“And so I really love to be able to see how other BIPOC farmers in the community are doing good with the land.” This week on the show, we talk with recipients of a fellowship that brings BIPOC farmers together to build community in Monroe County, Indiana. The farmers also receive funding for farm projects. We talk about what the fellowship has meant for the three farmers and how they will put the funds to use enhancing the local food system ..read more

“We have about a four acre parcel of land here that’s subdivided into a whole bunch of micro-plots, basically, where we can isolate, you know, the Black Strawberry Tomato, or the Chinese Wool Flower or a gourd or whatever it happens to be. And we can make sure that those seeds stay pure. Purity is one of the biggest things that we do here. We do a lot of purity trials, so we maintain that the seed we’re selling [to] somebody–we wanna make sure that that seed is 100% true to type.” This week on the show we visit Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company to learn the particulars of growing for plants fo ..read more

“Apple cake is a very family-specific recipe–I’ve never heard of it anywhere else, seen it anywhere else. My gramma started it–for as long as I can remember we had it on Thanksgiving. It was served in a very specific bowl and as a child, for Thanksgiving everyone would look forward to the apple cake. And when that blue bowl came out on the table it was just like –gasp!-- there’s the apple cake. And you knew that Thanksgiving had arrived.” This week on the show, a Thanksgiving special featuring a dessert that’s served with the meal, a side dish that MUST be made correctly, and a daughter attemp ..read more

“There’s a restaurant on almost every street in our various cities–they are woven into the fabrics of our communities, and they are deeply embedded in our lives.  Restaurants are the places we go to celebrate marriages, to mourn divorces, the places we go to gossip with friends to celebrate after church and they become these places to hear the stories of their community. They’re talking to the farmers everyday, they’re talking to the fisherpeople everyday, they’re talking to the other producers, they’re also getting a sense of what’s challenging about their lives or what’s opportunities w ..read more

This week on the show, Toby Foster talks with Barbara Henry at the Cincinnati Zoo. She’s the one who figures out what each of the animals need to eat, where to source their food and the best ways to feed the animals to ensure that they thrive.  And, Daniella Richardson talks with the founder of the Indiana Black Loam Conference about obstacles and opportunities for Black farmers in Indiana ..read more

“I’m passionate about the idea that food should not just nurture our body, but should connect us with the land where the ingredients are from. Food should respect and value the techniques of the farmers that are growing those ingredients and the food should also highlight the creativity and the skills of the cooks that are transforming these ingredients. In this little country, we have so many examples of everything that actually makes sense about food.” This week on the show, Maria Carlassare of Piccoli Dolci, sharing her passion for regional Italian cuisine. And, she’s sharing a recipe for I ..read more

“A community is not resilient unless those benefits that we have from natural resources, like urban trees, are distributed in a way that all people are benefiting from them. And we do know that we have areas of the city that have lower canopy cover and some of those are associated also with lower income communities and marginalized communities.  And arguably those are the people [who] would be most benefited  by ecosystem services and the benefits of trees.” This week on the show, a conversation with Sarah Mincey and Hannah Gregory of Canopy Bloomington, an organization dedicated to ..read more

“Food connects to…for me personally, it’s something that I connect with in ways that are hard to describe at times. Perhaps because I’ve been away from my family, from India, and America has become my home.  But, when a place becomes your home, I think we still keep the things that mean a lot. And I think food is one of the ways–you know? It’s beautiful memories, nostalgia…” This week on the show, we’re in the kitchen with Kashika Singh. She teaches Hindi and Urdu languages at Indiana University, and shares another aspect of Indian culture –namely, food. I dropped  in on one of her c ..read more

“After the peace, whenever that comes, we will have land that will have to stay out of production for years because it is so heavily mined or full of cluster bomblets.” This week on the show we talk with geographer Elizabeth Cullen Dunn about the current food landscape in Ukraine. We discuss what the future may hold for farmers and food producers in the region as the war with Russia drags on and as land policy shifts in Ukraine at the start of the new year.  We also talk about ice cream! We look at current shipping challenges in Ukraine, and the meaning of an ice cream cone in former Sovi ..read more

“ And she brought two jars of lilacs, like [a] drink made of lilacs. She brought also cups and everybody could try it. It was really something like a miracle for me because I have never thought that it could be drunk in this way.” This week on the show, a story about a community garden in Tallinn, Estonia. We talk with Jerry Mercury, a political immigrant from Russia whose encounter with the garden was transformative.  And later in the show we have a recipe for quick, garden-fresh pickles, plus stories from Harvest public media about composting efforts in Midwestern cities and Federal inv ..read more