Best Quivira Coalition and Radio Cafe Podcasts (2023)

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Systems thinking: Coordinating after, during, and before disasters 1:01:15

31m ago1:01:15

1:01:15

Many federal, state, and local agencies, as well as non-profits and community groups, carry the responsibility of helping people and fixing infrastructure after a disaster, and some of them also work to try to prevent or mitigate disasters before they happen. But how to they coordinate with each other, and how do they really meet the needs on the g…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Technology-assisted regeneration 58:28

44m ago58:28

58:28

Industrial agriculture imposes a simplified production model onto complex ecosystems––with dire consequences. In the new book, The Great Regeneration: Ecological Agriculture, Open-Source Technology, and a Radical Vision of Hope, co-authors Dorn Cox and Courtney White explore the place where complex technologies and complex ecosystems meet. With tod…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Wolves in the West: Finding common ground 45:11

9d ago45:11

45:11

After being driven almost to extinction, wolves are back in some of their natural habitat. A new podcast, Working Wild University, explores how ranchers, conservationists, and others are coming together to find paths toward peaceful co-habitation. We talk to podcast co-host, Jared Beaver, about the presence of wolves on Western landscapes, and expl…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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De-commodifying land: Challenging your inner capitalist 54:41

24d ago54:41

54:41

The price of land keeps going up across the country as wealthy investors buy farmland and people move out of cities. This puts untenable pressure on farmers and land stewards who are producing healthy food and maintaining biodiversity, land health, and water cycles. But what can be done against the seemingly intractable laws of supply and demand? N…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Healing Grounds: The enduring cultures of regenerative agriculture 1:05:53

1M ago1:05:53

1:05:53

Liz Carlisle's new book, Healing Grounds: Climate, Justice, and the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming, is a fascinating exploration of food, agriculture, and cultural traditions of the North American, Mesoamerican, African, and Asian diasporas that have survived against all odds in the United States. Despite brutal social and political oppression,…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Innovative approaches to regeneration on a California ranch 50:52

2M ago50:52

50:52

TomKat Ranch manager Mark Biaggi talks about dealing with winter floods, summer droughts, and degraded landscapes––and the process of continual experimentation that leads to dramatic regeneration of damaged land.By Radio Cafe, Quivira Coalition

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Giant bison, mammoths, and eagles 1:50:54

3M ago1:50:54

1:50:54

66 million years ago an asteroid struck earth, causing the fifth mass extinction of species on earth. With the dinosaurs gone, new species proliferated all over the planet. Now we're in the sixth extinction––this time caused by people. But when did it start? And what happened on on this continent in particular? Dan Flores' new book, Wild New World:…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Sustainable development, climate mitigation, and biochar 53:25

4M ago53:25

53:25

Brando Crespi has devoted decades to sustainable development as co-founder and Executive Chair at Pro Natura International and Global Biochar. His holistic approach to sustainable development could be called regenerative––instead of telling poor and exploited people what they should do, it's about recognizing and cultivating local leadership, helpi…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Bringing dead land back to life 33:32

4M ago33:32

33:32

John D. Liu started his career as a journalist and cameraman, covering politics, economics, and culture. In 1995, he began documenting the Loess Plateau in China, a massive landscape that had been destroyed by poor agriculture practices over the course of centuries. He watched and filmed as the landscape––and the people––came back to vibrant life o…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Desert wisdom: sustaining Southwest agriculture using old ways––and new 50:53

4M ago50:53

50:53

Gary Paul Nabhan, known by many as the "father of the local food movement," is a prolific author, scientist, and activist for a healthy and truly regenerative food system that respects the land and its plants and animals; the people grow food, process, and serve the food and their communities; and to all the rest of us who eat and want our food to …

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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A vibrant pecan oasis in the desert 47:01

5M ago47:01

47:01

Coley Burgess grew up on a conventional farm, then studied mathematics and electrical engineering...and he brought his scientific rigor and curiosity to a 20-acre pecan farm that he and his family bought in southern New Mexico. The ground was bare and turned to mud––and then cracked, dry earth––after he irrigated. But a series of happy accidents, i…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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The food-housing nexus 51:10

6M ago51:10

51:10

Professor Phillip Warsaw's work is all about the interconnectedness of the systems that keep our lives going––food, housing, transportation, health care. In his research in Milwaukee he discovered that in Black and Latino neighborhoods housing was significantly more expensive if it was near grocery stores, but the same wasn't true in more affluent …

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Leveling the growing field 38:38

6M ago38:38

38:38

If you're a small or mid-size farmer, it's nearly impossible to compete against giant food conglomerates. But fairer policy could help smaller farms to prosper, provide healthy food and thriving communities, and keep more profits for food producers––rather than executives and stockholders. Sarah Carden is a policy advocate with Farm Action, a group…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Big Team Farms––a new economic model? 1:03:29

6M ago1:03:29

1:03:29

Both big ag and small family farms have their problems...but what's the alternative? We talk with agricultural journalist Sarah Mock about the some possible models.By Radio Cafe, Quivira Coalition

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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The USDA goes after a small sheep farm 35:03

7M ago35:03

35:03

Linda and Larry Faillace spent years at the University of Nottingham in England, where Linda became an expert in Mad Cow Disease (BSE). Upon return to the U.S., they imported sheep from Europe, with USDA approval, and began a cheese making business in Vermont, with their three children active participants in the enterprise. But a few years later, t…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Making your tax dollars work after fires and floods 37:31

7M ago37:31

37:31

Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM-3), a native of Las Vegas, NM, deeply understands the challenges and strengths of rural people in northern New Mexico. She's been working to bring money to those whose property and livelihoods have been damaged by the recent wildfires and floods, and to build resilience––heathy soil and water practices––to…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Place, Power, And Purpose 53:28

8M ago53:28

53:28

Bees date back over 10,000 years on the American continent and are vital to the health of almost every bite of food we eat, but today they face threats from industrialization and habitat fragmentation. Melanie Kirby is a decades-long beekeeper, a scientist, a member of Tortugas Pueblo, and extension educator for the land-grant program at the Instit…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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What's good for the farm is good for the planet 41:29

8M ago41:29

41:29

During Carol Ekarius's early years in Colorado, the Buffalo Creek Fire burned just under 12,000 acres — and at the time was considered a huge, catastrophic fire. Now fires in the west are consuming hundreds of thousands of acres, and doing inestimable damage to property, livelihoods, and ecosystems. A long-time farmer-rancher, Ekarius has been invo…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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What is Your Foodprint? 47:22

9M ago47:22

47:22

We all know the term carbon "footprint." Well, Foodprint takes this idea and broadens it to apply to our food system; they explore how the foods we eat affect not only carbon emissions, but a whole range of things, like livestock and wildlife, soils and water, communities and human health. Foodprint is a project of the GRACE Communications Foundati…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Kiss the Ground: A project born of devotion to the earth 54:26

9M ago54:26

54:26

Ryland Engelhart came from a family of vegans and vegetarians and knew early on that he wanted to devote his life to the health of the planet. Once he began to see that there is no food –– no life at all –– without the death of animals, he revised his perspective and at 35 ate his first hamburger. (It went well.) This perspective grew into a deeper…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Food, forests, and farms 52:18

10M ago52:18

52:18

Most of the American Midwest was once a vast savanna, an open grassland with abundant trees and wildlife. As the land was converted to agriculture many of the trees were lost, and with them went countless benefits to the landscape, to air and water, soil health, and wildlife. The practice of agroforestry allows farmers to return those benefits to t…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Western Wildfires 48:59

10M ago48:59

48:59

In New Mexico and across the West wildfires are burning through wildlands, farms, ranches, and communities. Lesli Allison, executive director of the Western Landowners Alliance, has many years of experience in prescribed burn management—and like many New Mexcians she's directly affected by the fires. She helps us to understand how we got to the vol…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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The path to positive food policy 48:17

11M ago48:17

48:17

Aria McLauchlan and Harley Cross, co-founders of Land Core, have been working for years on food and farming policy that promotes regenerative practices. In this podcast we talk about the Farm Bill––a trillion dollar piece of legislation which most people know little about, but which deeply affects all of our lives. It plays a huge role in how farmi…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Making the regenerative transition 1:01:38

12M ago1:01:38

1:01:38

Jessica Chiartas is a PhD soil bio-geochemist who's working to catalyze the transition from "conventional" to regenerative agriculture. She’s a postdoctoral researcher at the Innovation Institute for Food and Health at UC Davis and fellow with Food Shot Global, and is UC Davis partner for the California Farm Demonstration Network. She’s lead Soil S…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Restoring landscapes...with goats 36:19

12M ago36:19

36:19

Amanita Thorp Berto is owner of Horned Locust Remediation, and she uses a flock of goats and sheep to do landscaping projects. In gardens, parks, photovoltaic installations, and many other places, goats take the place of toxic herbicides and pesticides and of course machines like lawnmowers. They love to eat plants that cause allergies in people––e…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Rebuilding resilience on native land 26:48

12M ago26:48

26:48

In the late 1990s, members of Santa Ana Pueblo embarked on a long-term project to restore their land, which had been damaged over the last century by multiple forces, including overgrazing, hunting, logging, and habitat fragmentation. Glenn Tenorio is former governor of Santa Ana Pueblo; he currently works with the pueblos’s Department of Natural R…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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The Sequestration Solution: Soil 59:14

1y ago59:14

59:14

Karl Thidemann is co-founder of Soil4Climate, a non-profit that advocates for regenerative agriculture, with a focus on grazing and the restoration of grasslands. In this podcast he makes the case, supported by extensive scientific research, that the restoration of grasslands can provide a multi win-win––for the climate, biodiversity, soil health, …

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Restore the water cycle, revive the planet 42:12

1y ago42:12

42:12

Zach Weiss has seen land so degraded that even weeds couldn't grow...and helped transform it into healthy, living landscapes by changing the flow of water and letting nature do most of the work. Protégé of Austrian farmer Sepp Holzer, he works all over the world helping agrarians to restore natural flows on their land, increasing water for crops an…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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This earth to which we belong 36:59

1y ago36:59

36:59

The title of Pamela Tanner Boll's new film, To Which We Belong, comes from a quotation by the author Aldo Leopold, early 20th conservationist and environmentalist whose work has inspired generations of ecologists, agrarians, and nature lovers. Leopold wrote, "We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a c…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Science meets compost 45:42

1y ago45:42

45:42

Eva Stricker is director of the Carbon Ranch Initiative for the Quivira coalition and a Research Assistant Professor at the University of New Mexico Department of Biology. One of her projects is the scientific study of compost––with the goals of helping farmers and ranchers heal and improve their land, increase their profitability, and sequester ca…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Cultivating the People-Planet-Profit model on an urban farm 41:53

1+ y ago41:53

41:53

Matt Draper and Minor Morgan started North Valley Organics on two plots of land in Albuquerque, and have made a commitment to the People-Planet-Profit model for their business. Working with diversity and resilience as core principles, they want farm work to be something that not only produces healthy, nutrient-dense food, but also provides a long t…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Planetary regeneration on a community scale 57:01

1+ y ago57:01

57:01

About a decade ago Tijinder and Juliana Ciano took over Reunity Resources' land from a centenarian veteran, and they've continued to honor his mission of feeding the community. Their work includes vegetable farming and a farm stand and food truck, soil and compost programs, the founding of a biodiesel program, educational programs, food donations, …

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Growing pecans in the desert? 49:34

1+ y ago49:34

49:34

In today's podcast we look at the synergistic collaboration between a soil scientist and a pecan farmer. Southern New Mexico is not an ideal landscape for pecans, which grow best in warm, wet climates. But the industry is here, and Josh Bowman has determined to grow a healthy and abundant crop by focusing on the soil. Using cover crops and grazing …

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Got goat? 47:48

1+ y ago47:48

47:48

Renard Turner and his wife Chinette founded the Vanguard Ranch Natural Gourmet in Gordonsville, Virginia, 25 years ago, and through creative entrepreneurship and wise land management and animal husbandry practices have built a value-added business model that works on a relatively small scale. Their ideas about sustainability and regeneration on a g…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Tribal food renaissance 29:45

1+ y ago29:45

29:45

Latashia Redhouse is director of the American Indian Foods program at the Intertribal Agriculture Council, where she supports food producers across the country to get their food to consumers in the US and beyond—while encouraging traditional and regenerative agriculture practices.By Radio Cafe, Quivira Coalition

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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From despair to care 42:14

1+ y ago42:14

42:14

William deBuys is a prolific author of books documenting people's relationship to the earth—which is too often destructive. In his new book, The Trail to Kanjiroba: Rediscovering Earth in an Age of Loss, he writes of an expedition to Nepal that he made with a group of doctors and other medical professionals, led by American Zen Buddhist Roshi Joan …

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Stepping back from the abyss 57:10

1+ y ago57:10

57:10

James Rebanks is the author of the newly-released book Pastoral Song: A Farmer’s Journey, which recently won the 2021 Wainwright prize for UK Nature writing, and best-seller The Shepherd's Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape. His books explore the experience of being a farmer from a millennia-old farming tradition that was almost lost…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Restoring the global water cycle 50:54

1+ y ago50:54

50:54

Sandra Postel has devoted her life to studying the world's freshwater systems, and they're not looking so great right now. Through a combination of over-allocation, over-engineering, over-use, and climate change, we'll be in trouble if we don't address the problem soon—in fact, we're in trouble now. But the solutions are there, and already in place…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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How—and why—to be good to your microbes 40:17

1+ y ago40:17

40:17

Many of us were taught that microbes—and bacteria in particular—were dangerous pathogens, and the safest thing human beings could do was create a sterile, bacteria-free environment. But in fact microbes are absolutely essential to human health, the health of the soil, and to pretty much all life on earth. Dr. Emeran Mayer is a gastroenterologist, e…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Lush and abundant biodiversity—in a desert city 54:32

1+ y ago54:32

54:32

Reese Baker has been designing permaculture landscapes for many years, and with his family has turned his home on a quarter-acre lot in Santa Fe, NM into a teeming oasis of life, complete with wetlands, a pond, trees, and food and flower gardens—not to mention bats, pollinators, fungi, soil life, and other friendly creatures. His vision for Santa F…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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The deep history of apples 44:04

1+ y ago44:04

44:04

Gordon Tooley and his wife Margaret Yancey started Tooley's Trees in Truchas, New Mexico, in the early 1990s. They grow and sell rare and heirloom trees that are well adapted to the semi-arid climate of the region. But just as important as the business is the history of these fruit trees and the genetic preservation of varieties that have very spec…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Pests, pathogens, and porcupines 43:50

1+ y ago43:50

43:50

Steve Wood is an apple grower and cider maker in Lebanon, New Hampshire, and he's been working on the family orchard since he was a child. Dubbed the Godfather of the hard cider industry in the US, he's one of the New England's leading voices on Integrated Pest Management—a way of keeping creatures of all kinds from destroying the trees and their f…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Rockweed: underwater forest or industrial commodity? 36:31

1+ y ago36:31

36:31

Dr. Robin Hadlock Seeley grew up in Maine and has dedicated her life as a scientist to the preservation of coastal ecosystems—in particular a form of seaweed called rockweed. Severine von Tscharner Fleming is a farmer and activist whose farm is on the Maine coast where rockweed is being harvested by the ton and shipped all over the world. What is t…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Designing systems that improve as they age 55:55

2y ago55:55

55:55

Jesse Smith was studying design when he was asked, how can you make something that gets better than age? Intrigued by the question of how to design stuff that won't end up being thrown in the trash, he found his way to agricultural systems, cultured foods, and a community-based way of life. As director of stewardship at the White Buffalo Land Trust…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Into the Pasture: Grassfed Goes Mainstream 38:09

2y ago38:09

38:09

Carrie Balkcom grew up on a cattle ranch in Florida. In 2003 she returned to her roots when she became the executive director of the American Grassfed Association at its founding--and she's been there ever since. AGA certifies pasture-raised livestock--and not just beef--and they help producers develop and sustain regenerative practices for the sak…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Busting myths about beef 1:00:07

2y ago1:00:07

1:00:07

Nicolette Hahn Niman never thought that she would have anything positive to say about animal agriculture. An environmental lawyer and a committed vegetarian who had seen the horrors of industrial livestock production up close, her life changed when she married a rancher and began to perceive the complexities of both animal and crop production. She'…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Transforming the American Prairie, one strip at a time 46:57

2y ago46:57

46:57

Omar de Kok-Mercado Scientist with background in Agro-ecology, Soil Microbiology and Biochemistry, and he’s at Iowa State University working on a project that integrates prairie strips into row-crop agriculture. By working with farmers to plant strips of land—"prairie strips—with native prairie vegetation, he and his team are working to bring back …

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Welcome to Cowgirl Camp! 45:01

2y ago45:01

45:01

Beth Robinette is a fourth generation rancher in Eastern Washington State, where she and her family run a grassfed beef operation, the Lazy R Ranch, based on holistic management principles. She’s co-founder of LINC Foods (Local Inland Northwest Cooperative), a local food hub based in Spokane Washington; and she runs the New Cowgirl Camp, an intensi…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Lipan Apache: Bringing back the buffalo in Texas 43:13

2y ago43:13

43:13

Lucille Contreras discovered her Lipan Apache roots as a young adult. After working in IT for many years, she founded the Texas Tribal Buffalo Project as a way of bringing together the Lipan diaspora, cultivating healthy land and food, rescuing the language, and honoring the co-existence of people and buffalo on their native lands.…

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Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

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Regenerative production of...seaweed 38:52

2y ago38:52

38:52

Kristina Long is founder and CEO of Sea Forest, a kelp farming company in British Columbia, Canada. We talk about everything kelp--sustainable farming and harvesting, uses of kelp, the business model, and the community.By Radio Cafe, Quivira Coalition

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