Founder and CEO Matt Jozwiak of Rethink Food, joins to discuss how he works with a variety of partners to re-purpose discarded food into wholesome, culturally appropriate meals for the underserved.

PrairieRivers.org has published the results of a 6 year study on the impacts of herbicide drift in Illinois, and its not a good picture. Herbicide drift isn't confined to agricultural fields. They float right into our backyards, schoolyards, parks, and natural spaces. Herbicide drift is having a major impact on trees and naturally occurring plant species, not to mention humans. Kim Erndt-Pitcher, Director of Ecolocgical halth at Prairie Rivers Network explains whats in that report, and why we...

Journalist Keith Schneider reports on some groundbreaking cases in Michigan and in Federal Court addressing the pollution caused by CAFOs and the spreading of manure across famrland that winds up in our water system.

Dr. Thomas Boving, Chair of The Department of Geosciences joins to discuss what and how we can address the contaminations of our waterways, from lakes and streams to groundwater. With agrochemicals, PFAS and other toxic additives, American waterways are challenged like never before. Dr. Boving has worked here and abroad to address challenges to drinking water from a myriad of sources.

Avian Influenza, AKA bird flu is just a few mutations away from becomimg a much bigger deal for humans. With the pandemic just in the rear view mirror, teh news that H5N1 has moved from bird populations to dairy herds to humans should be a red alert. Curiously, the USDA seems relatively unconcerned. Gail Hansen, Public health veterinarian and subject matter expert for government and non-government organizations on public health and animal policy, discusses what could be our next major public...

John Rumpler, Clean Water Director of Environment America; Research and Policy Center, explains how protecting our "ephemera" streams has a major impact on our water supply. With last years Supreme Court Ruling excepting "ephemeral" streams from the Clean Water Act, and laying them open to polluters. It will take a concerted effort to restore protected status to these types of streams that in the end, supply nearly 55% of our drinking water.

Erik Kanter, President of Clean Wisconsin joins to explain how republicans are withholding funds for clean up until the legislature passes a bill immunizing polluters from prosecution for polluting the drinking water of hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites.

New legislation introduced by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Ro Khanna would put the kybosh on trading in water futures. Will it succeed? Mary Grant, Director of the Public Water for All initiative at Food and Water Watch joins to discuss this legislation, and other issues affecting our water supplies.

Will Harlan from the Center for Biological Diversity joins to talk about the keystone species horseshoe crabs, a population that is crashing, and for which the Center is seeking endangered species protection. Learn why we need to protect this harmless and ancient creature from human exploitation.

Science writer Maryn McKenna, author of Superbug and Big Chicken, joins to discuss the feeble attempts to rein in antibiotic use in animal agriculture. As the World Health Organization and others blare out the warnings about a post antibiotic medical landscape, American livestock producers can't quite seem to fully wean their herds off prophylactic antibiotics. Incremental progress has been made over the last decade plus, but we are running out of time.

The Humane League, an advocacy organization seminal to both encouraging the egg industry to improve its conditions for laying hens, but also to hold restaurants accountable when they don't keep their promises to use only cage free eggs. Kelly Myers, Director of Corporate Engagement joins to discuss this sea change, and the new Humane League Eggspose, that busts the bad actors who promise one thing, and do another.

According to journalist Keith Schneider whose prize winning series Toxic Terrain has explored many of the ills associated with our style of agriculture, "the voluntary conservation practices promoted by federal and state governments, and Big Ag, are the costliest and least effective pollution prevention strategy ever devised. In the Mississippi Basin $30 billion spent since 1997 by the federal and state governments."

Professors Viveca Morris and Jennifer Jacquet dug into how the livestock industry has co-opted certain university experts to minimize the impact of findings on climate change related to industrialized animal agriculture. Their findings have been published in a new paper detailing just how successful meat companies have been in skewing perceptions of climage change, altering emission targets, and making sure the industry remains the unregulated monster it is. Prepare to be outraged.

Veteran agricultural journalist Tom Philpott joins to talk about what is and isn't in the newest iteration of the Farm Bill. Despite all the extra funds from the Investment Recovery Act, and all the information we now have about climate disruption, and other impacts on agriculture, we seem to be marching toward the same old same old...

Professor Upmanu Lall, director of the Water Institute at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University gives us the details on how we map, model, and distribute our dwindling groundwater supplies.

Author Austin Frerick joins the show to talk about his new book: Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America's Food System. An awesome journey through the biggest monopolies in the food biz, from grains, to hogs, to coffee, to grocery chains... Meet the unknown players making bank on the food system.

For at least 20 years, the burgeoning poultry industry has been spreading the waste litter from their barns across one particular watershed in Oklahoma. Journalist Ben Felder dug into the origins of the lawsuit brought by a long gone state attorney general seeking to bring some accountability to the industry over damage to the local waterways. 20 years later, negotiations on how to manage this by product have broken down, and now new legislation threatens to give industry even wider latitude...

Accross the farm belt, cancer cases are spiking, and states are getting serious about tracking and providing guidelines for exposure to agro-chem. Journalist Keith Schneider has been digging into this for months and reports.

Straight outta the NY Times, a groundbreaking article by journalists Christopher Flavelle and Somini Sengupta shows the highway between mcNuggets and our diminishing supply of fresh clean water for human consumption. Flavelle joins the show to describe what he and his colleague uncovered as part of an ongoing and important series in the NYT.

John Rumpler, Clean Water DIrector and lead attorney for Environment America, joins to talk about the long overdue revision of regulations governing wastewater from slaughterhouses and meat processing plants. Decades overdue, public hearings on the subject are being held January 24th and 31st 2024. Learn more about how much toxic waste could be captured if these revised regulations are allowed to pass. Aside from reducing contamination of our drinking water, these revisions would also have an...

Chris Jones, author of the Swine Republic, featured here in June, is back to talk about the remarkable series of conversations he is now having around Iowa and his region about big ag and water pollution. We will also talk about heavily funded mitigation tools that are not mitigating, but are lining some peoples pockets with taxpayer money.

Big Ag and Big Oil are getting in bed together to promote the buildout of bio-digesters to manage animal waste. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing masquerading as a good thing? Reporter Keith Schneider gives some context on this long overdue attention to pollution from the animal agriculture segment.

Professor Sylvia Secchi from University of Iowa joins to talk about how ethanol is a giant giveaway to the ag industry, purporting to be a partial solution to fossil fuel impacts. Instead, the excessive cultivation of corn is having disastrous impacts on soil and water... and guess what? It's anything but fuel efficient. How did we get here???

Journalist Keith Schneider examines a spate of cancer diagnoses in farm country in Minnesota. On one short stretch of a road in Berne Minnesota, shared by four farming families, 12 people developed cancer, and seven of them died. What linked these people in disease is the contamination of their drinking water with excess nitrates, the chemicals used to encourage bumper crops of corn, soy, and other crops. It has yet to be definitively proven, but the science shows excessive nitrate in...