Media

 
Former Wall Street banker John Fullerton traces the personal journey that led him to question the foundations of modern economics, inspired by witnessing 9/11 in real time and finding the seminal book “Limits to Growth.” John explains why an economy dependent on perpetual material growth cannot remain stable on a finite planet, and why many of today’s ecological, social, political, and financial crises are deeply interconnected. Looking to living systems for guidance, he explores how cooperation, resilience, decentralization, healthy circulation, and attention to place could reshape finance and commerce.
 
 
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“There’s a famous quip that anyone who believes that you can have exponential growth on a finite planet is either a madman or an economist.”

“We are facing the consequences of having built an entire global system on an idea that was fundamentally flawed. But it wasn’t flawed in the short term; it was only flawed in the long term. It could work for a while because effectively we were drawing down the savings account.”

—John Fullerton

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Soil scientist and educator James Cassidy explains why the ground beneath us is far more than a medium for growing crops. Soil stores water and nutrients, supports biological communities, shapes regional food cultures, and has influenced the rise of nations and civilizations. Cassidy explores how grasslands and grazing animals created some of the world’s richest agricultural soils, how microbes make atmospheric nitrogen available to plants, and why farmers need both scientific measurements and direct land observation.
 
 
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“They who have the good soils have the ability to project power, and those who don’t even know where that political power really comes from have no business having it, in my opinion.

“I’m sure there are many leaders that we could talk about, who have no idea where it all comes from and where it all goes. Soil is the great all. It’s everything.”

– James Cassidy

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“Drilled” host Amy Westervelt shares her deep knowledge of corporate propaganda, climate politics, and how the hidden systems that influence our consent as a society or as an entire population have been constructed. Pretty alarming stuff to say the least! She shows us how industries protect themselves by shaping not only markets, but the very terms of public debate – using think tanks, amicus briefs, and strategic greenwashing campaigns.
 
 
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“There’s less of a left-right problem than there is a top-down problem. We might have different ideologies here and there, but we’re not the ones trying to limit what information people have to make decisions about their lives.

“The much bigger problem is the very small percentage of people who are in control of information, wealth, and decision-making in this world.”

– Amy Westervelt

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Mark Doudlah shares his story of being a proud chemical farmer who fully transitioned to organic after a devastating family loss. He reflects on his father’s cancer, the culture of “feeding the world” that influences so many Midwestern growers and how the glyphosate he once relied on to farm still poisons his family’s drinking water. He also celebrates he tools, cover crops, and growing methods that helped his farm find a different path.
 
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“I thought I built my house on a rock, but I built it on sand. The sand washed away, and I realized that this chemical farming, and everything that I was programmed to believe, ultimately was a lie.”

– Mark Doudlah
 
 
 
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Nicola Shirley-Phillips joins us to explore the crossroads facing Jamaican agriculture. She reflects on Ital food traditions, the spread of Green Revolution farming, the pressure of exports and imported processed foods, and the need to reconnect farmers, consumers, and policymakers to a more ecological, organic vision. Along the way, she introduces her idea of “organic intelligence” and describes why Jamaica could become a regional force for cleaner food if more people start asking where their food comes from and how it is grown.
 
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“You got to pay to play. The chemical companies are educating extension and the universities. So they come and they take them out to lunch, hotel rooms, trips, whatever it’s going to take to make sure their chemicals get into Jamaica.

“If you call and ask extension or the government about anything organic or naturally grown, they say it can’t work.”

– Nicola Shirley-Phillips

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Chuck Benbrook returns for an urgent conversation about the Supreme Court ruling in favor of Bayer-Monsanto and the wider consequences for public health, pesticide regulation, and the future of farming. He explains how the decision weakens one of the most important legal tools available to people harmed by pesticides, why it matters far beyond Roundup, and how the same political forces now shaping pesticide policy are also redefining “regenerative” agriculture in ways that could strengthen the industrial system rather than replace it.
 
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“This ruling by the Supreme Court, it won’t end the Roundup non-Hodgkin lymphoma litigation, but it will pare it down very substantially, probably to less than 10% of the cases that would be regarded as viable to try to take into a court and prove without being able to point to the failure of Bayer-Monsanto to warn on the label about the fact that they knew that glyphosate damaged human DNA in ways that start cells on the path to non-Hodgkin lymphoma.”

– Chuck Benbrook
 
 
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Greg Asbed and Gerardo Reyes Chávez join us again for a deeper look at how the Coalition of Immokalee Workers turned one of the most exploited sectors of the food system into a model for change. They trace the path from wage theft, sexual violence, and modern-day slavery in the fields of Florida to a proven system of prevention that is now influencing labor protections across the globe and challenging the empty promises of corporate social responsibility to show what real accountability can look like.
 
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“Believe me, if you’ve ever done both of those things – prosecution and prevention – prevention is infinitely preferable, because it’s a world without victims. It’s a world where people don’t suffer the crime.”

“Literally, the Fair Food Program is that world.”

– Greg Asbed
 
 
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Laura Orlando explains what happens when industrial waste and human waste are routed into the same sewage system and repackaged to be sold as something safe – valuable even, for improving farmland. She explains how sludge spreading has poisoned farms, why Maine became a national beacon by banning its application, and what it will take to stop sewage sludge from becoming an even bigger crisis for farmers, soil, water, and public health.
 
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“There’s a handful of corporations that went, ‘Hey, wait a minute. We want these contracts.’

“So multi-million-dollar contracts are written to haul this stuff away. What’s the cheapest thing you could possibly do with it? Dump it on somebody’s farm. To tell the farmers, ‘It’s free. It’s beneficial. Use it on your farm.'”
 
 
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Zephyr Teachout uses the question of organic integrity to explore a larger political problem: what happens when concentrated private power reshapes public rules while staying mostly within the law? Starting with the pressure on Real Organic to join forces with industrial organic against Bayer and Syngenta, she and Dave unpack corruption, anti-monopoly politics, regenerative agriculture, decentralization, and why any movement that gives up its leverage too early risks losing the very thing it set out to defend.
 
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“When powerful entities ask a small farmer advocacy group to stop criticizing them, “for unity”, that’s not really a coalition, that’s a request for silence.

“Don’t ever give up your leverage.

“If they’re asking you to give it up, why on earth would they listen to you once you already have?”
 
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Austin Frerick takes the stage at our annual Churchtown Dairy event to explain why today’s food economy looks less like a functioning market that benefits farmers and eaters, and more like a new Gilded Age. He traces how a handful of Big Food “barons” have consolidated power over grain, meat, dairy, coffee, and distribution, often using tactics that average humans would just never consider. He then lays out a practical reform agenda built around antitrust enforcement, institutional buying, farm-bill redesign, and stronger journalism to yield a more positive vision for rural America and the future of food and farming.
 
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“There is a water pollution crisis in Iowa right now. Iowa has the second highest cancer rate in America. Iowa also has an obesity crisis.

“Iowa is the canary in the coal mine for the food system in this country.”
 
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