The Ruminant: Audio Candy for Farmers, Gardeners and Food Lovers

Hey there, Ruminant Listeners! These days, I'm mostly podcasting over at Farming in British Columbia, and I wanted to share a popular episode on a topic that matters wherever you're farming! If you like this, come and join the party. A good number of the episodes will hold interest for those outside of BC...search for 'Farming in British Columbia' wherever you listen to podcasts.

In the summer of 2023, Bruce Lanphear, Professor of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University, resigned his position as co-chair of a recently formed Science Advisory Committee of the PMRA, which regulates pesticide use in Canada. Dr. Lanphear felt he could no longer lend his credibility to the agency following disagreement about the Terms of Reference provided to Lanphear and seven other scientists comprising the committee.

Lanphear has been critical of aspects of Canada's pesticide oversight regime. I invited him on the show to discuss the topic.

You can read about Bruce's resignation here and here, or check out this google search.

The Ruminant's first ever holiday special! Fellow Canadians, don't @ me. The original version of this piece was produced for Canadian Thanksgiving, for radio.

The US chicken industry is dominated by just a few very large, vertically integrated companies. They directly control every stage of chicken production from hatching to distribution, except that they outsource the riskiest stage--raising the birds from chick to mature bird--to independent farmers. In this episode, guest Patti Anderson of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future describes this system, explains how it traps many farmers in debt, and tells us about the most recent effort to make the system more just for farmers.

After that: the farmer questionnaire!

Some links related to the chicken conversation and the proposed rule changes:

Patti suggests this blog post for a summary of the rule changes

A recent op-ed in Civil Eats about the tournament system

Here's an official summary of the proposed rule-changes

This ep: we introduce a new segment called Farm Sounds. This time: when the tradeoff that comes with a gain in efficiency on the farm doesn't feel worth it.

Plus another installment of The Farmer Questionnaire.

This episode I speak with Dr. Patrick Byrne, Professor Emeritus of Plant Breeding and Genetics at Colorado State University. Our topic: crop wild relatives, the forebears to all of the agricultural crops we love and depend on. Patrick helps us understand the relationship between, say, Teosinte and modern corn, and why the conservation of these wild relatives is crucial to the improvement of our crop cultivars.

Links:

Grin-U.org: a great repository for online learning materials on plant genetic resources conservation and use.

Free Ebook: Crop Wild Relatives & Their Use in Plant Breeding

Or some related videos instead

Our guest on the Farmer Questionnaire in this episode was Tracy Robertson of Stony Mountain Farm in BC's Cariboo Region.

The interview we planned to record yesterday and release today was postponed, so I dug up the very first episode of the show, from way back in 2012, until now never released on the newer podcast feed. It's an interview with Jason Beam about potting blocks, you lucky ducks. We'll be back with a new episode in two weeks, promise.

This episode: to mark the release of an update (sort of?) to Netflix's big, farmy 2018 hit The Biggest Little Farm, herein we review both the original documentary (Netflix) and an update, called The Return of the Biggest Little Farm, which dropped on Disney+ on Earth Day.

Also: another installment of The Farmer Questionnaire!

This episode was produced by Jordan Marr & Philippa Mennell.

This episode, three farmers who slaughter animals reflect on the experience of encountering hate, vitriol and worse from animal rights activists.

This episode was produced by Jordan Marr & Philippa Mennell.

This episode: Rebecca Kneen, a BC-based organic farmer & brewer, whose roots and activism in the organic sector go back decades, on the evolution of organic standards and oversight over time, some aspects of which she has misgivings about. Rebecca put her thoughts down in an open letter that was the basis for this coversation; you can download a PDF of that letter here.

Also: Jessica Bell of Split Creek Farm Grade A Goat Dairy in South Carolina answers our first ever Farmer Questionnaire!