Real Organic Podcast

299: Lynn Clarkson has been buying and selling organic grain since the early days of the market, and he has watched imported supply reshape the business. He believes that too much of that trade depends on certification systems that are difficult to enforce. The result, he says, is a market where fraudulent imports can undercut American organic farmers even when domestic production is financially attractive. Clarkson makes the case for rebuilding a stronger U.S. supply chain based on trust, transparency, and real enforcement.

https://realorganicproject.org/lynn-clarkson-winning-back-us-organic-grain-market

The Real Organic Podcast is hosted by Dave Chapman and Linley Dixon, engineered by Brandon StCyr, and edited and produced by Brightstocking.

298: Soil scientist Will Brinton has spent much of his career helping farmers understand what is happening beneath their feet. Over time, that work has led him to question the mechanistic way modern agriculture often approaches living systems. Will believes that reductionist science is valuable for measuring individual parts, but becomes limiting when those measurements are mistaken for the whole. From soil testing to nutrient-density claims, he urges farmers to resist universal prescriptions and instead pay attention to the ecology of their own place. His message is simple but demanding: nature is not a machine, and farming well requires learning how to work with what a landscape is already expressing.

https://realorganicproject.org/will-brinton-let-the-land-express-itself

The Real Organic Podcast is hosted by Dave Chapman and Linley Dixon, engineered by Brandon StCyr, and edited and produced by Jenny Prince.

297: Kendra Klein, senior scientist at Friends of the Earth, has spent years investigating the health and environmental consequences of pesticide-dependent agriculture. She argues that the influence of pesticide companies reaches far beyond the chemicals themselves; they actively shape federal policy, as well as our commonly held belief that toxic inputs are necessary if we want to feed the world. Kendra also takes a close look at the rise of regenerative agriculture and explains why she worries that the term is being used to rebrand conventional farming rather than to transform it.

https://realorganicproject.org/kendra-klein-pesticides-power-future-of-organic

296: László Barabási has spent much of his career studying complex systems, from cells to social networks. This lifelong body of work eventually led him to ask a simple question: what is food actually made of? While nutrition science has identified the components we need for energy and survival, László’s lab has documented roughly 135,000 other molecules in food that sit largely outside the traditional nutritional picture. He believes that network science could eventually help us understand these molecules and food in general (including food-related diseases) with far greater precision.

https://realorganicproject.org/laszlo-barabasi-nutritional-dark-matter-in-our-food

295: Chuck Benbrook returns with a close look at several legal battles involving Driscoll’s and what they may tell us about the enormous influence of the country’s dominant berry companies. He discusses pesticide concerns around schools and farm communities, allegations raised by a former company agronomist, Driscoll’s lawsuit against the food-finding platform Localize, and another legal challenge to the company’s marketing claims brought forth by Beyond Pesticides. He argues that the berry industry already knows how to reduce pesticide risks and expand organic production; the harder question is whether they will ever choose to do it.

https://realorganicproject.org/chuck-benbrook-what-driscolls-lawsuits-reveal

294: Paul Hawken challenges the assumption that industrial agriculture is necessary to feed a growing world. His starting point is the land itself: if chemical farming has contributed to degraded soils, desertification, declining biodiversity, and increasingly fragile food systems, concentrating even more production into that model is hardly a solution. Paul argues instead for restoring life to damaged landscapes and paying much closer attention to the relationship between soil, water, food, and climate.

293: Author and agroecologist Liz Carlisle has spent years documenting farmers who are building food systems around diversity, resilience, and cooperation rather than extraction. She challenges the idea that we must intensify industrial agriculture in some places in order to “save” nature somewhere else, pointing instead to thousands of years of human history in which people have grown food as part of functioning ecosystems. Liz offers a hopeful picture of what becomes possible when we design agriculture around place.

https://realorganicproject.org/liz-carlisle-land-sharing-how-we-feed-the-future

The Real Organic Podcast is hosted by Dave Chapman and Linley Dixon, engineered by Brandon StCyr, and edited and produced by Jenny Prince.

292: Congresswoman Chellie Pingree has spent years working at the intersection of farming, food, health, and federal policy. She sees growing concern about pesticides and ultra-processed foods coming from people across the political spectrum, creating a rare opportunity for alliances that did not exist before. But turning that agreement into policy means confronting powerful agricultural and chemical interests, rebuilding support for small and mid-sized farms, and deciding what role government should play in protecting eaters. Congresswoman Pingree also challenges the growing enthusiasm for loosely defined “regenerative” agriculture, arguing that without meaningful standards it can easily be co-opted by the same industrial system that organic was created to change.

https://realorganicproject.org/chellie-pingree-can-healthy-food-bring-left-right-together

The Real Organic Podcast is hosted by Dave Chapman and Linley Dixon, engineered by Brandon StCyr, and edited and produced by Jenny Prince.

291: Corinne Hansch and her husband Matthew Leon started farming during one of the hardest financial periods of their lives. Years later, Lovin’ Mama Farm has become a thriving organic business built around intensive production, direct relationships with customers, and an extraordinary diversity of crops and products. Corinne explains why they stopped wholesaling, how six weekly farmers markets transformed their cash flow, why microgreens remain an important year-round crop, and how flowers, herbs, perennial crops, value-added products, and a loyal customer base all contribute to financial stability. She also talks candidly about women in agriculture, raising a family while farming, paying employees year-round, and creating a business that supports both the people working on the farm and the community eating its food.

https://realorganicproject.org/corinne-hansch-small-farms-can-make-great-living

The Real Organic Podcast is hosted by Dave Chapman and Linley Dixon, engineered by Brandon StCyr, and edited and produced by Jenny Prince.

290: Antitrust scholar Zephyr Teachout explains how monopoly power has reshaped food, retail, health care, media, technology, and nearly every other part of American life. A handful of grocery companies now control much of the marketplace, while dominant distributors use kickbacks and other questionable methods to control of shelf space. Zephyr lays out practical ways states can begin reversing that concentration. Drawing on the history of farmer-led populist movements, she argues that real food depends on democratic markets, strong communities, and alliances capable of challenging corporate oligarchy.

https://realorganicproject.org/zephyr-teachout-reorganizing-food-systems-for-real-food

The Real Organic Podcast is hosted by Dave Chapman and Linley Dixon, engineered by Brandon StCyr, and edited and produced by Jenny Prince.