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.
Hands in the Soil
Claim This Podcastby Hannah Keitel
5.0(27 reviews)
63 episodes
Updated Weekly
Accepts GuestsHas SponsorsLocation 🇺🇸
40
Podcast Authority
BetaFairBased on show quality, social media presence, reviews, charts, and more
Quality60
Social0
YouTube0
Engagement51
Podcast Overview
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.
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
3/21/2024
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40
Podcast Authority
BetaFairBased on show quality, social media presence, reviews, charts, and more
Quality60
Social0
YouTube0
Engagement51
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Recent Episodes
June 23, 2026
62. The Efficiency Trap: Why Doing More Isn't Doing Better w/ Andrew Flachs
<p>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. </p><p><br></p><p><strong>Tune in to learn more about:</strong></p><ul><li>How Andrew went from hating picking beans as a kid to becoming a leading anthropologist of food and agriculture</li><li>Why the fight to prove that small farms can match conventional yields is the wrong fight entirely</li><li>The "iceberg economy" and all the care work, infrastructure, and labor that lies beneath the visible surface of our food system</li><li>What his research across the US Midwest, Bosnia, and South India revealed about what small farming families actually share across different contexts</li><li>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</li><li>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</li><li>The true costs of "cheap" food: what isn't being counted in environmental degradation, public health, labor exploitation, and soil loss</li><li>Why efficiency is often a trap, and how efficient technologies without systemic change just lead us to do more of the same harmful thing</li><li>How the current Farm Bill debate and the Iran war oil disruptions reveal the fragility of just-in-time global supply chains</li><li>What a resilient food system would require, and what we already know how to do</li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>Books & Resources Mentioned</strong></p><p>By Andrew Flachs:</p><ul><li><a href="https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/feeding-the-world-as-if-people-mattered" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer"><strong>Feeding the World as if People Mattered: How Small Farms Produce Value Beyond Yields</strong></a><br>(Use code <strong>AZFLR</strong> for 30% off. If cost is a barrier, email Andrew directly.)<br></li><li><a href="https://www.andrewflachs.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer"><strong>Cultivating Knowledge: Biotechnology, Sustainability, and the Human Cost of Cotton Capitalism in India</strong></a><br></li></ul><ul><li><strong>Interactive Story Map: Cotton in India</strong><br><a href="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/20f488863e4a41a892f0dd7a346180c0">https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/20f488863e4a41a892f0dd7a346180c0</a></li></ul><p><br></p><p>Referenced in conversation:</p><ul><li>Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered - E.F. Schumacher (1973)</li><li>The Labor of Lunch: Why We Need School Food and How to Get It - Jennifer Gaddis</li><li>Beginning to End Hunger: Food and the Environment in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and Beyond - Dr. Jahi Chappell<br></li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>Connect with Andrew</strong></p><ul><li>Website: <a href="andrewflachs.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">andrewflachs.com</a><br></li><li>Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/drflachsophone" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">@drflachsophone</a><br></li><li>Email: <a href="mailto:aflachs@purdue.edu">aflachs@purdue.edu</a><br></li><li>University of Arizona Press: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/azpress" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">@azpress</a> on Instagram</li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>Connect with Hannah: </strong></p><ul><li>Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/hannahkeitel">@hannahkeitel </a></li></ul>
June 9, 2026
61. The Real Price of Food w/ Greg Reese
<p>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.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Tune in to learn more about:</strong></p><ul><li>The moment Greg realized organic food tasted and felt different, and what that curiosity unlocked</li><li>The difference between gardening and farming, and how scale, markets, and business thinking change everything</li><li>What an agrihood is, why the concept resonates deeply, and how Fox Point Farms came to be</li><li>Why cutting out the supply chain middleman is one of the most powerful things a small farmer can do</li><li>The true cost of food: land, labor, water, machinery, government subsidies, and why "cheap" conventional produce is only cheap on the surface</li><li>Why Americans spend less of their income on food than almost any other developed nation, and what that says about our priorities</li><li>The race to the bottom on food prices, and why Greg refuses to participate</li><li>Greg's step-by-step advice for anyone who wants to get started in farming</li><li>How agritourism (farm dinners, animal encounters, U-picks, school visits) is becoming essential to the small farm business model</li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>Connect + Learn More:</strong></p><p>Follow Greg’s Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/farmergreg_official" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">@farmergreg_official</a></p><p>Check out Fox Point Farms: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/foxpointfarms" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">@foxpointfarms</a></p><p>Website: <a href="foxpointfarms.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">foxpointfarms.com</a> </p><p>Connect with Hannah: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/hannahkeitel">@hannahkeitel </a></p>
May 19, 2026
60. The Need for Systemic Change in the Food System w/ Chuck Samuelson
<p>In this episode of Hands in the Soil, we sit down with Chuck Samuelson, recovering chef, tribal member of the Assiniboine Nation, founder of Kitchens for Good, and founder of his current nonprofit, Heal the Earth. Chuck's path into food systems work started with a question he couldn't stop asking: why does perfectly good food get thrown away while people go hungry? That question followed him out of professional kitchens and restaurants, through decades in food service, into a life where Chuck is now stewarding 43 acres of avocado groves in San Diego while building a regional food hub, an AgTech accelerator, and a co-packing manufacturing facility designed to fill the missing middle of the local food system. </p><p><br></p><p>His work sits at the intersection of food access, farmer support, and community sovereignty, and his vision is as practical as it is bold. In this conversation, we go deep on what it actually means to work on a system rather than just within it. We talk about the difference between charity and sovereignty, the four A's of hunger relief, and why doubling down on the same hunger solutions isn't working. We talk about co-ops, farm stops, and we talk about dreams - the big, hairy, audacious kind - for what the food system here in San Diego could become.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Tune in to learn more about:</strong></p><ul><li>Chuck's journey from dishwasher at 13 to chef, restaurateur, and nonprofit founder</li><li>How watching a grocery store employee discard bruised apples became the seed for Kitchens for Good</li><li>What food insecurity actually means, and why over 800,000 people in San Diego, including more than 200,000 children, are affected by it</li><li>Why Chuck believes charity creates an "unfortunate power dynamic,” and what sovereignty in the food system looks like instead</li><li>The four A's of hunger relief: accessible, affordable, appropriate, and awesome</li><li>How cooperatives changed Chuck's understanding of what a local food economy can look like</li><li>The Adopt an Avocado Tree program - how it started, how it works, and why it's expanding to other farmers and crops</li><li>The role of storytelling and community in small farm success</li><li>Chuck's Big Hairy Audacious Dream for San Diego's food future, and what he's asking each of us to do right now</li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>Connect + Learn More:</strong></p><p>Chuck Samuelson / Heal the Earth: <a href="healtheearth.info" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">healtheearth.info</a> </p><p>Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/healtheearthfarm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">@healtheearthfarm </a></p><p>Kitchens for Good: <a href="kitchensforgood.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">kitchensforgood.org</a></p><p>Connect with Hannah: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/hannahkeitel">@hannahkeitel </a></p>
63 total episodes available
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