Doomer Optimism

Willy Denner of Little Seed Gardens in Chatham, NY, joins Jason and returning co-host Nigel Best for a wide-ranging conversation about 32 years of small-scale organic farming, the economics of direct market production, and the political philosophy of Henry George.

Willy shares how he and his wife, Claudia, built their 100-acre vegetable and grass-fed beef operation from scratch — no farming background, just conviction, soil maps, and thousands of miles of driving back roads in search of land. He talks about the decision to scale back production by 75% this year, the grind of farmers' markets, and what it means to farm as a strategy toward a life rather than as an end in itself.
They go into a deep, practical discussion of Georgism and the Land Value Tax. Willy, Nigel, and Jason explore why Henry George’s Progress and Poverty — once the best-selling book in English after the Bible — argued that taxing land value (not labor, not production, not transactions) is the only morally coherent and economically efficient basis for taxation. They dig into the difference between land and capital, the concept of economic rent, and why current property and income taxes penalize production while rewarding speculation, and whether any path to a single tax exists short of civilizational crisis.

Also covered: no-till vegetable growing, solarization techniques, homemade farm equipment, holistic management as a decision-making framework, and advice for young people trying to find their footing.
www.littleseedgardens.com

Jason is joined by Greg Cello to discuss his plan to build a regional wool industry in New England, starting with sheep on his Rhode Island homestead. This isn't just about producing sweaters; Greg sees sheep farming as a way to revive the cooperative spirit that once defined rural communities, where families worked together and traded their goods through local granges.
The conversation touches on how Greg went from military officer to homesteader, why he pulled his kids out of school and daycare to raise them at home, and how his Catholic faith became central to everything he does. He talks about the difference between environmentalism and true conservationism, his daily podcast where he works through ideas in real time, and the Globalism Slayer account he created to highlight small American family businesses as a counterweight to globalism.
Greg is candid about the challenges of building roots in an expensive real estate market, the tension between using modern platforms like X and Substack to promote a vision of local self-sufficiency, and what it would actually look like to create generational stability for his family and community. The episode explores subsidiarity, discipline, dissidence, and what moves people to reject the default modern life and try something harder but more meaningful.
You can find Greg at Kinward on Substack and
@dissidntdad on X

How patient design and ideological diversity are reshaping food production

Ashley sits down with Ryan Blosser and Trevor Piersol, co-founders of Shenandoah Permaculture Institute and authors of Mulberries in the Rain, to explore permaculture beyond the stereotype of backyard herb spirals. We discuss what sets permaculture apart from regenerative agriculture, the evolving demographics of people drawn to food production, and how ideological diversity from left-wing environmentalists to conservative land stewards strengthens the movement.

We dive into the practicalities of perennial systems, why comfrey matters more than you might think, and the often-overlooked messiness of annual vegetable farming. Ryan and Trevor challenge permaculture dogma around native plants and invasive species, sharing our own experiences with bamboo and autumn olive. We also discuss Ryan's innovative farm-based education program that integrates Virginia's K-12 curriculum standards with food production and how it's showing promising results for student achievement while producing thousands of pounds of organic food for the community.

As the discussion turns philosophical, we explore what "doomer optimism" really means: preparing for an uncertain future not out of fear, but because building local food systems, land relationships, and community resilience are inherently fulfilling. We examine land access challenges, the psychology of sustainable living, and why relationships, especially those forged across ideological lines, may be our most valuable resource as we face systemic change. Perfect for anyone interested in permaculture, regenerative agriculture, education, and building meaningful alternatives to industrial food systems.
The Shenandoah Permaculture Institute teaches practical, hands-on permaculture with a focus on building healthy, resilient communities. Co-founded by Ryan Blosser and Trevor Piersol, along with Dr. Ted Butchart and Emilie Gooch Tweardy, SPI offers Permaculture Design Courses and workshops that blend ecological knowledge with human-centered design. Their mission is to equip communities with the tools and strategies for health and resilience, from soil to self.
@shenandoahpermaculture
https://www.shenandoahpermaculture.com/

Ashley Fitzgerald sits down with Elizabeth Oldfield to explore how we can foster genuine connection across ideological and cultural divides and why it matters more than ever.
Drawing on Elizabeth’s experience leading the Theos think tank, hosting the acclaimed podcast The Sacred, and living in an intentional community, they discuss the power of combining rigorous research with compelling storytelling to actually shift culture and change minds. They dig into why demanding ideological purity fractures movements and how to build real coalitions across genuine disagreement instead. Elizabeth shares her hard-won insights into the neurobiology of listening, understanding our fight-or-flight responses and the human tendency toward homophily, and how this knowledge can help us create spaces where people can actually hear each other.
The conversation takes a deeper turn as they wrestle with the surprising case for institutions. Even imperfect ones like churches, schools, and intentional communities are essential scaffolding for human flourishing. Elizabeth shares her own journey from childhood cultural Christianity through atheism and back to a grounded, mysterious faith, and reflects on the spiritual hunger she’s been witnessing emerge over the past several years, even among those who thought they’d moved beyond religion.
Throughout, they keep returning to the unglamorous, essential work of showing up locally: sitting on school boards, knowing your neighbors, breaking bread together. In a time of fragmentation and uncertainty, they suggest this might be the most radical and necessary act of all.

Surviving Consolidation, One Pig at a Time

Greg Gunthorp, a fourth-generation Indiana hog farmer, joins Nate for a wide-ranging conversation about survival, stubbornness, and adaptation in the American meat industry.
Greg grew up raising pigs on pasture as part of a diversified family farm, using livestock as a tool to care for the land and keep the operation afloat. But by the early 1990s, the writing was on the wall. In 1994, Greg’s father, Theodore, told him that the era of the independent hog farmer was over. Greg didn’t accept it. Determined not to be the last Gunthorp to raise pigs, he bought the sow herd from his father and struck out on his own on 65 acres just down the road.
Then the market collapsed. By 1998, Greg was selling pigs for less than what his great-grandfather had earned during the Great Depression. Walking away would have made sense, but instead, a chance conversation after a conference changed everything. Someone suggested he call a Chicago restaurant that was buying whole hogs. Greg picked up the phone, not knowing who Charlie Trotter was. “Bring me a pig,” the chef said. That delivery, into one of the most celebrated restaurants in the world, marked Greg’s entry into foodservice and a niche that would keep the farm alive.
As farm-to-table gained momentum in the late ’90s and early 2000s, Gunthorp Farm grew rapidly, at times doubling year over year. Greg talks about what that growth felt like, and why it eventually slowed as larger brands entered the space and redefined what “farm-to-table” meant. “The big guys woke up,” he says. “Most of it comes from them now.”
The pandemic brought another shock, especially as downtown Chicago restaurants shut down and office workers disappeared. Greg speaks candidly about the fragility of restaurant-driven farm businesses, thin margins, and how quickly demand can vanish.
Throughout the conversation, adaptation is the throughline. From expanding into poultry, sheep, and on-farm processing, to developing fully cooked products and partnering with other farmers, Greg shares how flexibility, and a refusal to quit, has sustained the operation. Today, Greg, his wife Lei, and son Evan farm 240 acres with a growing team, raising and processing pigs, poultry, and sheep using practices rooted in past generations and refined with modern tools.
This episode is an unvarnished look at modern meat production, the limits of food trends, and what it really takes to keep farming on your own terms when the odds aren’t in your favor.
You can find Greg at Gunthorp Farms, a family-run pasture-based livestock and USDA-inspected meat processing farm in LaGrange County, Indiana.
https://gunthorpfarms.com/