Down to Earth: The Planet to Plate Podcast

Many of us were taught that microbes—and bacteria in particular—were dangerous pathogens, and the safest thing human beings could do was create a sterile, bacteria-free environment. But in fact microbes are absolutely essential to human health, the health of the soil, and to pretty much all life on earth. Dr. Emeran Mayer is a gastroenterologist, executive director of the G. Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience, and the director of the UCLA Microbiome Center. And he’s author of the new book, The Gut-Immune Connection. We talk about how the human microbiome functions, how it's stressed by the standard American diet (SAD) and lifestyle—and the deep interconnections between the human gut and the destruction of the soil microbiome by intensive chemical agriculture. And yes, there are good solutions—if we have the knowledge and will to make them happen.

Reese Baker has been designing permaculture landscapes for many years, and with his family has turned his home on a quarter-acre lot in Santa Fe, NM into a teeming oasis of life, complete with wetlands, a pond, trees, and food and flower gardens—not to mention bats, pollinators, fungi, soil life, and other friendly creatures. His vision for Santa Fe is to make it a pilot city for large scale water conservation, capturing each drop of rain to grow gardens and trees, and lessening the pressure on municipal water systems while increasing local food production. 

Gordon Tooley and his wife Margaret Yancey started Tooley's Trees in Truchas, New Mexico, in the early 1990s. They grow and sell rare and heirloom trees that are well adapted to the semi-arid climate of the region. But just as important as the business is the history of these fruit trees and the genetic preservation of varieties that have very specific characteristics and uses--and the way of life that cultivates a deep relationship with the wildlife, soil, water, and even air in their particular place. We talk about what it means to choose a slower pace of life that favors close observation and low-tech tools over instant gratification. This interview is part the Good Earth series, a project supported by the New Mexico Department of Agriculture Healthy Soils Initiative and led by photographer Esha Chiocchio. It features a set of eight videos on soil stewards in New Mexico. Please check out the short videos here.

Steve Wood is an apple grower and cider maker in Lebanon, New Hampshire, and he's been working on the family orchard since he was a child. Dubbed the Godfather of the hard cider industry in the US, he's one of the New England's leading voices on Integrated Pest Management—a way of keeping creatures of all kinds from destroying the trees and their fruit while minimizing harm to the ecosystem.

Dr. Robin Hadlock Seeley grew up in Maine and has dedicated her life as a scientist to the preservation of coastal ecosystems—in particular a form of seaweed called rockweed. Severine von Tscharner Fleming is a farmer and activist whose farm is on the Maine coast where rockweed is being harvested by the ton and shipped all over the world. What is the function of rockweed in ecosystems, and what would sustainable harvesting—as opposed to extractive mining—of rockweed look like?

Jesse Smith was studying design when he was asked, how can you make something that gets better than age? Intrigued by the question of how to design stuff that won't end up being thrown in the trash, he found his way to agricultural systems, cultured foods, and a community-based way of life. As director of stewardship at the White Buffalo Land Trust, which recently bought the Jalama Canyon Ranch near Santa Barbara, California, he is working with a team to bring back a degraded landscape using grazing animals, agroforestry, and healthy soil practices, and creating an agricultural, educational, and economic model for regenerative local food systems.

Carrie Balkcom grew up on a cattle ranch in Florida. In 2003 she returned to her roots when she became the executive director of the American Grassfed Association at its founding--and she's been there ever since. AGA certifies pasture-raised livestock--and not just beef--and they help producers develop and sustain regenerative practices for the sake of the animals, the land, and the consumer.

Nicolette Hahn Niman never thought that she would have anything positive to say about animal agriculture. An environmental lawyer and a committed vegetarian who had seen the horrors of industrial livestock production up close, her life changed when she married a rancher and began to perceive the complexities of both animal and crop production. She's author of the book, Defending Beef: The Ecological and Nutritional Case for Meat, and we talk about the new and updated edition of the book, in which she makes the case that well-raised livestock can be part of the climate solution--and that good meat can improve human health.