Dave Chapman is a longtime Vermont organic farmer, co-founder and co-director of Real Organic Project, and host of the Real Organic Podcast. He has spent over 45 years growing food and advocating for a better food system.
I’ve spent more than four decades growing organic food, and one thing I’ve learned is that farming is connected to just about everything. The health of our soil, the quality of our food, the water we drink, the climate, the concentration of corporate power, and even the health of our democracy are all part of the same story.
The podcasts I return to help me understand those connections. Some investigate the powerful institutions shaping our world. Others introduce us to people doing extraordinary work, often against considerable odds. And some simply make me stop and reconsider what I thought I knew.
What they share is a willingness to ask difficult questions, follow the evidence, and listen carefully. We need more of that. I hope these shows leave you as curious, challenged, and hopeful as they leave me.
Real Organic Podcast
We created this podcast to give a voice to the farmers, scientists, journalists, chefs, and activists working to protect the integrity of organic food and farming. These conversations are about much more than agriculture. They’re about the future of our food system, the power of corporations, and the grassroots movement working to change things.
Drilled
To understand why we’ve known about climate change for decades and done so little to stop it, start here. Amy Westervelt’s fearless reporting exposes the machinery of corporate influence, manufactured doubt, and political obstruction that has shaped our response to the climate crisis.
The Market Gardener Podcast
JM Fortier is helping inspire a new generation of farmers who believe that small-scale, ecological agriculture can be both productive and economically viable. These conversations offer practical wisdom, but they also explore a much bigger vision of rebuilding local food systems around human-scale farms.
Safe to Drink
Clean drinking water should be something we can take for granted, but this investigation reveals how easily that trust can be broken. It’s a powerful example of why environmental protection, public health, and corporate accountability cannot be separated.
The Outlaw Ocean
Amazing information is revealed by Ian Urbina on the lawlessness that defines our harvest of the fish in the sea, and the ultimate price we will pay.
The Tim Ferriss Show
Interesting explorations about nutrition.
The Checkout
An insider from produce retail at Whole Foods, Errol Schweizer talks with the people who make the stores work.
Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode
Engaging conversations with activists on the front of fighting the hegemony of Big Chem.
The Dr. Hyman Show
Mark Hyman’s informed conversations about functional medicine.
Food Sleuth Radio
Melinda Hemmelgarn interviewing a spectrum of respected nutritionists and food activists.
Scene on Radio
John Biewen is a masterful storyteller who takes on enormous questions with patience, historical depth, and intellectual honesty. I especially recommend the seventh season, Capitalism, which asks us to examine an economic system so deeply embedded in our lives that we rarely stop to question its assumptions.
Revisionist History
Malcolm Gladwell has a gift for taking familiar stories and showing us what we’ve overlooked or misunderstood. I always value a storyteller who can make me question my assumptions and see the world differently.
Agrarian Futures
The future of agriculture will be shaped by people willing to imagine something different from the industrial model we’ve inherited. Agrarian Futures offers thoughtful conversations about land, farming, community, and what it might take to build a food system worth passing on to the next generation.
