The Silvery Minnow is a species that has generated controversy and emotion over the years. Its status as an endangered species highlights the importance of knowledge and democratic decision making at a local level to preserve our natural resources.

In this interview, I speak with Michael Porter, Fishery Biologist with the US Army Corps of Engineers. He tells us about the minnow’s life cycle, its importance to a healthy ecosystem, and how this relates back to farmers and ranchers in the Rio Grande Valley.

In this episode, I interview Richard Manning, essayist and author of a number of books about agriculture and civilization. In this interview, we talk with Richard about the beginning of agriculture, the role annual grasses have played in shaping agriculture and civilization, the importance of grasslands, and the key to finding individual food niches within our local food sheds. This one is not to be missed.

In part two of our interview with Allan Savory, we discuss the process of developing a holisticgoal, the role of monitoring in Holistic Management, and the scientific evidence that supports the claims of Holistic management.

I conclude with a brief summary of the work Agricultural Innovations is doing with Holistic Management International, and some other general comments about the podcast.

Allan Savory is the pioneer of Holistic Management, a decision making framework that has had exceptional success stories in the areas of range and livestock management. In this interview, Allan lays out the basics of Holistic Management, how he discovered it, and how it works. This is part one of a two part series.

Allan is also the founder of Holistic Management International. Please visit their website to learn more.

In this episode of the Agroinnovations Podcast I speak with Maryann Frazier, Senior Extension Associate at Pennsylvania State University and an expert on colony collapse disorder (CCD) in bees. This alarming phenomenon has captured the attention of media throughout the country.

In this interview, Maryann takes us through the brief but intense history of CCD, and gives us a concise interpretation of where the scientific evidence to date is leading us. Her conclusions show us that bees themselves are forcing us to reexamine our relationships with agriculture, nature, and land.

Marcin Jakubowski is one of the premier pioneers of open source appropriate technology and agricultural innovation. Guided by Gandhi’s principles of swadeshi, Marcin has made great strides in moving towards community-based development and local autonomy. One of his first great innovations is an open source compressed earth block press, which he discusses at length in this podcast.

Listen to this podcast to learn about his ideas and innovations, and visit his blog to follow developments on his farm as they occur.

In this second part of our interview with Luisa Maffi, we talk about the process of language shift and the activities that indigenous communities around the world are engaging in to preserve and recover their languages.

As with so many other things, the future of the world’s languages will be determined by our values: the values of people in majority linguistic groups, the values of people whose linguistic heritage is endangered, and the values of everyone who falls somewhere in between.

Get involved! Visit www.terralingua.org

Luisa Maffi is the Director of Terralingua, an organization dedicated to the conservation of the world’s biocultural and linguistic diversity. In Part I of this two part series, Dr. Maffi explains the goals and purpose of Terralingua, and then paints a picture of crisis and extinction for our world’s languages. The relationships between language, culture, and biodiversity are profound and poorly understood, and Dr. Maffi’s experience and education come to the fore in this interview.

Stay tuned for Part II, coming in about a week’s time. And yes, it is good to be back podcasting once again.

This is part two of the Appropedia Roundtable with Lonny Grafman and Curt Beckmann. In this podcast, we discuss Open Source AT (OSAT) in a historical context, and look at some of the tensions and areas where Appropedia must improve if it is to truly have a lasting impact. Thanks for listening.

There’s a lot of synergy going in the open source appropriate technology (OSAT) world, and this podcast is a perfect example of that. On the same day that Agroinnovations posted a call for collaborators on the appropedia website, I spoke with Lonny Grafman and Curt Beckmann, founder and system administrator, respectively, of this premier open source AT wiki and online community. If you’re interested in OSAT, then THIS is the podcast to listen to. If you’ve never heard of OSAT, then listen and learn.

Stay tuned for part two, and also an upcoming podcast on ferrocement in Spanish.