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Sitting down to chat live with The Nature Conservancy's Michael Doane to talk about one of the hottest buzzwords -- regenerative agriculture -- gives us a lot of insight into how sustainability is shifting. Consumers, with the best intentions at heart, are presented with this idea that regenerative ag is "better than organic" without the context of knowing that there are 250+ definitions of what the term regenerative agriculture even is.

Why talk with Michael Doane?

Michael works for The Nature Conservancy as their managing director of agriculture and food systems, but he came to that organization through farming. He grew up on a family farm, worked for the Kansas Association of Wheat Growers, and spent years at Monsanto. Michael doesn't just know about farming, he's been a farmer and still joins his family in the operation when he can. And this gives him a unique perspective within environmental groups to help him bridge the gap and to help us understand the nuance of...

This past Tuesday, we enjoyed having a conversation with Adriana Martin of Adriana's Best Recipes about the massive changes that have taken place in blogging as it has evolved over the last decade.

What's shifting?

Ten years ago, blogs were all anyone was talking about.

• What are they?
• How do they work?
• Can blogging help me reach my audience?
• How can companies work with bloggers to promote their products and stories?

Nowadays, though, the conversation has shifted and part of that is due to the shifts bloggers have been undergoing. Bloggers think like entrepreneurs more broadly, and they continue to innovate. They have diversified and pursued multiple social media outlets. We don't even call them bloggers anymore. We call them influencers, and they are publishing books, landing TV deals, and much, much more.

Adriana's Path to Publishing

Adriana started her blog a decade ago and has evolved like many peers. Her path is food focused and the latest...

Grocery shopping is one of those everyday chores that took on a tremendous significance during the pandemic.  With people--especially in urban areas--staying home and avoiding leaving the house, services like Instacart and Market Wagon took off. But what do those services look like and what do they mean for agriculture? Do they make it harder or easier for farmers to reach an audience of consumers and interact with potential customers?

Janice takes us through how online grocery shopping has changed in the face of the pandemic and how agriculture can leverage these changes.

Getting outside of our comfort zones can be so important. After all, isn't that what we are asking of consumers? "Step outside your familiar grocery store and explore where your food is coming from." So it makes sense that we should be willing to do the same.

For many of us, the SXSW Future of Food conference was well outside that comfort zone, but within the many presentations, there was a lot to be gleaned, a lot to be learned. 

Passion for Food & Farm

The attendees were passionate about food and further from the farm than those of us in Grounded and Rising typically are. If they were farm-connected, chances are it was more co-op for vegetables, producing edible insects for protein or something else that may not be the norm in the middle of nowhere Nebraska. They were excited about food, about making the world a better place and excited to hear new ideas.  Basically, they were me (Janice) when I was in college, grad school and the years when I was trying to find...

For our first LIVE session, we invited Rev Ciancio to help us understand the changes to the restaurant and hospitality industry since the start of COVID. The topic was so exciting & Rev is such an engaging speaker, we opened the session up to others. It gave people a sneak peek into the live events and recordings that are normally exclusive to members of the Grounded and Rising Community.

We've compiled a short highlight video with a few of the "AH-HA!" moments Rev had to share with us. 

• Survival Mode -- Restaurants work on narrow margins and most need to have a relatively significant number of orders to stay in business. With the safety issues and regulations about capacity, it required a lot of restaurants to shift. 
• Competing with National Delivery Services -- How do smaller restaurants compete when they can't get the celebrity endorsements that national applications can? They have to be able to take the orders from customers and they...