Best Baron Of Beverage Podcasts (2024)

1
From suburban Chicago to rural Montana: the journey of a bison rancher 47:33

3d ago47:33

47:33

Matt Skoglund grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, went to law school, and for ten years worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council doing policy work to protect bison in Yellowstone. Always happy in the outdoors and with an interest in both hunting and conservation, he started a bison ranch in 2018 near Bozeman, Montana. North Bridger Bisonis a…

1
Lets Review the Farm Bill With Tom Philpott 43:41

16d ago43:41

43:41

Veteran agricultural journalist Tom Philpott joins to talk about what is and isn't in the newest iteration of the Farm Bill. Despite all the extra funds from the Investment Recovery Act, and all the information we now have about climate disruption, and other impacts on agriculture, we seem to be marching toward the same old same old... Heritage Rad…

1
A matter of conscience 1:00:41

18d ago1:00:41

1:00:41

Will Harris's ranch, White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia, has been in the Harris family for over 150 years. His ancestors had a polyculture farm, but when industrial tools came to ranching, his father, and then Will, went all in––corporate ranching allowed their family to make a good living. But one day, in a life-changing moment of clarity, Ha…

1
Who Is Minding Our Groundwater? 42:53

21d ago42:53

42:53

Professor Upmanu Lall, director of the Water Institute at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University gives us the details on how we map, model, and distribute our dwindling groundwater supplies. Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support What Doesn't Kill You by becoming a memb…

1
The robber barons of today's food corporations 1:07:07

1M ago1:07:07

1:07:07

Austin Frerick grew up in Iowa, which in his youth had a robust regional food system that offered abundant produce and meat from family farms. But because of one "baron"––that's the name Frerick calls the men whose monopolistic corporations profoundly reshape markets and communities––rural areas were hollowed out, farmers were driven off their farm…

1
Barons! You Thought the Age of the Robber Baron Was Over? Guess Again! 47:16

1M ago47:16

47:16

Author Austin Frerick joins the show to talk about his new book: Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America's Food System. An awesome journey through the biggest monopolies in the food biz, from grains, to hogs, to coffee, to grocery chains... Meet the unknown players making bank on the food system. Photo Courtesy of Kris Graves. Heritage …

1
Farm Aid: Food, festivity, and fighting for farmers 43:58

2M ago43:58

43:58

In 1985 Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, and Neil Young organized a concert to benefit farmers and spread awareness of the crisis U.S. farmers were facing. The concert raised $7 million and spread awareness across the country. Since then Farm Aid has become a force advocating for farmers, promoting healthy, farm-grown food, providing a hotline and r…

1
Pushing Back on the Poultry Industry Is Not for the Faint of Heart. 44:46

2M ago44:46

44:46

For at least 20 years, the burgeoning poultry industry has been spreading the waste litter from their barns across one particular watershed in Oklahoma. Journalist Ben Felder dug into the origins of the lawsuit brought by a long gone state attorney general seeking to bring some accountability to the industry over damage to the local waterways. 20 y…

1
Farm Belt States Are Getting Serious About Agro-Chem and Cancer 43:50

2M ago43:50

43:50

Accross the farm belt, cancer cases are spiking, and states are getting serious about tracking and providing guidelines for exposure to agro-chem. Journalist Keith Schneider has been digging into this for months and reports. Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support What Doesn't Kill You by becoming a member!…

1
Healthy fish snacks––what cod be better? 48:30

2M ago48:30

48:30

Nick Mendoza grew up in a cattle ranching family in New Mexico, but when he moved to San Diego he fell in love with the ocean and got hooked on fish and marine science. Taking the lessons from regenerative cattle production to the oceans, he studied Environmental and Marine Resources at Stanford University, and earned a graduate degree in graduate …

1
The Carbon Credit Conundrum 36:43

3M ago36:43

36:43

Carbon credits were designed as a market mechanism to incentivize projects that sequester carbon and reduce carbon emissions. The idea is to pay people who are doing climate friendly projects, and sell credits to emitters. But do they work? Is there independent verification that carbon is really being sequestered? What does it mean when people are …

1351
How the American Diet is Feeding The Groundwater Crisis, redux! 38:22

3M ago38:22

38:22

Straight outta the NY Times, a groundbreaking article by journalists Christopher Flavelle and Somini Sengupta shows the highway between mcNuggets and our diminishing supply of fresh clean water for human consumption. Flavelle joins the show to describe what he and his colleague uncovered as part of an ongoing and important series in the NYT. Herita…

1451
The EPA Finally Re-Considers Its Regulations on Effluent From Meat Processing. 44:54

3M ago44:54

44:54

John Rumpler, Clean Water DIrector and lead attorney for Environment America, joins to talk about the long overdue revision of regulations governing wastewater from slaughterhouses and meat processing plants. Decades overdue, public hearings on the subject are being held January 24th and 31st 2024. Learn more about how much toxic waste could be cap…

1
At The Table: Chefs advocating for a better food system 43:11

3M ago43:11

43:11

Katherine Miller, author of At The Table: The Chef's Guide To Advocacy, began her work toward a healthier food system with a deep background in political advocacy. She trains chefs to use their position as influencers to make change on issues like healthy and regenerative food sourcing, food waste, sustainability, fair wages, anti-sexism and -racis…

1
The six-legged livestock: Bees 31:58

4M ago31:58

31:58

Beehives take up little space on the land, but, like other livestock, bees need space to roam, and they need a varied diet. Beekeeper Melanie Kirby is a "landless farmer," who sets up her beehives on farms and ranches, where the bees can thrive and the agrarians can take advantage of their pollination services. In fact pollination services have bec…

1
Bonus episode: Ask Me Anything! 55:30

4M ago55:30

55:30

Anica Wong is Quivira Coalition's communications director and she had the idea for an "ask me anything" episode with Down to Earth host Mary-Charlotte Domandi ... and here it is! Listeners asked questions and we answered as best we could, in a wide-ranging discussion about everything from to Anica's urban farm to our favorite podcasts to Plato's Re…

1
Is One Man Going to Finally Going to Change the Way Iowa Deals With Its Waterways? 43:30

4M ago43:30

43:30

Chris Jones, author of The Swine Republic, featured here in June, is back to talk about the remarkable series of conversations he is now having around Iowa and his region about big ag and water pollution. We will also talk about heavily funded mitigation tools that are not mitigating, but are lining some peoples pockets with taxpayer money. Heritag…

1
Photographing grasslands: beauty, community, life 43:56

4M ago43:56

43:56

Photographer Sally Thomson's gorgeous new book of photographs and texts, Homeground, is a deep exploration of rangelands in the Southwest––landscapes, livestock, water, wildlife, and the stewards who keep the land thriving. With her deep background in landscape architecture, conservation, and land use planning, Thomson photographs in ways that reve…

1
Bio-Digesters: The Race Is On! 39:13

5M ago39:13

39:13

Big Ag and Big Oil are getting in bed together to promote the buildout of bio-digesters to manage animal waste. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing masquerading as a good thing? Reporter Keith Schneider gives some context on this long overdue attention to pollution from the animal agriculture segment. Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported…

1
Land, sheep, and the inefficiency of being too efficient 1:01:39

5M ago1:01:39

1:01:39

Elena Miller Ter-Kuile is a sixth-generation farmer living in southern Colorado. At Cactus Hill Farm she and her father raise sheep for wool, grass-fed meat and organic grain and hay, and are in the process of restoring their family’s damaged land.By Radio Cafe, Quivira Coalition

1
The Ethanol Scam 40:39

5M ago40:39

40:39

Professor Sylvia Secchi from University of Iowa joins to talk about how ethanol is a giant giveaway to the ag industry, purporting to be a partial solution to fossil fuel impacts. Instead, the excessive cultivation of corn is having disastrous impacts on soil and water... and guess what? It's anything but fuel efficient. How did we get here??? Heri…

1
Transforming 40 million acres of lawns into thriving ecosystems 48:18

5M ago48:18

48:18

Erik Ohlsen author of The Regenerative Landscaper, is helping people, municipalities, companies, and farms create thriving landscapes at every scale––and cultivate native plants, wildlife, and food. His new book, The Regenerative Landscaper: Design and Build Landscapes That Repair the Environment, deeply explores the theory and hands-on practice of…

1
Cancer Road in Minnesota 41:03

6M ago41:03

41:03

Journalist Keith Schneider examines a spate of cancer diagnoses in farm country in Minnesota. On one short stretch of a road in Berne Minnesota, shared by four farming families, 12 people developed cancer, and seven of them died. What linked these people in disease is the contamination of their drinking water with excess nitrates, the chemicals use…

1
Sheep and goats for healthy land, thriving businesses, and fire reduction 46:37

6M ago46:37

46:37

Cole Bush is a shepherdess, entrepreneur, and educator. Founder of Shepherdess Land & Livestock and Grazing School of the West, she uses a "flerd" (flock-herd) of sheep and goats to restore landscapes and prevent fire. She's also bringing along a generation of new shepherds, and is cultivating entrepreneurial businesses that spring from this work, …

1
Words of wisdom from a holistic veterinarian and regenerative dairy farmer 51:11

6M ago51:11

51:11

Dr. Hubert Karreman started out as a soil scientist and then fell in love with dairy cows. He became a veterinarian and a regenerative dairy farmer, following a path of respect and reverence for life. He specializes in holistic and organic methods including homeopathy and plant medicine. He and his wife Suzanne own Reverence Farms, a pasture-based,…

1
Watering Down Organic Standards 35:23

6M ago35:23

35:23

Organic food purchasers buy organic and pay the extra for a reason. New regulations being proposed by some members of congress would make it much easier for corporate food businesses to use that premium label to sell product that doesn't actually meet the real benchmarks of organic. Tom Chapman, CEO of the Organic Trade Association, and others have…

1
Farmland for Farmers, Not Farmland for Hedge Funds 32:58

7M ago32:58

32:58

The National Family Farm Coalition is advocating for the Farmland For Farmers Act introduced by Senator Cory Booker in July of this year. Agricultural land needs to stay accessible to actual farmers, rather than offer an opportunity to corporate entities to capitalize on high land prices, at the same time driving those prices into a stratosphere no…

1
Funneling federal ag money to the people who most need it 49:00

7M ago49:00

49:00

The Biden administration has made a great commitment to building sustainable and healthy food systems. But how to get the money from the government to folks on the land who need it but aren't skilled bureaucrats? Dave Carter Director of Regional Technical Assistance Coordination for the Flower Hill Institute, explains.…

1
Electric Dog Collars on Cattle? This Rancher Has Ditched the Fence. 42:37

7M ago42:37

42:37

Western states are home to herds of grazing beasts, and to keep them in the right place, thousands of miles of fencing is required. Conservation Northwest Associate Director Jay Kehne advocates a different path: shock collars for cattle. The cattle stay put, but other wildlife (think deer, elk, and other ruminants) can run free instead of fouling t…

1
How to have family business meetings that are productive––and short 49:31

7M ago49:31

49:31

Joe and Jenn Wheeling talk about how to avoid the pitfalls of a family ranch business––ego, speechifying, wasted time––and arrive at consensus decisions with the full support of each family member.By Radio Cafe, Quivira Coalition

1
Farm Bill 2023: Get the Skinny 46:58

7M ago46:58

46:58

Award winning journalist and author, and favorite guest, Tom Philpott returns to talk all things Farm Bill. What will change, what is new, and what is, sigh, same old, same old? Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support What Doesn't Kill You by becoming a member! What Doesn't Kill You is Powered by Simplecast…

1
Weathering global change on an Oregon sheep ranch 1:09:25

8M ago1:09:25

1:09:25

When wool processing suddenly moved overseas, Jeanne Carver and her family were left without a market for their products. Through determination and creativity, she turned a setback into a regenerative success story. They pivoted their business to a local/regional model, selling lamb to restaurants and developing an artisan-based apparel and yarn bu…

1
From mountaintops to farm fields: Landscape scale restoration 1:08:56

8M ago1:08:56

1:08:56

How do you restore an entire forest, or mountain, or watershed? The key is...collaboration. Jan-Willem Jansens has been restoring landscapes in New Mexico for three decades. Owner of Ecotone Landscape Planning, he is part of a network that works to restore land that has been damaged by generations of mismanagement. Using low-tech methods, they rest…

1
A food forest on an eighth of an acre 58:44

9M ago58:44

58:44

Roxanne Swentzell was a young mother on a small piece of land at Santa Clara Pueblo when she was introduced to permaculture design principles––which dovetailed with indigenous patters of thinking and land use. She turned her yard from hard, sun-scorched earth into an agroforest that provides food, wood, fiber and habitat. She founded the Flowering …

1
From corporation to regeneration––a family's journey 51:20

9M ago51:20

51:20

Lorenzo Dominguez was a successful marketing and corporate communications executive in New York City. But during the pandemic he and his wife made the decision to change their lives in order to find a more nature-based and connected way of life. They bought 350 acres in northern New Mexico, called it Chelenzo Farms, and are working to restore the l…

1
Healing the trauma of Black land loss through regenerative rice production 42:52

10M ago42:52

42:52

Konda Mason is co-founder and president of Jubilee Justice, a non-profit dedicated to regenerative agriculture, racial justice, cooperative practices, and healing the wounds of Black American land loss and racism. They are in the fourth year of a rice-growing program, the system of rice intensification (SRI), a dry-land technique for growing rice t…

1
Cultivating oysters for ocean health, human health, and economic development 53:27

10M ago53:27

53:27

Oysters are delicious and nutritious. They are also a keystone species and an ecosystem engineer, which means that they provide habitat for all kinds of other species, and they filter and clean the water around them, cycle nutrients, and even remove pollutants. Native to many parts of the world, Atlantic oysters are a species found from Louisiana t…

1
PFAS! What Are They? Why Are They in Everything Including Us? 45:10

10M ago45:10

45:10

Every day a new article describes the prevalence of PFAS in our water, land, food, and bodies. David Cwiertny, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and in Chemistry at the University of Iowa, takes us through the impacts, the options for remediation, and what to expect from regulatory bodies in the wake of increased knowledge on the ub…

1
From urban journalist to country farmer 57:50

11M ago57:50

57:50

Beth Hoffman was a college professor and agriculture journalist for years before she and her husband picked up and moved from San Francisco to his family's farm in Iowa. In her book Bet the Farm: The Dollars and Sense of Growing Food in America, she recounts the story of transitioning the farm from commodity corn and soybean cropping to grass-finis…

1
The Swine Republic: Read It and Weep, but You Will Be Laughing Your Head off Too... 43:56

11M ago43:56

43:56

Iowa State University Water Quality expert Chris Jones, @riverraccoon, just published a damning indictment of the governing officials of Iowa and Big Ag in overseeing the disastrous consequences of our profit over people driven agricultural model. Learn how the Department of Natural Resources and a host of other agencies collude in allowing agricul…

1
Establishing an earth-friendly meat business 54:04

11M ago54:04

54:04

Corporate meat producers tout their "efficiency" but actually wreak havoc on the environment, local communities, and the animals themselves. Cole Mannix works with the Old Salt Co-op, which is pioneering vertically integrated models for regenerative, sustainable, and humane meat production––including meat processing, direct to consumer and retail s…

1
California Central Valley Braces for Catastrophic Floods... We Should Be Bracing as Well 46:22

11M ago46:22

46:22

Tom Philpott, author of Perilous Bounty, was prescient in his 2020 book in a lengthy description of the 1862 floods that inundated Central Valley in a once in a century flood. Now Central Valley is facing an even more catastropic scenario as climate disruption adds fuel to an already volatile area now packed with dairy farms, oil wells, and massive…

1
Taking it to the street––healthy food entrepreneurship 39:50

12M ago39:50

39:50

Tina Garcia-Shams is executive director of the Street Food Institute in Albuquerque, NM. The program teaches entrepreneurship, food preparation, accounting, marketing, and everything else students need to open a local food truck or catering business. And it's been so successful that it's spreading to other parts of the state and the country, and at…

1
Ducks and Rice; A Beautiful Synergy 40:49

12M ago40:49

40:49

Vermont farmer Erik Andrus is practicing an ancient form of agro-ecology from Japan. Learn how the old informs the new as Erik describes his approach and how it works. Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support What Doesn't Kill You by becoming a member! What Doesn't Kill You is Powered by Simplecast.…

1
Herding animals for land––and human––health 52:24

1y ago52:24

52:24

Traditional pastoral cultures have been living in harmony with animals and land for millennia––and they persist to this day, though with serious challenges. Ilse Köhler-Rollefson's new book, Hoofprints on the Land: How Traditional Herding and Grazing Can Restore the Soil and Bring Animal Agriculture Back in Balance with the Earth, shines a light on…

1
The Cocklebur, a New Newsletter From Longtime Ag Reporter Bryce Oates 45:19

1y ago45:19

45:19

Bryce Oates, a regular contributor to Civil Eats, Daily Yonder and other pubs has launched a newsletter that comes from a rural perspective. In this episode we talk about the new WOTUS controversy, and all the bluster and drama that plays out in a rule that essentially regulates nothing, but some would like us to believe our food supply is at risk …

1
Hydroponics, aquaponics, and sovereignty 53:41

1y ago53:41

53:41

Hydroponic agriculture systems use water––not soil––to grow crops, and yet they use water with exceptional efficiency and can produce abundantly all year round. When coupled with fish farming, the result is a nearly closed-loop system––aquaponics––in which the plants filter the water for the fish, and the fish provide fertilizer for the plants.…

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

1y 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…

1
Technology-assisted regeneration 58:28

1y 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…

1
Avian Flu, Zoonotic Disease, and How Close Are We to a New Pandemic? 50:03

1y ago50:03

50:03

Science writer and author Maryn McKenna is back to talk about her newest piece for Wired where she considers the implications of Avian flu moving to new territory and infecting new mammals, though not yet infecting people to any great degree. What does this say about our methods for raising animals in confinement, and how do we check the spread of …

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Baron Of Beverage Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Quick Reference Guide