21. Denny Caneff, healthy rivers advocate

Sustainable Agriculture Policy with Ron Kroese

“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.