Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

Grant and Dawn Breitkreutz converted from "conventional" agriculture to a regenerative system involving holistic management of livestock, cover cropping, and soil-health techniques. Over the last fifteen years they have seen their farm thrive, their own health improve, and their land become more lush, resilient, and hospitable to wildlife. They tell their story, with its challenges and learning experiences.

Stanley Crawford is a farmer—he's owner of El Bosque Garlic farm in Dixon, New Mexico. And he's a writer—he's author of more than a dozen books of fiction and non fiction. His latest book, The Garlic Papers: A Small Garlic Farm in the Age of Global Vampires, is a fascinating portrait of a quiet life on a small farm, and at the same time about the legal battles between small new Mexico garlic farmers and a gigantic Chinese garlic conglomerate—and the surprising role of the US Commerce Department

Ronnie Cummins grew up in a toxic part of Texas so toxic that there are no longer enough classmates to have a high school reunion. He became a human rights activist, and then a food and farming activist. In his new book, Grassroots Rising: A Call to Action on Climate, Farming, Food, and a Green New Deal, he looks at how the food system contributes to climate disruption, and how that can be turned around so that food, health, climate, and communities are improved by healthy agriculture practices.

Kelsey Ducheneaux is natural resources director with the Intertribal Agriculture Council in Eagle Butte, SD--and she's a fourth generation regenerative beef cattle rancher. We talk about the strengths and traditions of native food producers, the many challenges of producing food in the current financial system, and the ways that agriculture can heal land and people.