The Farm To Table Talk podcast is a virtual table for conversations about ideas, insights, and journeys of chefs, farmers, policymakers, researchers, NGOs and the food-focused public about our food and how it is grown, prepared and shared throughout society. Rodger Wasson is a food and agriculture veteran. Raised on his family’s farm in Central Illinois, he has worked for and with every size, type, and age of farmers and aspiring farmers. Whether new, old, big or small, they are all part of today’s food movement. The Farm to Table Talk podcasts are for those interested in journeys within the modern food system and the stories behind our every bite. Contact with your thoughts, suggestions or questions.
Food innovators, farmers, chefs and foodies have been looking ahead for years, so in this Farm to Table Talk Podcast we go back to a conversation in Coubhoure that was looking ahead to now. Future episodes will be back to now and looking ahead tomorrow. Food is changing. How will we eat? That’s the question posed in the Farm To Table Talk ...
Backyard Hobby Farm to Nationwide – Brittney Miller
December 4, 2025
A backyard hobby that started over 40 years ago has grown into a nationally recognized, family-owned business that produces more than 80,000 quail weekly, raised responsibly, without antibiotics or hormones, and shipping premium products to chefs, retailers, and home cooks across the country. Manchester Farms is America’s first quail farm, ...
Table to Farm Chef Family – Steve and Candice MacLean
November 27, 2025
Steve and Candice MacLean, who grew up in New Jersey but have no farming background, transitioned from urban to rural farming after Steve’s experience as a chef working with a farm. Inspired by sustainable farming practices, they decided to purchase a farm in the northwestern corner of New Jersey. They now focus on organic produce and animal ...
In addition to wanting to know where their food comes from and where it’s grown, thirty three million Americans have a diagnosed food allergy. Fifty million have an intolerance that is not technically allergic but certain foods disagree with them in some way. For a variety of reasons over seventy million follow life style diets. That means ...
When debates over SNAP funding heat up, it’s worth remembering leaders like Gus Schumacher —the late USDA Under Secretary who championed farm-to-family connections and bipartisan solutions. This Farm To Table talk episode revisits his insights on SNAP innovation, nutrition incentives and lasting ways to strengthen food access for all. Gus ...
Real rural life today ranges from hope to nostalgic ideals to real world crisis that directly affect farmers and ranchers, their families, their communities and ultimately all of us. The rate of suicide in rural communities is 50 % higher than the rate in non-rural communities. And with farmers the rate is 3 times higher than urban. What is ...
Saké rice grown at Isbell Farms in Central Arkansas supplies Origami Sake. Grown with water from a deep aquifer, it is ideal for saké because it is soft and contains negligible amounts of iron or magnesium. Based in Hot Springs, Origami Saké, which launched in 2023, is the fastest growing US saké brand (and recently was theonly US brewer to ...
Iowa has been under stress 50 years as the economy changed fundamentally from diverse independent farmers and business and a union to concentrated cooperative agriculture and Walmart, Dollar General and no union. Art Cullen won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for exposing what corporate agriculture was doing to his Iowa farming community. His new ...
