In this episode, we sit down with Brooke Holcomb, the dynamic voice behind media and marketing at Independence Classical Academy, a public charter school in Fort Pierce, Florida. With plans to grow from a current K–9 school of 650 students to a full K–12 campus serving over 1,500, Brooke shares how agriculture and outdoor learning are deeply rooted in the school’s classical education model.

We explore:

• 📚 What a classical education really looks like—no tablets, no distractions—just deep, meaningful learning.

• 🌱 How school gardens, pollinator habitats, and hands-on ag classes are teaching kids practical life skills.

• 🐄 The exciting plans to build an animal barn as part of the high school expansion, giving students a chance to raise and possibly show livestock.

• 💧 Future goals like aquaculture programs, an FFA chapter, and even entrepreneurial opportunities for students to sell their garden produce.

• 💡 The vision for after-school ag clubs and experiential learning that connects kids to nature and to their food.

• 💰 The challenges of funding and how the school is creatively tackling resource limitations.

Brooke also shares her personal ties to agriculture—having married into a multigenerational family rooted in citrus, cattle, and timber, and now raising a sixth-generation ranch kid on their 40-acre property where they keep a small herd of cattle.

In this heartfelt episode, we sit down with Sarah Jones, founder of Florida Farm School, to explore how one woman’s vision turned a simple piece of land into a transformative learning environment for children. Born from a deep respect for nature and a desire to help kids reconnect with the world around them, Florida Farm School is a place where education, healing, and agriculture meet.

🌿 What You’ll Hear in This Episode:

• How the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic inspired Sarah to create an indoor petting store—and how that pivot laid the groundwork for something much bigger.

• Sarah’s journey from personal sacrifice to purpose, fueled by the healing power of nature and the unique, profound connection between children and animals.

• Why working with non-verbal and special needs children opened her eyes to the emotional and developmental strength farm experiences offer.

• How farm chores, feeding animals, and making butter build more than just skills—they build resilience, confidence, and teamwork.

• The role of agriculture as a healing industry—a place where love, loss, and responsibility create opportunities to grow emotionally and spiritually.

• A real look at sustainability and where food comes from, shared in age-appropriate, hands-on ways that make kids feel empowered and engaged.

• The importance of community in farming and in life, and why Sarah believes kids are naturally curious, compassionate, and ready to learn when given the chance.

🐐 Key Takeaway:

At Florida Farm School, nature is the teacher—and every child is given the space to grow, take risks, care for animals, and learn the real-life lessons that don’t come from textbooks. It’s a place of love, learning, and legacy.

🌾 Join Us as we dig into how Sarah Jones is planting seeds—both literally and figuratively—for a stronger, kinder, more connected generation.

In this inspiring episode, we chat with Tiffany Gallegos, a dedicated educator with 21 years in the classroom, who has taken her passion for agriculture and turned it into a hands-on learning journey for her students. What began as a classroom visit from Florida Ag Experience sparked a mission to connect kids with agriculture beyond the textbook.

Tiffany shares how she started an ag club as a passion project to bring experiential learning into her school. With no formal ag program in place, she saw agriculture as a perfect vehicle for integrating science, math, reading, and social studies—and wanted to make these kinds of resources available to other teachers, especially the free ones!

Through farm field trips, hatchling projects, and food-based lessons, Tiffany’s students have:

• Picked blueberries and made pancakes and muffins from scratch

• Toured a processing facility and pulled fresh potatoes from the soil

• Visited Dakin Dairy to learn about milk production

• Hatched their own chickens, bringing life science lessons full circle

Her creative, out-of-the-box approach proves you don’t need a formal ag program to make agriculture part of everyday learning. Tiffany encourages other educators to think beyond the mandated curriculum and explore the field—literally!

🔗 Tune in to learn how you, too, can plant the seeds of curiosity and growth in your students with accessible ag resources and real-world learning.

#AgEducation #FloridaAgExperience #FarmToClassroom #ExperientialLearning #DakinDairy #STEMthroughAg #GrowWithAg #ChickenHatchProject #FoodLiteracy #BlueberryPicking #FloridaTeachers

In this entertaining episode, we meet Courtney and Jennifer, AKA Two Blonde Heifers - the dynamic duo behind the Florida Ag Experience, a Florida-based mobile classroom bringing dairy education directly to schools and fairs. Inspired by the Southwest Dairy Farmers in Texas, they launched their trailer three years ago to teach kids and consumers the truth about dairy—from “cow to counter.” Based at Dakin Dairy, Florida’s only dairy with on-site bottling and public tours, they combine hands-on learning with engaging presentations to promote agriculture literacy.

Florida dairy faces unique challenges—rising costs, extreme heat, misinformation, and shrinking farm numbers, with only about 40 dairy farms left in the state, most housing fewer than 50 cows. Despite these obstacles, the Heifers emphasize that community outreach, agrotourism, and product diversification (like creameries and cheese production) are key to survival. They also remind us how vital it is for consumers to understand their purchasing power: by supporting local producers, staying informed about ag policy, and choosing Florida dairy, people can help sustain these family farms.

With support from sponsors, the Florida Ag Experience offers free or reduced-cost visits to schools. Along the way, they sprinkle in fun facts—did you know it takes 345 squirts to fill a gallon of milk?—and reveal just how disconnected some people are from their food system. Common questions at fairs often include confusion about whether only female cows produce milk or mistaking milk for other bodily functions. Their mission is clear: reconnect people to where their food comes from—one classroom, one cow, and one story at a time.

📧 Want to bring the trailer to your school or event? Contact twoblondeheifers@gmail.com

🔗 Choose to purchase local milk: WhereIsMyMilkFrom.com

In this episode, we explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping both agriculture and education—starting right in the classroom. From diagnosing plant diseases to predicting nutrient deficiencies, AI is helping students and future farmers see agriculture through a high-tech lens.

Discussion includes:

🌾 How AI is being introduced into agricultural education

🧠 AI’s role in identifying healthy vs. diseased crops

💸 The cost of disease treatment and the value of early detection

👨‍🌾 Why agronomists are key partners in plant health management

💰 The ongoing challenge of funding—how grants and local support keep programs running

🌿 The role of plant and tissue sampling in spotting nutrient deficiencies

🤖 How emerging technologies may reduce manual labor—but must still overcome traditional mindsets

Whether you’re an educator, student, or grower, this conversation dives into how innovation is transforming ag education—and what we still need to move forward.

In part two of Community Farming Podcast’s Community Agriculture in Action, we’re joined by Emmanuel Roux, founder of 15th Street Farm in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida. What started as a therapeutic garden for a drug and alcohol recovery center has grown into a thriving urban organic educational farm, connecting people—especially kids—with nature, healthy food, and each other.

🔍 In This Episode, We Discuss:

• 🌱 The origin story of 15th Street Farm and its roots in recovery and healing

• 🏙️ How a half-acre urban farm became a hub for community, education, and culture

• 🍽️ The power of family-style meals and cultural culinary experiences to bring people together

• 🧑‍🌾 Their work with school gardens (15 and counting!), home garden installs, and healthy eating education

• 🌿 The importance of compost, soil health, and biologics in regenerative agriculture

• 💡 Principles of Korean Natural Farming and organic, chemical-free growing

• 🧬 “We are what we eat ATE”—rethinking nutrition from the ground up

• ♻️ How composting city yard waste helped transform nutrient-poor sand into fertile growing soil

• 🍲 The 2023 addition of a commercial kitchen and event space, now hosting themed dinners, tours, and cooking classes

• 💚 How hospitality, entrepreneurship, and community-building are core values of the farm

• 🎯 The farm’s guiding belief: “Good food is the product of healthy soil”

💥 Why This Matters:

Food is more than fuel—it’s culture, community, and connection. Emmanuel and his team are nurturing future generations by showing the deep relationship between soil health, nutrient-dense food, and wellness. Their work not only educates but empowers people to grow, cook, and enjoy food in ways that heal both body and earth.

✨ Tune in to hear how 15th Street Farm is cultivating change—one garden, one meal, and one student at a time.

To learn more about the 15th Street Farm, visit https://www.15thstfarm.com

In this special recap episode of the Modern Farming Podcast, we bring together two powerful conversations from our What Is and Isn’t in Your Food series to highlight one essential truth: you don’t have to be a farmer to care about agriculture. The health of our soil directly impacts the health of our food—and ultimately, the health of you.

Episode Highlights:

We revisit key insights from two groundbreaking episodes:

1. “What Your Food Is and Isn’t” with David R. Montgomery and Anne Bikle

This thought-provoking conversation explores how soil depletion affects crop quality, nutrient density, and public health. David and Anne walk us through how regenerative practices restore soil biology and why healthy soil isn’t just good for farms—it’s essential for long-term human well-being.

2. “Defining Nutrient Density” with Dan Kittredge

Dan breaks down the science behind nutrient-dense food—explaining why food grown in living, biologically active soil is more flavorful, more nourishing, and more resilient. Backed by ongoing research and field data from the Bionutrient Food Association, this episode showcases how soil health can be measured, improved, and made visible to consumers.

Why This Matters for Everyone—Not Just Farmers:

Whether you’re a parent, a teacher, or someone simply trying to eat well, understanding what’s in your food—and how it got there—is key to your health. These episodes emphasize that support for healthy soil is support for your own body. And this isn’t just theory—it’s supported by real data showing how soil quality influences nutrient density and food system resilience.

What You’ll Learn in This Recap:

• Why healthy soil = healthy people

• How soil biology and regenerative practices are changing the game

• How new data and technology are making food quality measurable

• Why consumers have the power to shift the system—starting with knowledge

Tune in now for a deep dive into why what’s beneath your food matters just as much as what’s on your plate.

⸻

Want more information? Check out the full episodes:

• “What Your Food Is and Isn’t” with Anne Bikle & David Montgomery - https://youtu.be/NQ-nXvE5eFI

• “What Is and Isn’t in Your Food: Defining Nutrient Density” with Dan Kittredge - https://youtu.be/mSoynEHEN-E

In this "What Is and Isn't In Your Food: Defining Nutrient Density" episode, we sit down with Dan Kittredge, a regenerative organic farmer and founder of the Bionutrient Food Association (BFA), to unpack a concept that’s changing the way we think about food: nutrient density.

Dan coined the term nutrient density back in 2007, and since then has dedicated his life to helping farmers and consumers understand what makes food truly nourishing. It’s not just about calories or labels—it’s about the flavor, aroma, and nutritive value of the food we grow and eat.

🔬 What You’ll Learn:

• What nutrient density really means, and why it matters for both human and planetary health.

• How nutrient-dense foods are:

• More flavorful and aromatic 🍓

• Healthier for consumers 💪

• More resilient to pests and diseases 🌾

• Cheaper to produce and better for farmers’ bottom lines 💰

• Linked to improved soil health, shelf life, and long-term sustainability 🌎

• Why enlightened self-interest from consumers can shift purchasing habits—and how a hand-held spectrometer (yes, a Bionutrient Meter!) could soon be integrated into your phone’s camera to measure nutrient density at the store.

• Holistic, systemic solutions emerge when we manage for nutrient-rich crops.

🧪 The Research:

Since 2016-17, Dan and his team at the Bionutrient Institute have been partnering with open-source science innovators like Our-Sci and FarmOS to:

• Measure nutrient density across diverse crops

• Understand the drivers of nutrient variation

• Build and deploy consumer-facing tech that can measure food quality on the spot

Their long-term vision? A food system where quality is transparent, regenerative practices are rewarded, and agriculture contributes to reversing both chronic disease and climate change.

🌍 About Dan Kittredge:

Dan grew up farming at Many Hands Organic Farm in Massachusetts and has spent over 30 years working on food and seed sovereignty globally. Through the BFA, he leads educational workshops, global speaking engagements, the annual Soil & Nutrition Conference, and is developing an online course to further spread knowledge about biological systems and nutrient-dense growing.

📲 Connect with BFA:

• Facebook: Bionutrient Food Association

• Instagram: @bionutrientfoodassociation

• YouTube: Bionutrient Channel

• LinkedIn: Bionutrient on LinkedIn

🔔 Subscribe to Modern Farming for more conversations that are shaping the future of food.

Have thoughts or questions about nutrient density? Tag us and Dan on social with #ModernFarmingPodcast!