Alex Woodard: Ordinary Soil

"Now more than ever, a lot of farmers are caught in between this kind of industrial complex that that is difficult to pay the bills with - so you got to get subsidies, and the very real problem of being exposed to all the chemicals that they have  to use to make anything grow in soil that's been hammered and depleted." - Alex Woodard

This episode isn’t about animals. It’s about the ground beneath our feet — and what happens when we forget that our own health, our food, and our future are all rooted in the soil.

In his novel Ordinary Soil, Alex Woodard tells the multigenerational story of a farming family in the Oklahoma Panhandle, tracing how decades of industrial agriculture and chemical dependence have unraveled both the land and the people living on it. The result is a sweeping and deeply human narrative that blends science, history, and fiction to show just how interconnected we are with the earth that feeds us.

This conversation is about more than farming. It’s about resilience, healing, and the choices we still have to turn things around — for ourselves, our communities, and the planet.