What We're Reading (& Watching) This Summer - August 2026
Soil health, storytelling, and summer inspiration from the Land Core team!
It’s been a big summer for farm policy and farm stories alike. The Senate is still working through its version of the farm bill after the House version cleared committee back in the spring, farm bankruptcies recently hit a six-year high, and tumultuous weather and trade environments have put many farmers in a difficult financial position.
A lot is happening in American agriculture, and no single number or story captures what farmers across the country are actually experiencing. Taking the time to sit with different ag realities and stories, from a fifth-generation Virginia farm growing crops with African roots, to Indigenous land stewardship across five continents, and the everyday texture of small farms and ranches, is part of how we stay grounded in this work.
Summer is still in full swing, so if you're looking to add to your reading, listening, and watching lists, here are some suggestions. Read on for stories of American producers, land, and realities.
Books
ReGen: A New Future for Farming, Food, and Health by David R. Montgomery
In his newest book, geomorphologist and MacArthur Fellow David Montgomery makes the case that regenerative farming isn't just an environmental fix but a public health strategy. Drawing on more than a decade of research and visits to farms from the Dakotas to Ghana, Montgomery traces how soil health ripples outward into food quality, human nutrition, and even rural economies. He closes the book with a full chapter of policy recommendations, including reforms to crop insurance, territory that will feel familiar to Land Core's own work. If you'd rather start with his earlier, foundational book, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations makes the historical case that societies rise and fall with the health of their soil.
Africulture: How the Principles, Practices, Plants, and People of African Descent Have Shaped American Agriculture by Michael Carter Jr.
Fifth-generation Virginia farmer Michael Carter Jr. grows African-origin crops (Nigerian spinach, taro leaf, amaranth, okra) on land his great-great-grandparents bought more than a century ago. Using plant life-cycle metaphors, he weaves his own path (including five years farming in Ghana) together with the deeper, underrecognized story of how African crops, practices, and innovators like George Washington Carver shaped American agriculture from the ground up.
Living Roots: The Promise of Perennial Foods Edited by Liz Carlisle and Aubrey Streit Krug
Just four annual crops, corn, wheat, rice, and soybeans, make up 75% of the calories humans eat. This collection argues we're missing out on a resilience-building alternative sitting in plain sight. More than thirty contributors, including Indigenous scientists, chefs, and Land Institute researchers, explore how perennial grains, food forests, and managed grasslands can build a food system that's sturdier against climate shocks and economic uncertainty alike.
Climate Capital: Investing in the Tools for a Regenerative Future by Tom Chi
Physicist, product designer, and Google X co-founder Tom Chi reimagines economics as a design discipline, built around a "4Cs" framework (Critical Thinking, Creativity, Compassion, Community) for directing capital toward systems that regenerate rather than deplete. This book isn’t agriculture-specific, but its central question (How do we allocate capital that accounts for the physical reality of living systems?) is applicable for those interested in finance and incentives that can best support producers in building soil health and profitability on their operations.
Guardians of Life: Indigenous Science, Indigenous Wisdom and Restoring the Planet Photography by Kiliii Yüyan; essays by Charles C. Mann and Gleb Raygorodetsky; introduction by Quannah Chasinghorse
National Geographic photographer Kiliii Yüyan spent years documenting Indigenous communities' relationships to land and food across the globe, including buffalo restoration on the Great Plains. Paired with reported essays from science writers Mann and Raygorodetsky on the traditional ecological knowledge behind these practices, this coffee-table book makes a case for centering Indigenous wisdom in conservation work.
Documentary
"Groundswell" - now available on Amazon Prime
This film travels across five continents to follow the farmers, scientists, and Indigenous leaders driving the regenerative agriculture movement. It's the third installment from filmmakers Josh and Rebecca Tickell. If you haven't seen their first two films, Kiss the Ground (2020) introduced mainstream audiences to the science of soil health and regenerative agriculture, while Common Ground (2023) dug deeper into the political and economic forces shaping our food system and the farmers fighting to change it. All of these films are available to stream on Amazon Prime.
Paper of the Month
Stages of farm profitability after soil health system adoption in Georgia cotton, Flanders et al., 2026, Agronomy Journal
A new study from the Soil Health Institute shows evidence of the long-term economic benefits of soil health management systems (SHMS) from Georgia cotton growers who had sustained reduced tillage and cover cropping for 5+ years. Researchers modeled net farm income as a sequence of five stages: reduced tillage, cover crops, reduced irrigation demand, reduced fertilizer/pesticide use, and increased yield.
The findings: while the earliest stages of adoption came with up-front costs, those costs were reversed as soil health benefits compounded. By Stage 4, reduced irrigation, fertilizer, and pesticide needs had already pushed net farm income positive, and by Stage 5, accounting for a measured yield increase, sustained SHMS adoption produced a net farm income gain of $240 per hectare compared to conventional systems.
Podcasts
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food Hosted by Koen van Seijen
Through more than 400 interviews with farmers, investors, scientists, and entrepreneurs, this long-running podcast asks how to put capital to work regenerating soil and communities while still turning a fair profit. Recent episodes have covered AI-powered soil monitoring, data rights for farmers, and transition finance in export-crop supply chains.
Regeneration Rising Hosted by Quivira Coalition
Originally started by two young agrarians and now led by Quivira Coalition's New Agrarian apprenticeship program, this podcast follows the trials and joys of beginning a life in regenerative agriculture. Episodes cover everything from farm succession planning to building a collaborative meat business, offering a grounded, next-generation counterpoint to the policy-and-finance conversation.
Flipping the Table Hosted by Michael Reid Dimock, Executive Director, Roots of Change
This long-running food-systems podcast brings in voices from across the food and farming world, from chefs andMarion Nestle to regenerative ranchers to policymakers and ag lenders. Go back to the episode with Land Core's own Aria McLauchlan and Harley Cross, who joined the show this spring to talk about our work. Check out their episode here. A good listen for understanding how Land Core's work gets framed for a broader food-policy audience.
Forked, Hosted by Food & Environment Reporting Network (FERN) EIC Theodore Ross and Food Fix Founder Helena Bottemiller Evich Food
Forked cuts through the noise of food politics every two weeks, including farm bill fights, MAHA's push and pull with Big Ag, SNAP policy, and more. It's less directly focused on rural livelihoods and agriculture, but useful for staying current on the policy terrain in which Land Core operates.