This week on The Farm Report, host Erin Fairbanks is joined by Aislynn Campbell, Executive Director of GROW Local South Texas, Sue Beckwith, Executive Director at Texas Center for Local Food, Justin Butts of Four String Farms, and Nicole DeMeo, COO & spokesperson for Barnraiser.

Barnraiser is a social marketplace that makes it easy to discover, share, and fund online, the people changing how we farm, eat and live. They are hosting a major crowdfunding campaign for Texas Center for Local Food along with seven partner organizations to aid in the relief and recovery for farmers and ranchers impacted by the massive disaster caused by Hurricane Harvey.

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https://www.barnraiser.us/projects/texas-farmer-rancher-disaster-relief

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On the season premiere of The Farm Report, host Erin Fairbanks is joined in the studio by Loren Cardeli, president and founder of A Growing Culture, an organization that supports smallholder farming across the globe through research, collective learning, and advocacy.

Loren is a leader in a small but growing movement of farmer-centric organizations. He believes the key to sustainability lies in returning small-scale farmers back to the forefront of agriculture. Along with his colleagues in the movement, he promotes farmer-led research, extension, and outreach, helping to create sustainable, self-driving futures.

On an all new episode of The Farm Report, host Erin Fairbanks is joined in the studio by Susan Streit Sherman. Susan is the author of the blog Crate Cooking, a journal of how she seasonally shops, cooks and eats in the small Greenwich Village studio apartment she shares with her husband and young daughter. She has worked as a private chef, a line cook, an assistant food editor at Martha Stewart, recipe tester, farm inspector, food stylist, and teacher, just to name a few.

This week on The Farm Report, host Erin Fairbanks is joined by Gabriele Ludwig, Director of Sustainability & Environmental Affairs for the Almond Board of California. In her current position, she has been instrumental in the development of the California Almond Sustainability Program, and continues to encourage a diverse range of research on almonds and environmental issues.

On the season finale of The Farm Report, host Erin Fairbanks is joined by John Mackey, co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market, and author of the new book The Whole Foods Diet. Mackey's mission in writing it, along with Drs. Alona Pulde and Matthew Lederman (the bestselling authors of Forks Over Knives), was to distill the huge body of science, research, and advice into one undeniable consensus: that a whole foods, plant-based diet is the optimum plan for health and longevity.

This week on The Farm Report, co-hosts Challey Comer and Maria Rojas are joined by Sarah Gray Miller, the Editor-In-Chief of Modern Farmer, to discuss an article from the magazine's most recent issue titled "The High Cost of Cheap Labor." New immigration orders will greatly impact the food world, and this piece is an in-depth look at the facts and history of farm workers in the U.S., as well as a frank discussion with farmers that these policies affect.

This week on The Farm Report, host Erin Fairbanks is joined by "Gangsta Gardener" Ron Finley an environmentalist & entrepreneur Nell Newman.

Ron Finley is a creative phenomenon: a gangsta horticulturalist, with a strong vision for community gardening and the eventual creation of "a school of nourishment and change." Nicknamed the “Gangsta Gardener” and the “Renegade Gardener”, Ron Finley planted organic vegetables in the parkway in front of his South Los Angeles home and a revolution was started. Ron’s belief that gardens build communities has blossomed into a quest to change how we eat and the eventual founding of the Ron Finley Project, an organization dedicated to changing culture and growing people.

Nell Newman co-founded Newman's Own® Organics: The Second Generation® with her father, Paul Newman in 1993. An ardent supporter of sustainable agriculture, Nell is a sought after speaker and has participated in numerous panels, sharing her commitment to organic food and products made from organic ingredients. Nell established the Nell Newman Foundation in November of 2010 with the goal of carrying on her father's legacy of charitable giving, coupled with her passion for the environment. She pursues many philanthropic opportunities in the world of sustainable agriculture and conservation – including helping Ron Finley raise money to build an urban garden in South Central L.A.

This week on The Farm Report, host Erin Fairbanks welcomes John Flahavan, the sixth-generation CEO of Flahavan's Irish Oats. The first family connection to the Flahavan’s name can be traced back to about 1785 when Thomas Dunn took over the mill. Dunn was the great-great-great-grandfather of John Flahavan who is the Managing Director of the company today.

After the break, we're joined by Meryl Williams, star of the forthcoming short film Biophilia. Meryl plays the lead role of Rachel, an herbalist/farmer who convinces her boyfriend to leave Brooklyn and make a go of farming on his family's abandoned sheep ranch, but things don't go well and she finds herself increasingly isolated under his controlling influence. When an animal dies under her watch, she is forced to take care of it alone and in so doing, grows a thicker skin.

This week on The Farm Report, Erin and Challey are joined by Greg Wade and Will Travis.

Greg Wade is the Head Baker at Publican Quality Bread in Chicago, IL where he collaborates with chefs de cuisine, farmers and retail owners to develop breads. As Publican Quality Bread’s Head Baker, Greg oversees the bread program for all of One Off Hospitality Group, with a focus on whole grains and fermentation. Apart from his day-to-day leadership, Greg is an active member of the local, regional and national farming communities – every July, you can find him leading a two-day Bread Camp along with Marty and Will Travis at Spence Farm in Fairbury, IL.

Will Travis is an 8th generation farmer from Spence Farms in Fairbury, IL where he works the land with his father Marty Travis and his wife Kris. They raise a large variety of products on the farm, everything from fruits and vegetables to Dexter cattle for beef, as well as small grains that are milled onsite. In 2003, Spence Farms began marketing directly to restaurants and now market and deliver products for more than 50 small family farms in central Illinois.

Greg and Will's work are profiled in the documentary Sustainable available at http://sustainablefoodfilm.com/ and streaming on Netflix.

And in the second half of the show, Chad Hendrickson of Lakewood Vineyards is in studio to transition the conversation from grain to grapes!

What does it mean to be a small scale olive oil producer in 2017? Lorenzo Caponetti joins us from Italy to talk about his family's vineyards, the challenges of organic production and why American chef's like Michael Anthony of Gramercy Tavern and Untitled at the Whitney can't get enough of his oils.