Cal Ag Roots Podcast

California, the golden state, is known for many things, chief among them is its status as the breadbasket of the nation and the world. Yet, the ability to sustain agriculture and support the communities is limited by access to water. This podcast examines how access to groundwater is influenced by drought and climate change, but also, how the persistence of drought conditions can be tied to histories of human decision-making and structural racism within the Central Valley.

This story features guest co-producers Dr. Clare Gupta and Cristina Murillo-Barrick; two social scientists on a team of hydrologists, engineers and economists at UC Davis. As part of a larger National Science Foundation research project, Clare and Cristina partnered with the Community Water Center to collect bilingual narratives of impacted residents who don’t have access to safe and affordable drinking water. They spent time talking with people who live and struggle with these issues every day to learn about experiences, strategies and triumphs related to water justice. They also spoke to leading researchers on California water issues.

This podcast was made possible thanks to ongoing collaboration with the Community Water Center/El Centro Comunitario por el Agua and funding from the National Science Foundation’s Coupled Natural Human Systems grant.

We would like to extend a special thanks to everyone who contributed. Community narratives feature several Central Valley residents and water justice advocates: Lucy Hernandez, Melynda Metheney, Vergie Nuñez, Cristobal Chavez, Tomas Garcia, Daniel Peñaloza and Susana de Anda. Researchers include Dr. Jonathan Herman, Mark Arax and Camille Pannu. Podcast editors and collaborators include Ryan Jensen and Ildi Carlisle-Cummings. Audio edits by Victoria Boston and podcast and Cal Ag Roots theme music by Nangdo.

Photo Caption and Credit: Maria Elena Orozco from East Orosi examines a glass of her drinking water, picture taken by Community Water Center

Looking Back to Look Forward asks why in California-- which has been the home of farm labor movements-- aging farm workers are not guaranteed any help in their retirement. The story centers farmworker voices and provides a historical approach to understand why little progress on this important right has been made. We dig into the history of how farm workers were excluded from key protections granted other kinds of workers in the New Deal-era National Labor Relations Act. This show was co-produced by Jennifer Martinez, in collaboration with Cal Ag Roots. (Photo is of Lola Martinez, a farm worker in Bakersfield, CA)

Stories of California farming history often start at the Gold Rush. Sometimes, they reach back in time to include the Mexican or Spanish eras. But very rarely do we hear about the ways indigenous Californians were tending the landscape to produce food for thousands of years before contact with colonizers. The story of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band and their stewardship of the land along California’s Central Coast is a crucial part of the history of how humans have interacted with this landscape. What they and other native people across the state have historically done here was NOT farming, they tell me. And yet their stewardship practices literally laid the groundwork for the existing farming industry. It turns out that this story not only stretches the standard timeline of California history back by thousands of years, but it asks us to expand our very definition of agriculture. Which is why it feels like a critically important place to dig in. Featuring A-dae Romero-Briones, Valentin Lopez, Eleanor Castro, Rick Flores and Nancy Vail, with music by Nangdo, Kai Engel and Ketsa.

Nina Ichikawa is shaping the conversation about the future of California farming in many different ways. She's the Interim Executive Director at the Berkeley Food Institute, a member of the Farmer Justice Collaborative, the great grand-daughter of influential Japanese American flower growers, as well as a writer about Asian-American food histories. And she’s one of the most insightful thinkers about current issues in California food and farming. Tune in to this Cal Ag Roots episode to find out why Nina wants us all to be telling many more stories about California.

Antonio Roman Alcalá has a lot of ideas to share about power-building in the food movement. He’s an organizer, and a thinker, a theorizer and a farmer. Antonio strikes me as someone who manages to have his hands in the soil AND his eyes on the horizon at the same time. In our conversation at his kitchen table in his tiny Berkeley apartment, I got the impression that he’s often dreaming of possibilities for a collectively-owned, radically diversified farming future, but that he’s also deeply rooted in and actively drawing from history. Which is why, of course, I was excited to talk with him for this podcast.

This podcast is part of our series is called Digging Deep: Conversations with Food Movement Leaders about the History of Farming. Tune in to these episodes to learn how food movement leaders’ understanding of the past, and how what they learn from Cal Ag Roots stories, has shifted their thinking about their work.

Antonio refers to a few Cal Ag Roots stories that you might want to listen to, if you haven't caught them yet. Those are Podcast 1: There's Nothing More Californian than Ketchup, Podcast 2: Can Land Belong to Those Who Work it? and Podcast 10: Política del Mole/ The Politics of Mole. Check those out wherever you get our podcast!

For centuries, people have been telling other people what to eat. The paleo diet fad might be new, but the idea that some people know what food is best, or healthiest, or cleanest and that other people need to be educated about that is definitely NOT new. It might be one of the oldest ideas we’ve explored on this show.

And it has surprisingly little to do with knowledge about food itself and a whole lot more to do with ideas about whose culture is “good.” Or about “living right.” Or defending a social order. Dig just a little bit into the history of ideas about diet and you’ll quickly find a lot of ideas about race and about class and about power.

But one group of cultural organizers in CA’s Central Valley, at the Pan Valley Institute, has radically shifted this conversation-- and by doing that they point the way towards a new model for food movement work that builds political and community strength from difference and diversity. Tune in to learn about Política del Mole/The Politics of Mole!

This story was produced by the California Institute for Rural Studies, Ildi Carlisle-Cummins, director of the Cal Ag Roots Project, and Li Schmidt. Special thanks to everyone who’s voices you heard here: Myrna Martinez, Erica Kohl-Arenas, Melanie DuPuis, Mario Sifuentez, Gail Feenstra, Charlotte Biltekoff and Brenda Ordaz. The music for our podcast was by Dayanna Sevilla and by the Nangdo. Thanks also to our funders-- the 11th Hour Project and the Food and Farming Communications Fund.

This is a Thanksgiving podcast, featuring three tasty audio pieces that celebrate family food traditions and workers who have given their lives to fill our tables. Tune in to this 4th episode in our Borderlands of the San Joaquin Valley series to hear two student-produced audio pieces by Cindy Cervantes and Omar Gonzalez and a powerful performance by roots-blues musician and Central Valley native Lance Canales. (Photo Credit: Lillian Thaoxaochay)

Dr. Mario Sifuentez is an Associate Professor of History at UC Merced who's done a lot of thinking about the past and future of California's Central Valley. He's been involved with Cal Ag Roots since the very start of this project, both as an advisor and as an interviewee. (You can hear his voice on our third podcast, where he gives us real insight into the Bracero Program.) Mario has deep knowledge about the history of food production, and his current research digs up some interesting new stories about an activist group featured our Can Land Belong to Those Who Work It? podcast, which is why I wanted talk with him for this Digging Deep episode.

This is the second episode in our new Cal Ag Roots podcast series--Digging Deep: Conversations with Food Movement Leaders about the History of Farming-- which will be released every other month. I’m talking with people who are working to shift farming right now, bringing California farming into the future. And we’re talking about how their understanding of the past, and how what they learn from Cal Ag Roots stories, has shifted their thinking about their work. Each of the conversations will draw on Cal Ag Roots stories, so if you haven't heard them all yet, take a listen on our Story Hub (or subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher)!

Particularly relevant to today’s podcast is the last one we released—#2, Can Land Belong to Those Who Work it. We’ll keep on producing that style of podcasts and releasing them here—there are so, so many more histories to unearth. The two different kinds of podcasts are going to be in constant conversation with each other, so we're hoping that you’ll tune into both and that each episode will be more meaningful that way.

Ours to Lose showcases another performance from our live story-telling event, Borderlands of the San Joaquin Valley. The radio play at the center of this episode, Ours to Lose, written by Yia Lee and produced by the Valley Roots Project, is based on an interesting research process. The play was written using a Story Circle process that involved interviews with real farmers from across the Central Valley. The result is a powerful and revealing portrait of Hmong-American farmers that really rings true, as you'll hear in the audio portrait of Lilian Thaoxaochay, Hmong-American farm-kid-turned-anthropologist, which is the second part of our podcast.

We're in the middle of a podcast series based on Borderlands of the San Joaquin Valley--check out Podcast 5, if you haven't already heard it.

Mai Nguyen is an innovative grain farmer and an influential farmer organizer. In

this interview, the first in our new series of conversations with food movement leaders that we're calling "Digging Deep," Mai talks with Ildi Carlisle-Cummins about how examining our agricultural past is the only way to move into a just, healthy farming future.

As she puts it, "I, like other farmers, have perhaps 40 tries to grow my crops. That's not many, but we have more data points by looking back and looking around us. Scale isn't about one individual using their monoculture of the mind to manage vast acreage. Scale is time, human history, diversity -- the polyculture of many minds working lands in different ways throughout time and at the same time."

This new Cal Ag Roots podcast series--Digging Deep: Conversations with Food Movement Leaders about the History of Farming-- will be released every other month. I’ll be talking with people who are working to shift farming right now, bringing California farming into the future. And we’ll be talking about how their understanding of the past, and how what they learn from Cal Ag Roots stories, has shifted their thinking about their work. Each of the conversations will draw on Cal Ag Roots stories, so if you haven't heard them all yet, take a listen!

Particularly relevant to today’s podcast is the last one we released—#5, Borderlands of the SJV. I’ll keep on producing that style of podcasts and releasing them here—there are so, so many more histories to unearth. The two different kinds of podcasts are going to be in constant conversation with each other, so I’m hoping anyway, that you’ll tune into both and that each episode will be more meaningful that way.