Agrarian Futures

Today’s guest is proving that financial models can prioritize the well-being of farmers and the resilience of our food systems—not just financial returns. Mark Watson, president and chief investment officer of Potlikker Capital, leads a fund dedicated to supporting BIPOC farmers in the U.S. who operate at the intersection of racial and climate justice.

Drawing from his extensive background in conventional finance, Mark sheds light on why our current economic systems fail small farmers—and how Potlikker is pioneering a blended approach to overcome these challenges.

How can rural BIPOC farmers thrive in an industrialized, consolidated food system? Mark is helping to chart the path forward.

In this episode, we cover:

• Mark’s journey from traditional finance to seeing the need for a new kind of financing for rural BIPOC farmers.
• Potlikker Capital’s strategy for building a networked, resilient food system with an emphasis on supporting farmers of color.
• The revolutionary power of de-centering financial returns from the investment process.
• How they’ve structured their organization to invest wisely.
• How to engage the broader investment community in food and racial justice work.
• And much more...

More about Mark and Potlikker Capital:

Mark Watson is the President and Chief Investment Officer of Potlikker Capital. Previously, his impactful tenure as Managing Director of the Fair Food Fund mobilized catalytic capital to enhance community access to healthy food and promote local ownership in food production and distribution, always with a focus on social equity.

In addition, Mark founded Keel Asset Management LLC, a pioneering financial advisory firm dedicated to providing socially responsible investment solutions to nonprofits and public and corporate pension plans. His career began in commercial banking at the First National Bank of Chicago (now JP Morgan Chase), where he amassed over 30 years of experience managing investment portfolios for foundations, endowments, and institutional pension funds.

Notably, Mark co-designed and launched the Boston Impact Initiative Fund, an integrated racial justice capital fund that successfully deployed capital to over 30 small businesses. He continues to contribute his expertise as an investment committee member for the Fund.

He serves as an advisory board member of MIT/Health Innovation Systems Inc., Director of Transition at The Institute of Educational Leadership, board president of Sustainable Cape, Inc., and was previously a board member of the Social Venture Network.

Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Drew O’Doherty.

It’s easy to feel powerless in the face of climate change, but where can we find models for living in harmony with the planet—before it’s too late? Alexis Zeigler and the community at Living Energy Farm are doing just that: building a self-sustaining, non-extractive way of life and sharing their knowledge with others.

Alexis brings a unique blend of practical, technical expertise and a deep philosophical vision for restoring our spiritual connection to nature—and to one another. These themes are at the heart of this show. If you’re seeking grounded hope and a climate-resilient model for living, we think you’ll find this conversation inspiring.

In this episode, we cover:

• Living Energy Farm’s mission to live without reliance on fossil fuels or grid electricity and how that works in practice.
• The limitations of climate change mitigation strategies that rely on just converting consumer products into something more sustainable.
• The sacrifices they make to live self-sufficiently, and how its less than what you might think.
• The core tenets necessary to live this way.
• The benefits of living intentionally and in community vs a life focused on private property.
• And much more...

More about Alexis and Living Energy Farm:

Alexis Zeigler is an author, activist, designer and builder of renewable energy systems. He was raised on small, diversified farm in Georgia. He is the primary designer of Living Energy Farm, a community of 10 people that grows most of its food and provides all of its own domestic energy. Alexis has a passion for growing food on trees, and is particularly devoted to persimmons. His books include Integrated Activism, which discusses the links between ecological change and politics, as well as Empowering Communities, which describes how to build food and energy independent communities.

Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Keith J. Nelson, Alexandre Miller, and Drew O’Doherty.

For those who have followed regenerative agriculture anytime over the last three decades, this week’s guest needs no introduction. Jenni Harris is the Director of Marketing at White Oak Pastures, a six-generation farm in Bluffton, Georgia that transitioned from conventional to regenerative agriculture in 1995 (long before it was cool) and have laid the path for scores of farms to follow suit.

They have even gone so far as to found the Center for Agricultural Resilience, which educates, empowers and equips individuals & organizations on the benefits of resilient agriculture.

It’s a remarkable story and one - as Jenni explains - that other agrarian locales around the country can emulate, while accounting for the unique factors that make up each local environment.

In this episode, we cover:

How Jenni’s search for community led her back to Bluffton and her family farm

The history of Bluffton, and the work they’ve done to restore and revitalize the town

The origin story of White Oak Pastures and how her dad, Will, saw the need to transition to regenerative practices that improved animal welfare, restored local ecosystems, and created a new stream of income for the farm

The difficult financial realities of farming today, and how they’re working to make White Oak Pastures financially sustainable into the future.

The threat to US regenerative farmers posed by “greenwashing” multinational corporations and lax policies for labeling imported foods

What they’re doing to support more US farmers in transitioning to regenerative practices that are tailored to specific localities.

What’s at stake for the world if we don’t transform our food system

And much more...

Learn more about White Oak Pastures here.

Follow them on Twitter and Instagram.

More about Jenni:

Jenni Harris, Will's middle daughter, is a member of the fifth generation of the Harris family to tend cattle at White Oak Pastures. After living on the farm her entire life, Jenni went to Valdosta State University and earned a degree in Business Marketing, graduating in 2009. She remained intimately involved in the family business throughout her studies.
After graduating, Jenni set out to learn the industry. She moved to Atlanta where she interned at Buckhead Beef, a SYSCO company. She put in time in every department, from shipping and receiving to the cut shop, and was later hired to work as a sales associate.
In June of 2010, Jenni returned home to Early County to work for White Oak Pastures full time. As the Director of Marketing, Jenni spends her time focusing on the balance of ecommerce growth and wholesale relationships. Jenni is the proud mother of Jack and Lottie Harris and wife of Director of Specialty Products, Amber Harris.

Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song.

Today we are joined by Kristina Villa of the Farmers Land Trust who is confronting one of the most intractable challenges and deepest inequities within our food system today: Land access and tenure.

Kristina shares her remarkable journey that has culminated in launching her own organic farming business and founding an organization that enables emerging regenerative farmers to gain access to arable land that then can be held in community for generations rather than going back into a commodity market that favors traditional development.

In this episode, we cover:

Kristina’s story and how her childhood reliance on food banks led her to organic farming and launching the Farmers Land Trust

The importance of thinking about land transition to help aging farmers pass on their legacy

Why we’re meant to farm in community

Layering enterprises to get more people back on the land

Crowd-sourcing land acquisition

Addressing inequity in land access, ownership, and tenure through a farmland commons strategy

How anyone can start their own community land trust

Kristina’s advice for getting into farming from a non-farming background

And much more...

More about Kristina and the Farmers Land Trust:

Kristina Villa is the Co-Executive Director of The Farmers Land Trust, and is a farmer, communicator, and community coordinator who believes that our connection to the soil is directly related to the health of our bodies, economy, and society. With over a decade of farming, communication, and fundraising experience, Kristina enjoys using her skill sets to share photos, stories, and information in engaging ways which help to inspire change in human habits and mindsets, causing the food system, climate, and overall well-being of the world to improve. Kristina has spent the last several years of her professional career saving farmland from development and securing it in nonprofit land holding structures that give farmers, stewards and ranchers long-term and affordable access and tenure to it. Most of her work in the land access space has focused on equitable land security for BIPOC growers, addressing the inequities and disparities in how land is owned and accessed in this country.

Find the Famers Land Trust on social media at: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, X, Youtube

Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song.

In the face of climate change and biodiversity loss, the solutions we hear the most are technological ones - many of which mirror the economic and philosophical approaches that precipitated these crises in the first place. But what if that vision is flawed? Chris Smaje, author of Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future, challenges the dominant eco-modernist philosophy head-on. He critiques its reliance on techno-fixes—not just on technological grounds, but also economic, political, and spiritual ones.

In this episode, Chris shares an alternative vision: a localist, agro-ecological approach to modern agriculture, rooted in self-provisioning for our basic needs and leveraging natural cycles instead of hyper-technological systems. It’s a vision that reconnects us to the land, promotes food sovereignty, and rethinks what a feasible and fulfilling future could look like.

In this episode, we dive into:

• Why he wrote Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future, inspired by a critique of prominent environmental and agricultural thinker George Monbiot.
• What our environmental crises reveal about the deeper flaws in our econmic systems.
• How industrial agriculture’s obsession with efficiency undermines ecological and social resilience.
• The ecological work of animals and why they’re vital to sustainable farming systems.
• The drive toward urbanism and the assumptions—often misguided—about its benefits for the planet.
• Reimagining quality of life beyond financial measures.
• And much more...

More about Chris:

Chris Smaje helps run a small farm in Somerset, England and has worked as a commercial vegetable grower and an academic social scientist. He’s recently published two books, A Small Farm Future (2020) and Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future (2023). He’s currently at work on a third – Lights for a Dark Age – all published by Chelsea Green.

Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Drew O’Doherty.