For Cole Bush, life as a shepherd is more than a job—it’s a calling. As the founder of her own grazing business in Southern California, she's using livestock to help restore land, reduce wildfire risks, and promote sustainable farming. At the same time, she’s using her knowledge to train the next generation of pastoral graziers through the Grazing School of the West.

We’ll dive into her journey, sharing the insights she gained along the way about the co-evolution of humans, animals, and our environment. Cole’s work is changing the way people think about grazing, and today, she’s here to share how livestock can be a powerful tool for healing the land.

In the 1990s, the success of the US organic movement seemed undeniable. Demand for healthy, chemical-free produce skyrocketed amidst public health concerns and a growing environmental consciousness. As a consequence, many small organic farmers could make a real living selling healthy produce and restoring farmland in the process. In the decades since, however, the story has gotten much more complicated.

Carlyle Stewart is a living embodiment of many of the core ideas behind Agrarian Futures. Like many of us, he grew up without a close connection to farming or our agricultural landscapes, but that didn’t stop him from taking a massive leap to move across the country and establish himself as a skilled cattle rancher in Montana. He fuses these skills with wise-beyond-his-years thoughtfulness about what it means to steward the land, lift up rural communities, and confront the complicated -and often violent - history of westward expansion and ranching.

This conversation is bursting with insights from his time spent on the land as well as his background in divinity school and as a community organizer. We know you’ll enjoy this one.

Russell Wallack and team at Breadtree Farms are some of our favorite kind of people - the kind who not only imagine a different future for our communities and our planet, but put in the work to turn that vision into reality.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Russell walks us through the history of the chestnut tree in North America, which once made up over a quarter of all trees in the eastern US, and how they are harnessing its potential as a keystone crop for regenerative farmers once more.

Atlantic Sea Farms is working at the center of many of our favorite themes on this show - climate change adaptability, rural revitalization, the brass tacks of launching a business in the regenerative food space, and long term economic security for the people that grow and harvest our food.