a boy that grew up in Texas listening to Metallica. A chance encounter at a Nashville event would create the country duo sensation of Lance and Lea. In this podcast, Lance and Lea talk about what it is like to be on the road, mapping out performance dates across the country, and writing music along the way...

Send us Fan Mail Should land be used for farming or houses? Maybe the better question is, how do we plan for the future so people can still build neighborhoods and businesses without taking up all the farmland that grows our food? Keri Smith's thought she wanted to be a graphic designer until she answered a job in the local newspaper looking for an entry-level position taking notes for the la...

Send us Fan Mail Adam Ratliff, known as the Armchair Engineer, knows that when the topic of dams in the Pacific Northwest comes up, people start talking. Whether it is the topic of salmon recovery and breaching or the need for hydroelectric power and agriculture, Adam has studied how both good information and misinformation have spread, making it hard for many to understand. Adam discusses a host...

Send us Fan Mail Three years ago, Ashlie Sutton's family was frantically working to get potatoes out of the ground before a potential frost killed the crop. From the spud truck, she started posting on social media about the plight of farmers in her valley. It captured the attention of people all over the country, which led her to launch a personal campaign to thank farmers. If that wasn'...

Send us Fan Mail Blake Manley is most invigorated when he helps students realize that there is an entire world of high-paying jobs in the trades, specifically forestry. As the originator of Manley Jobs, Blake piloted an idea during COVID to produce YouTube videos that shine a light on occupations that are not commonly considered by high schoolers. It turned out to be a huge success, being used in...

Send us Fan Mail Nancy Riegler loves and lives with camels. She runs the Oasis Camel Dairy Farm in Ramona, California with her husband Gil. Her stories of meeting Gil, discovering camels, learning how to milk camels, and many other antics are told in this interview.  You won’t want to miss this hilarious episode that had us laughing from start to finish. 

Send us Fan Mail Mike Simpson noticed in the newspaper one day that only one person was running for two seats on the city council, so after talking to his wife, he decided to try politics for the first time. Unfortunately, a few others also noticed, and he had his first race. Turns out, he was elected to the city council by only 8 votes. Who knew that this young man would later become Idaho's...

Send us Fan Mail When J.R. Simplot met with Ray Kroc (McDonalds) and sold him on the idea of “consistent” frozen Idaho potatoes, the Simplot company was headed for big things. A second encounter with a guano (bat poop) salesman, led to an experiment that would inspire Simplot to build a large fertilizer business. And finally, Olympian Jackie Joyner-Kersee (Flo Jo) would help jump start the J.R. Si...

Send us Fan Mail Garrett Kleiner thinks more people should consider leaving traditional occupations in an office setting for a career in forestry. He loves being in nature and working with individuals to plan forest management.  What may surprise some is that many forestry jobs are in the private sector. Garrett, a consulting forester with Inland Forest Management, explains how forestry works toda...

Send us Fan Mail Raising cattle to produce quality beef is a process that gets better every decade. New research provides valuable knowledge, but the tricky part is getting this new information to our American ranchers, who are some of the busiest workers around. This is where Meranda Small comes in. As a Livestock Production Extension Educator with the University of Idaho, Meranda is constantly w...

Send us Fan Mail For many years, Idahoans have been working to solve the puzzle of increasing water storage to provide for farms and city municipalities and to recharge the aquifer. The goal is to have more water storage built up to use across Idaho's water corridors. Idaho's legislators recently passed Senate Joint Memorial 101 (SJM101) that asks federal agencies to study all options to...

Send us Fan Mail Sugar is such a critical commodity in this country that major steps are taken to protect its availability. Sugar works with other ingredients to provide taste, texture, and balanced acidity to the food we eat. However, sugar is commonly misunderstood, whether talking about its origin from sugar beet vs sugar cane, GMOs, or federal protections. Samantha Parrott (aka Sugarbeet Queen...

Send us Fan Mail The waiting list to buy miniature donkeys grew so fast at Simple Little Farm that Garrett & Ruth Nilsson finally decided to primarily sell to families who could visit their farms and get to know these amazing companion animals. Their story is funny, where a random call to check on getting information on a miniature donkey quickly became a question of whether they would be inte...

Send us Fan Mail Trent Van Leuven thought he might be an ag economist until a chance encounter with an ag educator and a 700-mile drive changed everything. Starting his career during the recession of 2009, Trent has seen the blessings and challenges of being an ag teacher in Mackay, Idaho, a town with under 1,000 residents. He shares how many students thrive when connected to technical skills earl...

Send us Fan Mail Paige Nelson didn't have the same class schedule as many of her fellow college journalism students. She came from preg-checking cows in her advanced beef reproduction class and smelled like manure, but she was determined to be an agriculture journalist.  In this podcast, Paige tells stories of how her upbringing has led to a life as a mom, rancher, and freelance agriculture w...

Send us Fan Mail Brody Harshbarger agrees that there is a place for apex predators like grizzlies and wolves, but from his experiences working with cattle and with Fish and Game, he shares that there is a growing need for common-sense management. He shares how public perception has often been detoured away from science and actual apex predator recovery numbers, influenced by emotion and marketing...

Send us Fan Mail Bryan and Mary Searle were just a young couple when they were invited to their first Farm Bureau meeting. Little did they know that they would stay for over 40 years.  In this podcast, Bryan Searle, who has served as president of the Idaho Farm Bureau for the past 10 years, takes us down memory lane by telling us six stories. He talks about the early years of being on the board, t...

Send us Fan Mail We all know someone who says they are technologically challenged, which may be a light-hearted comment until we realize how isolating it can feel in a world that requires skills with a smartphone or computer to pay basic bills, register kids for events, or video chat with family. High-speed or fiber optic internet opportunities can be late or non-existent in our country's rur...

Send us Fan Mail One day on a long flight over the Pacific Ocean, a fellow airline pilot asked Captain Bill Gross what he would do when he retired. Without hesitation, Bill answered, “I’m going to be this Good Samaritan that buys a tractor and goes around helping farm families plant their crops when they have a major injury or illness.” That generated some laughter until his coworker realized Bill...

Send us Fan Mail As a young girl, Kaala Clark was the daughter of a single mom who had acquired 3 acres of farmland in Hawaii. They lived in a camper trailer with no running water and no mirrors. However, when Kaala started finding photos of her mom with celebrities around the world, she began asking questions.  Recruited to be a young model, Kaala had to wait until the age of 17 to leave their sm...

Send us Fan Mail When ranching families decided to bring the cowboy experience to tourists in Jackson Hole, it became a dedicated lifetime adventure. It requires a love for people and a love for open Western living. Bar T 5 co-owner Chris Warburton shares how the whole thing started and how, after 2,500 shows, their passion and love of what they do are not slowing down anytime soon.

Send us Fan Mail Eugene Smith loved working at McDonald's as a young man. Being in the high-paced fray of fast food was thrilling, but what Eugene didn't know was that this passional would reemerge in 2008 when a cow broke his leg, farm prices started to tank, and he had to figure out what was next.  Eugene told his adult kids that he was going to move from Wisconsin to Idaho to expand C...

Send us Fan Mail Live Audience Recording! Nearly 70% of Americans eat beef at least once per week.  In this episode, Dr. Phil Bass, Associate Professor of Meat Science at the University of Idaho, talks about how lessons learned as early as 1906 have shaped meat safety measures in the United States.  He also shares how the American meat industry should embrace people who know little about meat prod...