An outdoor classroom for land stewardship—and life skills
Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
Quinn Mendelson is Conservation Program Director of , a nonprofit that trains young adults to do conservation work in the "outdoor classroom" of New Mexico's landscapes. Not only do they learn skills like trail building, watershed restoration, and wildfire mitigation, but they also receive training that helps them to get jobs—as well as less quantifiable but just as important life skills like getting along with each other, finding their own authentic voices, and being in nature for long periods. The program has been going for three decades, and has led many of its alumni into...
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The Good Meat Movement
Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
What is "good meat"? Michele Thorne has a lot to say on the subject. She is executive director of , a non-profit whose mission is to foster a healthy and humane meat system that centers local production instead of industrial monopolies that damage ecosystems and consolidate wealth. With the core value of transparency, they offer free services to butchers, ranchers, eaters, and chefs, and produce journals and that feature stories about people across the good meat universe. TIMELINE 3'51 what is good meat? 4'52 soil stewardship 5'12 the core value of transparency 5'55 the importance of consumer...
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Navajo farming and entrepreneurship––for the next generation
Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
Zachariah Ben is a sixth-generation farmer from Shiprock, New Mexico. He and his family founded Bidii Baby Foods. Using traditional Navajo food traditions, they provide healthy, nutritious, and locally-grown food to Navajo people, many of whom are living in food deserts. And, through entrepreneurship and traditional farming, they seek to heal generational trauma by fostering not only physical health but also spiritual connection to land and community––from surviving to thriving. 4'12 traditional Navajo farming principles 5'01 trauma healing 5'31 farming with the stars, singing, birth...
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Feeding a Divided America
Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
Gilles Stockton is author of the new book, Feeding a Divided America: Reflections of a Western Rancher in the Era of Climate Change, published by University of New Mexico Press. A third generation cattle rancher, he raises beef cattle and sheep on a 5000-acre ranch in Grass Range, Montana. He’s also an international agriculture development specialist and an advocate for ranching and farming communities. The new book imparts a lifetime of wisdom and analysis of what happened to our agriculture system, why, and how we can create a system that gives power back to the farmers who are...
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Feeding a Divided America
Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
Giles Stockton is author of the new book, Feeding a Divided America: Reflections of a Western Rancher in the Era of Climate Change, published by University of New Mexico Press. A third generation cattle rancher, he raises beef cattle and sheep on a 5000-acre ranch in Grass Range, Montana. He’s also an international agriculture development specialist and an advocate for ranching and farming communities. The new book imparts a lifetime of wisdom and analysis of what happened to our agriculture system, why, and how we can create a system that gives power back to the farmers who are...
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Preventing Catastrophic Flooding: The Secret is in the Soil
Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
Bryan Hummel is a big-time water nerd. Specializing in nature-based solutions to watershed and land management issues, he has brought his expertise to the US Environmental Protection Agency, the US Air Force, industry, and agriculture. The key to preventing flooding, he says, is to restore degraded land so that the soil becomes like a sponge, absorbing water and recharging subterranean aquifers––and in the process preventing flooding and contributing to the success of farming and ranching businesses, which thrive with abundant water resources. His techniques include beaver and bison...
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Thinking ecologically—about human health
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 industrialized medical system. What's missing is ecological thinking, and understanding ourselves as part of an environment—from our microbiome to our community, to our ecosystem.
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Cultivating community in urban food forests
Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
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 was born. A dozen more urban lots were acquired and put into Community Land Trust by the coalition, but the stewardship and management of each food forest belongs to the neighborhoods. These are spaces for food, community, shade, gardening, education, wildlife, kids, and more. With more food forests created every year, the...
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Women ranchers finding their power
Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
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 , which was first a part of the and then later became an independent non-profit, and Kristen is a board member. They talk about raising families on the ranch, about discrimination against women and Native people in agriculture, and about leadership that challenges the dominant model––and is often more effective...
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Women ranchers in their power
Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
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 , which was first a part of the and then later became an independent non-profit, and Kristen is a board member. They talk about raising families on the ranch, about discrimination against women and Native people in agriculture, and about leadership that challenges the dominant model––and is often more effective...
info_outlineGilles Stockton is author of the new book, Feeding a Divided America: Reflections of a Western Rancher in the Era of Climate Change, published by University of New Mexico Press. A third generation cattle rancher, he raises beef cattle and sheep on a 5000-acre ranch in Grass Range, Montana. He’s also an international agriculture development specialist and an advocate for ranching and farming communities. The new book imparts a lifetime of wisdom and analysis of what happened to our agriculture system, why, and how we can create a system that gives power back to the farmers who are actually growing our food.
3’01 the book is an extension of his op-ed pieces
4’24 multi-generation ranch background
6’30 raises cattle and sheep, as well as hay
7’14 how Western ranching improves the land
7’46 overgrazing damaged the land; it developed from the collapse of homesteading
9’47 ranching the only sustainable model of large scale agriculture in the US
10’48 the decline of his town early 20th century, and the decline of farms in general
11’57 overproduction led first to subsidies, then to the elimination of small farms
13’37 200,000 farms produce 80% of our food. The rest are trying to survive in an industrial agriculture economic model that doesn’t really want them
14’48 how megafarms came into being in the 1980s–the decision not to enforce antitrust laws, leading to monopolies/cartels
16’57 the problem of externalities
18’11 the difference between competitive capitalism (free enterprise where buyer and seller have equal power) and cartel capitalism–which is more like old-style communism
20’33 cartels can raise prices indiscriminately
21’14 not enough slaughterhouses–system is too centralized
21’52 agriculture has never had a golden age–it’s always been difficult
22’48 farmer gets 15.9¢ out of consumer dollar
23’22 the system steals from the farmer and farm labor
24’25 the “illusion of economies of scale”
24’45 smaller farmers are better farmers
25’20 the role of the farmer has been squeezed out in the name of “efficiency”…then there’s no advocate for the land and animals
26’24 what’s lost when you don’t have the farmer on the ground…the land, the workers, the animals
27’20 corporate boards instead of farmers are making decisions about things they know nothing about
28’23 why monocrops systems are so un-resilient, especially during climate instability
29’39 the problem of the super wealthy buying farm land–looks like colonialism
30’11 the wealthy neighbors don’t understand how their elk sanctuary affects their ranching neighbors
32’02 rural people hate environmentalists more than they hate the corporations that are ruining them
32’36 the sense that their vote doesn’t count
33’32 “they don’t ask our opinion”
35’16 policy for the last 50 years has been anti-rural. Rural voters vote red, but they don’t do anything for rural people. But blue doesn’t either.
36’15 climate change is making things existential
36’46 there’s a movement for anti-trust enforcement, which is encouraging
37’54 we need to decentralize in order to have a healthier food system — what that could look like
38’35 about 1/3 of food in France is sold locally, unlike the US where it’s more like 3%
39’16 the US imports more food than it exports. So much for “feed the world”
39’47 the need for auction markets for all food commodities (instead of contract work)
40’46 we don’t need new anti-trust laws, just enforcement of the existing ones
43’04 Citizens United decision of 2010 was a huge gain for the wealthy and corporate power
44’15 revitalizing rural communities = revitalizing democracy
45’05 the importance of being organized around an idea and staying with it
47’04 the local foods movement is extremely important. But it’s very libertarian in its politics, which means that they don’t deal with the globalized competition, they just do their own thing and stay a part of the 3% of local food
48’33 the Farm Bill isn’t so much a farm bill as an ag business bill. The orgs doing good work need to organize with each other more
49’42 what gives him hope
50’35 what happens after Gilles, what is the plan for the next generation