Sustainable Community Development With Our MOTHER EARTH NEWS Voices

Transcript: Sustainable Community Development With Our MOTHER EARTH NEWS Voices

Jessica Mitchell: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Mother Earth News and Friends podcast.

We’re bringing you a special episode this week, recorded from our 2023 Mother Earth News Fair in Lawrence, Kansas. Six folks joined me for this episode to talk about the amazing work they’re doing in their fields of self-sufficiency and sustainable living. We talked about what sustainability means to them in the context of community, what they’re excited about, and so much more.

This is Mother Earth News.

[00:00:31] Introducing the 2023 MOTHER EARTH NEWS Voices

Jessica Mitchell: Good day everyone, and we appreciate you for joining us on a very special Mother Earth News and Friends episode. I’m Jessica Mitchell. I’m part of the editorial team and the podcast manager for Mother Earth News and Friends. And we are coming to you from the 2023 Mother Earth News Fair in Kansas. Yay. And today we have some live audience joining us on this episode, which I think is so fun. And not only that, but we’re here with [00:01:00] six amazing individuals who are part of our Mother Earth News Voices Initiative.

The 2023 Voices are experts in various fields of self-sufficiency and sustainable living, and they’re also creating a path to build equality among historically marginalized populations within their respective fields. So in this episode, we get to hear more from these folks about what they do and some of the big things that are important to them in their work. So let’s join me in welcoming them to the podcast.

Thank you all so, so much for being here. I gotta say this is my first like, live recording on the podcast team. We haven’t done it in a long time, and I’m just so excited that you all decide to join us today.

So what we’re gonna do is we’ll have a mic that we’re gonna pass around to our participants here. So how about we go down the line here and could you briefly introduce yourselves on who you are, what you do, and maybe how you ended up in your respective fields, if there was anything that you remember that inspired you or any strong memories like that?

So, go ahead.

April Jones: Hi [00:02:00] everyone. I’m April Jones. I’m originally from Akron, Ohio. So I am so happy to be here. It’s magical to be in the Midwest, enjoying myself, living my best life. And I got into sustainability because my elementary school teacher, Janelle Woodard at Spring Garden Waldorf School in Akron, Ohio, gave me a spectacular education. But, she really allowed me to explore nature, to be involved with nature and connected to nature, and that has inspired all of my work.

Karena Poke: Hello. I am Karena Poke, and I am originally from Kansas City. So it is great to be back home and connect with family. I now live in Texas, outside of the Houston area. I have a company called Lettuce Live, and what we do there is really make gardening seem easy. So we [00:03:00] do workshops on backyard gardening, small space gardening.

I really want to express the importance of growing your own food with, especially the grocery prices skyrocketing and going out of the roof, and then all the chemicals and things that we are exposed to. I really want gardening to be more accessible to everyone.

I got started gardening out of my consulting firm. At the time, I had no gardening experience. I was doing a project in Memphis, Tennessee, for a client. He wanted me to build a garden. I was like, I don’t even like to go outside. But I figured it out because what I did know how to do is build resources, build relationships, and through that, I started gardening. And that’s how Lettuce Live was born.

Pork Rhyne: Amen, sister. Hey everyone. My name is Pork Rhyne, the Pork Evangelist, um, international agricultural educator and agribusiness coach. I have a company called AGRO Educators, [00:04:00] we help farmers scale up to a hundred thousand dollars in gross income within the first two to three years.

I guess what helped me really think about sustainability was my love for nature. I grew up as a kid who really needed a safe space because home wasn’t safe for me emotionally. And being able to actually be outdoors and in nature allowed for me to feel safe, allowed for me to feel like I had a place that I belonged. And so, you know, fast forward a couple years later, end up going to school for agriculture and learned, oh, the environmentalists hate the agriculturalists and vice versa. But agriculture stems from the environmental sciences, so I’ve been able to find that passion, that love through regenerative agriculture, and that’s what I teach.

Nicky Schauder: Hi, I’m Nicky Schauder. My husband and I started Permaculture Gardens at GrowMyOwnFood.com, where we teach families how to grow their own food. And we use permaculture, because that’s what got us growing successfully.

I represent immigrant farmers, gardeners who carry with them [00:05:00] a tradition and legacy heritage of farming practices from all around the world that we could all learn from, but we often forget. I am one of those who, I didn’t grow up farming in the Philippines. I grew up learning everything I know of gardening here in the States. But I always look to the Indigenous, you know, people’s ways of growing to, to to see what else we’ve missed. I got into, I’m a micro greens farmer. I volunteer, teach gardening at public schools once a week. And I’m also conducting research on aerated compost tea, which I think is alternative to expensive organic and conventional fertilizers.

Kashava Holt: Hey everybody. My name is Kashava Holt. I went to school for construction engineering and fire protection technology. Been working with the USDA since 2018 on a high tunnel congressional project.

And primarily why I got started in the food industry is because I’ve always known for some time that there was a [00:06:00] disconnect with the food and people. And being able to attend the University of Akron where I went to school, I noticed that a lot of the food options that were in the cafeteria weren’t accommodating vegetarians, vegans, people that had special diets, and a lot of the foods weren’t labeled. So it made me feel a little bit concerned on the overall process that the school was basically focusing on: profit over community. And that’s one of the biggest issues in a lot of our cities and communities. And I did my best working part of the undergraduate student government as a senator, and we made some changes, but it wasn’t enough. So eventually I started a nonprofit to alleviate a lot of the political stuff happening.

And right now we have a couple land sites in Akron where I’m focusing on conservation, soil remediation, and giving people access to food that live in food deserted areas. That’s usually where people live more than a mile away from [00:07:00] grocery stores. And at that particular main site, it’s USDA People’s Garden Initiative. So we’re basically there to help people in the community.

Amyrose Foll: Kwai, kwai, paakwin8gwzian. Nia Amyrose Foll waji Virginia Free Farm. Hello and greetings. I’m Amyrose Foll from Virginia Free Farm, and I grew up outside. I grew up in the woods. My earliest memories were of myself foraging seeds from wild plants that I wanted to have in my own little garden at about five or six years old. It’s one of my earliest memories of childhood. I carried that forward. Fast forward 45 years ,and I am the founder of Virginia Free Farm and the director of the Urban Agriculture Collective. And we work to build a more self-sufficient, sustainable, and equitable food system. We provide free plants and food and seeds, but we also provide education for any one that wants to learn or learn to take care of themselves, feed themselves, and feed their community [00:08:00] members.

My ancestors have been farming this land for millennia and it was our culture of generosity and sharing that fed those coming to these shores originally. And so I guess in a way, I do this to honor my ancestors’ legacies.

Jessica Mitchell: Well, thank you all so much. We’re so excited you’re here.

Kashava Holt: I say one more thing? I’m sorry.

I forgot to mention that I am the executive director of Akron Urban Agriculture, it’s a nonprofit. Sorry about that.

[00:08:21] Sustainability in the Context of Community

Jessica Mitchell: No, you’re good. Thank you all so much. We’re so excited that you’re here on the episode with us.

Here’s my first question after those, those introductions, and, and really anybody can, can start by answering this and we’ll kind of go around for whoever wants to answer.

As I was getting to know you all and, and your work, preparing for this episode, I noticed that all of your work seems to include an intersection of sustainable practices with community. Why do you think a sustainable future is closely connected with community?

April Jones: Well, I think after COVID…. Hi everyone. This is April. After COVID, we were so separated from each [00:09:00] other. Right? And it was so devastating and so difficult and challenging and hard. And so now that we’re coming out of that season, we really have an opportunity to rely on each other and to reconnect and gain our social skills, and sustainability allows us that opportunity and that space to have safe, fun, interesting, conversations about ways we can all be better.

Karena Poke: I think at a grassroots level, ignorance is killing our community, and we as grassroots business owners — and this is Karena with Lettuce Live — as grassroots business owners, empowering our community, empowering those that are in low income areas, that is where, in my opinion, sustainability really starts, is equipping them with the information and then equipping them with the [00:10:00] tools to survive.

Houston, the third largest city in the United States, we’ve had in the last maybe two or three months, we’ve had water issues where they’ve had to cut the water off because it was contaminated. And so if you, who is that really gonna affect? Low income, uneducated, underserved communities. And so if you can do homesteading and live in more rural areas where you can have a water well and tap into your community, and then get resources with educated people. Like people on our panel and things that Kashava is doing is like, how do you filter water? How can I still drink it? Okay. We don’t have water that’s healthy or something is harmful in it. How do we continue to use it? Well, it’s gonna take grassroots people like ourselves having a passion to educate people in our own lane. We all kind of do something different, and we’re all are valuable to our communities.

Pork Rhyne: [00:11:00] Pork Rhyne here. So when I think about sustainability, I also think about the economic impact and profitability for farmers. I, I remember living off of $500 a month as a farmer, and I don’t ever want to go back to that. You wanna talk about being poor? Oh, man. And I knew I couldn’t save money. I knew that my financial future wasn’t gonna be well, if I couldn’t make changes to my life. So that caused a lot of stress, emotional stress. I was burning out fatigued. My, my relationships with people was bad. So you talk about sustainability, sustainability of relationships is important.

So that’s part of the reason why the work that I do now is let’s focus on being profitable, because if you’re profitable, you get to stay in business. You get to stay in business, you get to continue to serve your community in a powerful way.

A lot of people get the farming for the love of the land and love of people, but if they don’t have an understanding of the economics behind it, then they’re not gonna be able [00:12:00] to effectively love the communities that they’re trying to serve through the products that they wanna provide.

Nicky Schauder: I love what you just said, Pork Rhyne.

This is Nikki here at Permaculture Gardens. And we got into gardening because of our community. We got into gardening because people were asking us how do we do this in our own backyards? And when the demands of a large family did not allow us to be physically present, installing everybody’s yards, that we took our education, our knowledge, everything that we know, we teach online. And then we created a community there. So there is a community. We have a community, a gardening community, that spans across the United States right now, about 68 gardeners across the United States, Canada, and even Europe.

So these, this wealth of knowledge, it doesn’t yet I, I think it’s starting to make up for the fact that I do not have the knowledge passed down from generations to generations, you know, that, that my ancestors did about farming. But it helps speed up that process of learning. So a [00:13:00] lot of what I learn is really from the students that we teach. The learning is accelerated by being in community with one another. So I think that if we wanna see change, grow, like Karena said, it, it’s gonna come from like grassroots efforts. It’s gonna come from community building.

Kashava Holt: I believe right now the current situation is we have a lack of modern day heroes. As you can see with the athletes, the entertainers, they’re just not focusing on the things that can uplift us all as people, as communities. And, I think the importance of what we’re doing up here is not only raising people’s consciousness, it’s giving people a way to figure out what they can do to improve their situation right now, even if they may not have the funds that are in place. And just learning how to create partnerships, like Karena was saying, and understanding the economics behind starting a farm. Because I know right now, just in our particular area, we don’t really have a whole lot of [00:14:00] support from the city and the state governments because there’s just a lot of obstacles involved on the political side.

And in order for that to change, you have to be multifaceted or have streams of income. So whether you’re doing landscaping, whether you’re doing design work, whether you’re teaching, educating. But just having different things that can sustain your idea, your operation, and just looking for other opportunities to where you’re not depending on the government for grants and different things of that nature. So just working together is the main thing.

Amyrose Foll: This is Amyrose. So what does community mean for my operation or farming? Well, for me, just off the top of my head, and I’ve said it before, but food is the one thing that ties us all together in the vast web of environment and agriculture. And food is the great cross-cultural unifier. All of us gather with friends [00:15:00] and family around a table to celebrate, whether it’s a birthday or a bar mitzvah or midwinter ceremony. Over food. And just to piggyback off what Karena said, because I think that what she said was really, really important. It’s gotta start from the grassroots up. It can’t, it’s gotta be bottom up and top down, even if you’re trying to help people because the most powerful thing you can do to make real change is to empower others and not gatekeep and not hoard knowledge, but to kick the door down and hold it open for everyone else.

And if we’re not doing that for our community, we don’t deserve to be sitting here making decisions or giving our ideas to anyone else because it’s all about community.

[00:15:40] Exciting Events and Projects Happening Now and Coming Up

Jessica Mitchell: Thank you all so much for those thoughtful answers. I love all of those.

There’s so many different questions I wanna ask everybody, but I also gotta be mindful of time. So I’m gonna jump down and and ask this question. What’s something that you’re seeing in your work, in your community, what you’re doing, that is encouraging or exciting? So maybe [00:16:00] that’s some new developments in community building, the work towards accessible resources, anything like that that maybe you just wanna share as something that you’re seeing as promising.

April Jones: Yeah, so this is April. I’m really excited about native and the local food system. Like native plants and native recipes and native crops, hello. So there’s so many great things being done by our universities and our institutions. The University of Minnesota is doing outstanding and amazing work in this space, the University of Wisconsin is doing amazing, outstanding work in this space. And it’s really exciting because each region of our country is so different. The founding is different, the values are different, the food ways are different. So I’m excited for regions of our country to really delve into the food system and what is amazing, outstanding, spectacular, [00:17:00] about their regions.

Karena Poke: Hi, this is Karena. I am super excited, and it’s gonna piggy back off of what Pork Rhyne said. The economics are shifting. There are more backyard gardeners, small scale farmers, who are finding ways to create streams of income. And I talk about this in a number of my workshops, is how do you create a stream from your, a stream of income, from your backyard, from raised garden beds? How do you just not grow because, to, to Pork Rhyne’s point, is it becomes a struggle. You’re gardening, farming, it’s all hard, it’s all a lot of labor intensive work, but how do we create streams? So I’m super excited about seeing more people in the gardening and small scale farming space create different streams of income in different ways. Whether that’s speaking, whether that’s online [00:18:00] workshops selling paraphernalia, apparel, all of that kind of things. I’m, I’m, I’m happy to see that increasing,

Pork Rhyne: She said “piggyback.”

Pork Rhyne here. I wanna take a more of a left field approach. What I am excited about is kind of how mental health is being more promoted and more talked about. Again, with my struggles, even in farming, you know, I, I now identify as someone who’s in 12 step recovery and, and also therapy. And I realize like, oh my gosh, I wish I had this earlier on. Because as I coach people and their business, one thing I notice is that it’s not that they don’t have good farming practices, that’s not the reason why they’re failing. And sure, maybe they don’t know all the business techniques. But what’s getting in their way is just the personal insecurity, fear, trauma, experiences of abandonment and neglect. And that impacts how they market themselves, how they market their product, [00:19:00] or lack thereof. And so I’m grateful that I’ve gone through and continue to go through my own healing journey to empower other farmers to do the same. And that there’s just so much more resources for mental health out here nowadays. So, with that, I’ll pass. Thanks.

Nicky Schauder: What gets me excited now is that there definitely is more interest in organic gardening and permaculture even, in the school systems, and that there’s more funding for it. It’s really easy to get grants for schools, classrooms, and there is, yeah, it’s really more supported even by the principals than it was 10 years ago when I started this.

And then the other thing I’m excited about is, it’s more trendy for people to eat organic or to live sustainably. And I think economics wise, right? The restaurateurs are including in their, in their fare things like shishito peppers. I don’t dunno why shishito peppers, there’s so many different kinds of heirloom peppers, but that particular pepper, right?

And [00:20:00] somebody in our, in our clientele, in our, in our garden membership said, oh, I, I’m growing toothache plant because it was on the menu of this, you know, reserve only restaurant that they, she and her husband went to. And she wanted to do it the same thing. So I’m like, if this diversity in meals and the organic and the locally sourced is really important to businesses, to restaurateurs, in the market, then, then it trickles down.

And so I’m excited about that, that, you know, we started with something years ago that now people are catching onto.

Kashava Holt: So I would say as of now, I am aware of some of the different obstacles that are happening in some of the different cities and states and there is a lot more awareness in terms of the schools incorporating more farm to table practices because that is helpful. But there is a couple layers that need to be peeled back.

But what I’m mostly excited about is this particular year, we’re dealing with the land bank in the city, and they have a lot of property and we’re making them aware on some of the [00:21:00] things that we’re doing. So this year, we just got a property that’s fairly bigger than the one that we have right now. It’s a vacant lot. Most of all the lots in our area are vacant. But the city and the land bank, they have to go through like a review process to where they have to approve what you’re doing. But I’m also noticing that they’re doing their best to replicate what we’re doing or what I’m doing somewhat in terms of just helping urban farmers, which I think it’s good. Because with what we’re doing, we’re not in competition with other urban farmers. We’re raising people’s awareness. We’re showing people this is how you bring your operation to the modernized standard in regards to air-water generator, or in regards to filtering the soil, or getting windbreak to block a lot of the particulates coming from the microplastics and tires that are crossing the road or passing by.

So I’m definitely excited to see situations like this with the Fair and being around very important and extremely [00:22:00] knowledgeable people that can share their story and help uplift everyone and raise our consciousness, more or less.

Amyrose Foll: This is Amyrose. One of the things I’m, there’s so many things to be excited about, it’s hard to just distill it into one thing.

Right before I left to come to Kansas, I ended up going back and forth with someone from city government, from Charlottesville. And we already do a lot of children’s programming, but we had a renewed interest in juvenile diversion programs. So on Mondays and Wednesdays, instead of these children that have gotten into hot water here and there, they’re now recognizing that it’s just farming that, the school to prison pipeline. And they are coming to me on Mondays and Wednesdays for mentorship instead of going to juvie hall for the second year for that program with the city of Charlottesville. I love these kids. They’re so great. And the best part is now I keep bags in my truck, and I can send them home with the food that they’re growing. The food that they’re growing can get them brownie points with their parents and with their grandparents, with their foster parents. And they get to have the pride in their own [00:23:00] selves of learning how to farm. And all of the rest of the produce is distributed free of charge into our community for anyone that needs it or wants it.

And it makes them feel really good about themselves because they are not, they’re being given another chance. And they’re learning a skill, and they’re doing something that helps strengthen the fabric of their entire community.

[00:23:19] Resources to Learn More About Sustainable Community Development

Jessica Mitchell: Yeah, it’s amazing. We have, we’ve already like, almost blown through our 30 minutes. It went so quick.

Do you wanna let people know where you can, they can connect with you, find you online?

Amyrose Foll: You can find us online at VirginiaFreeFarm.org or on social media @VirginiaFreeFarm, all spelled out.

Kashava Holt: Oh, and to add to what I was saying, we’re getting more properties at the end of this year. It’s just in Akron, you can only get three per year without paying an extra tax, so everything’s going good.

But yeah, you could find me at AkronUrbanAgriculture.com. On our website, I have a list of the projects that we’re actively working on, and we have other people within the actual website that have created a profile, other experts, architects, engineers, to [00:24:00] help anyone who’s interested in gardening to reduce the cost. And Oh, and I’m Keisha behold, obviously, but, we’re a nonprofit 501(c)(3), so we accept donations. But other than that, that’s basically it. Thank you.

Nicky Schauder: I’m Nicky again. Nicky Schauder from Permaculture Gardens at GrowMyOwnFood.com. We are having a Kickstarter soon for our garden designer SAGE app. So if you go to GrowMyOwnFood.com and sign up on our blog, you’ll learn more about that.

Pork Rhyne: This is Pork Rhyne again. Um, you can find me and AGRO Educators by going to our website at AGRO.edu. We also have a YouTube channel, same name, AGRO Educators. And thank y’all for showing up. [gives pig call]

Karena Poke: Hi, I am Karena and I am with Lettuce Live. You can find me on YouTube @GrowWithKP, and I’m on [00:25:00] Instagram @LettuceLiveUrbanFarm. And my website is Lettuce Live, as in the edible lettuce, LettuceLive.org. And I’d love to teach you all and inspire you to grow more foods that you love to eat.

April Jones: So this is April Jones. So you can find me at @PinehurstFarmersMarket on Instagram, and then also I consult, Pinehurst Consulting.

Jessica Mitchell: Amazing. Thank you all again for joining us for this special episode. Thank you for our audience. And as we like to say on the podcast, until next time, don’t forget to love your Mother.

[00:25:36] Podcast Credits

Jessica Mitchell: Thank you for joining me and the 2023 Voices for this podcast episodes. You’ll be able to catch some of the Voices in future podcast episodes, magazines, and Mother Earth News Fairs. We have two more Fairs coming up this year in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and yuou can join us [00:26:00] there by going to www.MotherEarthNewsFair.com to register.

Our podcast production team includes Jessica Mitchell, John Moore, Kenny Coogan, and Alyssa Warner.

Music for this episode is “Travel Light” by Jason Shaw.

This Mother Earth News and Friends podcast episode is a production of Ogden Publications. Learn more about us at www.MotherEarthNews.com.

[00:26:20] MOTHER EARTH NEWS Fair Ad

Jessica Mitchell: Have you ever wanted to meet our podcast presenters in-person or take workshops from them? You can by going one of our many Mother Earth News Fairs each year. You can take hands-on workshops, attend information-filled presentations, and shop from our many vendors specializing in DIY ideas, homesteading, and natural health. Our 2023 Fair schedule includes Fairs in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Learn more about all our Fairs by going to www.MotherEarthNewsFair.com. Use the code FAIRGUEST for $5 off at checkout. Whichever Fair you choose to join us at, we’re looking forward to seeing you there.

Until next time, don’t [00:27:00] forget to love your Mother.

Meet Our MOTHER EARTH NEWS Voices

Founder of Virginia Free Farm, Amyrose Foll is a fervent advocate for food sovereignty, earth care, people care, and resource share. She works to live out the values of collectivism and community in order to ensure those around her are fed. She is a veteran of the U.S. Army, a former nurse, and continues her duty to protect and care for others through the farm.

Kashava Holt grew up in Solon, Ohio, in a suburb outside of Cleveland before moving to Akron and attending school at the University of Akron for Construction Engineering Technology and Fire Protection Technology in 2012. In 2014, he was selected for the Choose Ohio first STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) scholar award. Since then, Kashava has been working in the Akron and Cleveland communities as a student and outreach specialist with the USDA. His main goal has been to help residents gain access to agriculture, conservation, education, and sustainability projects to help people, including gardeners, urban farmers, older adults, those with disabilities, and individuals experiencing homelessness. His purpose for urban farming is to empower residents with education, land, technical resources, and access to consistent organic fresh foods. With the non-profit Akron Urban Agriculture, he is working on bee farms, food forests, high tunnels, microgreens, and various projects to provide healthier foods to communities in urban areas such as Akron and Cleveland. In addition, he’s building live demonstration sites on vacant lots to show communities how to live and learn in urban environments.

Nicky Schauder is passionate about helping families grow their own food. With her husband, Dave, she runs Permaculture Gardens at GrowMyOwnFood.com, a website filled with garden resources such as free webinars, educational blogs, and Grow-It-Yourself (GIY) – a garden-mentoring program to help families grow abundantly! Permaculture Gardens has received the “Most Sustainable Brand” award at the Green Festivals, and Nicky and Dave’s work has been featured in the Huffington Post, Permaculture Research Institute – Australia, and Green America.

Pork Rhyne is “The Pork Evangelist,” known across the country and overseas in East Africa for his work as an international agricultural educator and niche meat-marketing expert. He has dedicated his life to training and educating experienced and beginner farmers, primarily on small-scale livestock production, business, and marketing. Pork Rhyne has been featured in ABC’s Localish, MOTHER EARTH NEWS, Homesteaders of America, and The Livestock Conservancy.

Karena Poke is an eco-entrepreneur, garden educator, and farmer. She is known for her pioneering work in translating edible gardens into a viable business model for transforming communities while also reducing chronic diseases in underserved food-desert neighborhoods. After becoming a Master Gardener through Texas A&M AgriLife Extension in 2014, and with a passion for building healthy communities across the world, Karena launched Lettuce Live.The Lettuce Live team designs and builds customized edible gardens with teachers, community leaders, corporations, and aspiring gardeners to provide families with more access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Karena designed her first community garden for Aetna Health Care in 2012. Two years later, she launched Lettuce Live, an edible garden firm that builds and manages vegetable gardens and facilitates team-building exercises and workshops for individuals and corporations. Her projects include building community gardens for Amazon in 2021 and Aetna Health Care in 2012; her first project was with then head coach of the Memphis Grizzlies Lionel Hollins, the NBA Memphis Grizzlies, and UnitedHealthcare. As a thought leader and passionate advocate for reforming the food industry, in 2021, Poke formed the Black Growers Association (BGA) to make the farm-to-table experience more profitable for Black and Brown growers. Our platform makes it easy for restaurants, grocers, and individuals seeking to connect to growers of color across the country to do so with ease. Learn more about Karena’s work at www.LettuceLive.org, or follow her on Instagram (@LettuceliveUrbanFarm) and Facebook (@LettuceLive).

April Jones is the founder of the Pinehurst Farmers Market located in downtown Columbia, SC. April advocates for her community as part of the food justice and food sovereignty movement. She is a writer, photographer, blogger, YouTuber, recipe developer, and book reviewer who is passionate about community, gardens, and farmers markets.

Additional Resources

Meet some of the 2023 Voices at our Mother Earth News Fairs in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin! Learn more here.

 Our Podcast Team:

Jessica Mitchell, John Moore, Kenny Coogan, and Alyssa Warner

Music: “Travel Light” by Jason Shaw

Listen to more podcasts at MOTHER EARTH NEWS PODCAST.

Check out the MOTHER EARTH NEWS Bookstore for more resources that may interest you.

Go to the MOTHER EARTH NEWS Fair page for an opportunity to see some of our podcast guests live.

The Mother Earth News and Friends podcasts are a production of Ogden Publications.

Ogden Publications strives to inspire “can-do communities,” which may have different locations, backgrounds, beliefs, and ideals. The viewpoints and lifestyles expressed within Ogden Publications articles are not necessarily shared by the editorial staff or policies but represent the authors’ unique experiences.