Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast
Episodes
Putting soil science to work
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Caitlin Youngquist started out wanting to be a veterinarian, but then discovered soil science and was so taken by it that she got a PhD, and has d...
Bringing bison back to indigenous lands
12 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Montana filmmaker Daniel Glick decided to make a film about bison just because he loved the animals and wanted to be around them. He teamed up with Bl...
Meet Xochitl, Quivira's new Executive Director
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Xochitl Torres Small grew up in Las Cruces, NM, and started her career as an attorney who has working in water and natural resources law. She served...
Food, power, and hope in the American West
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In today's podcast, we talk to Jennifer Sahn, editor of High Country News, and writers Rick Bass and Laureli Ivanoff, about HCN's September issue, a ...
The perils and poetics of being a fire lookout
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Philip Connors grew up on a farm in Minnesota, studied journalism, and got a job at the Wall Street Journal. But after the September 11 attacks and th...
Ted Turner's Ranch: Watching degraded ecosystems bounce back
23 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1996, media mogul Ted Turner bought a New Mexico ranch that's bigger than many national parks. A new film, Preserved, details its history, conserv...
An outdoor classroom for land stewardship—and life skills
09 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Quinn Mendelson is Conservation Program Director of Rocky Mountain Youth Corps, a nonprofit that trains young adults to do conservation work in the ...
The Good Meat Movement
26 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What is "good meat"? Michele Thorne has a lot to say on the subject. She is executive director of The Good Meat Project, a non-profit whose mission is...
Navajo farming and entrepreneurship––for the next generation
12 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Zachariah Ben is a sixth-generation farmer from Shiprock, New Mexico. He and his family founded Bidii Baby Foods. Using traditional Navajo food tradit...
Feeding a Divided America
29 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Gilles Stockton is author of the new book, Feeding a Divided America: Reflections of a Western Rancher in the Era of Climate Change, published by Uni...
Feeding a Divided America
29 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Giles Stockton is author of the new book, Feeding a Divided America: Reflections of a Western Rancher in the Era of Climate Change, published by Univ...
Preventing Catastrophic Flooding: The Secret is in the Soil
15 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Bryan Hummel is a big-time water nerd. Specializing in nature-based solutions to watershed and land management issues, he has brought his expertise to...
Thinking ecologically—about human health
01 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Doctor and professor of public health Wendy Johnson saw in her medical practice people who thrived against all odds, and those who suffered grave chal...
Cultivating community in urban food forests
17 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Orion Kriegman and his friends started clearing a trashed vacant lot in Boston to create green space and grow food. City hall was not on their side at...
Women ranchers finding their power
03 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Montana rancher Amber Smith didn't grow up in agriculture, but ranching became her life's work. As a young adult Kristen Kipp left the family ranch in...
Women ranchers in their power
03 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Montana rancher Amber Smith didn't grow up in agriculture, but ranching became her life's work. As a young adult Kristen Kipp left the family ranch in...
Making the transition to local, sustainable living
20 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Transition Movement is a worldwide network of people working locally to move away from fossil fuel-base infrastructure toward locally-based system...
From backyard veggie garden to profitable livestock ranch
06 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Eileen Napier and Stan Hayes of Ramstead Ranch teamed up around their common interests in organic gardening, permaculture, and healthy living. They st...
Fair Trade: Good for farmers, the land, consumers—and business
22 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Paul Rice started out as an anti-capitalist labor organizer, working with coffee farmers in Nicaragua in the 1980s. Over time he saw that what growers...
Federal fiasco for farmers
09 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Since the new administration took office, programs benefitting farmers have been slashed, frozen, paused, and canceled––and the effect is leaving ...
Let it Flow: Restoring balance to parched and flooded landscapes
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Minni Jain and Philip Franses are co-founders of The Flow Partnership, and they are co-authors of the new book, The Language of Water: Ancient Techni...
Landscape restoration: letting nature do the work
21 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Bill Zeedyk restores landscapes—streams, wetlands, even rural roads—by using simple, low-tech tools and letting nature do most of the work. The re...
Ducks, cows, and resilience
07 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Since the 1930s, Ducks Unlimited has been protecting habitat for ducks and other migrating waterfowl, and has conserved over 18 million acres of wetl...
Animal welfare is good for everyone—including farmers
17 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Mason is Senior Manager of Farm Animal Welfare and Environmental Policy at the ASPCA, the American Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animal...
1000 Farms Initiative: A new paradigm of science in service of farmers
03 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Entomologist, agroecologist, farmer, rancher, and beekeeper Dr. Jonathan Lundgren was a scientist with USDA Agricultural Research Service for 11 years...
Virtual fencing—new technology that benefits both ranching and land conservation
12 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Virtual fencing is a new technology that employs GPS collars to keep animals in "virtual" pastures—so instead of using physical fences, the fence li...
Regenerating a desert wetland oasis
29 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Don Boyd spent a year on the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in central New Mexico, photographing, living, and finding a deep connect...
The awe-inspiring beauty hidden in our food
15 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Artist and science educator Robert Dash creates art from micro- and macroscopic photographs of food crops. His new book, Food Planet Future: The Ar...
Painterland Sisters Yogurt: Regeneration at every step from farmer to consumer
30 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Hayley and Stephanie Painter grew up on a fourth-generation dairy farm in northern Pennsylvania, and while it was an idyllic childhood, the instabili...
Agave, mesquite, and a carbon drawdown game-changer
17 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
André Leu is co-founder and International Director of Regeneration International, an organization that promotes food, farming, and land use systems...
Commerce, the destruction of nature, and the uphill path to sustainability
03 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Environmental historian Sara Dant's book Losing Eden traces the history of the American West from the time of elephants and camels to the near destruc...
Colorado peaches: delicious for the eaters, fair for the workers
20 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Gwen Cameron grew up on Rancho Durazno, her family's peach farm. She was pursuing a career in journalism when her father asked her if she wanted to co...
Black farmers regenerating land in the face of historical and current racism
06 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
P. Wade Ross's great grandfather was a runaway slave who bought land in Texas. His descendants founded Texas Small Farmers and Ranchers Community Base...
Empowering women in agriculture
23 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Women have been invisible in agriculture for too long: not counted in the census, not taken seriously for their work and management achievements, excl...
The wild adventures of a New Mexico hemp farmer
08 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Doug Fine was an international journalist before he moved to New Mexico to start a polyculture farm and embrace a rural way of life. He's the author ...
Sarah Wentzel-Fisher on working lands, community, science, and more
26 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah Wentzel-Fisher is executive director of Quivira Coalition. A native of South Dakota, she came to her work in agriculture and leadership via a c...
Pueblo values + engineering expertise = resilient landscapes
12 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Phoebe Suina grew up on Cochiti and San Felipe Pueblos in New Mexico, where she learned about land, water, and cultural values and practices from her ...
Documentary digs deep into grazing science — and society
28 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A decade ago, filmmaker Peter Byck assembled a group of scientists who were looking at agriculture from a whole-system perspective to study regenerati...
Saving seeds, saving ecosystems
05 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Seed Savers Exchange is a small non-profit that's making a big difference. For a half century, they've been saving seeds, getting them out into garden...
Investing in regenerative ag
29 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dirt Capital Partners takes a "slow money" perspective on investing, helping farmers get land access and regenerate not only the soil but also their c...
From suburban Chicago to rural Montana: the journey of a bison rancher
16 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 w...
A matter of conscience
02 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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, ...
The robber barons of today's food corporations
19 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 bec...
Farm Aid: Food, festivity, and fighting for farmers
05 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 fac...
Healthy fish snacks––what cod be better?
20 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 a...
The Carbon Credit Conundrum
06 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Carbon credits were designed as a market mechanism to incentivize projects that sequester carbon and reduce carbon emissions. The idea is to pay peopl...
At The Table: Chefs advocating for a better food system
22 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 politi...
The six-legged livestock: Bees
09 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Bonus episode: Ask Me Anything!
18 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Photographing grasslands: beauty, community, life
12 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Photographer Sally Thomson's gorgeous new book of photographs and texts, Homeground, is a deep exploration of rangelands in the Southwest––lands...
Land, sheep, and the inefficiency of being too efficient
29 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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-fe...
Transforming 40 million acres of lawns into thriving ecosystems
13 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Erik Ohlsen author of The Regenerative Landscaper, is helping people, municipalities, companies, and farms create thriving landscapes at every scale–...
Sheep and goats for healthy land, thriving businesses, and fire reduction
30 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Cole Bush is a shepherdess, entrepreneur, and educator. Founder of Shepherdess Land & Livestock and Grazing School of the West, she uses a "flerd" (fl...
Words of wisdom from a holistic veterinarian and regenerative dairy farmer
17 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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, f...
Funneling federal ag money to the people who most need it
03 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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...
How to have family business meetings that are productive––and short
19 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Joe and Jenn Wheeling talk about how to avoid the pitfalls of a family ranch business––ego, speechifying, wasted time––and arrive at consensus...
Weathering global change on an Oregon sheep ranch
05 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When wool processing suddenly moved overseas, Jeanne Carver and her family were left without a market for their products. Through determination and cr...
From mountaintops to farm fields: Landscape scale restoration
21 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How do you restore an entire forest, or mountain, or watershed? The key is...collaboration. Jan-Willem Jansens has been restoring landscapes in New Me...
A food forest on an eighth of an acre
07 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Roxanne Swentzell was a young mother on a small piece of land at Santa Clara Pueblo when she was introduced to permaculture design principles––whi...
From corporation to regeneration––a family's journey
24 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Lorenzo Dominguez was a successful marketing and corporate communications executive in New York City. But during the pandemic he and his wife made the...
Healing the trauma of Black land loss through regenerative rice production
11 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Konda Mason is co-founder and president of Jubilee Justice, a non-profit dedicated to regenerative agriculture, racial justice, cooperative practices...
Cultivating oysters for ocean health, human health, and economic development
28 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Oysters are delicious and nutritious. They are also a keystone species and an ecosystem engineer, which means that they provide habitat for all kinds ...
From urban journalist to country farmer
06 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 fam...
Establishing an earth-friendly meat business
22 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Corporate meat producers tout their "efficiency" but actually wreak havoc on the environment, local communities, and the animals themselves. Cole Mann...
Taking it to the street––healthy food entrepreneurship
07 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Tina Garcia-Shams is executive director of the Street Food Institute in Albuquerque, NM. The program teaches entrepreneurship, food preparation, accou...
Herding animals for land––and human––health
24 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Traditional pastoral cultures have been living in harmony with animals and land for millennia––and they persist to this day, though with seriou...
Hydroponics, aquaponics, and sovereignty
11 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Hydroponic agriculture systems use water––not soil––to grow crops, and yet they use water with exceptional efficiency and can produce abundant...
Systems thinking: Coordinating after, during, and before disasters
28 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Many federal, state, and local agencies, as well as non-profits and community groups, carry the responsibility of helping people and fixing infrastruc...
Technology-assisted regeneration
14 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Industrial agriculture imposes a simplified production model onto complex ecosystems––with dire consequences. In the new book, The Great Regenera...
Wolves in the West: Finding common ground
28 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After being driven almost to extinction, wolves are back in some of their natural habitat. A new podcast, Working Wild University, explores how ranche...
De-commodifying land: Challenging your inner capitalist
13 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The price of land keeps going up across the country as wealthy investors buy farmland and people move out of cities. This puts untenable pressure on f...
Healing Grounds: The enduring cultures of regenerative agriculture
30 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Liz Carlisle's new book, Healing Grounds: Climate, Justice, and the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming, is a fascinating exploration of food, agricult...
Innovative approaches to regeneration on a California ranch
17 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
TomKat Ranch manager Mark Biaggi talks about dealing with winter floods, summer droughts, and degraded landscapes––and the process of continual ex...
Giant bison, mammoths, and eagles
15 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
66 million years ago an asteroid struck earth, causing the fifth mass extinction of species on earth. With the dinosaurs gone, new species proliferate...
Giant bison, mammoths, and eagles
15 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
66 million years ago an asteroid struck earth, causing the fifth mass extinction of species on earth. With the dinosaurs gone, new species proliferate...
Sustainable development, climate mitigation, and biochar
30 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Brando Crespi has devoted decades to sustainable development as co-founder and Executive Chair at Pro Natura International and Global Biochar. His hol...
Bringing dead land back to life
15 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
John D. Liu started his career as a journalist and cameraman, covering politics, economics, and culture. In 1995, he began documenting the Loess Plate...
Desert wisdom: sustaining Southwest agriculture using old ways––and new
01 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Gary Paul Nabhan, known by many as the "father of the local food movement," is a prolific author, scientist, and activist for a healthy and truly rege...
A vibrant pecan oasis in the desert
18 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Coley Burgess grew up on a conventional farm, then studied mathematics and electrical engineering...and he brought his scientific rigor and curiosity...
The food-housing nexus
01 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Phillip Warsaw's work is all about the interconnectedness of the systems that keep our lives going––food, housing, transportation, healt...
Leveling the growing field
20 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
If you're a small or mid-size farmer, it's nearly impossible to compete against giant food conglomerates. But fairer policy could help smaller farms t...
Big Team Farms––a new economic model?
06 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Both big ag and small family farms have their problems...but what's the alternative? We talk with agricultural journalist Sarah Mock about the some po...
The USDA goes after a small sheep farm
23 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Linda and Larry Faillace spent years at the University of Nottingham in England, where Linda became an expert in Mad Cow Disease (BSE). Upon return to...
Making your tax dollars work after fires and floods
07 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM-3), a native of Las Vegas, NM, deeply understands the challenges and strengths of rural people in northern ...
Place, Power, And Purpose
26 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Bees date back over 10,000 years on the American continent and are vital to the health of almost every bite of food we eat, but today they face threat...
What's good for the farm is good for the planet
12 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
During Carol Ekarius's early years in Colorado, the Buffalo Creek Fire burned just under 12,000 acres — and at the time was considered a huge, catas...
What is Your Foodprint?
28 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We all know the term carbon "footprint." Well, Foodprint takes this idea and broadens it to apply to our food system; they explore how the foods we e...
Kiss the Ground: A project born of devotion to the earth
07 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ryland Engelhart came from a family of vegans and vegetarians and knew early on that he wanted to devote his life to the health of the planet. Once he...
Food, forests, and farms
24 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Most of the American Midwest was once a vast savanna, an open grassland with abundant trees and wildlife. As the land was converted to agriculture man...
Western Wildfires
10 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In New Mexico and across the West wildfires are burning through wildlands, farms, ranches, and communities. Lesli Allison, executive director of the...
The path to positive food policy
25 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Aria McLauchlan and Harley Cross, co-founders of Land Core, have been working for years on food and farming policy that promotes regenerative practice...
Making the regenerative transition
12 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jessica Chiartas is a PhD soil bio-geochemist who's working to catalyze the transition from "conventional" to regenerative agriculture. She's a postdo...
Restoring landscapes...with goats
29 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Amanita Thorp Berto is owner of Horned Locust Remediation, and she uses a flock of goats and sheep to do landscaping projects. In gardens, parks, phot...
Rebuilding resilience on native land
15 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the late 1990s, members of Santa Ana Pueblo embarked on a long-term project to restore their land, which had been damaged over the last century by ...
The Sequestration Solution: Soil
22 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Karl Thidemann is co-founder of Soil4Climate, a non-profit that advocates for regenerative agriculture, with a focus on grazing and the restoration of...
Restore the water cycle, revive the planet
08 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Zach Weiss has seen land so degraded that even weeds couldn't grow...and helped transform it into healthy, living landscapes by changing the flow of w...
This earth to which we belong
25 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The title of Pamela Tanner Boll's new film, To Which We Belong, comes from a quotation by the author Aldo Leopold, early 20th conservationist and en...
Science meets compost
11 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Eva Stricker is director of the Carbon Ranch Initiative for the Quivira coalition and a Research Assistant Professor at the University of New Mexico D...
Cultivating the People-Planet-Profit model on an urban farm
15 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Matt Draper and Minor Morgan started North Valley Organics on two plots of land in Albuquerque, and have made a commitment to the People-Planet-Prof...
Planetary regeneration on a community scale
30 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
About a decade ago Tijinder and Juliana Ciano took over Reunity Resources' land from a centenarian veteran, and they've continued to honor his missio...