The Millennial Ag Podcast

This week, our guest found us. A high school friend of Katharine’s, Emily Miller took advantage of all the opportunities 4-H and FFA afforded her growing up, including showing animals. Over the last several years, her food and eating perspective has shifted dramatically. Please welcome Millenial Ag’s first vegan guest! You may be thinking that we’re going to get loud and argue over whose science i...

Did you know methane is actually an odorless gas? Neither did we, until we sat down with this week's guest, Dr. Sara Place. An expert in cattle sustainability, Dr. Place discussed the Burger King ad that was released last week much to the chagrin of many in the agriculture industry. She highlights the tradeoff of being "cute" versus accurate in much of the marketing around food today, and really d...

This week, we continue the conversation we started in Episode 044 - Colorado Eggs Go Cage Free. We heard how this issue was approached from the perspective of egg producers, and this week, we wanted to discuss it through the lens of other sectors in animal agriculture. We talk about how activism is affecting animal agriculture and the way we do business, and more importantly, our concerns about sp...

This week, we're talking about the most recent development in Colorado agriculture policy. On July 6, 2020, Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed into law a mandate that eggs produced in the state come from chickens housed in cage-free environments. At first blush, it's easy to see how this could cause an uproar in production animal agriculture. We're joined by guest David Collie, who is the Indust...

Whew! It's been a tough few weeks as far as topics go. Thank you for sticking with us through not only mental health (which we thought was a tough subject but didn't even begin to touch on what June had in store for us!) This week, we take a bit of a breather. We reflect on those hard topics, share your feedback and comments, and look ahead to what's next in ensuring that no topic is off limits fo...

This week, we're joined by guest Sarah Mock, a freelance agriculture journalist with some serious opinions and thoughts about how agriculture in America operates. We start out discussing her recent article about exploitation in ag. If that doesn't grab your attention, the rest of the conversation surely will. Tune in for conversation that will definitely ruffle feathers, but needs to be voiced. Yo...

Heard of Project Counterglow? You may not have yet….it was only published 3 weeks ago. We’re here to tell you everything you need to know about this dangerous scheme. Animal rights activists have taken their agenda one step further, and identified over 30,000 animal enterprise businesses (farms, poultry houses, dairies, feedlots, zoos, etc) in the United States and put those locations on a public...

Welcome to Episode 40. What better way to celebrate this milestone than talking about one of the hardest topics out there? Unless you've been living under a rock, you know about the civil unrest taking place in our country right now. Racism has risen to the forefront of the national consciousness and can no longer be ignored. We're white. We're privileged. And we're only just now starting to under...

This week we’re joined by two millennial ag traders to discuss the wild swings in agricultural markets. Cole Lickley lends his expertise on the livestock and dairy markets, while Justin Chapman discusses grain and oilseed markets. We get into where the year started on a high, to the impacts COVID wrought throughout March, April, and May and what we think is looking like a potential recovery at lea...

This has been a big month for us, for you...we brought you our first series and we couldn't be more excited about how it turned out. We shared our own whys, we brought on a farmer who shared her own struggles, and we spoke with an incredible mental health professional who helped us bust down myths and stigmas and taught us that it's compassion and grace that matter the most. This week we say thank...

This week, we were honored to be joined by Dr. Nora Feldpausch, a board certified psychiatrist, mom, and dairywoman. Nora has many years of experience helping people through their mental health journeys. She lays out what mental illness really is and maybe more importantly, what it isn’t. She shares how we can help ourselves and each other (hint: grace), how compassion for self and others is the k...

This week, in the second episode of our series on mental health, we're joined by a Montana farmer who's walking the mental health path. Michelle Erickson Jones, a fourth generation farmer farming multiple crops and maintaining a cow/calf operation with her husband, has real world experience with anxiety and depression. She talks with Millennial Ag about her experience, how she realized she needed...

With all the upheaval happening in the beef industry right now, Millennial Ag is excited to bring you our first bonus episode. Cevin Jones and Jared Brackett, both cattlemen with decades of experience from Idaho, join us to discuss the so-called "shortages" in the beef supply chain, why the process has bottle-necked during the pandemic, and what this situation means for consumers. They also shed l...

In this first episode on our May Mental Health Month Series, Katharine and Valene get real and raw. Both having dealt with various mental health issues, and the stigmas that surround them, the ladies of Millennial Ag bring you this series not just because May is Mental Health Month, but because they truly believe this is one of the issues in agriculture that just gets glossed over. They share part...

It is a consensus that Mental Health is one of the most unacknowledged issue in agriculture. May is Mental Health Awareness Month and Millennial Ag is bringing you our very first series. We dive into why we care, how we can help, how we can break the stigma, and provide resources to anyone that may need them. We are real, we are raw, we are Millennial Ag.

This week Millennial Ag is joined by JW Wood, a feedyard manager in Idaho. Animal Protein has been in the news this week, with Tyson's CEO taking out full page ads in metropolitan newspapers warning of a protein shortage coming to America. we get the straight story from JW, some background on what's happening in the supply chain and reassurance that America's farmers and ranchers are still produci...

This week, Millennial Ag heads into unfamiliar territory. Yes, we're still talking about the coronavirus, but we're joined by two very special guests in unique situations. Derek Orsenigo and Brittany H. Lee join us from Florida to discuss their perspectives from specialty crop vantage points. Brittany gives us the lowdown on the Florida blueberry situation, while Derek shares how his leafy green,...

This week, we are joined by an incredible guest with some awesome insights into current consumer buying behavior. Janette Barnard has a deep background in the animal protein and agriculture supply chain arenas. We discuss why consumers are opting for more traditional protein sources, and leaving plant-based alternatives on the shelves. Janette takes us down a path of talking about how the agricult...

Coronavirus continues to wreak havoc on American health and the economy, and agriculture unfortunately is no exception. Among the hardest hit are our nation’s dairy farmers. While store shelves and food banks sit empty of nature’s most nearly perfect food, dairy producers across the country are literally dumping milk down the drain. This week, we’re joined by two dairy-derived Millennials. Hank an...

Shoving aside doom and gloom, this week Katharine and Valene focus on hope. They dig deep, talking about hope in the time of coronavirus as well as discussing hope they see in their own agricultural sectors. They showcase some new ways of marketing they’ve encountered during the pandemic, and highlight areas of hope they see across the entire agricultural industry. Agriculture is no stranger to to...

This week, we reflect. The coronavirus pandemic has demanded we slow down, and with that decreased pace comes time to consider what really matters. Katharine and Valene share how the first quarter has changed constantly for them since they first shared their New Years goals with you. They talk about how they have and are adapting, both to shifting goals and workplace needs and demands. They share...

Coronavirus. Surprised? Yeah, us neither. But we thought we'd put our own Millennial Ag spin on it. This week, we bring in a millennial guest, Mr. Patrick Linnell. Patrick is an analyst for Cattlefax, and keeps a close eye on agriculture markets, interpreting trends and dissecting the numbers to help us understand what the heck is going on. We engage in lively conversation, trying to understand ho...

Let's talk about CAFOs. Confined Animal Feeding Operations. Yep, we're going there. It seems like they're always in the news, and even in the western U.S., activity against larger animal ag operations seems to be gaining ground. Why? Valene and Katharine dig into this issue this week. We talk about some of the legislation being brought against animal agriculture, why this might be happening, and h...

This week, Katharine and Valene travel further along in the discussion they started in the last episode. After asking if civility even exists anymore, and reflecting on some political experiences they shared, the conversation naturally turned to how agriculture is used and abused in American politics. It’s a presidential election year here in the States, and rather unusually, agriculture has turne...

This week started off with President's Day, and we figured what better time to bring up politics than when we're supposed to be honoring our Founding Fathers. We both had experiences last week that left us wondering why compromise has become such a dirty word, both in society and within agriculture. Is civility dead? It seems that we no longer have the ability to discuss controversial and divisive...