Agrarian Futures

If we're serious about building a better food system, we have to start with land.

Across the world, land is getting more and more expensive. In the United States, farmland values have nearly doubled since 2011. What we're witnessing is an unprecedented land rush — one that's driving prices to levels simply unattainable by farmers and ranchers and  the people we're actually asking to grow our food. As land is sold to development, we are losing an estimated 2000 acres of farmland every single day.

But the bigger story is what's coming. More than 40% of American farmland is owned by people over the age of 65. What this means is that roughly 370 million acres, an area larger than Texas and California combined, is expected to change hands over the next twenty years. Who ends up owning it will shape our food system for decades.

This mini-series is about what a food system built on cooperative principles could actually look like. In a world where land is becoming a speculative asset owned by distant investors, what would it look like to take land back - to hold it in common, to make sure the people actually farming it can afford to be there?

We need alternatives. And one of the clearest working answers I've come across is Fordhall Community Farm. It’s an almost unbelievable underdog tale that has a lot to teach us about the future of land access in our food system.

More about Charlotte and Fordhall Community Farm:

After having fought hard to save their family home from development, Charlotte settled into her dream job managing the FCLI as their General Manager.

Charlotte is passionate about communities connecting with nature, our landscape and the nutritious food it provides. Her work guiding the Fordhall Community Land Initiative as the General Manager, supports this journey for us all. In-line with the FCLI's commitment to inspire others, Charlotte offers consultancy to other land-based community groups across the country who want to learn from Fordhall and follow in our footsteps.

With this in mind, Charlotte and Ben published a book in 2007, The Fight for Fordhall Farm, which charts their lives at Fordhall from childhood to community-ownership. The book was sold in bookstores across the country and there was even a musical based on it, which toured Shropshire in 2008.

Charlotte is also one of the Community Leaders driving forward the campaign for a Community Power Act.

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Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Drew O’Doherty.

We often talk about how the food system is broken, but what would it look like to build one that is better?

In Season 3 of Agrarian Futures, we reimagine a food system rooted in cooperative principles. What if we didn't live in a winner-takes-all economy, but one where cooperatively owned enterprises worked in partnership with each other across the food supply chain?

Through deep dives into examples on the ground, we'll chart a path from our present moment to a better food future. Launching October 2nd!

Hi everyone - Emma here. We're deep in prep for our new miniseries on Agrarian Futures where we will be exploring the potential for a better food system rooted in cooperative principles.

In the meantime, we’ve got a special announcement: Agrarian Futures is joining the World Within Studios Podcast Network!

World Within is a non-profit that invests in solutions and stories that are building an economy that's owned by the many, not just the few. We are delighted to be adding Agrarian Futures to that effort!

Today, we’re cross-posting an episode of our fellow World Within Studios show: the How to Change the World Podcast.

In this episode, my friend Rostam Zafari sits down with Cooper Hibbert, co-founder of Old Salt Co-Op - a cooperative of Montana ranchers pushing back against big beef. His co-founder Cole Mannix was on a previous episode of Agrarian Futures and I think this conversation today adds even more to the picture of what it will take to build a better food system.

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Agrarian Futures and the How to Change the World Podcast is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Eve Weston and Martin McGreevy.

Our guest today Will Potter’s new book, Little Red Barns, started as a tale about censorship in journalism around industrial agriculture, but became something much bigger: a 10 year investigation look at how factory farming, an ages old mythos of family farms, and the rise of authoritarian politics have all worked in tandem to produce social, economic, and ecological disaster.

Will is an investigative journalist and author of Green Is the New Red. In this conversation, we talk about what he found writing Little Red Barns, from the industry's efforts to keep cameras out of factory farms to what that secrecy is really protecting.

In this episode, we explore:

• The story of the “little red barn” that masks a darker truth about industrial agriculture
• What led Will to spend a decade investigating factory farms and how the project grew beyond ag gag laws
• How ag gag laws work, and how they've been used to prosecute journalists and whistleblowers
• Competing visions for what comes next: What role animals play, and should play, in our food system
• How Will connects factory farming to the broader rise of authoritarian politics

More about Will:

Will Potter is an award-winning investigative journalist and TED Senior Fellow who exposes political repression and the erosion of civil liberties.
His reporting and commentary have appeared in The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, and Rolling Stone, and has helped overturn prosecutions and challenge censorship laws. He has been invited to testify before the U.S. Congress, the Australian Parliament, and the Council of Europe, advocating for protest rights and press freedom.

His landmark book Green Is the New Red revealed how governments and corporations have labeled nonviolent activists as “terrorists.” Counter Terrorism Unit surveillance documents described it as “compelling and well-written.” His new book, Little Red Barns, is the result of a 10-year investigation into factory farms and rising fascism, and was recently named one of Publishers Weekly’s most-anticipated releases and a starred review.

Will’s journalism and scholarship have been heavily influenced by growing up in the hardcore punk scene, and he has collaborated with bands including Rise Against. He was previously a Knight-Wallace Fellow and visiting professor at the University of Michigan, and was named the distinguished journalist-in-residence at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. He was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas.

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Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Drew O’Doherty.

Enjoy Part 2 of Emma and Austin's reflections on 2.5 years of Agrarian Futures. In this episode, they highlight the commonalities they see in the big success stories of the regenerative movement, including cooperative economics, finding the right niche in the food system, learning to tell your story, and much much more.

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Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Drew O’Doherty.

Hi all! This time, we're doing something a bit different. 

In this episode, Emma and Austin - hosts of Agrarian Futures - sit down to tell their own story, and share some of their key takeaways of 2.5 years of talking with brilliant farmers and thinkers about the future of our food system. Enjoy!

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Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Drew O’Doherty.

In this conversation, Geoff Lawton offers us something rare: a genuinely hopeful and rigorously grounded vision of how humanity can become a reparative rather than destructive force on this planet.

As one of the world's leading permaculture designers and educators, Geoff has built demonstration sites and trained practitioners across six continents, from the Jordan Valley to the Australian bush. At Zaytuna Farm in New South Wales, he has spent over two decades transforming bare, degraded land into a thriving food forest with 32 bodies of water, hundreds of tree species, and a model for what regenerative living can look like at every scale.

In this episode, we dive into:

• How permaculture redefines wealth, from money to clean air, clean water, clean food, and community
• Why the biggest missing element in modern agriculture is trees
• How soil organic matter holds the key to our water crisis
• What Zaytuna Farm looks like today after 25 years of regeneration
• Why our economy needs to shift from extraction to deposition
• How permaculture projects in Jordan, Hungary, and Spain are proving this works at scale
• Why Geoff believes humanity may be on the verge of a new kind of consciousness

More about Geoff Lawton, Zaytuna Farm, and Discover Permaculture:

Geoff Lawton is a world renowned permaculture consultant, designer and teacher. He took his PDC in 1983 with Bill Mollison, widely considered the “father of permaculture.” Geoff has specialized in permaculture education, design, implementation, system establishment, administration and community development since 1985. Working in over 50 countries, Geoff has taught more than 15,000 students, he established the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia and Zaytuna Farm which is Geoff and Nadia’s family home. As an award winning Permaculture Designer, Geoff’s main aim is to drive the establishment of self-replicating educational demonstration sites across the globe.

Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Drew O’Doherty.

Gabe Brown didn't set out to revolutionize agriculture. He set out to survive it.

After four consecutive years of crop disasters left him $1.5 million in debt, he had no choice but to question everything he'd been taught. What emerged from that reckoning became one of the most influential farms in the regenerative agriculture movement, and eventually two organizations working to spread those lessons globally: Understanding Ag, now consulting on over 37 million acres worldwide, and Regenified, a verification company built to cut through the greenwashing.

In this episode, we look forward. Where is regenerative agriculture headed? Who's driving it, and what's standing in the way?

In this episode, we dive into:

• How four years of disaster became the foundation of a regenerative farming philosophy
• What it actually means to farm in synchrony with nature, and why it works anywhere
• Why farmers care more about the land than they're given credit for
• How to become a price maker instead of a price taker
• The role of banks, insurers, and major brands in accelerating the regenerative transition
• Why Gabe thinks regenerative will be the norm within 25 years
• What the next generation of farmers looks like, and where they're coming from

More about Gabe Brown:

Gabe, along with his wife Shelly, and son Paul, own and operate Brown's Ranch, a diversified 5,000 acre farm and ranch near Bismarck, North Dakota. The ranch consists of several thousand acres of native perennial rangeland along with perennial pastureland and cropland. Their ranch focuses on farming and ranching in nature's image.

Over 2,000 people visit the Brown's Ranch annually to see this unique operation. They have had visitors from all fifty states and twenty-four foreign countries.

Gabe and Brown's Ranch have received many forms of recognition for their work, including a Growing Green award from the Natural Resource Defense Council, an Environmental Stewardship Award from the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, and a Zero-Till Producer of the Year Award, to name a few. Gabe has also been named one of the twenty-five most influential agricultural leaders in the United States.

Gabe recently authored the book, “Dirt to Soil, One Family’s Journey Into Regenerative Agriculture.”

Links to Gabe’s Work:

Brown’s Ranch

Regenified

Understanding Ag

Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller. This episode was edited by Drew O'Doherty.

You can't understand the modern food system without understanding the policy that shaped it. And you can't understand US food policy without understanding the Farm Bill.

Judith McGeary is an attorney, farmer, and the founder of Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance, a national organization that supports independent family farmers and fights corporate consolidation of the food system. In this conversation, Judith breaks down what's actually in the Farm Bill, adds some needed nuance to the subsidy debate, and explains what's at stake as the bill moves through the US Senate right now - and how you - yes you! - can help shape it.

In this episode, we dive into:

• What the Farm Bill actually is and why it touches nearly every aspect of our food system
• Why the Fam Bill has become a divisive political issue after years of bipartisan support
• The pesticide liability shield and what corporate overreach looks like in practice
• Opportunities for regenerative funding through direct farmer advocacy
• Where the Farm Bill stands right now and what's at stake in the Senate
• Concrete ways you can show up and influence the outcome before it's too late

More about Judith McGeary and Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance:

Judith McGeary is an attorney, activist, and sustainable farmer. After earning her BS from Stanford University and her law degree with high honors from the University of Texas at Austin, she clerked for a Federal Appeals Court and went on to private law practice. After seeing how government regulations benefit industrial agriculture at the expense of family farms, she founded the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance to promote common-sense policies for local, diversified agricultural systems. She and her husband raise sheep, chickens, and cattle on their farm outside of Austin, Texas.

Find more and take action at the links below:

• Farm Bill Action Hour Toolkit — get involved now
• News about the House-passed version of the Farm Bill:  Farm Bill UPDATE: A Major Win & Setbacks - Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance
• Deep dive into the issue of fair prices/ price supports for farmers from National Family Farm Coalition: Fair Prices for Farmers - National Family Farm Coalition
• IATP for deep dives into several Farm Bill topics:  Agriculture & Food Systems | IATP

Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Drew O’Doherty.

Our guest today, Fred Provenza, has spent his career listening to what animals can teach us: about landscapes, about food, about the deep intelligence woven into the living world.

Fred is professor emeritus of Behavioral Ecology at Utah State University, where he directed an award-winning research program that pioneered our understanding of how early experience, family, and landscape shape the foraging wisdom of animals. He is the author of over 300 scientific papers and three books, including Nourishment: What Animals Can Teach Us About Rediscovering Our Nutritional Wisdom, Foraging Behavior: Managing to Survive in a World of Change, and The Art & Science of Shepherding, co-authored with French herder Michel Meuret.

In this conversation, Fred draws on a lifetime of ranching, research, and wide-ranging inquiry, taking us from the pastures of Utah to the pre-alps of France. Together we reflect on what we've lost, what endures, and what it might mean to come home to a more intimate relationship with the land.

In this episode, we dive into:

• His childhood in small town Colorado and how it cultivated a deep sense of community that has since largely vanished from American rural life
• Seven years working on Henry De Luca's ranch, and what that experience revealed about the irreplaceable knowledge embedded in intimate relationships with land and animals
• What the concept of epigenetics tells us about the deep, inherited intelligence of locally adapted herds
• The extended family lives of livestock, and what shepherds in France have long understood about nutritional wisdom, plant diversity, and the art of moving animals across a landscape
• What Buddhism, near-death experiences, and quantum physics have in common, and why Fred believes consciousness is our truest nature
• The local food economy as a web of interdependence.
• And much more…

More about Fred:

Fred Provenza is professor emeritus of Behavioral Ecology in the Department of Wildland Resources at Utah State University, where he directed the BEHAVE program — an international network of scientists, ranchers, farmers, and land managers integrating behavioral principles with local knowledge. His books include Nourishment, Foraging Behavior, and The Art & Science of Shepherding. He has published over 300 research papers and spoken at more than 600 conferences around the world.

Find more of Fred's work: Nourishment The Art & Science of Shepherding

Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Drew O’Doherty.