This fall Grassland 2.0 hosted a four-part Digital Dialogue webinar series exploring the question of “What are healthy agroecosystems?”. The dialogues were hour and a half long conversations with farmers, researchers, and agricultural professionals who each explored the different aspects that make up a healthy agroecosystems and the benefits these systems have on people, farms, communities and the land.
The first dialogue featured Dan Smith, a dairy farmer, poet, and industry leader who has had a long and diverse career in Midwest agriculture. Dan is a previous Administrator for the Division of Agricultural Development at the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection and currently serves as the President and CEO of the Cooperative Network. Dan is also the author of Ancestral, a poetry collection drawing from his 30 years as a dairy farmer in northwestern Illinois.
The latest episode of GrassCast, the Grassland 2.0 podcast, features an audio recording of Dan’s presentation in its entirety.
In the recording, Dan uses poetry to discuss the changes dairying has experienced over the last 50 years and explore the economic, social and cultural impacts these changes have had.
Listen to the full episode below:
The additional Digital Dialogue recordings will be released as future episodes of GrassCast. You can listen to all episodes of GrassCast at https://www.buzzsprout.com/1194875