Episodes

As egg prices reach record highs, more homeowners are turning to backyard chicken farming as a sustainable and cost-effective solution. This surge in prices has led to a growing trend of individuals raising their own chickens to ensure a steady supply of fresh eggs. Kim Pezza is an expert in sustainable living and the author of Backyard Farming: Raising Chickens as well as other books in the Backyard Farming series to help us achieve greater self-sufficiency in our own backyards.

Farms of all sizes and types, from conventional to organic, need continually improving technologies if they are to meet their obligations to Mother Earth and their own bottom line. Gary Wickham. is the founder and CEO of Ireland based MagroTec. Farming utilizes applications of materials through spraying. Whether those materials are organic or traditional the goal is to use as little as possible and avoid drift to non targeted areas. MagroTec uses permanent rare earth magnets to expose fluid to s...

Food is a universal language and the key to bridging our deepest divides can be as simple as sharing a meal. In her newbook, Table for 51: Lessons Learned from Sharing Meals Across America, Shari Leid embarks on a journey to connect with people from all walks of life—demonstrating how food can serve as a powerful bridge across political and cultural divides.Shari’s 50 States Project took her to all corners of the U.S., where she intentionally satdown to meals with individuals of diverse ages, ra...

Can anyone farm? It doesn’t take large acreage to grow food in your own back yard, next to your restaurant, in a community gardens, school yard, or a small space adding income to an existing small farming operation. Shiv Shakti is founder of Shakti Farm Design in Bend Oregon. He creates sustainable, energy-efficient greenhouses that integrate regenerative agriculture and permaculture principles. Utilizing soil and sun in small spaces with modest investments, almost anyone can farm. shaktifarmdes...

Tariffs are taxes that may increase food costs and decrease farm incomes. President Trump has signed executive orders imposing duties on imports from Canada, Mexico and China. The president has also threatened tariffs on imports from other countries, as well as across-the-board tariffs aimed at specific sectors.As the largest exporter of agricultural products in the world, the United States will face retaliatory tariffs and other barriers in retaliation for the recent actions, with a big impact ...

You don’t need to be in the country to farm. It can start on a vacant lot. Three Sisters Gardens’ in West Sacramento is giving back to the community by inspiring and empowering youth through urban farming. Like the Three Sisters legend of companionship planting, Three Sisters Gardens founder Alfred Melbourne believes that communities can heal and thrive when all components, the youth, adults, and elders, work together. The program fosters pride, cultural preservation, and also a deeper connectio...

Grazing is getting attention for a natural mitigation of fire hazards. Herbicides can run off, are dangerous to handle, and lead to genetically resistant weeds. Power equipment burns fossil fuel and produces CO2. Goats go where people can’t, eat what most animals won’t, and leave behind nothing but fertilizer. Today goats offer an added enterprise to farms and beginning farmers to capitalize the demand for both targeted grazing and goat meat from the growing population of people from parts of th...

McDonald’s operators in Michigan supply their Happy Meal customers and support Michigan farmers by purchasing 14 million pounds of state grown apples annually.There are are over 500 locally-owned McDonald’s restaurants with over 80 Owner/Operators in 90% of Michigan counties. They support Michigan by purchasing 135.9 million pounds of corn, 54.9 million dozen eggs, 22.2 million gallons of milk, 14 million pounds of apples, 5.6 million pounds of butter, 3.4 million pounds of pork, , 3 million pou...

Many dream of moving to the country and some take the steps to make that dream a reality. Paula Whyman had a “crazy” idea to cultivate a small native meadow where wildlife could thrive. Then she set foot on 200 acres of old farmland atop a Virginia mountain and her dream became a reality. In BAD NATURALIST: One Woman’s Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop, Paula Whyman explains how she cares for her mountain-sized ecological restoration challenge and discovered that it’s impossibl...

The biggest issue threatening the food system now is not climate change. It is the emerging policies to deport undocumented workers that make the wheels turn from fields to processing plants and retail. Gary Nabham is an Agricultural Ecologist, Ethnobotanist, Ecumenical Franciscan Brother, and author whose work has focused primarily on the interaction of biodiversity and cultural diversity of the arid binational Southwest. He also is a keynote speaker at Eco Farm where he brings a different mess...

Regenerative is a ‘thing’. More than just a farm to table buzz word there is real rebuilding and restoration taking place that ultimately improves the soil and improves nutrition. As the word gets out and consumer demand increases for rest0red soil and more nutritious foods, how can the consumer know whether they’re getting the “real thing”? Regenified certification is stepping up to this job says Chief Marketing Officer Kristine Roots. Diestel Famiily Ranch turkeys are on that track explains He...

What happens when women take the lead in tackling climate change through the food we grow and eat? Stephanie Anderson grew up on a ranch in western South Dakota and is the author of From the Ground Up. With a background in creative nonfiction, a deep understanding of regenerative agriculture, and years of exploring the intersections of equity and sustainability, Stephanie brings a fresh and thought-provoking perspective to our table. Movements start broad and grow in participation and focus crea...

Sunshine makes food farming possible in more ways than one. Emerging farmers can access land and landowners can add solar income through, Agrivoltaics an approach that combines solar energy production with agricultural practices — allowing for renewable energy generation alongside farming activities like crop production and livestock grazing. This dual-use approach brings significant benefits to the land, farmers, and the local community. Peter Schmitt is the Director of Project Development with...

Going it alone is a noble idea but for many solo ventures cooperation with others pays off. Cooperatives are a unique legal business form that facilitates people coming together to tackle challenges that are overwhelming or impossible for the individual. Kim Coontz is the Executive Director of the California Center for Cooperative Development. CCCD demonstrates the power of the self-help elements of cooperatives to help new farmers gain viability through cooperative purchasing, sales and product...

Change is coming to Agriculture, in policies and people. It’s a time to be thankful for the USDA team who came to Washington four years ago to give their best to help farmers and time to welcome a new team coming to the Capitol ready to give their own best. Jeff Van Pevanage is the President and CEO of Columbia Grain. Marketing to and from foreign markets he remembers the effect of the trade war with China and sees implications of the announced unprecedented tariffs with our neighbors in Canada ...

Mitigating Climate Change will require implementing a data driven approach on every level of global food production. Agriculture-oriented satellite constellations are beginning to provide a critical perspective on the size and condition of nearly everything we grow to eat, nearly every where in the world. With Ukraine still in the news we are bringing back a previous conversation with Vera Petryk who spoke to us from her home in Kyev with optimism for Ukraine and an optimistic view of the future...

Agriculture will reverse the dangerous levels of greenhouse gases in the environment, if Ag follows a report prepared by leading scientists, reviewed by CAST (Center for Ag Science and Technology) and published by the US Farmers and Ranchers In Action. Dr.Marty Matlock, University of Arkansas and leading author of the repot explains how combining reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with increased carbon sequestration will achieve GHG-negative agriculture in five areas offering the most signif...

To protect public health, the FDA’s Pesticide Residue Monitoring Program tests FDA-regulated foods shipped in interstate commerce to determine whether they comply with pesticide tolerances, or maximum residue levels, set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). If the FDA finds that the amount of pesticide residue on a food is over the tolerance, or when a pesticide is found and there is no tolerance established, the FDA can take action. Sara McGrath, PhD, is a chemist at the U.S. Food and ...

Climate change has become a partisan issue but really has not gotten as much attention as it needs. Rob Jackson is the Chair of the Global Carbon Project, a Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment and Precourt Institute for Energy, and a professor of earth science at Stanford University. His book “The Clear Blue Sky” shows a bipartsan path hat can make needed change in decades rather than centuries. www.tintotheclearbluesky.com

What role will more tariffs, immigration restrictions and food policies have on our food system. Farmer and former Missouri Farm Bureau President, Blake Hurst joins Farm to Table Talk to explore the policies that will effect our food and farming globally and locally..

Craft Beef is successful so how about Craft Beef? Jeff and Kara Smith are the co-founders of Colorado Craft Beef, a company rooted in a multi-generational ranching legacy. Over the years, they’ve built a vertically integrated, direct-to-consumer beef company that not only provides high-quality beef products but also connects people with agriculture, dispels common myths, and promotes pride in how we feed our families. Jeff Smith challenges old industry standards to generate new mindsets and valu...

Happiness can be found on the way from farm to table where we break bread together. Ezekiwee Anderson discovered happiness baking very special bread that led to Rize Up Sourdough. Rize Up’s story began as a home-based quarantine sourdough project that quickly turned into a micro bakery. Within a year, Rize Up out grew Azikiwee’s backyard ovens. Overcome with a need to make a difference and hopefully inspire young Black bakers to think outside the traditional he shows how to be the change we seek...

The Farm Bill is largely a Food Bill with over 80% of the programs in the area of public nutrition. The previous $867 billion Farm Bill was passed in 2018 but on September 30, 2024 it expired. The nation’s farmers and consumers need a bipartisan solution says Adam Warthesoen, Organic Valley’s Vice President of Government Affairs. To bring the farm story to the public and to celebrate National Farmers Day October 11, Organic Valley is bringing a firsthand farm experience to viewers live from smal...

An indigenous way of being may be just what the world needs – starting with an indigenous view of food. Decolonizing our diets will lead to an expansive palate that creates a relationship with traditional, seasonal, everyday foods. Karuk tribe member Sara Calvosa Olson is a food writer and editor living in the Bay Area with her husband and two sons. Her work dwells at the intersection of storytelling, Indigenous food systems, security, sovereignty, reconnection, and recipe development. ChimiNu’a...