21. Denny Caneff, healthy rivers advocate

https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts126/v4/65/14/ee/6514ee3c-ae8a-2dd3-ebfb-6bad1964f4a9/mza_129335437747355679.jpg/600x600bb.jpg

Sustainable Agriculture Policy with Ron Kroese

Center for Rural Affairs

39 episodes

2 days ago

These are the stories of 45 men and women interviewed as part of an oral history archive documenting the development and evolution of public policies to advance sustainable and organic agriculture going back to the 1970s. These are among the key leaders and advocates who played significant roles in devising and promoting the laws and government programs that continue to undergird efforts to achieve a sustainable farming and food system in the U.S. Episodes of this limited podcast series are also available as video recordings and transcripts at http://www.cfra.org/SustainableAgPodcast.

History

RSS

All content for Sustainable Agriculture Policy with Ron Kroese is the property of Center for Rural Affairs and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.

History

https://d3t3ozftmdmh3i.cloudfront.net/production/podcast_uploaded_episode400/17488532/17488532-1658317021948-db6d001a06f5a.jpg

21. Denny Caneff, healthy rivers advocate

Sustainable Agriculture Policy with Ron Kroese

31 minutes 55 seconds

3 years ago

21. Denny Caneff, healthy rivers advocate

“If you’re going to worry about the quality of the water in rivers, you have to pay attention to what’s going on with agriculture.” -Denny Caneff

In this week’s episode, our host Ron talks with Denny about his history with sustainable ag. Denny has worked in the realm of land and water conservation for nearly 30 years.

He encountered the controversy around the early sustainable agriculture movement in the mid 1980s in graduate school in Wisconsin. His thesis looked at "technology resistance" among dairy farmers refusing to use purchased inputs, a precursor to organic farming. An academic advisor dismissed sustainable agriculture (and his thesis) as "conceptually fuzzy."

From 1988 to 1995, Denny was executive director of a sustainable agriculture/family farm advocacy organization in Wisconsin, where he joined other sustainable agriculture and family farm advocacy groups around the Midwest to challenge land grant university research agendas and to advocate for a land- and farmer-friendlier federal farm bill.

Denny served as executive director of the River Alliance of Wisconsin from 2003 until 2016.

He then served as executive director of the Superior Hiking Trail Association in northern Minnesota for three years. During his time, he created the Trail Renewal Program, a plan for responsible, sustainable management of the trail as a resource, with concern for the environmental impact that increased use and lagging maintenance have caused.

The interview was conducted on Aug. 17, 2015.

Links this episode:
National Sustainable Agriculture Oral History Archive (video link)
River Alliance of Wisconsin
Superior Hiking Trail Association

--------

Liked this show? SUBSCRIBE to this podcast on Spotify, Audible, Apple, Google, and more. Catch past episodes, a transcript, and show notes at cfra.org/SustainbleAgPodcast.