DOWN on the FARM
with Tom Willey
First Friday of the month at 5p.m.
KFCF, 88.1 FM Fresno
Listen to our podcast.
Down on the Farm with Tom Willey
First Friday of the month at 5p.m. KFCF, 88.1 FM Fresno
March 1: “Down on the Farm” historian of technology Paul Gilmore
Climate chaos confounds California’s progress towards a carbon-neutral energy future. Catastrophic wildfire liability just triggered the state’s largest private utility, PG&E, to declare bankruptcy. Overnight, lenders refuse to fund new California energy projects or demand junk bond interest rates. Why can’t public-owned utilities provide our power? Understanding where we’ve been informs choices we must make. “Down on the Farm” historian of technology Paul Gilmore will shed light on the subject.
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Feb. 1: Colorado agronomist Patrick O’Neill
Our San Joaquin Valley’s Critically Overdrafted Basins must submit Groundwater Management Plans for Department of Water Resources approval by year’s end. Local agency formation, analysis, and consensus-building has been ongoing since 2014’s passage of California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. Colorado’s San Luis Valley is ten years ahead of us in a similar mandate to balance groundwater pumping with aquifer replenishment. Join host Tom Willey and Colorado agronomist Patrick O’Neill to learn from our neighbors’ experience.
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Jan 4: Ward Burroughs, Denair dairyman and Western Organic Dairy Producers Alliance president
Family-scale organic dairy farmers were, for some time, insulated from the brutal economic cycles that plague our conventional dairy industry. No longer. Might organic dairy’s crisis be the “canary in the mine shaft” as Food Inc. muscles in on the organic bonanza? Join Denair dairyman and Western Organic Dairy Producers Alliance president Ward Burroughs in conversation with “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey.
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Dec. 7: Soil microbiology with Jessica Chiartas
What would compel an ambitious twenty-something to abandon her lucrative career in pharmaceutical sales for soil science? The answers may give you a new appreciation for the vast, living world beneath your feet. Join UC Davis soil microbiology PhD candidate Jessica Chiartas and “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey digging into soil.
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Nov. 2: Cynthia Daley and Jeff Mitchell, better agricultural practices
The plowing of soils to grow crops released more carbon into Earth’s atmosphere than did all the burning of fossil fuels until the mid-1950s. How might better agricultural practice, vastly reducing tillage or eliminating it, mitigate climate change while improving soil and the food grown in it? Find out by joining Chico State University’s Cynthia Daley and University of California’s Jeff Mitchell in conversation with “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey.
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Oct. 5: Joe Traynor, pairing bee keepers with Valley almond growers
California’s 1.3 million almond acres, just winding up harvest, require the ministrations of some 32 billion bees to make them fertile. Joe Traynor is a marriage broker of sorts, pairing bee keepers from across North America with Valley almond growers. “Servant of two masters”, Joe has observed this annual courtship dance since the 1950’s. Join “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey and Scientific Ag Company’s Joe Traynor in conversation.
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September 7, ’18: Fruit + vegetable evangelist Mark Mulcahy.
When were you last served by a greengrocer, that once noble profession whose name has largely disappeared from our lexicon? Mark Mulcahy created the Bay Area’s first 100% organic produce department some thirty years ago. Today, fruit and vegetable evangelist Mulcahy roams from coast to coast, preaching passion for produce, its seasonality, taste, nutrition and immense variety. Join Mark and “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey to discuss organic produce retailing, where it’s been, where it is, and where it’s going.
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August 3, ’18: Honora Chapman and host explore ancient past for lessons relevant to America’s challenging present.
America’s democratic roots trace to the agrarian Greek polis and a similarly egalitarian early Roman Republic, where eight of ten people lived on the land. Grappling with the greater Mediterranean world’s power politics transformed each of these societies into aristocracies whose imperial ambitions undermined democratic foundations of land distribution and proper soil care. Fresno State University professor of classical studies Dr. Honora Chapman and “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey explore the ancient past for lessons relevant to America’s challenging present.
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July 6, ’18: Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers movement. Historian Mario Sifuentez
Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers movement successfully called our nation’s attention to the plight of farm workers, yet failed to represent them in the fields as a viable union. UC Merced farm labor historian Mario Sifuentez spent countless hours listening to archived UFW board meeting recordings to learn what went wrong. Join Sifuentez and “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey.
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June 1, ’18: Tom Willey and UC Davis Agroecology Professor Amelie Gaudin
If crops’ unseen half, the roots, could be visualized, farmers might vastly improve their practice. UC Davis agroecology professor Amelie Gaudin focuses much of her gaze on life belowground. Humankind’s plant selection for high yield over thousands of years weakened self-reliant root systems, which now depend on farmers’ spoon-feeding ministrations. Join “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey and Dr. Gaudin discussing the hidden half of nature.
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May 4, ’18: Tom Willey and Dr. David Cehrs
As California’s 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) transitions from local agency formation into planning, profound consequences for San Joaquin Valley agriculture loom over the near horizon. Dr. David Cehrs, Sanger farmer and Kings River Conservation District Board President, joins “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey, to explore options to the current overdrafting of our Valley aquifers by two million acre-feet annually. Join Dr. David Cehrs and “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey for potential solutions.
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April 6, ’18: Tom Willey and CalTrout’s Jacob Katz
Agriculture surrendered much water back to California’s river systems aiming to restore troubled fisheries. All in vain, as salmon runs continue in precipitous decline. CalTrout’s Jacob Katz and collaborators reveal that levied rivers resemble sterile water slides, devoid of foods that migrating smolts need to thrive. Their Nigiri Project addresses that. Join Katz and “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey.
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March 2, ’18: Tom Willey and Shone Farm’s Leonard Diggs
Santa Rosa Junior College’s 365-acre Shone Farm won recognition as the nation’s #1 ranked educational farm. Leonard Diggs has served as Shone Farm’s manager for over two decades. “Learning by doing”, students acquire skills in animal husbandry, pasture management, viticulture, wine making, orcharding, vegetable production, forestry, and culinary arts. Join “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey and Leonard Diggs.
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February 2, ’18: Tom Willey and CSUF meteorologist Sean Boyd
Science agrees we now live in the Anthropocene, a new geological age in which human activity is the overwhelming force driving change in Earth’s life systems. Paleoclimatologist William Ruddiman challanges common belief that this new age commenced with the industrial era’s combustion of fossil fuels. His Early Anthropocene hypothesis argues that humankind began shifting Earth’s climate some 8,000 years ago with agriculture’s spread. Join “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey and CSUF meteorologist Sean Boyd, as they discuss Ruddiman’s radical notions, that might not be so radical.
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January 5, ’18: Tom Willey and partner Denesse of T&D Willey Farms
Is good, clean, and fair food a realistic possibility? Longtime “Down on the Farm” anchor Tom Willey along with partner Denesse of T&D Willey Farms will take the hot seat as UC Davis vegetable crops specialist Jeff Mitchell commands the host microphone. No mere stroll down memory lane, the professor intends to focus equally on the organic movement’s successes and shortcomings over forty years.
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December 1, ’17: Paul Gilmore, “Rails, Water and Power: The History of California’s Infrastructure”
The only region on North and South American continents lacking indigenous agriculture before Europeans arrived was California. The agricultural wunderkind our Golden State has since become required transportation, electrification, and irrigation networks. Fresno City College historian Paul Gilmore’s “Rails, Water and Power: The History of California’s Infrastructure” recounts those avaricious capitalists, brilliant engineers and toiling laborers whose collaboration laid the foundation for the world’s 6th largest economy. Join “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey and Paul Gilmore, in conversation.
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November 3, ’17: Evan Wiig – Farmers Guild | The future of our food, the land and those who will steward it.
Evan Wiig’s Farmers Guild facilitates networking for young farmers all over the Golden State. As the early innovators of organic farming lay down their hoes, it is critical to organize and support a new generation of cultivators. Join “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey and Evan Wiig, in a conversation on the future of our food, the land and those who will steward it.
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October 6, ’17: Roots of Change president Michael Dimock | Reassess food and organic farming movement
Roots of Change “think and do” tank vowed to “transform California’s food system in twenty-five years”. ROC president Michael Dimock and “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey assess just how much of that grandiose task has been accomplished since 2002. Has our food and organic farming movement fallen victim to its own success?
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September 1, ’17: Angus Wright, Final Conversation of three
Host Tom Willey’s final conversation with Angus Wright. Nature’s Matrix, authored most recently, weaves agriculture, conservation, and food sovereignty into one comprehensive whole. Board chairman Angus discusses The Land Institute’s revolutionary effort to reinvent midwestern grain farming into a perennial polyculture that mimics the natural prairie ecosystem it once displaced. It’s a wrap.
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August 4, ’17: Angus Wright, Author of ‘To Inherit the Earth: The Landless Movement and the Struggle for a New Brazil’
Down on the Farm’s continuing conversation with Angus Wright heads further south to Brazil in this episode.“Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey and Angus discuss his To Inherit the Earth: The Landless Movement and the Struggle for a New Brazil. Environmental historian Wright is a CSU Sacramento Emeritus Professor and Board Chairman of Salina, Kansas’ visionary Land Institute.
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July 7, ’17: Angus Wright, Author of ‘The Death of Ramon Gonzalez : The Modern Agricultural Dilemma’
Angus Wright and Wes Jackson cofounded Sacramento State University’s Ecological Studies program in the early 1970s and yet collaborate on natural systems agriculture research at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. Angus, CSUS Emeritus Professor, discusses his seminal work, The Death of Ramon Gonzalez : The Modern Agricultural Dilemma, with “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey.
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June 2, ’17: Philipp Simon, from the USDA
‘Select the best, discard the rest’ – plant breeding was a farmer’s responsibility for agriculture’s first 10,000 years. Today, the purview of scientifically trained professionals, USDA’s Philipp Simon is among the best. For some forty years, Phil has developed and trialed modern carrot varieties at University of Wisconsin, Madison. Simon shares his and the carrot’s interwoven histories in conversation with “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey.
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May 5, ’17: Peter Donovan, “Soil Carbon Challenge”
For six years, citizen scientist Peter Donovan has crisscrossed the continental United States in a converted school bus-soils lab to spread knowledge and passion for transforming atmospheric carbon into soil carbon. Peter’s Soil Carbon Challenge touches down in Fresno to evaluate soil-building efforts hereabouts and to engage “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey in conversation. Learn how your farm or garden can become part of the solution.
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April 7, ’17: Liz Carlisle, Author of ‘Lentil Underground’
Reared in a Montana family devoted to education and guitar, young Liz Carlisle’s Harvard education curiously spawned a country music career, and the realization that rural America did not reflect her songcraft’s idealized images. Fascinated by her own state’s hardscrabble grain farmers, Liz soaked up graduate geography and journalism skills at UC Berkley while authoring Lentil Underground, a history of Montana’s upstart organic farming movement. Now lecturing on food and agriculture at Stanford, Liz Carlisle joins “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey in conversation.
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March 3, ’17: Jonathan London, Director of UC Davis Center for Regional Change
In conversations with several pioneering UC Davis rural sociologists who tilted at California’s agribusiness windmill throughout the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, we learned scholarly activism was then a harrowing activity. In this new millennium, Jonathan London, UC Davis Associate Professor of Human Ecology, directs that land-grant institution’s Center for Regional Change. Join “Down on the Farm” host, Tom Willey, when we’ll learn from Jonathan London if advocating for social justice across our Central Valley’s farmscape is still a risky business or, a more successful one.
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February 3, ’17: Tim LaSalle in conversation
Hanford native, Tim LaSalle long piloted California’s renown Agricultural Leadership Program, then headed The Savory Center and Rodale Institute. He is currently co-founding Chico State University’s Regenerative Agriculture Initiative, an agenda focused on transforming farmlands from net emitters of greenhouse gasses into carbon sinks that rebalance Earth’s atmosphere. Join Tim in conversation with “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey.
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January 6, ’17: Rural Sociologist Isao Fujimoto in conversation
Isao Fujimoto’s immigrant family found refuge amongst Washington State’s Yakima Indians, farming until forcibly removed to a World War II concentration camp. As a freshly-minted rural sociologist hired by UC Davis in the turbulent 1960s, Isao was hot for some world changing. Fujimoto’s emboldened students ignited farmers market and organic food movements, confronting Central Valley agribusiness power. Join Isao and “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey in conversation.
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December 2, ’16: Rural Sociologist Dean MacCannell, reaffirmation of Walter Goldschmidt’s theory
In 1975 PhD Rural Sociologist Dean MacCannell joined UC Davis’ faculty with little knowledge of the controversy in which he soon became embroiled. MacCannell’s reaffirmation of Walter Goldschmidt’s theory that large-scale agribusiness degrades the wellbeing of Valley communities nearly cost him his job, and threatened his life. Join Dean and “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey in conversation.
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November 4, ’16: 2016 Don Villarejo, from the California Institute of Rural Studies
Since 1977, co-founder Don Villarejo’s California Institute of Rural Studies has investigated our agricultural economy’s impact on the wellbeing of rural communities, research the state’s land grant university long refused to conduct. Insisting that facts shape conclusions, CIRS reports have variously angered agribusiness and labor advocates over the decades. Join Villarejo and “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey in conversation.
Don Villarejo joins “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey.
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October 7, ’16: 2016 Harvest “front porch” discussion. Vernon Crowder
Senior Vice-President Vernon Crowder peers into a crystal ball for Rabobank, the $800 billion cooperative financier of food and agriculture activities on five continents. Join Vernon and “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey while they review the San Joaquin Valley’s just-completed 2016 harvest and chew over issues that cloud our agricultural future hereabouts. Eavesdrop on this “front porch” discussion.
Vernon Crowder joins “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey.
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September 2, ’16: Fall Speaker’s Series: “In the Struggle”. Daniel O’Connell and Trudy Wischemann
In this episode of the Fall Speaker’s Series: “In the Struggle” we will examine the democratic purposes and civic values of extraordinary scholars who conducted research and advocated for change in the San Joaquin Valley over an 80-year time span as our unique rural agricultural economy consolidated and industrialized.
Daniel O’Connell and Trudy Wischemann join “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey.
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August 5, ’16: 1987 marked a climatological milestone. John Austin
After four-decades with our National Park Service, citizen-scientist John Austin now studies Tulare Lake Basin’s climate history, an expanse into which flow the Kings, Kaweah, Tule and Kern Rivers.
Austin joins “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey to argue that 1987 marked a climatological milestone, contributing to diminished stream flows and our current drought which dates from this millennium’s dawn.
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July 1, ’16: California’s novel carbon trading scheme. Renata Brillinger and Jeff Mitchell
Nature designed earth’s soils to harbor twice the carbon that her atmosphere does. California’s novel carbon trading scheme will incentivize farmers to remove climate disrupting carbon dioxide to their soils for safekeeping.
Host Tom Willey speaks with guests California Climate and Agriculture Network’s Renata Brillinger, and University of California Vegetable Crop Specialist Jeff Mitchell.
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June 3, ’16: Immigration reform. Mario Sifuentez
Immigration reform, one of our modern era’s most intractable political problems, is best examined from a historical perspective. Mario Sifuentez worked Oregon onion fields as a child and now teaches the “History of Food” at UC Merced.
Host Tom Willey speaks with guest Mario Sifuentez, author of “Of Forests and Fields, Mexican Labor in the Pacific Northwest”.
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May 6, ’16: Picket lines alongside striking Baja California field workers. Dvera Saxton and Elio Santos
Fruits and vegetables daily gracing our tables are harvested by a similar work force on both sides of an international border. While California’s minimum wage soars from $8.00 to $15.00 per hour, Mexican farm workers struggle to earn $10.00 for an entire day’s labor.
Host Tom Willey speaks with guests CSU Fresno anthropologist Dvera Saxton and student Elio Santos while they share their recent experience on picket lines alongside striking Baja California field workers.
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April 1, ’16: San Joaquin grape business. Steve Schafer
The big almond gamble has been hogging all the news of late, while growers quietly yank out thousands of acres of wine and raisin grapes…..why? Farm gate prices are in the tank, as some wineries fill their tanks with foreign wine, not local grapes.
Host Tom Willey interviews Madera vine dresser and San Joaquin Wine Co. vintner Steve Schafer for some low down on the down low grape business hereabouts.
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March 4, ’16: National Land for People history. Berge Bulbulian, Marc Lasher, Janaki Jagannath, John Heywood
Host Tom Willey interviews former National Land People leaders, Berge Bulbulian and Marc Lasher, local water activist Janaki Jagannath and John Heywood, Executive Director of People, Food and Land Foundation.
Four decades ago, the late social activist George Ballis and cohorts waged a nearly successful, if ultimately quixotic, campaign to enforce 1902 Reclamation Act rules limiting farm size to 160 acres in Fresno County’s sprawling Westlands Water District. California Institute for Rural Studies scholars recently retraced Ballis’ National Land for People history, in hopes of shedding light on Valley agriculture’s current state and future trajectory.
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Feb. 5, ’16: Dramatic restructuring of Earth’s plant and animal communities. Jessica Blois
Neolithic Revolution, a term synonymous with our invention of agriculture, suggests humans abandoned hunter-gatherer ways, picking up the hoe rather abruptly some 10,000 years back. Actually more drawn-out and complex, that transformation began altering Earth’s climate long before the Industrial Revolution’s fossil fuel combustion did. Now biologists, publishing in the journal Nature, present evidence that Homo Sapiens’ recent adoption of farming ways also coincides with a “dramatic restructuring of Earth’s plant and animal communities”, not seen in earlier fossil records over several hundred million years. Join UC Merced’s Jessica Blois, co-author of that Nature article, and “Down on the Farm” host Tom Willey.
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Jan. 1, ’16: New Year’s Day Culture in Agri-culture special edition.
On rare occasions when “Down on the Farm” broadcasts on New Year’s Day, we wax celebratory with a Culture in Agri-culture special edition. Parlier tree fruit farmer David Boldt hauls his “portable” pipe organ into our KFCF studio to launch 2016’s festive mood. Reedley table grape grower and author Fred Smeds shares a harrowing tale of one June thunderstorm’s impact on his Savage Island Farm. Dinuba stone fruit farmer Paul Buxman serenades us on his viola and with poems penned by a late friend. Kettleman City asparagus farmer Steve Couture and host Tom Willey chime in with agrarian-themed poetry of favorite authors from near and afar. Let’s ring in the New Year with lots of raindrops on rooftops.
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Dec. 4, ’15: Host Tom Willey and Mario Daccarett discuss one daring dairyman’s remarkable innovation. Mario Daccarett
Familiarity with sprouted wheat grass found in every neighborhood health food store provides some reasonable idea of what a handful of pioneering dairy farmers are up to sprouting barley on an industrial scale for cows, sheep and goats. Golden Valley Farm’s Mario Daccarett shelled out $45,000 for a temperature-controlled, insulated van, about the size of a small bedroom, equipped with grow lights. Six-inch-tall grass mats that emanate like clockwork, 365 days-a-year, from this FodderWorks unit, according to Mario, replace 100 acres of alfalfa hay he previously fed to 350 sheep. Could such indoor fodder systems be embraced by our region’s large dairy operators?
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