Virtual fencing—new technology that benefits both ranching and land conservation
Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
Release Date: 11/12/2024
Riding Toward a Better Food System: A National Listening Journey
Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
Six college students are bicycling from Washington State to Washington, DC, stopping at farms, restaurants, truck stops, and classrooms along the way, and asking, "What is the future of food?" In this podcast we talk two of them, Augusta Halle and Molly Moore. Their plans are to make a portrait series and short documentary based on what they find.
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Agriculture as if people mattered : A values-based perspective on the food system
Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
Anthropologist Andrew Flachs's new book explores the food system through the lens of values like soil health, human health, biodiversity, and rural communities—not just profits and yields. In his new book, Feeding the World as if People Mattered: How Small Farms Produce Value Beyond Yields, he shows how we could, by expanding our accounting to include people and the biosphere, have a thriving food system that actually benefits life itself.
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Saving the bees that feed us: Cultivating pollinator-friendly agriculture
Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
Bees live at the foundation of our food system—but they are imperiled by industrial agriculture. Sarah Red-Laird is helping to revive farm and ranch lands by cultivating healthy and diverse bee habitats. She teaches bee-friendly practices, including cover-cropping, no-till, and reduction of chemical use, which help farmers and ranchers to cultivate both abundant pollinators and healthy soil. Her work includes data collection, storytelling, teaching, doing bee-retreats (beetreats), and nature-based art.
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Return to the savanna: How grazing restores the land and reawakens our human roots
Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
Nate Chisholm is in a lifelong exploration of the savanna ecosystem—the landscape in which the first human societies evolved, and some of the most biodiverse places on the planet. Savannas are where we learned to hunt and gather. Ironically, as human beings developed technology, starting with stone tools, we altered these landscapes by over-hunting large animals, leading to degradation of the land and eventually the loss of most of the savannas themselves. According to Chisholm, the degradation of land through technology is the root of all our modern problems—but we can return to...
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Knowing When to Shut Down the Farm
Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
Mary-Charlotte has bronchitis, so this week we will be joined by Kristina Britt, the new podcast host of Regeneration Rising, as she interviews Taylor Muglia, the former host and previous New Agrarian Program manager. (Regeneration Rising is the other Quivira Coalition podcast; you can find it , or wherever you get your podcasts.) In this heartfelt episode, Taylor shares her unique journey into regenerative agriculture, her experiences running and eventually closing a small farm, and the emotional struggles and triumphs along the way. While we talk a lot about how to get started in...
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Chasing Cheese: One man's trek to learn from pastoral producers across the planet
Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
Trevor Warmedahl's new book, Cheese Trekking: How Microbes, Landscapes, Livestock, and Human Cultures Shape Terroir, documents natural cheesemaking practices in traditional communities. Warmedahl is a cheesemaker, educator, and founder of the , where he teaches natural methods of milk fermentation suitable for the home, farm, restaurant, or commercial operation. The book recounts his travels to Mongolia, India, Norway, Italy, Austria, Slovenia, Georgia, and Spain, where he met cheesemakers using practices that go back generations and result in cheeses with flavor and "terroir" far...
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ReciproCity — Caring for urban land and water
Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
Steve Glass is board chair of , which is hosting the annual : March 4-6 of this year at the at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center Albuquerque, New Mexico. This year's theme is "Reciprocity with Nature," and it's all about turning even the most arid cities into oases of stewardship where every drop that falls from the sky is used for to nourish the soil, wildlife, and people.
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Growing food year-round—in any climate
Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
Charlie Shultz is back on Down to Earth to update us on the thriving greenhouse programs in Santa Fe—and the explosion of interest around the world. He teaches aquaponics and hydroponics at Santa Fe Community College, and is helping people around the world not only to learn to do indoor agriculture, but also to run successful businesses.
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Renewing farms with renewable energy
Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
Joe Heinrich comes from a multi-generation Iowa farming family. As executive director of the non-profit , he's helping farmers to navigate the new world of renewable energy. Solar and wind developers are looking for land, which farmers have; farmers are looking for extra income steams, which energy can provide. But what happens to land with utility-scale energy installations? Some farmers are making sure that the panels are high enough off the ground that cattle can graze under them—and take advantage of the shade they provide. Others are grazing sheep under the panels, providing landscaping...
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Putting soil science to work
Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
started out wanting to be a veterinarian, but then discovered soil science and was so taken by it that she got a PhD, and has devoted her career to serving farmers, ranchers, and rural communities. A practitioner and promoter of regenerative agriculture, she has worked with Conservation Districts, non-profit orgs, Extension, and her own small business, , a company that provides compost statewide. She uses science as a tool to solve on-the-ground problems, which range from crops and livestock issues to mental health, family dynamics, and food insecurity. She also guides hunting programs for...
info_outlineVirtual 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 range for wildlife.
The Nature Conservancy, whose mission is to tackle climate change by protecting land and water and fostering a healthy food system, is partnering with ranches across the US to help ranchers adopt virtual fencing systems. We talk to William Burnidge, deputy director of The Nature Conservancy’s Regenerative Grazing Lands strategy in North America, and Danna Camblin of Camblin Livestock, whose ranch has been successfully employing virtual fencing for the last few years.