Ag Emerge Podcast

Frank Lessiter, Founder Lessiter Media and Editor of No-Till Farmer, interviews Monte for the No-Till Farmer Influencers and Innovations Podcast. Frank and Monte discuss soil health, no-till and the regenerative agriculture movement and much more. Frank is the son of a fifth-generation Michigan dairy farm father and ag engineer and whose mother, a high school English teacher, influenced his love o...

Eric Fuchs is a consultant for Understanding Ag. He lives in Southeast Missouri on a diversified livestock operation where they raise hair sheep and contract graze cattle. He’s been using Holistic Planned Grazing for over eight years and has had a managed grazing system on his operation for more than 20 years. In addition to that, Eric also works in the water and wastewater industry as a source wa...

Garth Mulkey and his wife, Susan, are fourth-generation seed farmers in the Willamette Valley of Western Oregon and have been growing, conditioning, and marketing seeds at the same location since 1966. As dedicated seed producers, they are always focused on seed purity and quality, combined with proven genetics. GS3 Quality Seed Inc. is owned by Garth and Susan Mulkey. They are fourth-generation s...

Tom Willey, along with his wife Denesse, operated T&D Willey Farms from 1981 until 2016, a 75-acre Certified Organic farm in Madera, California, growing a wide array of Mediterranean vegetables year-round. Tom says, “we've got to figure out how to live on agriculture without destroying the natural systems that support its productivity.” He says organic is all about living biology and the diversity...

This episode is meant to whet your appetite by revisiting some of the great guests we’ve had to understand how they shifted their health and farming paradigms, how they’ve come to the conclusion that adopting these changes were and are necessary in our food and farming production systems. Watch full episode here: https://youtu.be/ysv8Zx8b2BI We’ve picked out some great highlights, with Dr. Dwayne...

Erin Meyer is the Founder and President of Basil's Harvest (BH), a nonprofit sharing the message that soil health impacts human health by bringing people together in agriculture, health, and food systems to grow regional systems that are good for people and the planet. She is also a Clinical Associate at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, Peoria, IL, where she enjoys training resident...

Anthony Corsaro is an entrepreneur, investor, and regenerative agriculture evangelist whose mission is to help heal our people and planet through ventures that inspire the production and consumption of healthy, nutrient-dense foods. This is a powerful conversation including Anthony’s personal intense health journey and how he walks the walk when it comes to food as medicine. Anthony is the Founder...

Dr. Christian Krupke is a professor in the Deptartment of Entomology at Purdue University where he focuses on insect pest management in field crops. His research has concentrated on illuminating the strengths and weaknesses of the primary pest management approaches used in corn and soybeans. And he has a special focus on Bt corn and neonicotinoid seed treatments. Dr. Krupke and Monte discuss the r...

Dr. Kelsey Griesheim is Assistant Professor of Soil Fertility at North Dakota State University. She completed her PhD at the University of Illinois, where she worked under Dr. Richard Mulvaney conducting field evaluations to measure fertilizer uptake efficiency of various application types. Monte and Dr. Griesheim take a deep dive into her studies of nitrogen. She gives us a lot to think about lik...

Dr. Jack Schultz is a Research Professor in the Department of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Houston. His research has focused on the chemical and molecular interactions between plants and insect herbivores. And those relationships are what Monte and Dr. Schultz explore as they discuss the amazing communications being discovered between plants and insects. Dr. Schultz’s studies inte...

Jimmy Emmons is the SR Vice President of Trust In Food and leads their Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities Connected Ag Project, America’s Conservation Ag Movement and Trust In Beef, coalition-driven conservation programs developed to accelerate the adoption of conservation agriculture at scale. Monte and Jimmy discuss what the successful implementation of these practices looks like and how...

Dr. Dianna Bagnall is a Research Soil Scientist for the Soil Health Institute. Her current work includes integrating research and outreach to secure the global soil resource. Some of her specific research includes developing functions that show the effect of management on soil physical properties, on-farm soil health assessments, qualitative analysis of farmer interviews, and outreach to farmers i...

Jay Brandt is a fourth-generation farmer in Ohio, who, along with his family, is passionate about soil health and producing nutritious grains. The Brandt family is on a mission to share how they’ve diversified their income by growing, milling, and selling heirloom grains directly to consumers. Listen in as we talk with Jay about his family's farm and how they're building a more sustainable and pro...

Episode 124 is a medley of guests who explore the human health and soil health connection. We’ve picked out some great highlights, with Seth Watkins, a farmer and inaugural Iowa Leopold Conservation Award recipient in 2022. Anthony Corsaro, the Founder and Managing Director at Outlaw Ventures working on building a better food system for tomorrow. Dr. Stefan van Vliet a human physiologist studying...

Doniga Markegard is a wildlife tracker, regenerative rancher, speaker, and author. Doniga discusses the methods her family uses to graze their animals, how they observe and interact with nature, to lead towards a more biodiverse and balanced ecosystem and they are seeing incredible results. Along with her husband and four children, Doniga owns and operates Markegard Family Grass-Fed raising grass-...

At the end of 2023, we took the AgEmerge Podcast on the road to the Big Soil Health Event in Cedar Falls, Iowa. It was a great event where hundreds of farmers and ranchers from all over the country gathered to learn, share, and encourage each other to continue to adopt soil health strategies. We asked attendees to join us in our “on the road" studio to share their soil health journey and I want to...

Dr. Jason Rowntree is a professor of Animal Science at Michigan State University where he holds the Charles Stewart Mott Distinguished Professorship for Sustainable Agriculture. Rowntree’s research focuses on identifying the metrics and management that reflect ecological improvement in grazing land and other agricultural systems. Dr. Jason Rowntree discusses research that focuses on identifying th...

Dr. Reicosky is a retired Soil Scientist for the USDA-ARS, North Central Soil Conservation Research Laboratory, Morris, MN, and Adjunct Professor in the Soil Science Department, University of Minnesota, St. Paul. He has an exciting discussion with Monte about the foundational research he conducted back in the late 1990’s finding that tillage releases carbon into the atmosphere in sudden rushes of...

Dr. Jonathan Lundgren is Founder and Director of the Ecdysis Foundation and Director and CEO of Blue Dasher Farm. Watching the work that he and his whole team are doing at Ecdysis and Blue Dasher Farm inspires us to continue to learn and understand the biodiversity necessary to nurture our land. In this episode of the podcast Jonathan says, “you know those entomology problems, those insect pest pr...

Dr. Steven Chen is the Chief Medical Officer of Alameda County Recipe4Health, an award-winning “food as medicine” model that intentionally brings together health care, food systems, and agriculture to improve food/nutrition insecurity, chronic conditions, and health/racial equity, while leading the scale and spread of Recipe4Health (R4H). Dr. Chen and his team successfully implemented one of Calif...

Kevin is the CEO of Biotalys an AgTech company developing protein-based biocontrol solutions for crop and food protection. Listen in as he and Monte discuss these exciting advancements in science and the technology. From growing up on a farm in Manitoba, Canada, to a 30-year career committed to supporting the agriculture industry and its most innovative advancements, Kevin is passionate about the...

Pamela Tanner Boll is an artist, filmmaker, writer as well as the Director and Executive Producer of several films including To Which We Belong. She is the Founder and CEO of Mystic Artists Film Productions. We’re excited to explore her vision as she worked to, in her words, “shine a light on the amazing possibilities for restoring our lands. And how we could fix our water problems and our climate...

Chris Jones is a retired research engineer from the University of Iowa and author of The Swine Republic, Struggles with Truth About Agriculture and Water Quality. He and Monte discuss the agricultural efficiencies and practices that we can make happen in more environmentally responsible ways. That includes a system approach to our entire management practices. Chris talks about how we can work to d...

Jeanne Carver is the Founder and President of Shaniko Wool. Her story is one of successful adaptation to changing market needs. Jeanne and her late husband Dan have been using sustainable and regenerative practices for decades. Jeanne said Dan was an engineer and a systems thinker which is key to how they understood the land, soil and their operation. From her family’s Imperial Stock Ranch, she an...

Brad Rosen is the COO and Co-Founder of NODAR, a leading provider of next generation of stereo vision technology. Technology developments in agriculture continue to create effective ways for automation and sensing providing farmers with useful information and working to improve operation efficiency. Brad and Monte discuss the power of the type of sensing technology NODAR has developed. Watch episo...