AcresUSA: Tractor Time

Tractor Time Episode 37: Dr. Zach Bush on Farming, Glyphosate and Human Health

Dr. Zach Bush is a triple-board certified physician, with a focus on internal medicine, endocrinology, and hospice and palliative care. He currently runs a clinic in rural Virginia that focuses on plant-based nutrition and holistic health. He’s an entrepreneur with a mind-boggling array of projects to his resume. So why is he on a podcast devoted to sustainable and organic agriculture? It’s quite a story, as you’ll hear. At his clinic a few years ago, Dr. Bush began noticing that nutrition-based medicine just wasn’t working as he had expected. Some of his patients were just getting sicker. That led him on a journey deep into a dysfunctional and toxic agricultural system that through the heavy use of chemicals like glyphosate is robbing crops of nutritional value, accelerating the decline of human health, destroying the environment and paving the way for mass extinction. Yeah, it gets pretty bleak — there’s talk of disease, cataclysm and collapse — but stick with it — because Dr. Bush is at heart a radical optimist. He believes that regenerative agriculture can save the world by creating healthy soils that will sequester carbon, reverse climate change, produce highly nutritious food and create healthy humans. To further that mission, Dr. Bush has started Farmers Footprint, a nonprofit that aims to transition 5 million acres to regenerative practices by 2025. According to Dr. Bush, all successful revolutions start with farmers.
 

Tractor Time Episode 36: Kathleen Merrigan on the Future of Food

Kathleen Merrigan was instrumental in crafting the Organic Foods Production Act in 1990. She also served as the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Agriculture during the Obama Administration. During that time, she spearheaded the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food program. And just recently, she was named as the first executive director of the Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems at Arizona State University. She previously served as executive director of sustainability at George Washington University. And she was named one of the "100 most influential people in the world" by Time Magazine in 2010. As you’ll hear, she has a lot to say about the true cost of food and the future of organic farming. She has a big vision for a food system that takes into account biodiversity, human health, water quality, climate and waste.

Tractor Time Episode 35: Marty Travis, Super-Farmer

If you’ve seen the documentary “Sustainable,” you know that Spence Farm is a special place. It’s owned and operated by Marty Travis, along with his wife, Kris and son, Will. Their farm supplies organic vegetables and heritage meats to some of the top kitchens in the City of Chicago — Fronterra Grill, Girl and the Goat and The Publican, to name a few. But that might undersell what Marty and his family have built. The way that they’ve developed relationships, not just with chefs, but also with a network of small farmers, is nothing shorting of astounding. To our mind, Spence Farm is a vision for the future of food. Marty has a new book out titled, “My Farmer, My Customer: Building Business & Community Through Farming Healthy Food” (Acres U.S.A., 2019). It's currently available for pre-order at the AcresUSA.com bookstore. Marty is also a featured speaker at the Acres U.S.A. Eco-Ag Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota in December.

Tractor Time Episode 34: Paul Dorrance, from Top Gun to Top Grazier

If you’re a reader of Acres U.S.A. magazine, you might recognize his name. Paul Dorrance writes for us frequently, and he does it with a teacher’s spirit and a sense of humor. Acres is unique in that we rely on people like Paul, people who are in the field, doing the hard, challenging work of farming. Paul is also one of the featured speakers at the Acres U.S.A. Eco-Ag Conference in December. Eco-Ag is kind of like Coachella, or Woodstock, if you prefer older references. Instead of music, we bring together a group of some of the biggest names in regenerative agriculture. I’m just looking a list and it’s incredible: Carey Gillam, Zach Bush and Kathleen Merrigan are keynote speakers. Here are some other names you might recognize: Neal Kinsey, Mark Shepard, Bob Quinn, David Montgomery, Andre Leu, Paul Dettloff, Gary Zimmer … the list goes on. Paul Dorrance is in that mix and I thrilled to introduce him to you.
 
He’s a former Air Force pilot. He wears a big, ten-gallon cowboy hat and he’s as humble as they come. In this episode, we’re going to learn a little about Paul, but also about his latest article for our magazine. In that piece, Paul writes about his misadventures in Livestock Guardian Animals.

Tractor Time Episode 33: Doug Fine, Author of Hemp Bound

Doug Fine, an investigative journalist by trade, has emerged as a leading voice in the effort to bring hemp back as a major American crop. 
His writing has appeared in places like Washington Post, Wired and Outside Magazine. He’s travelled all over the world, including to places like Burma, Rwanda, Laos, Guatemala and Tajikistan. He’s given TED Talks. He’s appeared on late-night talk shows. And he’s written several books, including Not Really An Alaskan Mountain Man, Farewell My Subaru, which is about his attempt to wean himself off fossil fuel, and Too High To Fail: Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution.
His latest book is Hemp Bound: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the Next Agricultural Revolution.
And for Fine, those frontlines are found at Funky Butte Ranch, his 40-acre spread in southern New Mexico where he and his family grow hemp, tend a garden and raise a herd of mischievous goats.
Although Fine sees himself as a journalist first, he doesn’t shy away from speaking up for what he believes in. And what he believes is this: Hemp represents not just the next big money-maker in agriculture. It isn’t just about cashing in on the CBD craze. Instead, he believes it’s an opportunity to change the whole game — and maybe fight off the effects of climate change in the process.  
Fine will also be a featured speaker at Acres U.S.A.’s December Eco-Ag Conference & Trade Show in Minneapolis, Minnesota.