Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

Doctor and professor of public health Wendy Johnson saw in her medical practice people who thrived against all odds, and those who suffered grave challenges due to environmental factors like toxicity, poverty, stress, loneliness, and isolation. Her new book, Kinship Medicine , explores the reality that 80% of our health is determined by factors outside of us—which are largely ignored by our indust...

Orion Kriegman and his friends started clearing a trashed vacant lot in Boston to create green space and grow food. City hall was not on their side at first, but with persistence and community effort they were able to secure that lot as permanent green space—and so The Boston Food Forest Coalition was born. A dozen more urban lots were acquired and put into Community Land Trust by the coalition, b...

Montana rancher Amber Smith didn't grow up in agriculture, but ranching became her life's work. As a young adult Kristen Kipp left the family ranch in the Blackfeet but felt a deep longing to go back to her home and the work of raising livestock. Amber is the executive director of Women in Ranching , which was first a part of the Western Landowners Alliance and then later became an independent non...

Montana rancher Amber Smith didn't grow up in agriculture, but ranching became her life's work. As a young adult Kristen Kipp left the family ranch in the Blackfeet but felt a deep longing to go back to her home and the work of raising livestock. Amber is the executive director of Women in Ranching , which was first a part of the Western Landowners Alliance and then later became an independent non...

The Transition Movement is a worldwide network of people working locally to move away from fossil fuel-base infrastructure toward locally-based systems. Projects include community-owned renewable energy utilities, local food security projects and farmers markets, local currencies, conversions of lawns into edible landscapes, waste reduction, ecosystem restoration, social entrepreneurship—all thing...

Eileen Napier and Stan Hayes of Ramstead Ranch teamed up around their common interests in organic gardening, permaculture, and healthy living. They started on two acres and sold eggs on the honor system, and then the project grew––they bought ranch land in the Pend Oreille Valley, in the northeastern corner of Washington State and soon expanded to 240 acres. Brining in business skills from their o...

Paul Rice started out as an anti-capitalist labor organizer, working with coffee farmers in Nicaragua in the 1980s. Over time he saw that what growers needed most was a fair price for their product––and so began his work as a Fair Trade advocate. He returned to the US to study business, and founded Fair Trade USA , where he was CEO for 26 years. Winner of many awards for social and ethical innovat...

Since the new administration took office, programs benefitting farmers have been slashed, frozen, paused, and canceled––and the effect is leaving agrarians in a tough position. Carolina Mueller , Associate Coalition Director of the National Young Farmers Coalition , and Leah Ricci , Interim Executive Director of Quivira Coalition join us on today's podcast to talk about what they're hearing from f...

Minni Jain and Philip Franses  are co-founders of The Flow Partnership , and they are co-authors of the new book, The Language of Water: Ancient Techniques and Community Stories for a Water Secure Future . In this podcast they explore the process of helping communities around the world to restore streams and rivers, prevent flooding, and recover local water wisdom. For decades they have been worki...

Bill Zeedyk restores landscapes—streams, wetlands, even rural roads—by using simple, low-tech tools and letting nature do most of the work. The result is healthy, lush desert ecosystems. Filmmaker Renea Roberts' recently released a five-part documentary series about his work,  Thinking Like Water .

Since the 1930s,  Ducks Unlimited has been protecting habitat for ducks and other migrating waterfowl, and has conserved over 18 million acres of wetlands and bird habitat in North America and beyond. Founded by hunters, the organization originally focused on duck breeding habitat in Canadian prairie lands. Over the decades their conservation work expanded to including the US, Mexico, and other pa...

Adam Mason is Senior Manager of Farm Animal Welfare and Environmental Policy at the ASPCA , the American Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In our conversation he talks about their multi-pronged approach to getting animals out of buildings and into cruelty-free lives in which they can express their natural instincts and behaviors. Farmers who make the transition from industrial/conve...

Entomologist, agroecologist, farmer, rancher, and beekeeper Dr. Jonathan Lundgren was a scientist with USDA Agricultural Research Service for 11 years. He left to undertake regenerative agriculture science studies that embraced a larger paradigm, looking at the interconnection of all the living beings on the farm and in the community, from the soil microbiome to the insects to the plants and anima...

Virtual fencing is a new technology that employs GPS collars to keep animals in "virtual" pastures—so instead of using physical fences, the fence lines are drawn on a computer screen, and the collars direct the animals' movements through sound cues and mild electrical stimulation. This saves ranchers on labor and materials, allows more adaptive and flexible pasture management, and allows free rang...

  Don Boyd   spent a year on the   Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge   in central New Mexico, photographing, living, and finding a deep connection to land, water, and animals—including the many migrating birds that live part-time in this magical desert wetland on the Rio Grande. Boyd connected with   David   and   Hui-Chun Johnson , and together they are working with a small team to resto...

Artist and science educator Robert Dash creates art from micro- and macroscopic photographs of food crops. His new  book,   Food Planet Future: The Art of Turning Food and Climate Perils into Possibilities , explores both the science of our food system and the role of art in finding a more healthy and loving way forward.

Hayley and Stephanie Painter  grew up on a fourth-generation dairy farm in northern Pennsylvania, and while it was an idyllic childhood, the instability of milk prices continually threatened their family's livelihood. The sisters took it upon themselves to save the farm by creating a yogurt brand, Painterland Sisters , and in the space of two years have gotten their product into stores in all 50 s...

André Leu is co-founder and  International Director of Regeneration International , an organization that promotes food, farming, and land use systems that regenerate and stabilize climate systems. He's author of the books, Myths of Safe Pesticides and Poisoning our Children, and is co-author with Dr. Vandana Shiva of Biodiversity, Agroecology, and Regenerative Agriculture.  He has a Doctorate of S...

Environmental historian Sara Dant 's book Losing Eden traces the history of the American West from the time of elephants and camels to the near destruction of entire ecosystems—and the movement to bring nature and industry into balance. 

Gwen Cameron grew up on Rancho Durazno , her family's peach farm. She was pursuing a career in journalism when her father asked her if she wanted to come back and take over the farm. She agreed and never looked back; now she's running a farm that uses regenerative principles to keep the land healthy for their 40 acres of peaches, cherries, apricots, plums, and melons. Her Mexican field workers com...

P. Wade Ross 's great grandfather was a runaway slave who bought land in Texas. His descendants founded Texas Small Farmers and Ranchers Community Based Organization , a non-profit that helps Black farmers and ranchers to succeed in regenerative agriculture in the face the barriers of structural racism, trauma, imposter syndrome, and the many challenges that all farmers face. Founded by Ross's par...

Women have been invisible in agriculture for too long: not counted in the census, not taken seriously for their work and management achievements, excluded from access to capital and credit––and even farm equipment is not made for their bodies. We talk to Jules Salinas of  Women Food and Agriculture Network , which is addressing these issues in ways ranging from political action to storytelling.  

Doug Fine was an international journalist before he moved to New Mexico to start a polyculture farm and embrace a rural way of life. He's the author of six books, including four on hemp and cannabis, and his film American Hemp Farmer won Best New Mexico Documentary Feature at the 2024 Santa Fe Film Festival. He's a vociferous advocate for hemp as a source of nutrition, healing, clothing and indust...

Sarah Wentzel-Fisher  is executive director of Quivira Coalition. A native of South Dakota, she came to her work in agriculture and leadership via a circuitous path that included the creative arts, writing, community and regional planning, collective problem-solving. In this podcast we discuss everything from the purpose of scientific inquiry in regenerative agriculture, to Quivira's history and c...

Phoebe Suina grew up on Cochiti and San Felipe Pueblos in New Mexico, where she learned about land, water, and cultural values and practices from her extended family and community. With advanced degrees in engineering and management from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College, she returned to New Mexico to found High Water Mark , a Native American, woman-owned project management and...