Week Nine – April 1 (pub 3/24)

Food Safety

Is modern food safe at the plate? Should we worry?

Chuck Benbrook is best known for his as an expert witness in the Round Up / Glyphosate court cases that succeeded in proving Monsanto knew they were unnecessarily creating and selling a toxic product that could cause cancer in those handling and applying it.

Ep 260: Chemicals In Food DO Make People Sick
Watch from 47:06 to 53:27

Week Eight – March 25 (pub 3/17)

Organic

Is organic really better? Can it feed the world?

Florida blueberry farmer Hugh Kent has watched most organic berry farms like his disappear completely from Florida, as they’ve been driven out of the market by hydroponic imports from Mexico, Chile and Peru. He has been chided by the state (agricultural) extension services for foolishly risking his farm’s existence by not spraying chemicals to repel specific pests and diseases weekly, and yet has many beautiful, thriving, and biodiverse acres of both blueberries and wildlife habitat to show for his decision to remain organic.

Ep 219: Hydroponics Is Not Organic
Watch from 13:17 to 15:48

Filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia (wife of Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia, a fun fact that we did not mention in the episode) has produced two exceptional movies about food and soil: Symphony of the Soil and The Future of Food. Watch them if you can! Her story paints a picture of how people – including eaters, farmers and scientists – possess ideological attachments to their opinions about what kind of farming should feed the world:

Ep 255: Future Of Food 20 Years Later
Watch from 35:12 to 36:59

Week Seven – March 11 (publish 3/3)

True Cost of Food

What are the ecological and social costs

Barbara Gemmill-Herren, a longtime Agroecology Programe Specialist for the FAO (Food and Agriculture organization) at the United Nations and professor at Prescott in Arizona, has spent her career focusing on how small holder farmers interact with and promote pollinators. She often speaks often about True Cost Accounting.

Ep 169: Big Chem’s Eyes Are On Africa
Watch from 45:53 to 47:39

German author Bernward Geier served as the Director of IFOAM (International Federation of Agriculture Movements) for close to 20 years.

Ep 166: Where Organic Is Winning In the World – Asia
Watch from 21:11 to 25:08

Week Six – March 4

Agriculture

How is our agricultural system doing?

Professor David Mortensen chairs the Department of Agriculture, Nutrition, and Food at the University of New Hampshire. His long career has been spent tracking the applications and risks of chemicals in agriculture. Here he shares his concerns over their skyrocketing usage in recent times, as well as the increased introduction of new formulas. (Consider for example that there is now a “glyphosate-free” label which does not tell eaters if that food was produced with Dicamba, 2,4-D, Atrazine, Paraquat, etc. – other biocides an eater may never have heard of.)

Ep 127: Today’s Drastic Rise Of Biocides
Watch from 24:55 to 30:55

Week Five

Information pollution

What can education do?

David Bronner, Cosmic Engagement Officer at Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap, has been a longtime activist in the fight to label GMOs in our food system. He continues to call out the chemical companies that stand to profit from the sales of the biocides that must accompany their GM crops.

Ep 70: Verifying Organic Supply Chains
Watch from 34:34 to 35:46

Food systems author Michael Pollan shares a simple example of how little we dig into the information presented to us. If we see a cow on pasture on the milk carton, do we question whether the milk inside came from cows who ate grass? If we use the code locator to ID where the milk is from, do we question whether or not grass could even grow naturally in that area? How many of us even consider which diet is healthiest for a cow – grass or grain?

Ep 53: Antitrust + Democracy At Your Dinner Table
Watch from 58:22 to 1:00:50

Charlotte Vallaeys shares how easy to follow, boiled-down thinking can lead to incorrect takeaways. Her example is found in the beginning of the movie “Kiss The Ground” where an NRCS scientist shows farmers an animated CO2 emissions map over the course of a year. As the emissions erupt during spring in the northern hemisphere, he tells the room that this is them tilling fields in the spring. The takeaway for many viewers has been that tillage is bad. Many organic vegetable and grain farmers have since argued that tilling responsibly is among their most- valued tools for improving organic matter and soil health.

Ep 110: Why Organic Is Worth Fighting For
Watch from 28:25 to 31:52

Week Four

The New Food Supply

Who asked for it? Who profits?

Julie Guthman

Ep 22: Big Tech’s Takeover Of Organic
Watch from 1:05:51 to 1:10:45

In Episode 147, author and farmer Kristin Kimball addresses an audience at Real Organic Project’s annual live event at Churchtown Dairy in Hudson, NY. Kristin co-owns and operates a full-diet CSA, Essex Farm, alongside her husband Mark Kimball. Her books are about the deep connections she makes through the daily life of farming, and her observations about the food system are filled with meaning and beauty.

Ep 147: The Small Farm Revolution Needs Activist Eaters
Watch from 14:13 to 17:07
And then from 21:17 to 25:49

Week Three

Energy

Will we get through this long emergency before it’s too late?

In Episode 27 of the Real Organic Podcast, ecologist David Montgomery discusses the relationship between societal collapse and extractive farming practices. This idea has come up in our interviews, as we discuss how “desertification” leads to hunger as it perpetuates drought, and speeds up the effects of Climate Change. Desertification is when fertile lands degrade into desert-like conditions – examples include: the Fertile Crescent, the Dust Bowl, and current concerns about food-producing areas of California. David is the co-author of four books, along with his wife soil scientist Anne Biklé, including You Are What Your Food Ate.

Ep 27: Clever Modern Technology vs Ancient Soil Wisdom
Watch from 5:34 to 8:50

In Episode 76, David Weinstein, one of the first organic produce buyers and distributors discusses how differently the organic “industry” has ended up operating as compared to the original sentiments of the organic “movement” that he was part of. David was present at some of the earliest gatherings in California where an organic label and marketplace were being dreamt up by health-seeking farmers and eaters.

Ep 76: Owing and Fixing The Shortcomings of Organic
Watch from 0:00 to 1:00

In Episode 254, journalist and author Tom Philpott touches upon the competing facts and opinions that can help determine whether our US food system is getting worse or better.

Ep 254: Tom Philpott: Corporate Control And The Future Of Food
Watch from 20:31 to 24:52

Week Two

The Great Food War

Will we be able to continue nourishing?

Amanda Starbuck is a research director at Food And Water Watch, where she helped to author an eye-opening investigative series for The Guardian titled “Revealed: the true extent of America’s food monopolies and who pays the price.”

Ep 64: Corporate Consolidation And Our Food system
Watch from 17:58 to 19:20

Author Timothy Wise is an expert on the present-day effects of the Green Revolution, tracking governmental policies, the campaigns of philanthropic organizations and real-time hunger and yield statistics.

Ep 175: Today’s Green Revolution in Africa and Iowa
Watch from 41:55 to 45:26

Upon its publication and for decades to follow, Frances Moore Lappé’s 1971 book Diet for a Small Planet has captivated the world. One of the first to tie the shortcomings of our food production system to hunger and environmental degradation, she has since shifted her writing and everyday work to bolstering democracy which she sees as the core solution to hunger issues.

Ep 201: Power, Democracy and Food
Watch from 49:07 to 53:51