The Regenaissance Podcast

Ørsted, a Danish renewable energy giant, is trying to lease 4,000 acres of Casey's state grazing land in Arizona to build an industrial solar array - land that he depends on for winter range, without which the ranch isn't viable.
Casey believes productive grazing land shouldn't be touched when there's no shortage of barren desert, parking lots, and brownfields that could take solar instead - and the companies could do it if they wanted to, they just won't because it's cheaper and easier to go after open range.

Casey Murph is a fifth-generation cattle rancher in northeastern Arizona. This episode covers that fight, and what's at stake for generational ranching in America.
5 Key Topics:
How Ørsted is attempting to take Casey's winter range for industrial solar
Why solar should go on parking lots and brownfields, not productive grazing land
Ørsted's existing Arizona install powers a Meta data centre, not homes
The collapse of independent beef operations and what it's done to supply and price
Casey's strategy: state land pressure, political allies, and buying time
Timestamps:
00:00 - Casey intro
02:00 - The Ørsted solar threat
05:00 - Foreign-owned conglomerates
09:00 - Urban disconnection from food
11:00 - Where solar should go instead
18:00 - Political strategy and allies
19:00 - Ørsted's Pinal County install: homes promised, Meta data centre delivered
28:00 - Beef supply consolidation
31:00 - Feedlots and grass-finishing
36:00 - Approval timeline and how to help
Connect with Casey:
X

Ben and Hannah Yoder run Savage Mountain Farm, a 150-acre diversified, full-diet CSA on the Pennsylvania–Maryland line, rooted in Amish–Mennonite heritage and natural methods, raising produce, mushrooms, and pastured livestock while blending regenerative farming with homeschooling, community engagement, and a family-centered lifestyle.
Farmer Stories pulls the best conversations from The Regenaissance archive - real voices from American farmers on the systems, economics, and communities shaping food and land in the US.
Timestamps

00:00:00 Why they homeschool
00:01:30 School as fear, not learning
00:03:00 Preserving curiosity over teaching content
00:05:30 Disconnection from food as root cause
00:06:30 Age segregation & lost intergenerational culture
00:08:00 No screens - kids who can entertain themselves
00:10:00 Modeling self-sovereignty on the farm
00:11:30 Owning your day - the case for farming
Connect with Savage Mountain:
Website
Instagram
Follow the tour on YouTube

Patrick Samuels is the founder of Sunnyside Egg Co., a Kentucky-based regenerative egg operation built on mobile coops and Amish/Mennonite farming partnerships. A former US Army Special Forces officer with no agricultural background, Patrick stumbled into farming through pandemic-era homesteading, worked inside one of the largest pasture-raised egg brands, and launched Sunnyside in December 2024 to scale what he calls the only truly regenerative egg operation in the country.
5 Key Topics
The pasture-raised label scam
Mobile coops as the real standard
Scaling regen without selling out
The corn/soy-free feed debate
Transparency over certification
Timestamps
[00:00] Intro & egg price controversy
[01:30] Patrick's military-to-farming path
[04:00] Inside a "pasture-raised" barn
[07:00] Why certifiers are grifters
[11:00] The Vital Farms breakdown
[18:00] Retail vs. decentralisation debate
[27:00] Corn & soy-free feed complexity
[37:00] Regenerative certification loopholes
[44:00] Sunnyside's growth timeline
[01:01:00] On-farm operations & rotation
Links
Website
Instagram

Brad Wiley's family has farmed the same land since 1790. In this episode on our Farmer Stories series, he share shis wonder at the invisible web beneath his fields - and what it means to carry 200 years of family memory on a single piece of ground.
Farmer Stories pulls the best conversations from The Regenaissance archive - real voices from American farmers on the systems, economics, and communities shaping food and land in the US.

Timestamps
00:00 — The biological web that makes Tesla look simple
01:00 — Locust trees feeding cover crops across an entire field
03:30 — Cover crops and grazing replace the lime truck
05:30 — The moment Brad walked away from $30k in cash rent
07:30 — The manure spreader sinks into dead soybean soil
11:00 — 200 years of family memory on one piece of ground
22:30 — Life is designed to be a struggle
Link to the full episode:
Spotify
Apple
YouTube

Connect with Brad:
Otter Creek Farm

Follow the tour on YouTube

Joel Hollingsworth runs Smoke River Ranch in northeast Oklahoma. This conversation from our Farmer Stories Series talks about why Joel believes we need to keep manufcaturing in America & why Oklahoma's culture of self-governance is a cultural model the country can build around.
Farmer Stories pulls the best conversations from The Regenaissance archive - real voices from American farmers on the systems, economics, and communities shaping food and land in the US.
Timestamps
0:00 — Why build in America, not abroad
1:30 — The federalist structure and America's creation story
4:00 — Oklahoma's culture of self-governance
6:30 — Regen ag as a churn factory
7:30 — Triffin dilemma and hollowing out of domestic production
9:00 — How crop insurance locks out new farmers
11:00 — Foreign cattle and the 30% currency gap
12:30 — Land as money, not farmland
14:00 — Farm credit weaponized (Dustin Kittle story)
15:30 — Average rancher age 58.5
17:00 — What rural collapse looks like
18:30 — Sovereign debt and centralizing risk
Links:
Full podcast episode:
- YouTube
- Spotify
- Apple
Connect with Joel:
- Smoke River Ranch Website
- X