Heartland Stories Radio

Cathy Erway is a James Beard and IACP (The International Association of Culinary Professionals) award winning food writer and the author of the cookbooks "The Food of Taiwan", "Sheet Pan Chicken", and the memoir "The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove". She hosts the podcast Self Evident, exploring Asian America's stories. Tune in to learn more about:

• Cathy's experience living in New York and how she learned to stop eating out and eating at home;
• Her blog about not eating out in the city;
• Food and packaging waste;
• Her inspiration for writing the cookbook "The Food of Taiwan";
• Day and midnight markets in Taiwan;
• Her podcast on Heritage Radio Network Eat your words;
• Self Evident, the community podcast that explores Asian American stories.

To learn more about Cathy, go to https://theartofeatingin.com/.

George Siemon is an organic pioneer and the co-founder and former CEO of CROPP/Organic Valley. In September 2022, George was one of the recipients of the 2022 Honorary Recognition Award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. The Honorary Recognition Award recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to their professions, their communities and the university. Tune in to learn more about:

• George's path into organic farming;
• His involvement in pioneering organic standards for livestock;
• How organics has proven that it can feed the world;
• How a stable price helped organic family farms;
• About alternative ownership models, like co-ops and trust ownerships;
• The art of governance and why it is important that we learn how to work and get along together.

Frances Moore Lappé is the author or co-author of twenty books about world hunger, living democracy, and the environment, beginning with the three-million-copy Diet for a Small Planet in 1971. She is the co-founder of three organizations including the Oakland-based think tank Food First and the Small Planet Institute, which she leads with her daughter, Anna Lappé, and the Small Planet Fund, which channels resources to democratic social movements worldwide. Tune in to learn more about:

- What she learned during the pandemic;

- About Diet for Small Planet 50 years later;

- Her experience with the farmers in the Midwest from the 1980s to today;

- The concentrated power of corporations in the food industry;

- Why she is a "possibilist" and she believes that voices and actions count and can make a difference;

- What democracy really means and about Democracy Movement;

- The culture of valuing and taking responsibility of our natural resources.

To learn more about Frances go to https://www.smallplanet.org.

Lauren Perkins is a 4th generation organic dairy farmer at Perk Organic Dairy Farm in Frankford, West Virginia. Lauren grew up on the 1,000-acre farm that her great-grandfather started in 1942. At 26, she became the first woman in her family to manage the dairy farm. Tune in to learn more about:

• The story of how Lauren's grandfather started as a dairy farmer;
• How the farm transitioned to organic and become part of Organic Valley Family Farms;
• Why farming organic became sustainable for Lauren's family;
• How Lauren's farm is surrounded by developments and how they turned the farm into a preservation, ensuring that future generations can still farm;
• About Generation Organic ("Gen-O"), Organic Valley's program to nurture farmers under the age of 35, providing education and giving them the tools to support their operations;
• Lauren's love for soil, animals and people and her visions for the future of agroecology.

Robert Gottlieb is Professor Emeritus of Urban and Environmental Policy and the Founder and former Director of the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College. Professor Gottlieb research is focused on environmental and food justice, care politics, power and inequality, global cities and the infrastructure of everyday life. He is also the author of numerous publications, including 14 books. His newest book "Care-Centered Politics" was published this year by MIT Press. Tune in to learn more about:

• His move from New York City to Los Angeles in 1969;
• The link between community action and academic research;
• About the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College;
• The community building process and the pioneering of the farm to school initiative;
• His newest book "Care-Center Politics: From the Home to the Planet"and how care oriented politics and economy can shape and reorient issues in health, environment, food justice, climate and inequality.

To learn more about Professor Gottlieb go to https://www.oxy.edu/academics/faculty/robert-gottlieb.

Wade Miller is the Vice President of Farm Resources and Sustainability at Coulee Region Organic Produce Pools (CROPP)/Organic Valley, the nation's largest organic, farmer-owned cooperative and one of the world's largest organic consumer brands. Tune in to learn more about:

• Wade's career path in agriculture;
• Sustaining family farms and recognizing that they are the caretakers of the earth;
• The newly awarded grant from the USDA to CROPP/Organic Valley that provides resources to accelerate 1,200 new carbon reduction and removal projects on 500 Organic Valley farms;
• The seed of low carbon organic milk;
• Interventions on farms that have carbon impacts like silvopasture, that will model carbon impact and direct farmer payments for carbon reduction and removal;
• Why farmers are a solution, not a problem to climate change.

To learn more about Wade's work and CROPP/Organic Valley go to https://www.organicvalley.coop/.

Nicole Rakobitsch is the Director of Sustainability at Cooperative Regions of Organic Producer Pools (CROPP)/Organic Valley. Organic Valley is America's largest cooperative of organic farmers and one of the nation's leading organic brands. Tune in to learn more about:

• Nicole's path that led her to sustainability and to Organic Valley;
• Why organic farmers are the real stewards of the land;
• The $25 million grant awarded to Organic Valley that focuses on helping small organic family farms establish and measure on-farm practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions;
• The issue with methane gas from farms;
• Silvopasture, agroforestry and other climate smart farming practices;
• Carbon sequestration and what climate smart food really is;
• Carbon insetting;

To learn more about Nicole's work and CROPP/Organic Valley,

go to https://www.organicvalley.coop/why-organic-valley/sustainability/.

Dr. Niesha Douglas is an educator, author and writer. Dr. Douglas has over 15 years

of experience in higher education and over 6 years of experience in community

development. Dr. Douglas is a community activist that believes in giving back to the

community that helped her grow and develop into a professional and leader. She has

served on several committees regarding food insecurity/hunger and was chosen to

lead a discussion on Community Activism in Adult Education at the 2016 Adult

Education Research Conference in Charlotte, NC. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina and the co-author of "Everybody Eats: Communication and the Paths to Food Justice" which was published in 2021. Tune in to learn more about:

• Niesha's journey into learning about food insecurity in her community in Greensboro, North Carolina;
• Why trust in community activism is essential;
• Becoming a community leader and a role model and why we need more than just one leader;
• Poverty and food apartheid;
• Why food is love and why it brings people together.

Dr. Marion Nestle is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University in the department she chaired from 1988-2003 and from which she retired in September 2017. She is also Visiting Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell. Dr. Nestle holds honorary degrees from Transylvania University in Kentucky and the Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York. She is the author, co-author, or co-editor of fourteen books, several of them prize-winning and the recipient of several awards and honors. In 2011, Michael Pollan ranked her as the #2 most powerful foodie in America (after Michelle Obama) and Mark Bittman ranked her #1 in his list of foodies to be thankful for. Tune in to learn more:

• Her forthcoming book "Slow Cooked - An Unexpected Life in Food Politics";
• Her path into nutrition;
• The rise of public interest in nutrition and health;
• Her story on the meat lobby and on "...you cannot advise Americans to eat less meat…";
• Why the goal of the food industry is to sell food not to feed people;
• The impact of corporate America on nutrition and why finding out who's paying for any study in nutrition is important;
• Which industry would benefit if people would eat less and healthier;
• Why growing food for fuel is "crazy";
• Solutions for changing the world through food.

To learn more about Dr. Nestle, go to https://www.foodpolitics.com/.

Dr. André Leu is the international director of Regeneration International, an organization that promotes food, farming and land use systems that regenerate and stabilize climate systems, the health of the planet and people, communities, culture and local economies. He is an internationally recognized speaker and the author of "Growing Life", "Poisoning our Children" and the "Myths of Safe Pesticides". Dr. Leu was the longest serving President of IFOAM – Organics International, the world change agent and umbrella body for the organic sector, for which he is currently the IFOAM Ambassador. Together with his wife Julia, he runs an organic tropical fruit farm in Daintree, Australia. Tune in to learn more about:

• About IFOAM and their mission to bring true sustainability to agriculture across the globe;
• How the organization Regeneration International got started with the mission to promote, facilitate and accelerate the global transition to regenerative food, farming and land management;
• The People's Food Summit, which is a parallel event to the UN World Food Day, that was organized out of the need to create a different summit to promote agroecological, organic and regenerative food systems;
• What is regenerative and degenerative in farming;
• His books "Poisoning our Children" and "Myths of Safe Pesticides".

To learn more about Dr. Leu's work, go to https://regenerationinternational.org/.