What Doesn't Kill You

In the 1930's President Roosevelt responded to the tragedy of the dustbowl by planting millions of trees in what he called "shelterbelts". The trees were meant to hold water, as well as protect the plains from the effects of over planting and loss of topsoil. Over the last few decades, many of those all important shelterbelts have been destroyed as agriculture has planted fencerow to fencerow. Could we see a second Dust Bowl scenario as climate change advances? Carson Vaughn explains what is at stake and why we can't have too many trees. What Doesn't Kill You is powered by Simplecast

As the farming population wanes, its essential to train up new ones, or we will be buying everything we eat from other countries. Juli Obudzinski is co-author on a new report about the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program. Juli describes how this program works, and who is benefitting. Training up new farmers is essential to our food security in the future and this program leads the way. What Doesn't Kill You is powered by Simplecast

Trump's administration is taking aim at SNAP benefits, WIC benefits, watering down school lunch standards, and implementing draconian immigration policies. A distinguished panel led by Food and Environmental Reporting Network, and CUESA, Center for Urban Education About Sustainable Agriculture held a panel discussion to look for community based solutions to these problems. Sam Fromartz moderated the panel and is interviewed about the discussion and any solutions. What Doesn't Kill You is powered by Simplecast

Veteran agricultural reporter Helena Bottemiller Evich delves into an obscure but highly impactful aspect of climate change; the loss of nutrients from plant life. As temperatures rise, the nutritional content of the plants we eat including staples such as rice or wheat are declining in proteins and minerals. This could have devastating consequences for human health in future decades particularly as the planet continues to warm. Scientists are only now beginning to investigate this troubling trend, and certainly not fast enough to evolve new plant varieties in time to stave off the worst effects. What Doesn't Kill You is powered by Simplecast

Indonesia is home to a wealth of species, and a vast rainforest that is rapidly disappearing through the untrammeled sale of land to internal and external forces intent on becoming the largest producers of palm oil in the world. The land grabbers are mostly Indonesian but they sell their product to companies around the world at the expense of the indigenous population. Philip Jacobson covers Indonesia for the environmental news organization Mongabay, which as part of a journalistic collaboration with The Gecko Project has produced a remarkable series of articles and short films showing what happens when profit trumps people. His team has created a compelling narrative that is a template for similar stories throughout the developing world. What Doesn't Kill You is powered by Simplecast

Carey Gillam has spent over a decade researching and writing about Monsanto and Glyphosate the worlds most popular agro chemical. Her new book WhiteWash describes a perfect storm of collusion between Monsanto, the EPA, USDA and FDA in suppressing negative studies, buying scientists, and discrediting those whose work showed some of the potential dangers of this ubiquitous chemical. Glyphosate is so widely used it now exists in the bodies of virtually every human on the planet. This book teases out the corporate strategies that circumvent the regulations supposed to protect the population, in the pursuit of profit. What Doesn't Kill You is powered by Simplecast

The roots of our food system can be traced back multiple centuries according to author Eric Holt-Gimenez. In a far ranging discussion, just how intertwined food and capitalism is laid bare. The neo liberal economic model brought forth by Reagan and Thatcher has much to do with the current inequities, but they don't bear all the blame. This is a fascinating episode that proposes a major overhaul to how we view our political, economic, and food systems. What Doesn't Kill You is powered by Simplecast

Immigrants rights activist Jose Oliva describes the impact of revoking DACA on the American Food Chain. The effects won't be pretty, and we are already seeing them as produce and fruit rot in fields and on trees due to lack of immigrant labor to harvest. What happens when restaurants have to kick out their workers? We will see the effects in grocery stores, fast food and fine dining, and we aren't going to like it. We need Dreamers and they need our support. What Doesn't Kill You is powered by Simplecast

Ted Genoways spent a year following the day to day life of a farming family in Nebraska. What follows is a close up look at the risks and rewards of medium size farming in an Agri-business world. He shows the extraordinary breadth and depth of knowledge required to farm successfully, along with just the gut instinct and appetite for gambling that are an essential part of the equation.

The latest from agro journalist Maryn McKenna, Big Chicken, should be rattling more than a few cages. Her exhaustive work on the rise of antibiotic resistant pathogens, largely thanks to the American methods of producing chicken are examined in detail in this excellent book on the industry. It makes a powerful case for consumers to rear up and demand that agriculture take antibiotics for growth promotion and for disease prevention right out of the equation, and to adopt methods that have been successfully trialed in other countries to preserve the precious medical miracle of antibiotics.