Heartland Stories Radio

Dr. David Haas is the Robert A. Munsick Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Vice Chair for Research in the OBGYN Department at Indiana University School of Medicine. Dr. Haas, a former US Navy Medical Corps Commander, is also on the Board of Directors for the Heartland Health Research Alliance, the sponsor of our radio and podcast show. Tune in to learn more about:

• His professional medical career;
• Diabesity - the combination of having both diabetes and obesity;
• Why a person's health begins in the womb;
• Preconception care is the key and could help to optimize health before pregnancy, during pregnancy and after
• The Hoosier Moms Cohort (HMC) Study, which focuses on the prevention and progression of diabetes, especially in women with gestational diabetes;
• The Heartland Study, which studies the potential impacts of herbicides on mother and infant health, including whether or not there is a connection between herbicide exposure and birth defects or developmental challenges;
• Why premature babies are prone to more health challenges during their life.

To learn more about Dr. Haas' work, go to https://precisionhealth.iu.edu/areas-of-focus/disease-research-teams/type-2-diabetes.html and https://hh-ra.org/projects/the-heartland-study/.

- The Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS) Study, which is the longest running longitudinal birth cohort study of pesticides and other environmental exposures among children in a farmworker community;

- How pesticides can be brought into the house through paraoccupational exposure;

- Why early exposure in the womb to pesticides can have negative effects on a child's IQ, health and life;

- The soup of chemicals that we are exposed to on a daily basis and how we can use our common sense to avoid them;

- The business of chemicals, plastics and pesticides is one of money;

- The future of the CHAMACOS study.

To learn more about Dr. Bradman and the CHAMACOS study, go to https://cerch.berkeley.edu/research-programs/chamacos-study.

Autumn Ness, Director of the Hawaiʻi Program of Beyond Pesticides, is a community organizer and policy consultant to state and county legislators on agriculture, pesticide, and housing policy.

Autumn was a leader in the historic citizens' initiative for a moratorium on genetically engineered crops in Maui County, which won at the ballot box in 2014, but lost in courts when the chemical industry sued the County of Maui. She is a founder and Board Vice President of the Maui (food) Hub, which was formed at the beginning of COVID shutdowns to support Mauiʻs local organic farmers through the crisis, with a long term goal of using market demand and infrastructure support to drastically increase the amount of local, organic food being produced on Maui. Tune in to learn more about:

- Her own story of becoming an activist in Maui;

- Monsanto's testing and research facilities in Hawai'i and the citizen-led fight against them;

- The hard lesson learned while working with county legislators on agriculture, pesticide, and housing policy;

- Monsanto's recent guilty plea to 30 environmental crimes in Hawaiʻi, related to pesticide use violations and putting field workers at risk;

- Lee Johnson's trip to Hawai'i in 2019 and his advocating against pesticides;

- The Maui Food Hub, the local farm distribution network that took root during the pandemic.

To learn more about Autumn's work go to: https://www.beyondpesticides.org/programs/hawaii and https://mauihub.org.

Christopher Bradshaw is the Founder and Executive Director of Dreaming Out Loud Inc., a food justice social enterprise that seeks to create economic opportunities for the D.C. metro region's marginalized communities through building a healthy, equitable food system. Bradshaw was named an Ashoka-American Express Emerging Innovator in 2015, one of Food Trust's 20 Leaders Under 40, and the longest-serving member of the DC Food Policy Council where he co-chairs the Urban Agriculture working group. Under his leadership, Dreaming Out Loud has grown to a $600,000 social enterprise with six full-time staff members, and four seasonal farm and food hub assistants. Tune in to learn more about:

- Dreaming Out Loud Inc., their mission and projects;

- How the idea of founding this organization came to life;

- The unequal access for Black communities to food that is shaped by policies in the D.C. area;

- The two-acre Farm at Kelly Miller and the Food Hub;

- About drive through and mobile farmers markets;

- The involvement of students in the farming process;

- About the DREAM Program, a 16-week incubator program for low-resourced food entrepreneurs residing in Washington, D.C.;

- Their work on advocacy and public policies;

- The spike in Community Supported Agriculture shares during the pandemic.

To learn more about Chris Bradshaw and Dreaming Out Loud Inc., go to https://dreamingoutloud.org.

Aimée Code is the Pesticide Program Director at the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. For more than 20 years she has worked to promote ecologically-sound pest management. In 2013, she launched Xerces Pesticide Program. In this role, she works with community activists, farmers, scientists and decision makers to eliminate harmful pesticide uses and create resilient landscapes. Tune in to learn more about:

- About the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and their work to protect the natural world through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitats;

- How pesticides harm pollinators;

- More than 90% of all animals are invertebrates and the US has over 4,000 species of bees;

- Why it is hard to collect data on the numbers of invertebrates;

- The sad truth that if humans would disappear from Earth the invertebrates would still be able to survive, but not the other way around;

- About Community Science, like the Bumblebee Watch;

- The slight increase of the Western Monarch Butterflies;

- About anthropogenic stressors and how we as humans can make choices that can support pollinators;

- About Bee Hotels, which are natural nesting habitats for bees and other insects;

- Steps and ideas on how to bring back pollinators;

- The value of mosquitos;

- How the current pandemic taught us to spend more time in nature and national parks.

To learn more about Aimée's work go to https://www.xerces.org.

Dave Goulson is a Professor of Biology at the University of Sussex (England), who specializes in bee ecology. Professor Goulson has published more than 300 scientific articles on the ecology and conservation of bumblebees and other insects, plus seven books, including the Sunday Times bestsellers "A Sting in the Tale" (2013), "The Garden Jungle" (2019), and "Silent Earth" (2021). In 2015 he was named number 8 in BBC Wildlife Magazine's list of the top 50 most influential people in conservation. In 2018, 2019 and 2020 he was named as a "Highly Cited Researcher" by Thompson ISI. He founded the Bumblebee Conservation Trust in 2006, a charity which has grown to 12,000 members and is a trustee of the Pesticide Action Network, as well as an "Ambassador" for the UK Wildlife Trusts, and president of Pesticide Free Scotland. Tune in to learn more about:

• His latest book "Silent Earth", written in the tradition of Rachel Carson's groundbreaking environmental classic Silent Spring, where he explains the importance of insects to our survival, and offers a clarion call to avoid a looming ecological disaster of our own making;
• His fascination about insects that started from an early age and why they are important to us and to our lives;
• Pollination facts, even coffee and cocoa need pollinators;
• The difference between bumblebees and honeybees, and the unknown fact that there are over 20,000 of known bees species;
• Neonicotinoids and their negative impact on soil, streams and bees;
• Insects as food - and how 80% of the world actually eat insects;
• Global warming and the impact on insects;
• His wish for each one of us is to welcome nature, to plant pollinator friendly flowers and not to spray any pesticides, as well as to buy local and organic food.

To learn more about Dave Goulson's work go to https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p126217-dave-goulson.

Dr. Joan Dye Gussow is a Professor Emeritus of Nutrition and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, nutritionist, writer, and gardener. She was one of the first experts to advocate, as early as the 1970's, that we "eat locally, think globally." As a nonagenarian, she is still teaching, gardening and cooking her own food. Tune in to learn more about:

– The breakdown of our food system during COVID-19;

– Ultra processed food – 60% of food that Americans are eating;

– How to empower people with information;

– How the current pandemic is changing our food behaviors;

– Her own garden.

In 2010, Gussow told The New York Times, "You can't be optimistic about the state of the world — what you can be is open-minded. You're going to look for solutions, and you're going to make your own life mean something. You can no longer think that accumulating money or the biggest house is the answer."

Dr. Kara Young is an expert in food systems and racial inequality. Dr. Young worked as an Assistant Professor at the Ohio State University and currently sits on the steering committee of the Ohio Food Policy Network and the advisory circle of Kindred: "A Creative Accelerator for Artists of Color". Dr. Young has a decade of experience writing, organizing, teaching, and public speaking on food disparities, racial justice, and qualitative research methods. Tune in to learn more about:

- Her own path into the field of food systems and racial inequality;

- The connection between food deserts and food justice;

- Lessons learned from the pandemic;

- Her work teaching in Ohio with Local Matters and 4AllPeople;

- About Kindred: "A Creative Accelerator for Artists of Color";

- Her views and hopes on how to change food systems in the United States.

One of Dr. Young's favorite quotes - "Justice is what love looks like in public" by Cornel West - aptly describes communities today working together in the pandemic to make sure that nobody in this country goes hungry.

To learn more about Dr. Young's work go to: https://www.karaalexisyoung.com.

Jose Oliva is the Campaigns Director at HEAL Food Alliance and Director of the Chicago Area Food System Fund. Jose was the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Food Chain Workers Alliance, a national coalition of food-worker organizations that collectively represents over 350,000 workers. He is a 2017 James Beard Award recipient and a 2018 American Food Hero Awardee. Tune in to learn more about:

- Jose's upbringing in Guatemala and his family's story of being persecuted and fleeing the country;

- Jose's and his mom's experience working in the food system and the sad truth why food workers are the lowest paid;

- Why labor is mostly left out when talking about food and agriculture;

- About the Food Chain Workers Alliance, their work and projects;

- About the Glass Floor Study on sexual harassment in the restaurant industry;

- Who owns the food system and their roots back to slavery;

- The minimum wage issue;

- The current pandemic and the consequences for food workers;

To learn more about Jose's work go to https://healfoodalliance.org and https://foodchainworkers.org.

Atina Diffley is an organic farmer, public speaker and author of the 2013 Minnesota Book Award winner, "Turn Here Sweet Corn: Organic Farming Works", a memoir based on Atina's life running the Gardens of Eagan organic vegetable farm. Her advocacy has addressed the pressures of suburban development, and she successfully led a legal and citizen campaign against the notorious polluters, Koch Industries, to create an Organic Mitigation Plan for organic farms in Minnesota. Tune in to learn more about:

- What is new on Atina's 100 acre farm and why she started planting perennial crops;

- Why monocropping is affecting the soil microbiome and insects;

- Ecosystems and their value for farming;

- Why organic can feed the world;

- How planting two different plants next to each other - like asparagus and soybeans - can benefit both and reduce the use of pesticides;

- Why knowledge is the best tool to share for growing plants without spraying;

- The relationship that we have with the food that feeds us and with the soil it grows in;

- The future of her farm and why she put her farm and the land into a conservation easement.

To learn more about Atina's work go to https://atinadiffley.com.