Agrarian Futures

Our guest today - Judith Schwartz - has spent her career showing us that the natural world is more resilient than we think, and that we have more power to restore it than we have been led to believe.
Judith is a journalist and author whose books, Cows Save the Planet, Water in Plain Sight, and The Reindeer Chronicles, have taken readers from the degraded hillsides of China's Loess Plateau to the Arctic tundra of Norway.
In this conversation, Judith shares stories from around the world of people healing land, rebuilding community, and rediscovering a sense of meaning in the process. It was lovely to sit with Judith and remember that restoration is closer than we think.
In this episode, we dive into:
Why the climate crisis is, at its root, a people problem and what that means for how we respond to it
The Loess Plateau in China: how an area the size of the Netherlands was brought back from ecological collapse, lifting 2 million people out of poverty
Common Land and the "four returns" model, and what a business designed to serve the land actually looks like
The Sami reindeer herders of Norway, and what their ancient practice reveals about the intelligence hidden in animal and land relationships
Why photosynthesis, not money, may be the truest measure of wealth
The rights of nature movement and the stop ecocide movement as legal pathways toward a different relationship with the living world
What it means to slow down as a communicator, and why listening has become more central to Judith's work than publishing
More about Judith (check out her substack!):
Judith D. Schwartz is an author and speaker who looks at our environmental crises, including climate change, through the lens of nature. Not nature as a “thing”, but how natural systems “work”, creating the conditions for life to thrive. Her books include The Reindeer Chronicles, Water In Plain Sight, and Cows Save the Planet. Home base is a gentle mountain slope in southwest Vermont.
Find more of Judith at the links below:
www.judithdschwartz.com
https://judithdschwartz.substack.com/
Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Drew O’Doherty.

Many of us have lost the thread that connects us to our food. Glenn Elzinga is spending his life trying to pick it back up.
Glenn is the founder of Alderspring Ranch, a certified organic grass-fed beef operation in the remote Salmon River country of central Idaho. But describing it as a beef operation barely scratches the surface. Each summer, Glenn and his family, along with a rotating crew of interns, ride on horseback across 70 square miles of mountain range, living alongside their cattle for months at a time, following the melting snow and the greening grass. It is, as Glenn describes it, an ancient practice of shepherding that modern agriculture has all but forgotten.
In this conversation, Glenn challenges some of the deepest assumptions embedded in how we raise animals and grow food. What does it mean to be a caregiver rather than a caretaker? What happens when we let a cow be a cow? And what is lost when we reduce agriculture to a production equation?
In this episode, we dive into:
How Glenn's model revives an ancient, nearly lost practice of herdsmanship
The difference between productivity and profitability, and why it matters for the land
What cows can teach us when we actually pay attention to them
Why 400 young people applied for unpaid, grueling ranch internships, and what they found there
The caregiver versus caretaker distinction, and what it reveals about our relationship to animals, land, and each other
Why Wendell Berry's diagnosis of American agriculture is as relevant today as it was 60 years ago
Why getting people to cook again might be one of the most radical things we can do
More about Glenn and Aldersping:
Glenn Elzinga is the head guy (aka CEO), and with Caryl, co-founder of Alderspring. Twenty-four years ago, he left his 9-5 forestry job, bought 7 cows and a small ranch, and began producing beef with his wife Caryl. Today, he owns and manages Alderspring (1650 deeded acres and 46,000 rangeland acres) while raising his 7 daughters and producing grass fed organic beef. His passion for wellness as an interconnected web of soil, land, animal, and human health led him and Caryl to create their "inherding" grazing paradigm. Glenn also currently speaks as a guest in both podcasts and regenerative agriculture conferences.
Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Drew O’Doherty.

Steve Gabriel joins us to unpack one of the most consequential myths shaping how we grow food in America: the separation between forest and field.
As a co-steward of Wellspring Forest Farm in Mecklenburg, New York, author of Silvopasture, and researcher at the Cornell Small Farms Program, Steve has been listening. Through a SARE-funded project called Farming with Trees, he's been in conversation with over 120 farmers, from Bronx-raised beginners to multi-generational stewards, exploring not just how to plant trees, but why it matters and what gets in the way.
What he's found is that the barriers to agroforestry aren't just technical. They're cultural, historical, and deeply personal, rooted in a Eurocentric agricultural paradigm that told farmers to clear the land and never look back.
In this episode, we dive into:
How personal relationships with trees in childhood shape a farmer's vision for the land
The paradigm shift required to move from stark field or stark forest toward something in between
How indigenous land stewardship modeled a working tree landscape long before "agroforestry" was a word
What livestock farmers, vegetable growers, and flower farmers each need from trees and why those needs are so different
Why starting with willow and poplar might matter more than starting with chestnuts and apples
The role of community, craft traditions, and living fences in rebuilding our relationship with trees
More about Steve (links below):
Steve Gabriel is an ecologist, farmer, and educator from the Finger Lakes Region of New York. Throughout his career spanning 20 years, Gabriel has taught thousands of farmers and land stewards about land planning, mushroom growing, and agroforestry. His experience working in academic research and extension, as a teacher and lecturer, and managing several working farm landscapes has built a unique balance of knowledge and practice which he brings to his work.
With his family, Gabriel co-stewards Wellspring Forest Farm, which is an agroforestry demonstration farm that produces mushrooms, nursery trees, pastured lamb, maple syrup, and elderberry in Mecklenburg, New York. He also collaborates with diverse individuals and organizations through the Farming with Trees Collective.
Gabriel previously served for 12 years as Extension Specialist for the Cornell Small Farm Program, focused on research and education on agroforestry and mushroom production. Steve co-authored Farming the Woods with Ken Mudge (2014) and is the author of Silvopasture (2019).
www.MycenaTrees.org -- his new non profit working on social aspects of agroforestry
www.FarmingWithTrees.org -- report on listening sessions with farmers and nursery stewards
www.WellspringForestFarm.com -- Steve's farm website
Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Drew O’Doherty.

Regenerative agriculture isn’t just about how we raise animals. It’s about whether the entire system around them makes sense.
Smaller, regenerative producers with meat businesses, have traditionally lacked an economic outlet for hides and other byproducts. That missing piece can be the difference between a system that works for regenerative farmers and one that doesn’t.
Jim and Mark Kleinschmit are working to rebuild that piece. Through Other Half Processing, they’re creating new pathways for regenerative hides and reconnecting ranchers to a leather economy that reflects the full value of the animal.
In this episode, we dive into:
• Why whole-animal thinking is essential to regenerative systems
• How value from hides and byproducts has been pulled out of local economies
• What that means for the economics of regenerative ranching
• What it takes to rebuild regional leather and processing infrastructure
• The role of tanneries, brands, and partnerships in closing the loop
• Where they see real opportunity to make these systems work again
More about Other Half Processing:
Jim & Mark Kleinschmit. Brothers that grew up on a family farm in Northeast Nebraska. Raised by parents who were early adopters and champions for sustainable and regenerative agriculture.
​OHP works directly with farmers/ranchers and small and medium sized meat processors to verify and buy traceable hides and other meat processing byproducts from regeneratively raised, organic, grassfed and other ethically raised animals. We aggregate and sell raw and finished products to apparel, food and pet sector companies.
Their business model is centered on providing shared economic returns to producer and other value chain partners, and fair pricing for customers and market partners.
Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Drew O’Doherty.

We walk into our local grocery store and most likely barely consider what’s on display in front of us. Forty thousand items. Stacked, uniform, produce. Cuisine from around the globe. Open often 24 hours.
As author Benjamin Lorr points out, that can be considered a miracle.
In The Secret Life of Groceries, Ben dives deep into the hidden machinery behind that miracle. He spent years inside the system, working behind a Whole Foods fish counter, riding cross-country with long-haul truckers, and tracing supply chains all the way to shrimp boats in Thailand. What he found is a system that delivers abundance, convenience, and quality at historically unprecedented levels. But it does so by squeezing every inefficiency out of the chain, and often squeezing workers and ecosystems along with it.
In this episode, we dive into:
• Why the modern supermarket truly is miraculous
• How deregulation reshaped trucking and the invisible logistics backbone of food
• What “just-in-time” efficiency means for grocery workers
• The hidden labor dynamics behind ultra-cheap shrimp and other commodities
• Why certifications and labels often can’t fix systemic incentives
• The tension between convenience, price, and ethics
• Whether we actually have the food system we’ve chosen
More about Benjamin:
Benjamin Lorr is the author of Hell-Bent, a critically acclaimed exploration of the Bikram Yoga community that first detailed patterns of abuse and sexual misconduct by guru Bikram Choudhury, and The Secret Life of Groceries, called “a titanic achievement of reportage, insight, humor, and humanity” examining the American supermarket from all angles. Lorr is a graduate of Montgomery County, Maryland public schools and Columbia University. He lives in New York City.
You can buy Benjamin’s books online here or for audiobooks, here.
Follow him on Instagram.
Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Drew O’Doherty.