Stocking fillers for your ears
I have been listening to podcasts for years, while running, driving, cooking…
As Christmas approaches, with hopefully a little time for all of us to relax, I thought I would make a few recommendations of relevant agrifood, environment or rural themed podcasts which I have found worth giving ear-time to.
Irish podcasts
Hot Mess – Maybe a little provocatively, this would be my first recommendation. RTE’s Philip Boucher-Hayes applies his journalistic rigour and balance to examining the climate challenges facing each sector in Ireland. He does not spare agriculture his scrutiny, but nor does he spare transport – including motoring, public transport and aviation – industry, building or energy. The series currently extends to 17 half hour episodes. One of the things it has confirmed for me, is that agriculture has a great deal to do, but at least has a plan – admittedly incomplete, and imperfect – to make progress towards meeting its 25% GHG reduction obligations by 2030. Few of the other sectors do, though they face far less daily public criticism.
Out The Gap – In these hour-long episodes, Tipperary farmer and founder of the @IrelandsFarmers Twitter account Noel Clancy meets farmers and food producers from all around Ireland and chats with them about their businesses and their lives. Through Noel’s engaging and empathetic interviewing style, we get to virtually visit farms and discover the ups and downs experienced by food producers. It makes for some enjoyable yet informative listening, and every person who eats three times a day should tune in.
Farming for Nature – This is a podcast which will be of interest to most farmers in this country, bearing in mind that 46,000 have just applied for the new CAP ACRES scheme, and few people care more about nature and their environment than the farmers who depend on it. The topics discussed by farmers directly involved go from making your farm bat-, bird- or pollinator-friendly to best practice in hedgerow management to what to look out for if you have wetland on your farm.
Teagasc’s Signpost Series – You need not look for me 9.30 to 10.30 am any Friday: this is the time the webinar version of this podcast series is broadcast each week, and I am completely addicted. It covers the most amazing array of topics relevant to the sustainability of agriculture, from economic efficiencies to biodiversity enhancement to best practice slurry spreading, via regenerative agriculture and the analysis of carbon storage capacity of landscape features – you name it, it’s there. Teagasc attracts some of the top experts to give of their time and knowledge to present each week. They come from policy decision making institutions, industry, academia, Teagasc of course, and there are also many farmers contributing their expertise. They come from Ireland, or from elsewhere. First-hand expertise and scientific rigour are the constants. The archive is massive, and Teagasc do engaging online agricultural educational tools like no-one else. If you don’t have time to sit and watch of a Friday, the podcast version is your friend on the go.
Countrywide – I can’t think of too many Irish farmers or rural folk who don’t listen to this live on RTE One Radio every Saturday morning. For those who miss it, or an international audience, it is also available as a podcast from RTE. Presented for years by Damien O’Reilly – who has recently moved out of RTE to join ICOS as their European Affairs and Communications Manager – it has recently been taken over by the aforementioned Philip Boucher-Hayes. It covers agricultural, food and rural news and stories in a magazine format and should be compulsory listening to anyone with even a passing interest in rural and agricultural Ireland.
Farmers’ Journal Podcasts – Last but not least in my Irish podcast recommendations, the Farmers’ Journal has been producing some excellent technical, sectoral, market related, and agri-news podcasts in the last number of years. Last I looked, their archive included nearly 700 episodes! You will be familiar with the by-lines of your favourite journalists as you read them every Wednesday night or Thursday morning, but here they give free rein to their expertise, sometimes in questions and answers sessions to which readers/listeners are invited to contribute. Well worth a listen and a subscription.
International podcasts
Rock and Roll Farming – Will Evans, a Welsh beef and arable farmer, ran this podcast for a few years until just over a year ago, with sponsorship from NFU Cymru. However, there is a large archive of hour-long episodes through which we hear of British, Irish and international farming stories and meet food producers. Will is an excellent communicator, including on difficult topics like rural mental health, and he brings out the best of all the rural folk he interviews.
The Farmers’ Weekly Podcast – As you might expect, this is a news-oriented podcast. It features politics and policy as they affect farming and food production, and market issues. A new episode lands every Friday, with Farmers’ Weekly reporter Johann Tasker and British farmer Hugh Broom discussing the news of the week. Its format is that of a very polished, very professionally produced magazine – unlike some other podcasts that have a more artisanal feel. From an Irish agribusiness or farming perspective, it is well worth a subscription, bearing in mind just how volatile British food (and other) policy has been, and how important the British food market is to Irish food exporters.
Pasture Pod – As the title suggests, this is about grassland farming. However, it is also slightly mad, with a spoof musical number of dubious merits starting each episode. Hopefully, this does not put you off – you can always skip the first couple of minutes (I know I do). I started listening to it because the host, Michael Blanche, is a Scottish Nuffield Scholar, and the accents of the Scottish farmers with whom he converses quite informally are brilliant. The interviewees are, in the main, prominent grassland farmers from his own area. The conversation is informal and humorous, but the topics are engaging.
Farm to Table Talk – I have only recently discovered this US podcast, hosted by Roger Wasson, which lives up to its tagline “conversations about our food and how it’s grown” in every possible way. I particularly enjoyed one of the latest episodes in which Native American Tribeswoman Latrice Tatsey, an ecologist and cattle farmer, speaks of the relationship of Native American Tribes with American bisons and their importance for soil health and plant diversity. It is a particularly interesting angle through which to consider the role of grazing herbivores in a balanced ecology. Another deals with the increasing prevalence of bio-technology in food, from off-soil and hydroponic strawberry cultivation to laboratory-based protein production. It may feel removed from Irish farming realities, but it gives interesting perspectives on the global food systems and climate, environment and societal realities.
The Thriving Farmer Podcast – another US podcast, presented by Michael Kilpatrick, it is firmly targeted to farmers, not consumers. The conversations are focused on the economics of farming businesses regardless of sector or size, and how they are striving to improve sustainability and profitability. There is a definite educational slant to the podcast, though it is very compelling. Episodes present the “case studies” of individual farming enterprises in conversations with the farmers concerned, going into both the business and human realities of their farming lives.
Graziher – Life on the Land Podcast is one I am in the process of checking out, because it deals with women in rural Australia – whether in farming or other walks of life. I have only listened to a couple of episodes yet but have found it engaging and interesting.
Because all those podcasts are available for free, you sometimes have to put up with lengthy advertisements – that can be distracting, but that is the price to pay. Also, if you value them, you can generally make a voluntary financial contribution.
Further afield
I reached out to my international Nuffield network to see what other English language agrifood podcasts they might recommend. I have not had the time to check those out yet but thought I would share a few that look most interesting.
Humans of Agriculture, from Australia, comes highly recommended by the Nuffield Ozzie community. Also from Australia is AgTalk, produced by Marcus Oldham College. Another Australian podcast recommended is AgTech… So What? which professes to be working “at the intersection of agriculture and technology” – and I am told that it is not just about tech, either. Lastly, AgriFutures on Air is the official podcast channel for AgriFutures Australia, one of “15 agri research and development corporations which service the R&D and extension needs of Australian rural industries”.
There are many more. I have included here a link to every podcast, but it is handy to have all the podcasts you subscribe to in a single app on your device. My own preferred podcatcher is PocketCast, available for iPhones or Android.
Finally, on a technical note, some of you may have seen a link on my Twitter page to a new account on Mastodon. For those who don’t know already, Mastodon is a social media network which is becoming the new home for a lot of people. For now I am still be on Twitter, but you may want to follow me on Mastodon also in case things change or the site becomes unusable.
Happy Christmas listening!
© Catherine Lascurettes, Cúl Dara Consultancy
