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PODCAST

Agrarian Futures

Agrarian Futures

Join hosts Emma Ractliffe and Austin Unruh as they explore what’s broken in our food system, and what it looks like to build something better.Visit agrarianfuturespod.com to join our email list for a heads up on upcoming episodes and bonus content.Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song.Instagram: @agrarianfuturespodTwitter: @agrarianfuturesLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/103857304/

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All Episodes

52:23

Building a Cooperative Food System Pt. 1: Land Access...

Agrarian Futures ·

2026/10/02

If we're serious about building a better food system, we have to start with land.Across the world, land is getting more and more expensive. In the United States, farmland values have nearly doubled since 2011. What we're witnessing is an unprecedented land rush — one that's driving prices to levels simply unattainable by farmers and ranchers and the people we're actually asking to grow our food. As land is sold to development, we are losing an estimated 2000 acres of farmland every single day.But

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0:34

Season 3 Trailer: Building a Cooperative Food Future

Agrarian Futures ·

2026/09/25

We often talk about how the food system is broken, but what would it look like to build one that is better?In Season 3 of Agrarian Futures, we reimagine a food system rooted in cooperative principles. What if we didn't live in a winner-takes-all economy, but one where cooperatively owned enterprises worked in partnership with each other across the food supply chain?Through deep dives into examples on the ground, we'll chart a path from our present moment to a better food future. Launching October

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45:07

Rethinking Our Relationship with Land (Feed Drop: How...

Agrarian Futures ·

2026/09/11

Hi everyone - Emma here. We're deep in prep for our new miniseries on Agrarian Futures where we will be exploring the potential for a better food system rooted in cooperative principles.In the meantime, we’ve got a special announcement: Agrarian Futures is joining the World Within Studios Podcast Network!World Within is a non-profit that invests in solutions and stories that are building an economy that's owned by the many, not just the few. We are delighted to be adding Agrarian Futures to that

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61:49

What Big Agriculture is Hiding with Will Potter

Agrarian Futures ·

2026/08/28

Our guest today Will Potter’s new book, Little Red Barns, started as a tale about censorship in journalism around industrial agriculture, but became something much bigger: a 10 year investigation look at how factory farming, an ages old mythos of family farms, and the rise of authoritarian politics have all worked in tandem to produce social, economic, and ecological disaster.Will is an investigative journalist and author of Green Is the New Red. In this conversation, we talk about what he found

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48:30

The Common Ingredients of Success in the Regenerative...

Agrarian Futures ·

2026/08/14

Enjoy Part 2 of Emma and Austin's reflections on 2.5 years of Agrarian Futures. In this episode, they highlight the commonalities they see in the big success stories of the regenerative movement, including cooperative economics, finding the right niche in the food system, learning to tell your story, and much much more.————-Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Drew O’Doherty.

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48:06

The Big Lessons from Agrarian Futures with Emma and...

Agrarian Futures ·

2026/07/29

Hi all! This time, we're doing something a bit different.In this episode, Emma and Austin - hosts of Agrarian Futures - sit down to tell their own story, and share some of their key takeaways of 2.5 years of talking with brilliant farmers and thinkers about the future of our food system. Enjoy!————-Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Drew O’Doherty.

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50:48

Permaculture and the Case for Hope with Geoff Lawton

Agrarian Futures ·

2026/07/14

In this conversation, Geoff Lawton offers us something rare: a genuinely hopeful and rigorously grounded vision of how humanity can become a reparative rather than destructive force on this planet.As one of the world's leading permaculture designers and educators, Geoff has built demonstration sites and trained practitioners across six continents, from the Jordan Valley to the Australian bush. At Zaytuna Farm in New South Wales, he has spent over two decades transforming bare, degraded land into a

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43:39

The Future of Regenerative Agriculture with Gabe Brown

Agrarian Futures ·

2026/06/26

Gabe Brown didn't set out to revolutionize agriculture. He set out to survive it.After four consecutive years of crop disasters left him $1.5 million in debt, he had no choice but to question everything he'd been taught. What emerged from that reckoning became one of the most influential farms in the regenerative agriculture movement, and eventually two organizations working to spread those lessons globally: Understanding Ag, now consulting on over 37 million acres worldwide, and Regenified, a

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42:53

The Farm Bill Explained with Judith McGeary

Agrarian Futures ·

2026/06/12

You can't understand the modern food system without understanding the policy that shaped it. And you can't understand US food policy without understanding the Farm Bill.Judith McGeary is an attorney, farmer, and the founder of Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance, a national organization that supports independent family farmers and fights corporate consolidation of the food system. In this conversation, Judith breaks down what's actually in the Farm Bill, adds some needed nuance to the subsidy debate,

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65:42

What Animals Teach Us About Caring for the Land with...

Agrarian Futures ·

2026/05/26

Our guest today, Fred Provenza, has spent his career listening to what animals can teach us: about landscapes, about food, about the deep intelligence woven into the living world.Fred is professor emeritus of Behavioral Ecology at Utah State University, where he directed an award-winning research program that pioneered our understanding of how early experience, family, and landscape shape the foraging wisdom of animals. He is the author of over 300 scientific papers and three books, including

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37:06

How Land Heals with Judith Schwartz

Agrarian Futures ·

2026/05/08

Our guest today - Judith Schwartz - has spent her career showing us that the natural world is more resilient than we think, and that we have more power to restore it than we have been led to believe.Judith is a journalist and author whose books, Cows Save the Planet, Water in Plain Sight, and The Reindeer Chronicles, have taken readers from the degraded hillsides of China's Loess Plateau to the Arctic tundra of Norway.In this conversation, Judith shares stories from around the world of people

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55:18

Life on the Range with Glenn Elzinga

Agrarian Futures ·

2026/04/20

Many of us have lost the thread that connects us to our food. Glenn Elzinga is spending his life trying to pick it back up.Glenn is the founder of Alderspring Ranch, a certified organic grass-fed beef operation in the remote Salmon River country of central Idaho. But describing it as a beef operation barely scratches the surface. Each summer, Glenn and his family, along with a rotating crew of interns, ride on horseback across 70 square miles of mountain range, living alongside their cattle for

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29:58

Blending Forest and Field with Steve Gabriel

Agrarian Futures ·

2026/04/01

Steve Gabriel joins us to unpack one of the most consequential myths shaping how we grow food in America: the separation between forest and field.As a co-steward of Wellspring Forest Farm in Mecklenburg, New York, author of Silvopasture, and researcher at the Cornell Small Farms Program, Steve has been listening. Through a SARE-funded project called Farming with Trees, he's been in conversation with over 120 farmers, from Bronx-raised beginners to multi-generational stewards, exploring not just how

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44:07

The Economics of the Other Half with Jim and Mark...

Agrarian Futures ·

2026/03/19

Regenerative agriculture isn’t just about how we raise animals. It’s about whether the entire system around them makes sense.Smaller, regenerative producers with meat businesses, have traditionally lacked an economic outlet for hides and other byproducts. That missing piece can be the difference between a system that works for regenerative farmers and one that doesn’t.Jim and Mark Kleinschmit are working to rebuild that piece. Through Other Half Processing, they’re creating new pathways for

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50:40

The Dark Miracle of the Supermarket with Benjamin Lorr

Agrarian Futures ·

2026/02/27

We walk into our local grocery store and most likely barely consider what’s on display in front of us. Forty thousand items. Stacked, uniform, produce. Cuisine from around the globe. Open often 24 hours.As author Benjamin Lorr points out, that can be considered a miracle.In The Secret Life of Groceries, Ben dives deep into the hidden machinery behind that miracle. He spent years inside the system, working behind a Whole Foods fish counter, riding cross-country with long-haul truckers, and tracing

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42:38

Why Aren't We Eating Acorns? with Elspeth Hay

Agrarian Futures ·

2026/02/12

I’m willing to bet that most of our listeners - like us - have traditionally seen acorns as food for squirrels, not people. But as Elspeth Hay points out in this conversation, that assumption says more about our food system than it does about the acorn.For much of human history, acorns were a staple. They fed communities across North America, Europe, North Africa, and Asia - and in some cases - still do. They were managed, processed, stored, and celebrated. So how did we go from acorns as everyday

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35:43

Could Leather Be the Missing Piece for Regenerative...

Agrarian Futures ·

2026/02/03

We’ve spent a lot of time on this show digging into the dire state of modern farming and ranching, and the challenging economics for those trying to build a regenerative future. Our guest today, Cate Havstad, is no stranger to these challenges as a first-generation farmer and rancher. That experience led directly to an innovative solution that could be an important missing piece in this economic puzzle.As she explains, only about 65 percent of the cattle she sent out to slaughter was actually used,

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35:13

The Regenerative Rebellion with Joel Salatin

Agrarian Futures ·

2026/01/09

Joel Salatin is one of the most influential voices in the modern regenerative farming movement. As the founder of Polyface Farm in Virginia, he’s become known for building a radically different model of agriculture, one rooted in ecological systems, local markets, and a refusal to accept industrial “efficiency” as the end goal.In this episode, Joel shares what he’s learned from decades of farming and advocacy, why the middle of the food system is where so many good farms get stuck, and what it will

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46:47

Eating Fish in the Age of Limits with Paul Greenberg

Agrarian Futures ·

2025/12/19

Fish have long been one of the last wild foods, a source of nourishment that connects us to the powerful ecology of the planet’s waters. But as journalist and author Paul Greenberg chronicles in his award-winning book Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food, our relationship with the sea has dramatically changed over the past century. Once nearly all of the seafood we ate was wild; today, nearly half is farmed and the pressures on both wild and farmed systems are intensifying.In this

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39:06

The Future of Food, Health, and Rural Life with Bob...

Agrarian Futures ·

2025/12/01

If you want to understand what it takes to build a healthier local food system and bring rural communities back to life, you talk to someone who’s actually done it. Bob Quinn has spent decades farming in Montana, rebuilding soil, creating local markets, and pushing back against the idea that small towns and small farms are destined to disappear.Through his farm and the Quinn Institute, Bob is exploring what a healthier rural economy - and a healthier food system - could look like. That includes

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