Agrarian Futures Agrarian Futures

For those who have followed regenerative agriculture anytime over the last three decades, this week's guest needs no introduction. Jenni Harris is the Director of Marketing at White Oak Pastures [https://whiteoakpastures.com/], a six-generation farm in Bluffton, Georgia that transitioned from conventional to regenerative agriculture in 1995 (long before it was cool) and have laid the path for scores of farms to follow suit.

They have even gone so far as to found the Center for Agricultural Resilience [https://thecfar.org/], which educates, empowers and equips individuals & organizations on the benefits of resilient agriculture.

It's a remarkable story and one - as Jenni explains - that other agrarian locales around the country can emulate, while accounting for the unique factors that make up each local environment.

In this episode, we cover:

- How Jenni's search for community led her back to Bluffton and her family farm

- The history of Bluffton, and the work they've done to restore and revitalize the town

- The origin story of White Oak Pastures and how her dad, Will, saw the need to transition to regenerative practices that improved animal welfare, restored local ecosystems, and created a new stream of income for the farm

- The difficult financial realities of farming today, and how they're working to make White Oak Pastures financially sustainable into the future.

- The threat to US regenerative farmers posed by "greenwashing" multinational corporations and lax policies for labeling imported foods

- What they're doing to support more US farmers in transitioning to regenerative practices that are tailored to specific localities.

- What's at stake for the world if we don't transform our food system

- And much more...

Learn more about White Oak Pastures here.

Follow them on Twitter [https://x.com/whiteoakpasture] and Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/whiteoakpastures/].

More about Jenni:

Jenni Harris, Will's middle daughter, is a member of the fifth generation of the Harris family to tend cattle at White Oak Pastures. After living on the farm her entire life, Jenni went to Valdosta State University and earned a degree in Business Marketing, graduating in 2009. She remained intimately involved in the family business throughout her studies.

After graduating, Jenni set out to learn the industry. She moved to Atlanta where she interned at Buckhead Beef, a SYSCO company. She put in time in every department, from shipping and receiving to the cut shop, and was later hired to work as a sales associate.

In June of 2010, Jenni returned home to Early County to work for White Oak Pastures full time. As the Director of Marketing, Jenni spends her time focusing on the balance of ecommerce growth and wholesale relationships. Jenni is the proud mother of Jack and Lottie Harris and wife of Director of Specialty Products, Amber Harris.

Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller [https://alexmillercomposing.com/], who also wrote our theme song.

When it comes to building a robust regenerative agriculture movement, it takes more than just farmers. Cole Allen of Grass Fed Valley [https://www.grassfedvalley.com/] is pitching in in his own way by leveraging years of experience in the financial world to help regenerative farmers solve their most pressing business challenges.

We discussed the importance of local context and farming knowledge when advising clients, and dig into what it would take for the financial system at large to begin to properly value the ecological benefits provided by regenerative farming practices.

In this episode, we cover:

- How health challenges and a cross country odyssey inspired Cole to quit his job in finance and start working in regenerative agriculture

- The importance of the local context of each farmer when making business decisions

- The challenger of valuing the ecological benefits of regenerative agriculture in our current financial system

- The emergence of new kinds of funders who are prioritizing ecological health

- Why their services encompass much more than just fundraising

- The opportunity to reconnect people with the land and how that can shift perspectives

- And much more...

More about Cole:

Cole Allen is a generalist working across the fields of finance, business development/strategy, real estate, health and nutrition, hospitality, entrepreneurship and regenerative agriculture. He founded Grass Fed Valley [https://www.grassfedvalley.com/services/] (GFV), a company serving Farmers focused on regenerative practices and impact through various business, financial, and marketing/branding services. Cole spent four years traveling the US meeting, connecting, and learning from these Stewards of our Soil. The company's mission is to "Inspire our children to be Farmers and reignite our passion for the living world". Prior to GFV he worked as a business development/strategy manager at a Fortune 500 real estate company and at an investment bank as an equity research associate. He graduated from the University of Virginia with concentrations in Finance and Accounting, is a current CFA charter holder and certified Nutritional Therapy Practitioner.

Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller [https://alexmillercomposing.com/], who also wrote our theme song.

In this conversation, Peter Allen of Mastadon Valley Farm [https://www.mastodonvalleyfarm.com/] challenges everything you think you know about climate change, eating beef, and the potential for food abundance grown regeneratively on the land. He brings a unique perspective as both a seasoned academic ecologist and someone with practical experience creating a profitable regenerative farming business.

In this episode, we cover:

- How Peter made the jump from academia into full time regenerative farming

- How management and stewardship of the land by indigenous people brought about the rich topsoil in the midwest - and how we're quickly destroying that

- The environmental value of a savanna ecosystem, and how they're going about restoring it

- The short term challenges - and long term advantages - of farming regeneratively

- Why eating regenerative beef is actually good for you and the environment

- How each of us can restore our land through our diet and purchasing choices

- The potential for layered commercial enterprises on the land for greater profitability and efficiency

- How the conversation around climate change disempowers people to make change, and why we should talk more about ecosystem restoration.

- And much more...

More about Peter:

Peter is an ecologist-turned-farmer and applies his background researching and teaching ecology and complex systems science towards the design, restoration, and management of diverse and agriculturally productive ecosystems. He owns and operates Mastodon Valley Farm [https://mastodonvalleyfarm.com/], a 220-acre regenerative farm in Southwestern Wisconsin where he has built a timber-frame homestead from the farm's trees, planted thousands of fruit and nut trees, and grazes cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and poultry across their fertile valleys, steep hillsides, and restored native prairie pastures. Peter and his wife Maureen grow their family's food on their homestead where they are homeschooling their children nestled in a grove of oak trees. Peter combines his background with over a decade researching and teaching ecology and complexity science together with over a decade of experience farming regeneratively to provide unique and effective consulting and educational opportunities, helping people design, build, and manage diverse, ecologically functional, and economically profitable agroecosystems.

Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller [https://www.alexmillercomposing.com/], who also wrote our theme song.

In our increasingly technology-driven and urbanized culture, who hasn't fantasized from time to time about getting out of the hustle and bustle, moving to the woods, and reconnecting with the natural world? Today we're joined by Daphné Rose Courtés a horse logger in rural Quebec who has done exactly that.

In this conversation, Daphné gave us a picture into the day to day life of her and her horse, Fred, which showcases a true agrarian lifestyle in 2024. She is an inspiring example of someone who has followed their own intuition and embraced difficult, but fulfilling work back on the land.

In this episode, we cover:

- How Daphné found her way from Paris to working as a horse logger in Quebec

- Finding the beauty in both rural and urban life

- Exploring her close bond with her horse, Fred

- The importance of finding a good mentor

- The ecological benefits of horse logging vs conventional

- The challenges of being one of the few woman horse loggers

- The horse logging community and how they welcomed in Daphné into their ranks

- How someone could get into horse logging themselves

- And much more...

More about Daphné:

Daphné was born and raised in Paris and she started riding horses at a very young age. After moving to Quebec, she did a three year program in growing organic fruits and this is how she met Paul Chaperon and his family during an internship. He became her mentor and gave her the opportunity to use horses everywhere on a farm. From doing loose hay, logging, seeding, plowing and much more, it revealed her passion for working horses. She started her own small-scale logging business after buying one of her mentor's horses, Fred. Using a single horse, the goal of her new project is to harvest wood in an ecological and thoughtful way.

Interested in learning more about horse logging? Check out the Draft Animal Power Network's podcast here [https://www.draftanimalpower.org/dapcast].

Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song.

Today we are joined by Kristina Villa of the Farmers Land Trust [https://www.thefarmerslandtrust.org/] who is confronting one of the most intractable challenges and deepest inequities within our food system today: Land access and tenure.

Kristina shares her remarkable journey that has culminated in launching her own organic farming business and founding an organization that enables emerging regenerative farmers to gain access to arable land that then can be held in community for generations rather than going back into a commodity market that favors traditional development.

In this episode, we cover:

- Kristina's story and how her childhood reliance on food banks led her to organic farming and launching the Farmers Land Trust

- The importance of thinking about land transition to help aging farmers pass on their legacy

- Why we're meant to farm in community

- Layering enterprises to get more people back on the land

- Crowd-sourcing land acquisition

- Addressing inequity in land access, ownership, and tenure through a farmland commons strategy

- How anyone can start their own community land trust

- Kristina's advice for getting into farming from a non-farming background

- And much more...

More about Kristina and the Farmers Land Trust [https://www.thefarmerslandtrust.org/]:

Kristina Villa is the Co-Executive Director of The Farmers Land Trust, and is a farmer, communicator, and community coordinator who believes that our connection to the soil is directly related to the health of our bodies, economy, and society. With over a decade of farming, communication, and fundraising experience, Kristina enjoys using her skill sets to share photos, stories, and information in engaging ways which help to inspire change in human habits and mindsets, causing the food system, climate, and overall well-being of the world to improve. Kristina has spent the last several years of her professional career saving farmland from development and securing it in nonprofit land holding structures that give farmers, stewards and ranchers long-term and affordable access and tenure to it. Most of her work in the land access space has focused on equitable land security for BIPOC growers, addressing the inequities and disparities in how land is owned and accessed in this country.

Find the Famers Land Trust on social media at: Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Farmers-Land-Trust/100093197624819/], Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/thefarmerslandtrust/?hl=en], TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@thefarmerslandtrust], LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-farmers-land-trust/], X [https://twitter.com/FarmersLT?t=R_3g1swgiF_G8NcvWvGn3g&s=09], Youtube [https://www.youtube.com/@TheFarmersLandTrust]

Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song.

It's no secret that conventional farming is wreaking havoc on America's farmland, but is it really economically possible to convert conventional row crop farms to a regenerative approach that heals our planet? And how can the concept of an agrarian help foster stronger ties between rural farming communities and the cities they feed?

In this first episode, we dig into the answer with someone who's done it: Josh Payne of Rusted Plowshare Farm [https://www.rustedplowshare.com/] shares the story of how he and his sister Larin transformed their grandfather's corn and soy row crop operation into regenerative pastureland complete with sheep and cattle, microgreens, and over 30 acres of chestnuts.

In this episode, we cover:

- What it means to be an Agrarian

- How they transformed their farm from conventional row crops to regenerative

- Caring for each other through disagreement

- The concept of the "hinterland," and how to create stronger ties between urban and farming communities

- Keys to establishing regenerative pastureland

- And much more...

Learn more about Josh, Larin, and their farm here [https://www.rustedplowshare.com/].

Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller [https://open.spotify.com/artist/0WvWTz5TPYOuoZ77e2iIX8?si=UNVJVNZxR32olf9WOfbf3A], who also wrote our theme song.