Hands in the Soil copertina

Hands in the Soil

Hands in the Soil

Di: Hannah Keitel
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Welcome to Hands in the Soil, the podcast that dives deep into all things food, farming, and our intricate connection to the planet. We’re shining the spotlight on all those who work closely with the Earth – from farmers and ranchers, backyard gardeners and forestry workers, to indigenous seed keepers, waterway protectors and more. Together, we'll be uprooting the unseen, and learning from stewards at the frontlines of creating solutions to the existential threats we face in the era of climate change, food scarcity, and exploitation of our finite natural resources.Hannah Keitel Arte Cucina Enogastronomia
Episodi
  • 63. From Ownership to Stewardship w/ The Farmers Land Trust & Earthen Heart Farmland Commons

    63. From Ownership to Stewardship w/ The Farmers Land Trust & Earthen Heart Farmland Commons
    Jul 7 2026
    In this episode of Hands in the Soil, we’re joined by four guests - Ian and Kristina, co-founders and co-executive directors of The Farmers Land Trust, and Julian and Alita, the visionaries behind the Earthen Heart Farmland Commons in Bangor, Michigan - to talk about a hopeful and replicable model in food systems work happening right now.The conversation that unfolds in this episode is a story about what becomes possible when land is decommodified, when ownership is reimagined as stewardship, and when the right people find each other at the right moment. Julian donated his 19.9-acre Bangor farm, built over 14 years of food forests, medicinal plants, and regenerative land practices, into the Farmers Land Trust, where it became the founding property of the Earthen Heart Farmland Commons. Alita Kelly, founder of Jade Rabbit and steward of community food work across West Michigan, received a 99-year lease on that land and a seat in the ownership structure. This conversation is part origin story, part how-it-works, and part invitation to anyone sitting on land, working with land, or dreaming of a different relationship to it.Tune in to learn more about:What The Farmers Land Trust does and how the farmland commons model works, including the 501c25 legal structure that makes it possibleHow farmers who lease land through this model also get a seat in the ownership structure, and why that changes everythingJulian's 14-year journey as steward of the Earthen Heart property, what he learned, and what guided him toward donating rather than sellingWhat it felt like to ask the land for permission, and to receive an answerWhy healing on this land is inseparable from healing the relationship that communities of color have had with land in AmericaThe vision for Earthen Heart as a site of communal farming, collective living, a freedom school, and transformation through the seasonsThe honest challenges: finding pro bono legal support, aligning values among farm partners, navigating shared leadership, and building something with no mapWhy land is donated all the time (to universities, municipalities, and conservation trusts) and what it would mean to shift that culture toward working farmland and food sovereigntyThe history of the word "homesteading" and why Julian chooses to use it anyway, and the distinction between farming for sale and farming for useLiberty Hyde Bailey, Teddy Roosevelt, the Commission on Rural Life, and the moment over a century ago that set us on the path we're still trying to heal fromResources MentionedEpisode 13: Bringing Hope to the Future of Farmland with Ian McSweeneyEpisode 34: Creating a Farmland Commons with Ian McSweeneyEpisode 48: Solidarity and Community Sufficiency: Land Justice, Food Justice and True Community Empowerment with Kristina Villa et al Liberty Hyde Bailey The Homestead Act of 1862 Connect + Learn MoreThe Farmers Land Trust Website: thefarmerslandtrust.org Earthen Heart Farmland Commons Website: thefarmerslandtrust.org/commons/earthen-heart Earthen Heart Website: earthenheart.comJade Rabbit: jade-rabbit.orgWest Michigan Young Farmers Coalition: youngfarmers.orgConnect with Hannah on Instagram: @hannahkeitel
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    51 min
  • 62. The Efficiency Trap: Why Doing More Isn't Doing Better w/ Andrew Flachs

    62. The Efficiency Trap: Why Doing More Isn't Doing Better w/ Andrew Flachs
    Jun 23 2026

    In this episode of Hands in the Soil, we sit down with Andrew Flachs, associate professor of anthropology at Purdue University and author of two books that ask some of the most clarifying questions in food systems discourse: Cultivating Knowledge: Biotechnology, Sustainability, and the Human Cost of Cotton Capitalism in India and his most recent, Feeding the World as if People Mattered: How Small Farms Produce Value Beyond Yields. Andrew grew up in a small Pennsylvania town with a grandmother's garden he admittedly didn't love as a kid, and found his way into this work through a chance encounter with urban gardening research, a student meal cooperative, and an advisor who sent him to India at exactly the right moment. Andrew brings the kind of rigor to this conversation that comes from years in the field with farmers across three continents, combined with a willingness to question the assumptions baked into how we talk about food.


    Tune in to learn more about:

    • How Andrew went from hating picking beans as a kid to becoming a leading anthropologist of food and agriculture
    • Why the fight to prove that small farms can match conventional yields is the wrong fight entirely
    • The "iceberg economy" and all the care work, infrastructure, and labor that lies beneath the visible surface of our food system
    • What his research across the US Midwest, Bosnia, and South India revealed about what small farming families actually share across different contexts
    • The explosion of GM cotton seeds in India, from three brands in 2002 to over a thousand by 2012, and what that did to farmers' knowledge, livelihoods, and mortality rates
    • Why farmers on organic cotton programs kept farming even when the economic math didn't add up, and what that reveals about what farming is actually for
    • The true costs of "cheap" food: what isn't being counted in environmental degradation, public health, labor exploitation, and soil loss
    • Why efficiency is often a trap, and how efficient technologies without systemic change just lead us to do more of the same harmful thing
    • How the current Farm Bill debate and the Iran war oil disruptions reveal the fragility of just-in-time global supply chains
    • What a resilient food system would require, and what we already know how to do


    Books & Resources Mentioned

    By Andrew Flachs:

    • Feeding the World as if People Mattered: How Small Farms Produce Value Beyond Yields
      (Use code AZFLR for 30% off. If cost is a barrier, email Andrew directly.)
    • Cultivating Knowledge: Biotechnology, Sustainability, and the Human Cost of Cotton Capitalism in India
    • Interactive Story Map: Cotton in India
      https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/20f488863e4a41a892f0dd7a346180c0


    Referenced in conversation:

    • Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered - E.F. Schumacher (1973)
    • The Labor of Lunch: Why We Need School Food and How to Get It - Jennifer Gaddis
    • Beginning to End Hunger: Food and the Environment in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and Beyond - Dr. Jahi Chappell


    Connect with Andrew

    • Website: andrewflachs.com
    • Instagram: @drflachsophone
    • Email: aflachs@purdue.edu
    • University of Arizona Press: @azpress on Instagram


    Connect with Hannah:

    • Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@hannahkeitel ⁠⁠⁠
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    52 min
  • 61. The Real Price of Food w/ Greg Reese

    61. The Real Price of Food w/ Greg Reese
    Jun 9 2026

    In this episode of Hands in the Soil, we sit down with Greg Reese, first-generation farmer and farm manager at Fox Point Farms - a working agrihood community in Encinitas, California. Greg didn't grow up on a farm. He grew up in the suburbs, stumbled into organic food through a farm-to-table restaurant job in his mid-twenties, and spent the next decade piecing together an education from backyard gardens, WWOOFing trips to Costa Rica, rainwater harvesting work, school gardens, indigenous land partnerships, and small urban farms. That winding, mentor-rich path eventually led him to the farm he manages now: a two-and-a-half-acre regenerative operation embedded in a 250-home community, with a restaurant, market, brewery, and apothecary all on site.


    Tune in to learn more about:

    • The moment Greg realized organic food tasted and felt different, and what that curiosity unlocked
    • The difference between gardening and farming, and how scale, markets, and business thinking change everything
    • What an agrihood is, why the concept resonates deeply, and how Fox Point Farms came to be
    • Why cutting out the supply chain middleman is one of the most powerful things a small farmer can do
    • The true cost of food: land, labor, water, machinery, government subsidies, and why "cheap" conventional produce is only cheap on the surface
    • Why Americans spend less of their income on food than almost any other developed nation, and what that says about our priorities
    • The race to the bottom on food prices, and why Greg refuses to participate
    • Greg's step-by-step advice for anyone who wants to get started in farming
    • How agritourism (farm dinners, animal encounters, U-picks, school visits) is becoming essential to the small farm business model


    Connect + Learn More:

    Follow Greg’s Instagram: @farmergreg_official

    Check out Fox Point Farms: @foxpointfarms

    Website: foxpointfarms.com

    Connect with Hannah: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@hannahkeitel ⁠⁠⁠
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    1 ora e 2 min
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