FoA 260: The Lentil Underground with Dave Oien of Timeless Seeds

Future of Agriculture

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Today you’re going to get to hear the story of Dave Oien of Timeless Seeds and Timeless Food. He shares how he figured out how to convert to organic when very few thought it was possible, then how we built a seed business that ultimately became a food business. And make sure you stay to the end for some really interesting comments about resiliency.

Dave returned to the farm in Montana and convinced his dad in the 1970s to let him convert the farm to organic. Then, over the next four decades he built a seed business and a food business selling organic lentils and chickpeas as well as ancient grains and some other farm products.

His story is so remarkable, it was made into a book called “Lentil Underground.”

This episode was created and originally was published as a part of another podcast I host called Growing Pulse Crops. Audrey Kalil who produces that show has graciously allowed me to re-air the episode on my show because I think it’s so good. So if you’re at all interested in pulse crop production - that’s peas, chickpeas, and lentils, go check out that show: Growing Pulse Crops on any podcast platform.

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Do you have suggestions for topics to be explored? Tweet them to me @timhammerich or email them to [e-mail].

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