Soil microbiologist David Johnson has been collaborating with pecan farmer Josh Bowman to cultivate healthy soil that retains water and produces a more abundant—and more profitable—harvest. Josh in turn works with other growers to help them improve their operations.
Native Americans used fire and other methods to cultivate food on the prairie. In the 20th century it was plowed under for endless rows of monocrops. Omar de Kok-Mercado is part of a team that is working to make prairie land ecologically–and economically–sustainable.
LaKisha Odom of The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research is helping to fund the research behind healthy soil practices so that more farmers can make the transition to regenerative agriculture and long-term sustainability and resilience.
Roberto Meza was an artist and MIT graduate student who took some time off to deal with health concerns—and found that fresh greens made such a difference in his life that he started growing them. Now he runs a thriving business and focuses on food sovereignty and equity.
When the “green revolution” offered the promise of better agriculture through chemical-intensive farming, J.I. Rodale was skeptical. He started an organic farm and then an institute to study how farming could improve the land and human health. Now they’re doing great work from coast to coast.
Hopi farmers must be doing something right: they have survived and grown their own food for hundreds of generations. We talk to Dr. Michael Kotutwa Johnson about their regenerative farming and cultural practices––and the challenges to maintaining them.
How do you improve county infrastructures and systems so that they serve 100% of the people–especially during times of crisis? We talk to authors-activists Dr. Katherine Ortega Courtney and Dominic Cappello about places in New Mexico that are working out exactly this question.
Organizations serving the public during the crisis of COVID-19 are facing their own challenges.
Poor and minority communities were at a disadvantage before COVID-19, but they are getting hit hardest now. Can the U.S.
The way things spread–whether a virus, a rumor, or a forest fire–is pretty much the same mathematically. We talk to Dr. Stuart Kauffman about the actual amount of social distancing it takes to halt the spread.