Ilse Köhler-Rollefson fell in love with camels while doing fieldwork in Jordan. A veterinarian from Germany who had grown disenchanted with the commercial side of animal care, Ilse parlayed her ability to identify animal bones to volunteering at an archeological site in Pella. It was here she heard a Bedouin man singing harmoniously to his animals and encountered her first camel herd. Ten years later, after earning a Ph.D. and raising boy-girl twins, she decided she wanted to work directly with camels. Today she divides her time between Germany and Sadri, India, where she lives among camels and herders. To ensure that camel-keeping remains viable for the community, she co-founded Camel Charisma, which produces and markets camel products including milk, cheese, wool, soap, and “camel poo” paper.
Ilse is a tireless advocate for camels and the people who tend them. Concerned that factory farming, industrialization of livestock, and land appropriation were forcing pastoralists to abandon herding, in 1992 she initiated the League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development to ensure that livestock keepers have a voice. She speaks on pastoralism in venues throughout the world and is the author of three well-regarded books, most recently Hoofprints on the Land, published in 2023. Soil Centric’s Judith D. Schwartz talked with Ilse about changing careers, taking risks, and her enduring love of animals.
JDS: You started as a veterinarian. Why did you leave the field?
Ilse: I had grown up with horses and dogs in a small village. Because I loved animals I chose to study veterinary medicine. But I quickly realized this wasn’t what I wanted to do. My first placement was as an assistant to a large animal vet in Northern Germany who boasted that he delivered three calves by cesarean sections in a night. Basically, farmers had forgotten that cows could give birth naturally. I met many good farm animal practitioners, but often animals were more of a vehicle for business. You earn from sick animals, so there’s no incentive for veterinarians to keep animals healthy in the first place. I worked at a small animal clinic and found that this work was mostly owner therapy. Often there’s nothing wrong with the pet, but you have to give an injection to show you’re doing something.
Since I’ve always had an interest in horses I interned in the racehorse business in England and France and then at a thoroughbred breeding farm in Kentucky. There it was even more about money. Horses are often raced at two years old when they’re not really grown and can’t take the pressure on their tendons. They get put on painkillers and after two years they’re at the butcher. Veterinarians were colluding with this. I didn’t know what to do.
JDS: It can be painful to see the dodgier side of a profession you’ve held in esteem—something many can relate to. How did you make the pivot?
Ilse: I traveled to the west coast and to the ruins in Yucatan. I thought, archaeology. …that’s interesting! I saw there were fieldwork opportunities and got a job in Jordan as someone who identifies animal bones. I felt an immediate connection with the Bedouin in the area, and spent my time off with a camel-herding family. After receiving a Ph.D. in Germany, I got a fellowship to study camels and pastoralism in Jordan but was denied a research permit: the Jordanian government said camel herding was an anachronism. So I continued to work in ethno-archeology, assessing archeological remains. I met an American archeologist and he and I were married at the American Embassy in Amman. By the time I was 37 I was tired of working with the bones of dead animals—I wanted to work with living camels. Another research fellowship brought me to Rajasthan, India, where I spend most of my time today.
At first it was difficult to do research. No one wanted to talk to me. I couldn’t get near any camels or herders for months until my luck turned and I met a Raika veterinarian who introduced me to his community. Initially the Raika herders wanted medicines for their camels from me but then we developed real friendships. I soon realized the pressures they faced. For one, they were losing access to their customary grazing areas. Then a law limited herders’ ability to sell male camels for meat. Under such stressors the number of camels in the region was declining—and with that a source of livelihood. I felt it important to preserve this culture, so I helped launch a welfare organization for the local pastoralists and started the Camel Charisma dairy.
JDS: You say camel milk is not only super nutritious—that it’s also regenerative. Tell me about that.
Ilse: From observing the Raika, it struck me that what they and other pastoralists do is the most ecological way of food production. It involves no fossil fuels and no fertilizers, and it doesn’t destroy biodiversity. Camels are adapted to drylands and vast open spaces. Since they can walk long distances, nomadic herders can access areas far beyond what other domesticated animals can. They eat thorny and salty vegetation that we can’t eat and convert it to meat and milk. Rather than hooves, their feet are flat elastic pads that are gentle on the soil. They can bear long intervals without drinking. This is because they are parsimonious with water, minimizing what they excrete, and because they fluctuate in temperature so don’t need to spend much water to keep their bodies cool. Their humps store fat (not water!), which helps regulate temperature and allows them to endure long periods without food.
Plus, camels are what I call “desert gardeners”. Their favorite trees are acacias. Acacia seeds have a hard cover and need to go through an animal’s stomach in order to germinate. In Sadri we had a paddock with nothing growing. A few years later it’s a forest—all from the seeds that the camels have left in their manure. According to the traditional knowledge of the Raika, camels’ diets include 36 different plants, full of phytochemicals. That is why their milk is so healthy, even medicinal. All of this is kept going by the close animal-human relationship, the powerful bond the herders cultivate.
JDS: What advice do you have for people seeking meaningful, regenerative work—in particular those who love animals?
Ilse: I’ve taken a lot of financial risks. I’ve never been employed except for a few months as a vet, and when I went back to Germany I didn’t fit into any slot. As a consultant it was always unpredictable when I would get the next paycheck. I don’t regret it one bit. I would never have fit into some hierarchy. My advice is to do what you want to do and not to put up with a job you don’t like because of security. One route is to develop a specialty in some field that few know about. In my case, I was the only archeozoologist in Jordan.
There is a need for people who love animals—who look at animals as co-creatures rather than machines. I believe working as a shepherd or pastoralist is among the most valuable things you can do. You produce wonderful food and you take care of the environment. It’s possible to go to a foreign country and live with a herding family. You develop expertise, and will be in demand because not many have that knowledge. In Sadri we had a wonderful volunteer through the Workaway platform. Trevor Warmedahl, known as the “Milk Trekker”, came to Camel Charisma and wrote about us. He started out in industrial cheese, and now travels the world finding traditional cheesemakers. There are lots of opportunities but they’re not standardized, so you have to look for them. Find what fascinates you and really go for it.
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Learn more about grazing by checking out Soil Centric's Grazing Guide!
]]>By Megan Weeber
I was on the search for a book at San Francisco’s legendary Green Apple bookstore. My husband picked up something called Growing a Revolution by David Montgomery and said “What about this one?” I flipped through it and gleaned that Professor Montgomery travels the world to understand how land stewards are restoring soil health using regenerative agriculture. What the heck is “Regenerative Agriculture”? I sure didn’t know. Traveling the world? Now that was something I understood and I’m always down to read a travel book.
Hi, I’m Megan. I’m 41 years old and have no background in agriculture or science. I grew up in the burbs, went to college, and for the last ten years have worked in the corporate world. For a long time, I’d wanted to shift into a career I was passionate about, but nothing clicked until I happened upon Growing a Revolution. Reading this book in 2019, while we were living in Austin, Texas, has had a snowball effect on my life. I started by looking up every farmer, rancher, and organization Professor Montgomery mentioned. And then I read their books and perused their websites. Pretty soon I was knee-deep in information on all these amazing land stewards. I was excited but had no idea what to do with my new knowledge. I’m not a rancher, and I don’t think I want to be one. So now what? I continued to take small steps and trusted that those steps would help a city slicker like me blaze a regenerative trail and eventually, I would land right where I needed to be.
A fan of the Savory Institute, I decided to take their Foundations of Holistic Management course to get my feet wet. I also came across a three-day seminar called “Women Leading Regeneration” that an organization called Regenerative Rising in Boulder, Colorado was offering. Attending this was a pivotal step on my journey because I met many women who have helped me make forward progress. That’s where I met Diana and first learned about Soil Centric. As with all the amazing women I met, I made sure to follow her organization on social media.
Things were moving slower than I wanted them to be. I found it to be challenging to understand what a person without an ag or science background could do to make a living supporting the regenerative agriculture movement. I followed every single account I could find on Instagram and LinkedIn and decided to create my own Instagram account where I could really nerd out on this stuff without annoying my friends and family. Through this simple step, I was able to find out about events and different offerings from various organizations that are part of this movement. For instance, I gained more direct ag experiences by attending a turkey harvest and field day at Roam Ranch in Fredericksburg, Texas. I loved it! There are so many amazing producers working in Central Texas and I was so lucky to have access to talk to these folks weekly at the Farmer’s Markets. The more I talked to them, the more I knew I needed to keep trying to figure out where I fit into the puzzle.
In April of 2022, I learned the Savory Institute was conducting a training for their Ecological Outcome Monitoring (EOV) program. OMG! A way to be on the ground without working full time on a ranch. I had to go. Alas, the timing was not right, the course was full and I would have to wait a full year before it would be offered again. While I was committed to waiting, I did not want to stand still for 12 months. Every month or so, the Savory Institute does a meet-up for anyone who would like to join and hear about recent happenings. I’d joined before and didn’t have any new questions, but what did I have to lose by joining again? Another woman joined as well and talked passionately about Dr. Elaine’s Soil Food Web School. As always, I took note and looked it up later. Soil microbes? I am definitely NOT a scientist. But who am I to say no to a challenge? More small steps to find my way; I decided to take Dr. Elaine’s Foundation Courses.
2023 was a big year for me. I finally took the EOV training with the Savory Institute and LOVED IT. The people, the land, the knowledge building! After finishing the Soil Food Web School’s Foundation Courses, I decided this was a great opportunity for a person with my (lack of) background to have a tangible skill once completed. I enrolled in their Consultant Training program and am now officially a trained Soil Food Web lab technician! With any luck, I’ll have two biologically complete compost piles this spring to earn the right to move forward to the next level of consultant training.
Last year I also learned about Soil Centric’s Regenerative Action Ambassadors. This new program aimed to help regenerative hopefuls find their way in the movement. I applied for it and got in. How fun! I knew I needed it to be low-key as I had a lot on my plate already. It fit the bill. Through the RAA program, I made new regenerative-curious friends and I heard firsthand from regenerative superstars. Not only did I get to speak to them directly, but now I also had a CONNECTION. That’s huge.
You never know what will lead to what, but if you love something enough, you keep taking those forward steps and trust you’ll figure it out. Five years after reading that “travel” book, I can now say I DO work in agriculture and I DO work in the sciences! Hell Yes.
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All of the photography was provided by Megan, thank you for sharing your journey with us!
By Kristin Ohlson for Soil Centric
Over 97,000 people convened in Dubai this December for the twenty-eighth Congress of Parties (COP)—the United Nations’ annual conference on climate change. A much smaller segment of the world’s eyes were on Dubai for a gathering which preceded the COP by a few days and involved at least a handful of the same people: the Dubai Future Forum, billed as “the world’s largest gathering of futurists.”
Amazingly—or at least, amazing to me—I was invited to speak at the forum. I had received a request to connect on LinkedIn from someone with the Dubai Future Foundation months ago, and even though this seemed like yet another request from someone whose interests seemed so different from mine that I hesitated to make the connection, I accepted. Further communication led to a phone call. The forum would have four themes: Empowering Generations, Transcending Collaboration, Transforming Humanity, and Regenerating Nature. The director of the Dubai Museum of the Future had read my book, The Soil Will Save Us, and the committee putting the gathering together wanted me to speak on one of the regeneration panels. I’m not exactly a Luddite but I certainly don’t consider myself a futurist—unless one who alternately hopes and panics about the future is a futurist, which probably describes all of us—but I’ll go anywhere to talk about regeneration and healthy ecosystems. They had told me that around 2,500 people would come, many from that region and that they were also flying in thinkers and doers from around the world.
And indeed they did! I’ve never been at a gathering as truly diverse as this one—people young and older, from just about every part of the world, of every hue, and dozens of nationalities. Lucky for me, all speaking English albeit with the chiaroscuro of both their first language and the accent of whoever schooled them in English.
The reality of a conference like this is that you can’t get to everything, especially if you’re a speaker who’s a little nervous about being there to begin with. I managed to get to several of the regeneration panels, which were held in a dimly gorgeous room inside the Museum of the Future with walls that glowed with images of various life forms. In one panel, people talked about tapping indigenous wisdom to prepare for the future; in another, panelists talked about what might lie beyond Net Zero carbon emissions; in another, they talked about city planning that centers nature. On my own panel, my co-panelists, Nithiya Laila, who works on biodiverse diets and equitable food systems in Singapore; Christine Gould, who supports science-and-technology-based startups through Thought for Food based in Switzerland; and our moderator, Dionysia Angeliki Lyra from the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture in Dubai and I spent an animated 45 minutes talking about soil, seeds, native plants and feeding the world’s people.
I certainly wasn’t the only person among the 2,500 futurists who centers on healthy ecosystems—including healthy prosperous humans, of course—but it’s also true that many of the panels and discussions at the conference were about shiny new things. Shiny new tools, shiny new technologies, shiny new approaches to problems. I told anyone who would listen that I’m not opposed to the new and shiny—unless those innovations are aimed at hacking the natural world for the convenience of humans. Yes, new technology for benign sources of energy, please! New technology to turn my gas-powered car into an electric one! New technology for mining the mountains of garbage we’ve created to obtain the resources for future products! New ideas for our homes and cities! New science to parse the dazzling and essential complexity of the natural world and—this is the issue for me--to help us figure out how we can hack our own behavior so that both we and the rest of nature thrive.
Because life is so precious and—given what we know so far—unique. One of the early presentations at the Dubai Future Forum was a panel of astronauts talking about life on the space station. They talked about how they dealt with the conundrums of ordinary life while living in space—eating, getting enough exercise, staying in touch with loved ones—and agreed, sweetly, that one of the best things about the experience was the brotherly bond they now have with each other. I couldn’t help but think of our marvelous planet as I listened to them. Scientists have searched through the samples brought back from space, hoping to find evidence of life. It’s not there. I have more life under my little fingernail after digging in the soil than has been found in all our extraplanetary explorations. We have to treasure life on Earth, respect that life, and change ourselves so that those coming next will also experience its beauty and abundance. Imagine if our collective aspiration for the future was to be good ancestors.
Solarpunk Farms, ten acres of meadows, redwood trees and market crops in Guerneville CA, was originally a ten-year plan: an improbable dream for a queer couple with demanding city jobs and zero farming experience, yet who harbored an inkling that personal fulfillment would unlikely be found sitting at a desk. Then, in three quick strokes, fate intervened. First, Spencer, who has a PhD in bioengineering, quit his well-paying job. Next, Covid happened. Then they encountered a property that checked all their boxes. It was walking distance to a small downtown, twenty minutes to the ocean, an easy drive from San Francisco, and—miraculously—within their price range. “We decided we had to do it,” Spencer recalls. “It was a whirlwind to make it happen. But by July 2020 we were living in our little home.”
A riot of color and camp on field days, at once silly and serious, Solarpunk Farms is both a working farm and a vehicle for social and environmental change. Soil Centric’s Judith D. Schwartz spoke to Spencer R. Scott and his husband, Nick Schwanz, about farming, regeneration, and the pros and cons of making sweeping changes in a heartbeat.
Editors note: What is Solarpunk?
Before we get to the interview with Spencer and Nick we want to quickly talk about the farm’s name. It was chosen to express the ethos of Solarpunk, defined as “a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion, and activism that seeks to answer and embody the question “what does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there?”. Spencer recently wrote a piece explaining it from his perspective which we recommend you check out. Now, onto the interview.
Judith D. Schwartz: It’s late September, time for farmers to reap the benefits of their labor. What are you harvesting?
Nick: Our first two years were less about what can we harvest than the mindset of: what can we grow that will repair the soil? When we arrived the land was a degraded horse arena, just pigweed and Bermuda grass. This is the first year that we started planting crops in earnest. It’s also the coldest and wettest year our area has ever seen. Now we’re harvesting a ton of tomatoes and flowers. It’s been a massive flower season. Strawflower has been our signature crop. It’s beautiful, and bouquets last a long time so it fits our sustainable vision.
JDS: That’s quite a heavy lift for less than three years. Do you plan to support yourselves as farmers?
Nick: We don’t have the land or the experience to treat farming as our main income generator. Because we both have fulltime jobs, we can treat the farm somewhat as an experiment. This takes the pressure off. Our goal is to bring on a farm manager so we can start to formalize our practices into a more revenue-generating system, selling to local markets and restaurants and creating a little farm stand. For now we’re doing small sales to restaurants in town and floral sales for charity and sustainability events.
JDS: You each have fulltime jobs, Spencer as Science Program Manager at the climate nonprofit One Earth and Nick as a brand strategist for sustainable tech companies, and you’ve started a demonstration farm. I’m trying to wrap my head around how you make this work.
Spencer: Basically, by giving all our remaining time after work and most of our weekends to the farm. This is probably not the most sustainable model. But the farm does give us energy and fulfillment so it doesn’t always seem like work. We spend much of our time building infrastructure and planning events. That’s why we decided we have to bring on a farm manager. Because we’re a demonstration site and educational center, the point is to bring people here. That requires skills outside of farming. We’re both storytellers who can create a vision and bring it to fruition. We’re willing to lean into that strength and hire the people we need as we grow.
JDS: What kind of events do you host?
Nick: We have work-play weekends, with maybe six to ten people. We’ll spend half the time doing farm work, like weeding or amending soil or flipping over beds, and the rest making food and talking about sustainability and just having fun. We want to change the narrative about what “fun” is, from getting on a plane and traveling somewhere and taking a bunch of pictures to post on Instagram, to getting your hands dirty with your friends and making good food that you harvested yourself and talking about things that are meaningful to you. The notion of “fun” has been coopted by capitalism and travel and commercialism. Perhaps most rewarding is to see people who might have gone to the beach or dance club and instead come to the farm and find that as enjoyable if not more enjoyable. And when they leave they say, “Can I bring back some seeds to plant at home?”
JDS: As the mother of a gay son, I’ve noted that the regenerative movement presents as pretty straight. And I’ve wondered whether that’s been a barrier for queer people.
Spencer: That’s one thing we’re trying to address. The queer community has long found solace and a sense of belonging in the urban party scene. It hasn’t been around land management, or being rooted in a place, which hasn’t been seen as cool or hip—likely because the notion of homesteading and being in rural spaces is often not conducive to queer life. Part of our mission is to redefine not just what is possible, but what is aspirational. We’re a short drive from a major city with a lot of queer folks, and the goal is to provide a place to experience tending land and start the process of engaging with regeneration.
Nick: Like Spencer says, one goal is creating a safe space for queer people to explore farming. The other is showing the world what “queer” means, and that regeneration is implicitly aligned because queerness is about joyfully and enthusiastically rejecting the status quo. Simply by finding your way in the world as a queer person, you have the same spirit as a regenerative person finding your way in a capitalistic environment. You could say that queer is to conventional as regenerative is to capitalism.
Also, queer people have done a good job of creating community in unexpected places. If you think about what makes it hard to live in a rural place, it’s isolation. Queer networks can blow that out and make it more supportive and enjoyable. The regenerative movement will be more palatable to people once they know they’re not alone in these places if they build community the way queer people do.
JDS: You two took a huge leap, accelerating your plan by a decade. Would you encourage others to take a similar plunge?Spencer: I enjoyed my work, particularly the science. But then the 2018 IPCC report came out and I decided to devote myself to climate. Also, I felt I wasn’t using the creative half of my brain and wanted to do more writing. People have come to me saying they care about climate and want to leave their job. I used to be like, “Do it, yeah!!” But after going through the stress and anxiety I appreciate that the conventional route is the conventional route because it’s safer—made safe by our system. Perhaps more prudent would be to explore what passions you have, to spend what time you can on what you want to move toward. Then again, I don’t think you have to have all your ducks in a row before starting something. Regeneration should be something we’re excited about and not something we’re intimidated by.
Nick: It can be hard to get off the treadmill. The value of what Spencer did is that it shook us both off the treadmill. There’s a role for the safe place and there’s a role for the ambitious. People have to decide what’s right for them.
Spencer: I’m now thinking about the power of the story, and what it signals to others. To make such a big shift sends a strong signal that what you are shifting to must be very important. A lot of people were like, “Wow, you had a very cushy, great job that you basically blew up because you were so taken by climate work.”
JDS: If not “ditch your job and start a farm”, what advice would you give someone called to do regenerative work?
Nick: Know that while some leaps are risky and destabilizing, there are little leaps too. Like changing from working on your marketing team to working on your sustainability team. What we want to share is that you don’t have to feel perfectly ready or be perfectly experienced in order to make a change. Our project was unique in that it was a big financial risk, and that isn’t right for everybody. But how many shifts are held back because people think they lack the knowledge or expertise at the outset? That’s a wall that doesn’t have to be there.
Spencer: I’d add that everyone has something unique to contribute. Find it and believe in it and know that if you set your intentions correctly and put them to work—yes, you absolutely can add that to the regenerative movement. And I hope you will.
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All of the photography was provided by Spencer and Nick, thank you for sharing the beauty of your farm with us. We encourage you to follow what they're up to on Instagram: @solarpunkfarms, and through Spencer's writing on his Substack: As If We Were Staying, and on OneEarth.org.
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In “Braiding Sweetgrass”, botanist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer recounts her freshman advisor asking her why she’d chosen to study botany: “I told him that I chose botany because I wanted to learn why asters and goldenrod looked so beautiful together.” She was pleased with her answer, but the advisor was emphatically not. He responded that that was not science, and perhaps she should consider moving to the art department. Luckily for all of us, Kimmerer persevered and went on to marry science and beauty. When I first read this passage, as a Californian I could not easily picture these iconic plants of the Northeast and the vivid harmony between purple and yellow that the earnest young student had in her mind’s eye. A recent trip to Vermont, however, immersed me in the loveliness of both aster and goldenrod.
My husband, Warren, and I happened to visit the Northeast in early September during the height of “Goldenrod Season.” In southern Vermont, our wonderful friend and colleague, Judy Schwartz, showed us five different species of goldenrod and three different kinds of aster in her pollinator garden.
At nearby Studio Hill Farm in Shaftsbury, insect life of all sorts abounds on over 200 acres. With Judy as our guide, we walked up the hill to the actual studio (where goldenrod glowed against the cabin's weathered gray walls) and then over another hill to a pasture to visit the sheep. Each footstep in the thick moist grass was bouncing with life and revealed something that was either scurrying, humming, flying, or bouncing.
Ben, the friendly guardian donkey, greeted us while Farm Manager Miranda Richardson set up the portable fencing to rotate the herd of 200 Katahdin sheep. A working family farm since 1936, Studio Hill had been seriously degraded by chemical agriculture for decades when Cally and Jesse McDougall took over the reins. For the last eight or so years they’ve been moving management in a regenerative direction and watching life respond in the process. Not only have the insects returned but also birds and mammals. Studio Hill is a testament to regeneration and earlier this year it became the first accredited Savory Global Hub and Training Center in New England! If you need regenerating and are anywhere near southern Vermont be sure to book a Farm Stay at one of the two houses on this verdant property. The School House is perfect for a couple while the larger Hilltop House is a great place to gather with family and friends.
Judy also brought us to True Love Farm where she is a regular volunteer. Farmers Karen and Steven Trubitt specialize in organic produce and cut flowers. They sell all of their produce within a 35-mile radius of the farm! Karen led our tour and explained their soil-building strategies. She was frank about the challenges caused by an increasingly erratic climate.
In the west we often get too little rain so it is hard for us to imagine that in Vermont they have had far too much, resulting in “root rot” on staple crops such as lettuce. “We’re having to grow lettuce in our precious hoop houses this year, " Karen lamented. “Normally we’d have at least three rows of lettuce growing in the fields. Meanwhile, the potatoes are struggling with all the moisture.”
Despite the challenges and constraints, Karen finds sustenance in the natural beauty and True Love's CSA community. The Trubitts have created hedgerows for pollinators and during our visit, Karen was excited to discover a variety of butterfly she had not seen before. “I think it is some kind of a fritillary”, declared Judy while I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful the butterfly and the goldenrod looked together. They say travel broadens the mind, but I think it also can feed the soul–especially when immersed in a place of striking natural beauty like Vermont and surrounded by people who are working to heal the earth they love.
By Diana Donlon / Soil Centric
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Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden, Camille Dungy
We’re really looking forward to reading this new memoir by poet and scholar Camille Dungy. Earlier this month we had a preview when Point Reyes Books hosted her in conversation with fellow poet Ross Gay. We won’t spoil anything by letting you know that Dungy chronicles her journey of transforming her suburban garden in Northern Colorado into something wild, complex and native-focused. She uses the garden as a metaphor to highlight both the threat of homogeneity and the importance of diversity in the face of social and climate instability.
Doughnut Economics: 7 ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist, Kate Raworth
Published in 2017 “Doughnut Economics” became an instant classic. The doughnut refers to the shape of a visual framework combining planetary boundaries (e.g. biodiversity loss, ocean acidification) with social boundaries (e.g. food, health). Regardless of whether or not you are well-versed in economics or are a novice on the subject, this is one econ book that really ought to be required reading.
Working to Restore - Harnessing the Power of Regenerative Business to Heal the World, Esha Chhabra
Wondering how to apply regenerative principles to your business? In this new book journalist Esha Chhabra profiles trailblazing companies that are creating models of restoration and regeneration across nine critical areas: agriculture, waste management, supply chain logistics, inclusive collective prosperity, women’s empowerment in the workforce, travel, health, energy and finance.
This slim anthology invites us to reframe our thinking about climate. Being the Rebecca Solnit fans that we are, we especially recommend her essays which motivate climate activists with insights like this: “...the main job is not to convince climate deniers and the indifferent (and there are a lot fewer in either of those categories than there were a decade ago). It’s to engage and inspire those who care but who don’t see that they can and should have an active role in this movement, who don’t see that what we do matters —that it’s not too late, and we are making epic decisions now.”
Happy Reading!
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In Grafton, New York, early April means high mud season, but that didn’t stop volunteers from Mt. Holyoke College, Brooklyn, NY and beyond from putting on their muck boots to show up at Soul Fire Farm. For there was plenty to do (laying out tarps for weed protection, setting up irrigation, petting Abedul, the winsome cat) and plenty to learn, as the farm is a center for Afro-Indigenous farming practices and envisioning a racially-just food system. It was a special visit for me since this 80-acre community farm and education center is a mere 25 minutes from my home in southwestern Vermont. How many times have I driven down Route 22 thinking how this sparsely-populated land had such potential? With its commitment to providing for underserved communities, its abundant programming, and farmer/author Leah Penniman’s strong voice, Soul Fire Farm has put this quiet corner of Renssalaer County on the map.
Penniman’s first book, Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land, came out in 2018. This February she brought out Black Earth Wisdom: Soulful Conversations With Black Environmentalists. At once erudite and intimate, the book gathers the insights, experiences, and aspirations of Black environmental leaders. Here’s my exchange with Penniman about her timely and inspiring new book.
Image Credit: @Black.Earth.Wisdom
Judith D. Schwartz (JS): “Black Earth Wisdom” is an invitation to relate to the Earth in a more intimate, heart-centered way. How does this summons relate to the liberation of oppressed people?
Leah Penniman (LP): Non-kin thinking is what leads to both racialized oppression and earth ravaging. The severing of family and the relegating of others to “non person” makes possible the enactment of violence and oppression upon the other. Embedded in the theory of white people’s supremacy over other races is the theory of human supremacy over nature. This non-kin thinking is a uniquely Western invention, as described in 1846 by Senator Thomas Hart Benton, who asserted: “It would seem that the white race alone received the divine command, to subjue and replenish the earth; for it is the only race that has obeyed it—the only race that hunts out new and distant lands, and even a New World, to subdue and replenish…”
Image Credit: Soul Fire Farm
JS: Many who care deeply about the Earth feel they’re not “qualified” for environmental work, that their career path limits their ability to do more than, say, buy organic or engage in the occasional protest. Yet your book draws on stories from lawyers, scientists, activists, spiritual leaders, farmers, and artists in multiple genres. What does this say about the varied routes to ecological action?
LP: My framework on social and environmental change is based on this beautiful visual that my daughter created for the four wings of transformative social justice. Imagine a butterfly with four winglets. One of them is “Resist”, which reflects the boycotts and protests and strikes and walkouts resisting oppression. Another winglet is for “Reform”, which has to do with policy change and working within the system: schools, legislatures, the halls of Congress. Third is “Build”, which is about creating alternative institutions: co-ops, land trusts, farms, freedom schools. And the final wing is “Heal”. This refers to healing from the centuries of land-based trauma and oppression through ritual, ceremony, transformative justice, conflict resolution, art. A butterfly cannot fly without all four of its winglets. So is there a place to start in kindergarten, to teach children about gardening, about cooking, about the fellowship and camaraderie that comes with sitting around the table together and slowing down and appreciating aroma and culture, yes. And I also stand with the actions of the movement for Black lives. I stand with the actions of the farmers themselves, driving their tractors on to the mall in D.C. With the therapists so we’re helping people deal with their trauma so they don’t act it out on one another, right? With the legislators pushing for the Justice for Black Farmers Act, the Green New Deal. We need a multiplicity of strategies to make comprehensive social change.
Image Credit: Soul Fire Farm
JS: I like how everyone you interview shares childhood experiences that sparked a love of the natural world. Do you find that most people have some connection to nature in their past, and that it is grounding and healing to revive that? How can society create space for people to explore their connection to the Earth?
LP: Yes. We defend what we love. And we love what we know intimately. According to research by David Sobel, one of the greatest predictors of pro-environmental behavior is having intimate experiences in nature as children.
We know that green spaces heal. Studies show that hospitalized patients heal when they can see nature, and that people solve problems better after time in the forest. A nationwide study of over 900,000 people revealed that children who grew up with the lowest access to green space had a 55% higher risk of developing a psychiatric disorder. Seventy-four percent of communities of color in the contiguous United States live in nature-deprived areas, compared with just 23% of white communities. While Black households once owned 16 million acres of land—14% of the nation’s farms—a combination of USDA discrimination, lynching and land grabbing led to nearly complete land loss. Today, 98% of agricultural land is white-owned. The work of organizations like Outdoor Afro, GirlTrek, Latino Outdoors etc., is crucial to ensuring equitable access to wild spaces.
Image Credit: Soul Fire Farm
JS: Soul Fire Farm has become a beacon for people who may not have access to farmland yet want to learn about farming. Of course, one farm can only do so much. What kinds of opportunities would you like to see you there?
LP: We need a complete overhaul of the food system, which was built on stolen land and exploited labor. Here are the action steps that we have put together based on input from 100s of Black and Brown farmers.
JS: In 2018 you published Farming While Black, which brought to light the widespread disenfranchisement of Black farmers. I heard you give the annual E.F. Schumacher Lecture, which opened my eyes to this and to the appropriation of formerly enslaved people’s agricultural knowledge. Having helped break open the conversation, are you noticing changes?
LP: Yes, anecdotally, I see folks in mainstream spaces uplifting Black and Brown agricultural genius more often. For example, Booker T Whatley is getting wider credit for contributing to the concept of the CSA (community supported agriculture) and Dr. George Washington Carver for contributions to the modern organic movement.
Image Credit: Soul Fire Farm
JS: What does being an ally look like in the regenerative movement today?
LP: We can deepen our own practice of earth-listening by learning how to read the earth once again, starting with the names of our beyond-human kin. Moving on to tree rings, weather patterns, soil structure and birdsong. We can also give resources and power to Black- and Indigenous-led ecological projects. Organizations like GirlTrek, Outdoor Afro, Taproot Earth, Urban Ocean Lab, Rise St. James, National Black Food and Justice Alliance, etc. On the systems front, we can support #LandBack, take a stand for Reparations and advocate for Rights of Nature Policy (e.g Justice for Black Farmers Act).
Get started on your regenerative journey using Soil Centric’s App
In addition to the groups Leah mentions, you'll find a plethora of opportunities, organizations and resources on Soil Centric’s App using search terms including BIPOC and Social Justice.
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Judith D. Schwartz is the author of three books on regeneration —The Reindeer Chronicles, Cows Save the Planet, and Water in Plain Sight — each of which has advanced the regenerative movement. She is a founding member of Soil Centric’s Advisory Board.]]>
Soil Centric (SC): We are so excited to learn about your family's path to regeneration! How about we start by learning how you first heard about regeneration. Was it a gradual awakening or did something just click?
Alexis Cohen (AC): Our path to regeneration was a slow burn through the generic sludge of collective denial followed by a monumental kapow — a startling reckoning.
For us, this is how it unfolded.
We were lucky to have been living in Marin County, California, surrounded by comrades who were riding waves, climbing mountains and digging their hands deep in the dirt. You know, life’s finer things. Many were still hellbent on reaching for and upholding the highest ideals from the Sixties and this gave us much light through the deceptive and pervasive groupthink happening on a broader scale in our country during the past decades.
Life went along swimmingly for decades — we thought we were doing enough: giving a manageable lump of our earnings to environmental groups, calling our congresspeople, helping create a farm-to-table garden and an educational farm. Flash forward to April 2020. The COVID pandemic was now igniting across the planet and within a few short months we also found ourselves fleeing from the crushing choke of wildfire smoke. We had to evacuate our temporary home on the coast three separate times during the megafires — carrying our mattresses, animals and most treasured possessions to our van in the opaqueness of night. We weren’t the only ones.
This was the point everything corroded around us.
Radical change found us.
We decided to uproot our lives on the West Coast — selling almost everything we owned — to pioneer our way across the country to start a regenerative farm in upstate New York alongside dear friends who make us feel really good on the inside.
SC: Was everyone in your family enthusiastic about making the big move to the Catskills?
AC: Not exactly.
In theory, yes.
Each, in our own way, has found a personal connection to environmental work. Gabe, as a longtime educator, was focused on deschooling the next generation so they could think outside of the box — literally — by teaching the hard subjects through real-life experiences well beyond the classroom walls. I spent my young teenage years on O’ahu, running around the island barefoot, swimming in secret coves, collecting red ginger buds to wash my hair in waterfalls and eating papaya and lilikoi foraged from neighbors’ yards. So, farmlife with its profound connection to nature seemed promising. Myles came along with the innate gifts of patience and loyalty — an animal whisperer of sorts. So, he was in. Aiden is very vital in his physicality — growing chemical-free, nutrient-dense foods was his siren call.
But life is never a straight line.
After spending one year in New York, Aiden was pulled back to California to be with his sweetheart and crew of good friends.
No one could blame him.
He flew the nest.
We miss him.
But his happiness is our happiness. He is living his adventure.
SC: The novelty and promise of farming can be super energizing but it must also be challenging (In the middle of a long winter perhaps?) What sustains your family and your regenerative vision?
AC: Rhythms support us.
We can’t overstate this.
Part of farming is surrendering to something much bigger than ourselves.
In that, we find seasonal change.
So, we lean into the sweetness of each season. In spring, it’s the awakening. In summer, it’s the juicy abundance. In fall, it’s the deepening. In winter, it’s the dreaming — our hopes for the new year.
We also create strong daily routines with both adequate activity and rest — which, in a way, comes naturally when you care for animals.
Paying attention to the flow of the day along with the lessons of the seasons — this is how we do it. Deep grooves help us create river banks for our energy.
SC: What have been the greatest rewards on your regenerative journey so far? What have been the greatest challenges?
AC: The greatest rewards on our regenerative journey have been the exhilaration and great privilege of working with the active ingredients of life. We are anti-austerity as a policy but we take this very seriously.
We see ourselves as stewards to something vastly miraculous — as members not center.
Each day brings challenges: arctic vortexes, shortages, infestations, stony fields, mold, rot.
Each day brings nearly unspeakable joys: snow-kissed baby pines, the whip of a sunset sky, sunshine as free alchemy.
Life as we once knew it pales in comparison.
You are humbled.
You are exalted.
What is dependable is the moment you decide to step into it you can be assured it will bring you to your knees.
SC: Knowing what you know now, what advice would you have given to yourself starting out? What advice would you give to other families who are concerned about climate and want to help create the conditions for our Earth to regenerate?
AC: Advice to our younger selves:
Listen.
Trust your instincts.
Stick with your people.
Ride the change.
Feel the abundance.
Advice to others who are concerned:
Refuse to sand off the edges of reality.
Listen to your fear, sadness and anger — they are trusted messengers.
Rail against and confound staid sensibilities.
Believe in the elevating power of friendship.
Get ready for the ride of your life.
You will not be alone.
To follow the Cohen Family on their regenerative journey, support their farm and see what resources inspire them go to Tomorrow is a Place.
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The morning of September 9th, 2020, like everyone else in San Francisco, I woke up to a sky so deeply orange it seemed the sun hadn’t yet risen. I was used to judging the air quality based on how hazy or how golden the light outside was, but I was not used to feeling my stomach drop when I looked out the window.
Kyle Lawson, San Francisco
That morning, I let grief wash over me. I sat at my kitchen table with the lights on at 9am, and wrote poems about carrying the weight of that feeling. I spent time up on Bernal Hill with a former elementary school student of mine who seemed shockingly unphased by the whole ordeal. I looked out over the city cloaked in rusty haze and thought to myself, “What kind of world is he growing up in?”
A world where fires and smoky skies are seen as an imminent hazard, especially in the Bay Area. By the end of that year, wildfires across California had ravaged more than 4 million acres of scrubby forests, golden hills, and of course, land upon which people had made their homes.
That day left me worried and heartbroken and scared about the future. It reawakened my fear about climate change, about all the people I love, and the fear that there just isn’t enough time to stop the crescendo of natural disasters that seems to be getting more devastating each year.
But this story of fire isn’t the only one. Yes, fire can be relentlessly hungry and destructive. But it can also be a life force. It can be the spark (literally) that helps the lodgepole pine spread its seeds, the serotinous cones opening after a fire has come through and melted its resinous protective layer. Fire can be ceremonious, as in the work of Lead to Life where it’s used to transform guns into shovels, to be used to plant trees. And fire can be used to care for the forest, with prescribed cultural burns, as indigenous tribes in Northern California have been doing for thousands of years.
Every fall for the past three years, I’ve talked with high school students about these different stories of fire. In the BEETs teen internship program at CommunityGrows, I worked with youth to uncover the ways that the sacredness of fire has been lost through colonization, white supremacy, and forest management practices that are out of sync with the needs of the land.
Evan McEldowney, Sunrise Movement
After the election of 2016 I promised myself I wouldn’t let the 2020 election slip through my fingers as that one had. The 2016 election devastated me as a queer and trans person, as an aspiring anti-racist, and as someone that cares deeply about the natural world. I joined the Sunrise Movement, and I began organizing for climate justice with other young folks. I brought that organizing lens to my work with the BEETs, and over the years, my students and I discussed how each of us can use our unique gifts to work towards a more environmentally just future for everyone. We made space for feelings, for asking questions, exploring ideas, and for seeing multiple truths, like we did in our conversations about fire in California.
The Nature Conservancy, Kiliii Yuyan
As in the practices of the North Fork Mono, cultural burns have been implemented as a way to rejuvenate the soil as well as remove ground cover that would otherwise catch in the event of a wildfire breaking out. Unfortunately due to a lack of understanding about how to tend to fire, settlers banned prescribed burns, and the US federal fire policy for most of the 20th century prevented tribes including the Yurok, Hoopa, and Karuk from continuing with their ages-old controlled, deliberate burning practices. Only in the past few years have there been budding opportunities for partnerships between agencies like CAL FIRE (California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection) and the YurokTribe Wildland Fire Department, to legally resume that reciprocal relationship between humans and an earth tended by fire.
During our month of programming focusing on Local History and Indigenous Wisdom, BEETs interns were especially interested in the practice of prescribed burning. Some youth chose to dive deeper into the practices during their self-selected facilitation the following spring, and others recalled the topic during their end of year review.
From October to May, teen interns learn about basic gardening and maintenance practices, as well as spend time in the classroom exploring themes like Climate Justice, Activism, Identity, & Movements, and Environment in Government. In the spring, around the time we hold a graduation ceremony for all students who have completed the program, we ask them to participate in exit interviews. One of the questions I ask is “What’s something that you learned during BEETs?” Last spring, one student finishing his freshman year of high school said “That you can help nature with fire-controlled fires! That was astonishing to me. Really burn things on purpose?”
August Freas, Koshland Garden
This idea of prescribed burns was clearly memorable for students, and facilitated a big shift in their thinking. We learned about fire in November, and six months later, this student pointed to that knowledge as a major “aha” moment for him. Not only did this encourage me to think more deeply about incorporating Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) into my teaching, it also made me think about all the ways the narrative about nature gets skewed in a way that centers negative impact, and only tells part of the story. Oftentimes this is a human-centered narrative, that focuses on how we’ve done wrong by the earth, and how it has responded reciprocally, in magnitudes more destructive than we could have imagined. And yet reciprocity also looks so many different, beautiful ways.
As we have discussed with the youth interns what it means to be a guest on this land, they have also been invited to think about their place in the world, and about their purpose. They have yet to choose what kind of career they want to pursue, how they want to spend their time after high school. They are both shaping and being shaped by these conversations, with alumni often contacting me after they’ve left the program to inform me that they’re using what they learned in BEETs in their climate change writing class or their geology class in college. This program serves as a place for students to explore and wrestle with big problems in the world, and to be in community while they try to find what solutions are already out there, and what their role in that work might be.
What we pay attention to grows. As I move forward into this seemingly climate catastrophe-doomed and simultaneously abundant and community care-rich future, I want to think about how I can apply that idea with my students, and with my relationship with the land. What if I started paying attention to knowledge that extends beyond this generation? What if I started questioning stories that characterize disasters like fire in just one particular perspective? What if I started paying more attention to the way the earth responds to my touch? What if I listened to the teachings of indigenous wisdom, and held reciprocity at the center of my work and my life?
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August is an outdoor educator and current graduate student in the Berkeley School of Education. Their work centers around the intersections between climate justice, education, and anti-racism.
]]>By Caroline Santinelli
Imagine a farming and food system two decades from now when we have largely solved the climate crisis facing us today.
I recently had the opportunity to consider this future world. While exploring the Soil Centric App, I discovered Terra.do Climate Farm School—a 4-week hybrid online/on farm course designed by Dr. Laney Siegner, where eight other students and I had the opportunity to explore the science, business, and anthropological angles of regenerative agriculture and agroecology.
Empowered with two-weeks of asynchronous online classes, we were asked to respond to the prompt that begins this post—our first (and only) pre-farm homework assignment. “Imagine…” it instructed, and so, we limned regenerative agroecological worlds into being.
Imagine you belong to a CSA for shellfish—a protein that regenerates pockets of ocean water through filtering out excess nitrogen, algae, and other microorganisms. Imagine you elected a local land manager to public office, and voted for policies replete with developing wildlife corridors for migrating grazing mammals and reestablishing perennial grasses. Imagine private businesses utilized their capacity for efficiency to bring clean energy to all transportation and local green houses. Imagine you live in a cultural moment where the rhetoric of an “Internet of Things” comes second to that of an Ecosystem of Things—a biologically rich web of data exchange, mutualism, and interconnectivity that existed long before machine learning and the world wide web.
Don’t get me wrong, this is not an atavistic future composed of luddites. It is a future where human beings have recognized that they are part of, not apart from, our ecosystem. One where technology enhances the ecological solution rather than trying to engineer ways around it. And it is a future that asks us to reflect on a set of salient questions: will we design an agroecological system that cultivates a mutualistic relationship between the human species and our planet? Or will we continue to operate as the mega-parasite we’ve become?
Two-months ago, as I browsed through Soil Centric’s curated list of learning opportunities, I didn’t even know that “agroecology” was a term. As a former high school English teacher and lover of words, I find the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations definition the most thorough and compelling:
“Agroecology is a holistic and integrated approach that simultaneously applies ecological and social concepts and principles to the design and management of sustainable agriculture and food systems. It seeks to optimize the interactions between plants, animals, humans and the environment while also addressing the need for socially equitable food systems within which people can exercise choice over what they eat and how and where it is produced. Agroecology is concurrently a science, a set of practices and a social movement…”
In short, it is the practice of using an equity-focused, transdisciplinary, systems-thinking approach to cultivating crops while restoring, versus degrading, the planet’s ecosystem.
As we entered our third week of the Climate Farm School, imaginations now alight with possibilities, we gathered at Green Valley Farm and Mill in Sebastopol, California to explore the realities of regenerative farming in-person. The experience was electric! Through Soil Health Classes with local organizations like Point Blue Conservation and experts such as Daphne Miller, we studied the vast web of microbiology below our feet. On neighboring farms such as Singing Frogs, we sunk our hands into steaming compost, tucking delicate lettuce plants in between a row of baby brussels sprouts as we learned about the benefits of intercropping. And back at “home”, we walked the grazing fields with our host and Green Valley Farm’s Land Manager Aubrie Maze, who captured us with her passion and curiosity about everything from hedgerows to milking cows.
As the afternoon sun brought in midday heat, we convened in the barn for discussions, guided by our instructor Ryan Peterson, to unpack the events of the morning, each of us stunned by the depth and breadth of the farmers’ knowledge. The farmers we met were experts, it seemed, in not only ecology, crops and best-practices, but also in soil chemistry, microbiology, natural history, local and national politics, business and economics. A farmer’s repertoire could fill a library.
In the evenings, despite having pre-assigned days, we jockeyed for a chance to prepare dinner for the group alongside the visiting cooks. The kitchen was where food transitioned from commodity to community. We chopped cucumbers. Dipped squash blossoms in batter. Cut microscopic cilantro flowers off equally delicate stalks.
One afternoon, I was mixing two salad dressings under the tutelage of Gary Podesto, a longtime restaurant cook at Chez Panisse.
“Add everything to the vinegar,” he kindly instructed. Feeling like a kid discovering meal prep for the first time, despite cooking for myself for nearly a decade, I asked the enduring kid question: “why?”
“Oil is a fat,” Gary responded with the same teacherly generosity, despite the fact that he was managing meal prep for a multi-course, 30-person dinner—a celebratory staple of Climate Farm School at the end of the on-farm week. “The salt and other flavors you’re adding right now aren’t soluble in fats, so it's best to add them first and add the oil at the end. You’ll have a more flavorful dressing.”
“Is your background in chemistry?” I asked, measuring some lemon zest for one of the dressings.
“I studied English Literature in college,” Gary told me. This, of course, made me smile.
At dinner that night, the final course set before us, Gary came out to explain the dish—a Candy Cap Mushroom Shortcake with summer berries and Frog Hollow Farm O’Henry Peaches. As he spoke about joining his friend to harvest the Candy Cap Mushrooms—which taste shockingly like maple syrup—and taught us about the nutrients and regenerative properties of fungal systems, I thought back to the lessons of that week. Like the farmers, chefs like Gary know the food system with an intimacy and depth that feels so central to being human, and yet, is far from being common knowledge. These food system professionals possess the type of transdisciplinary thinking that will empower us to design an agroecological system that sees humans as a crucial part of our Ecosystem of Things. We have the knowledge, but without the economic and political pressure to employ that knowledge, it will continue to be siloed on farms and in kitchens. Rewriting systems is hard work, but the first step is to have the capacity to imagine a new one. I still have a lot to learn. But after the Climate Farm School, I know enough to imagine that a regenerative agroecological future is possible. The next step on my path? Keep learning and start building.
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By Caroline Santinelli
Skier, yes. Climber, definitely. Sailor, absolutely. But farmer? That was a surprise to Sean Willerford, who in 2018 left the world of corporate tech start-ups to join his partner Annie Hopper as a full-time farmer on the shores of Lake Champlain in Panton, Vermont.
I met Sean and Annie while attending Middlebury College, where Sean studied International Politics and Economics and Annie studied Environmental Science and Biology. Living together in the outdoor interest house, we spent classes, evenings, and weekends exploring the beauty of the natural world around us. In these early years, Sean and Annie’s relationship to the land was primarily recreational and academic—charting Lake Champlain’s gentle waters by sail boat or studying the local bird population in a conservation biology lab. Through these adventures, they fell in love—not only with one another, but also with the rolling Green Mountains and vast, grassy valleys of Vermont. I was therefore unsurprised when, a year after graduating, Annie and Sean packed up their belongings from the little rental house they shared with friends in Washington DC and beelined it back to the Champlain Valley.
Returning to the place that felt like home, the two began a project that, six years later, has transformed into Scuttleship Farm—a livestock farm built on the principles of regenerative agriculture, which produces food while capturing carbon, improving water filtration, and increasing biodiversity.
Most people born outside of the traditions of farming are mystified by how to begin on a path in agriculture, particularly without any formal training. So I recently called up Sean (Annie was out moving the chickens) to discover more about their path to regenerative agriculture and to learn his perspective on how more young people can find their footing as farmers.
Caroline Santinelli (CS): You began Scuttleship Farm shortly after leaving Washington DC in 2016, but when did the vision to start the farm come into being?
Sean: It was all Annie’s doing, really. She finished up her internship at Fish and Wildlife, and decided that D.C. wasn’t for her. Her parents had some land up here [in Vermont]. So, she decided to come up here and go to farm school at UVM and get some sheep and try it. Her program was a certificate program in sustainable farming, which focused on regenerative farming practices. I always just knew it as the UVM farm school. Now, we have a regenerative grazing farm. All grass—grass fed cattle and sheep.
CS: I remember in my environmental studies courses with Annie at Middlebury, we visited a lot of farms in the Champlain Valley area. I don’t think many of those farms were focused on regenerative practices. What made you both want to incorporate regenerative farming despite that not being the norm in an area with deep agricultural roots?
Sean: Yeah, I mean, it was there. It was there from the beginning. That was part of the original vision. Looking around the landscape in Vermont and seeing how dominant farming is, especially down here in the valleys—mostly by just industrial dairy— we realized more and more how destructive that was to the landscape. Then, Annie got exposed to a lot of ideas about regeneration that built on that original vision at the farm school. That, and we connected with the grazing community that was already here, and we learned from them. She started with five sheep. Now, six years later, there are about 100 ewes and 160-170 lambs.
CS: Wow! I remember coming up to stay with you guys in the summer of 2016. By then you had those five sheep, and I think you had some chickens. I remember helping you build a small garden and paint a fence. Will you tell me what it looks like now? How has it grown?
Sean: Oh yeah, a lot has changed. The fields around here look great now. Very, very healthy— lots of new species. We built a barn. But the bigger thing is that by BJs Farm Store—most of the way into Vergennes, right where Basin Harbor Road shoots off—there's a farm there, and we bought that. We spent a few years renovating it, and set it up for sheep—put it in a new woodshed barnyard, fixed up the barn, and rejuvenated some old cornfields, turning them into pasture. So we've been grazing there, and then we also picked up a contract with Maple Wind Farm who are a grazing farm up in Richmond, Vermont. They have a small USDA chicken processing unit, and we have a contract to raise for that. So when you were here, we were doing a chicken house with a few chickens, moving it around the yard. We’re still doing that, but now it's 1000 chickens at a time and two houses, and we’re dragging them [the houses] across the pasture with the tractor every day.
CS: Oh my gosh, you have 1000 chickens now!
Sean: At any one time, yep. But you know, it's like a seven or eight week product. So we only do that in summer.
CS: Okay, so you have sheep. You have chickens. Do you also grow produce and do any other livestock?
Sean: No, no. We have a small garden for us, but no plant farming unless you count grass, which we use to raise the animals.
CS: How many species of grass do you think are now there after your efforts?
Sean: Oh god, I haven't counted. I mean definitely double digits. But, I couldn't tell you if it was 15 or 40. The different legumes coming in, the amount of batch that's volunteering in there [, and the other forb plants [a flowering herbaceous plant species] growing—the diversity of the land is just incredible. It really was a monoculture before. You know, it would look beautiful when you stood and looked out across the field. But then if you look down, it was just bare ground and some grass sticking up.
Seeing it evolve over time from tons of bare ground and one species of grass to this beautiful polyculture—more bugs, more birds, more plants. So much has come to life in the few years we've been doing this.
CS: That’s incredible to hear. And, you didn’t start as a full-time farmer. Can you tell me about your journey to Scuttleship, and what made you decide to join Annie in this endeavor?
Sean: Well I moved up here [to Vermont] with Annie, but I was working remotely for Spark Fund, which is a fintech, climate-focused startup in DC. Then I was laid off from that, and I was starting to look for other jobs. One day Annie asked me, “Hey, do you want to come work on this farm with me and see if we can make a go of it?” So I said, “sure.” I had never seen myself farming, but at that point I'd been helping out with it and had started to learn about the practices, especially the importance of working with the natural cycles and ecosystems. I was really kind of geeking out on it. So it was pretty natural to say, “sure, I'll just dive in.”
CS: Do you feel like some of the skills that you acquired prior to diving into farming helped you build Scuttleship?
Sean: Oh, absolutely. I think the only reason we've gotten as far as we have is because we're able to work smarter, not harder, and see all the little efficiencies we can add. The way we do fencing or the way we're moving the animals across the land lets us be so much more flexible than your traditional grazing practices. I think it was just being flexible and good at solving problems, which was encouraged in the education and jobs we had before this. We’re really open to experimenting and learning. Figuring stuff out on the fly, despite not having any training in it, can enable you to be adaptable. You know—look stuff up, learn stuff wherever you can, build a network, and find people you can talk to about it. You’ll learn fairly quickly.
CS: It sounds like curiosity and a willingness to do the work are key ingredients in your farming practice. Do you have any other advice for somebody who's aspiring to start a regenerative farm or interested in transitioning their farm, but wasn’t born into agriculture like you and Annie?
Sean: Read. Read and watch YouTube videos and learn. Just learn as much as you can because there's so much knowledge out there. You don't have to figure it out yourself. The knowledge is out there. You just gotta put it all together and apply it to your context. So seek out the resources, meet people, find a network, and use it.
I guess the one other piece of advice I would add, specifically people who are interested in grazing, is that there is so much land out there. Often, you can get someone to let you use it for free or not very much money, you don’t need to own it. Especially in Vermont, people have big meadows, and they pay someone to come mow it. But they also love seeing animals out on the landscape, which will “mow” and tend to the land in healthier and climate-friendly ways. You don't need to buy land. All you need are some animals and some good electric fence, and you’re in business. And, maybe a trailer.
By Judith D. Schwartz
If you dig deep and keep peeling the onion, artists and freelance writers are the leaders in society—the people who start to get new ideas out. This quote by Allan Savory, the wildlife biologist from Zimbabwe who developed Holistic Management, keeps Houston-based artist Cindee Klement motivated and trains her vision on regeneration: on illuminating the world she would like to see. Cindee is not merely inspired by nature’s regenerative processes: she brings them into her work, depicting the dynamism of plants, soil, and insects and conveying what’s possible. I encountered Cindee’s work through her son and daughter-in-law, Griffin and Alex Groome Klement [Note: Alex, now with nRhythm, was featured in the Unconventional Paths podcast]. (Specifically, while on a Zoom with Alex, I noticed Cindee’s drawing of a cow in the background!) Her work appears in many collections, and Houston’s mayor declared last August 24 “Cindee Klement Day” to honor her contribution to the city. I recently talked with Cindee about her pathway to art and activism, how to tell a soil story, and the regenerative potential of urban landscapes.
JDS: You’ve only regarded yourself a visual artist within the last decade. Can you describe an early piece that’s significant to you?
Cindee: My first sculpture was a bronze hat. I grew up very isolated on a cotton farm in Dell City, Texas, south of where history defines the Dustbowl. My mother told me that my parents once came home to two feet of dirt blown into the house. Also that an old rancher said he remembered when that part of the country was covered in grasses as high as a horse’s belly. My grandfather always had a Stetson Open Road silverbelly hat. Out there nothing stops the wind. If it blew off it was never coming back. In 2017 I visited our old farm and saw the toll of eighty years of erosion on the landscape. This was man-made, not “natural” as I had thought. Recognizing that was an “aha” moment for me.
I’ve casted six hats, corresponding to the six tenets of regenerative agriculture: eliminating tillage; maximizing biodiversity; keeping soil covered; maintaining living roots year-round; integrating livestock; managing holistically. I call the project “Gust”, to note how everything can go up in a gust of wind. However, in art and life, I try to turn problems into solutions. The memory of a hat caught in a gust and watching it tumble across the desert is depressing but also visually beautiful: I was captivated by the shapes as the hat twisted in the wind, slammed against the ground, and then was sucked back into the sky until it disappeared into the beige nothingness. This image of desertification, symbolized by tumbling hats, needn’t be the end of the story. Humans have the ability and knowledge to change the narrative and reverse the ecological path we’re on.
JDS: Hurricane Harvey was devastating to Houston. How did this affect your work?
Cindee: I was lucky. The water came halfway up our yard but the street didn’t flood, likely because a huge watermain was replaced a few years back. For one or two years I worked on monoprints of “Harvey heroes”, visual stories of people taking care of others, driving trucks through the water to pull people out: racial, political, gender, religious tensions were washed away. That was the silver lining of Hurricane Harvey, what raised our Texas spirit above the flood line, a story that needs to be told and told and told. I was using a technique that evokes water, thinking about water all the time, and I listened again to one of Allan Savory’s talks: he said something about a characteristic of deserts, how water runs across the land and doesn’t soak in. Coming from a farm near El Paso, I knew what that looked like. I thought, wow—Houston is a coastal prairie, but it acts like the desert. We’re living in place that should be soaking up mega amounts of rainwater. I started imagining what this landscape could be.
JDS: You’ve recently focused on insects, which are basic to the food chain and yet are under stress. How did this come about?
Cindee: In 2017 the first bee, the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee, went on the Endangered Species List. I was struck by the fact that this creature, the bee, is so crucial to our existence that we use it to talk about fertility and even sexuality—“the birds and the bees”—and we don’t know the first thing about it. I became hyperfocused on studying bees and how they are harmed by pesticides. I binge-watched bee movies one 4th of July. My children bought me a “Bee School” for my birthday. For the series I mix water and ink with something that repels water, which highlights individual particles and creates a synergistic, “buzzy” effect. I decided to call it “Rumblings”, one of nature’s ways to alert living creatures to their environment, to make us aware of what we’re losing.
JDS: At some point you became enamored of soil, and the role of native bison in creating healthy soil. Tell us about The Soul of Humus.
This is a sculpture of a male bison, intended to be exhibited in a grain silo, itself a relic of industrial agriculture. In the hide of the sculpture is the narrative of soil health. The armature is made from welded steel, covered in stainless-steel lath. The next layer is native clay soil and the coat is locally-sourced grasses and sedges, seeds and pods. While working on it I got a puncture wound that required three surgical cleanings. Griffin came to my aid and in one day we added 800 pounds of indigenous soil.
The bison is 112 inches long, with its head down as if to graze. Bison once numbered 30 million across our prairies, sustaining topsoil and stimulating photosynthesis: massive roving composters, harnessing carbon from the air and returning it as sugars to feed the dynamic root microbiomes below the earth’s skin. Bird and butterfly habitat were abundant when the bison roamed. I wanted to tell the story of the relationship between grazing herds, the living soil, and ways to reimagine urban and agricultural landscapes.
JDS: Far from the hanging-on-a-museum-wall kind of art, yours is anything but static. What is your “living art” project in downtown Houston?
Cindee: I’ve long been interested in how art can incorporate time and movement. With “Symbiosis”, at the Lawndale Art Center, I’m stretching my practice by reimagining urban landscaping in a way that restores an ecological balance. The Center invited me to install an environmental sculpture in their sculpture garden. The typical manicured garden requires weed-killing chemicals and gas-powered mowers. This multi-year project values all living creatures as participants in the creative process. It is designed to build the food chain, not destroy it. It is a lot of hard work, but amazing to see things come back so quickly. When I began last year I dug up one cubic foot of soil, spread it out, and saw not one bug. I did the first plantings in April and then in October I saw a tree frog. It went from completely sterile soil to supporting amphibians in less than a year. I had never seen a tree frog in Houston before. Tree frog eggs look like beautiful underwater pearls.
JDS: Many assume regenerative solutions only take place on farms, ranches and natural areas. What opportunities do you see in a city like Houston?
Cindee: Houston is important ecologically in many ways. First, the landscape. Our growing season is 12 months a year. It’s never dormant: something is always blooming. Also, we’re in the middle of two migratory pathways for birds. The city is 600-square miles of what was once coastal prairie, a highly diverse ecosystem of which less than one percent remains. In my art I focus on what was here and what could be here if we choose to make it so. Then there’s the cultural side. Houston has a mix of people from all over the world and creative blends of cuisine. We have a thriving music industry and the largest conglomeration of art studios in one place. If good thing happen here the story can spread to many places.
I have read that our cities are fast-forwarding evolution. If this is true, integrating holistic, regenerative biological systems into urban landscapes will fast-forward ecological recovery. Right now every school, restaurant, and business spends something like $4 to $10 per square foot on annual landscaping that doesn’t do anything for the environment. Think of the money and the water savings if we used perennials—particularly native plants that evolved to withstand droughts and floods. In a city, if we change our landscaping we can change the environment. With the Lawndale project, the Center’s leadership said to “propose the dream”. I saw the chance to show what a native landscape would look like at the scale of someone’s yard. The same way that I flipped the narrative of the hats, as a society we can flip the narrative of industrialization and start to “industrialize” ecological recovery in our cities.
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Judith D. Schwartz is the author of three books on regeneration —The Reindeer Chronicles, Cows Save the Planet, and Water in Plain Sight — each of which has advanced the regenerative movement. She is a founding member of Soil Centric’s Advisory Board.
Soil Centric was founded on the premise that everyone has a role to play in solving the climate crisis. By aggregating and curating opportunities, resources and examples of regeneration taking place around the world, we’re here to help you find your role! Our web-based app can help guide you on your regenerative journey.
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Soil Centric recently partnered with Regenerative Rising for the Women Leading Regeneration Summit, a remote conference attended by key decision makers, business owners, writers, farmers, stewards, and grassroots influencers focused on emphasizing women in the regenerative movement. During this three day summit, we showcased the most exciting features of the Soil Centric App. We have adapted our presentation to share some ideas for how to get the most out of our web app. So without further ado…
Follow along with these 4 pathways. Launch the app here: https://app.soilcentric.org/
Scroll through Fresh Opportunities on the Home Page. These are all the most current and upcoming opportunities listed on our database and are updated regularly! (I’m using the New Cowgirl Camp as my example)
Explore Organizations on the Search Page. Each Organization has its associated Opportunities and Resources listed on its Profile. (Example: White Oak Pastures)
Type the term “Class” in the Global Search Bar on the Search Page. If you are unsure what to search, all of our search terms are surfaced on the Search Page. (Example: The Capital Institute Course)
Type the term “Free” in the Global Search Bar on the Search Page. This will bring up any free course. (Example: Oregon State University Course)
Explore the Glossary of Regeneration to learn more about regenerative land management practices and the organizations putting them into practice. (For instance Term: Agroforestry and Organization: Propagate Ventures)
Explore Resources on the Search Page. Here you can find some incredible resources. Example the Tools category. (My personal favorite is the: Native Plant Finder)
Scroll through Guides on the Home Page or Search Page. These resource lists are curated by the folks well on their path to regeneration and the team at Soil Centric (Example: Kelsey Ducheneaux-Scott)
Type the term “Women Led” in the Global Search Bar on the Search Page. This will bring up those same guides but also other amazing resources and businesses created and led by women! (Example book: Healing Grounds)
Double tap the Location Button on the Map Page.
Filter by the term “Buy Regenerative” on the Map Page. (Example: Essex Farm CSA)
We hope that this helps shine a light on the various ways you might use our web app to find your own path to regeneration! If you have any questions or a story to tell, drop us a line here!
Help grow the regenerative community by sharing our app (app.soilcentric.org) with your friends and family!
]]>Decades of increasingly industrialized agriculture have brought the world to the brink of climate disaster. “To Which We Belong” follows a new generation of farmers and ranchers who seek to rebuild their businesses and our shared planet by embracing the interconnectedness of living things. We watched this movie on Earth Day and it show demonstrates how the healing of landscapes. Highly recommend if you are anxious about climate and biodiversity crisis.
As Soil Centric readers know from our recent Q & A with BCB, sheep can help regenerate the world’s drying, fire-prone landscapes. To learn about the history of wool in the Northeast and the renaissance it is enjoying, as in “climate beneficial” garments, listen to The Hidden Powers of a Sheep written by Judith D. Schwartz for Craftsmanship Quarterly. We really enjoyed listening to the new audio version narrated by Chris Egusa. (23 minutes)
In this timely new book, Liz Carlisle tells the stories of four powerful women who are reviving their ancestors' methods of growing food–and in so doing creating belonging, bolstering biodiversity hotspots, and repairing the natural carbon cycle. Carlisle, an assistant professor of agroecology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, believes regenerative agriculture is more than a toolkit for storing C02 in the ground. In its truest form it is a holistic approach that values diversity, among people and plants alike. Written for her students, who are driven to address racial justice and climate change, the book includes stunning linoleum print illustrations by Patricia Wakida. (177 pages)
Fungi communicate with thousands of species through complex networks above and within the soil. Are we humans among the species they’re trying to engage? If so, what are they trying to tell us?
In this video, our friends at 10th Floor Studio imagine a world where Reishi (Ganoderma Lucidum) mycelium have examined, processed, and transmitted their message by growing antennae through the recording on a lost cassette tape. Reishi are known to be decomposers, recycling nutrients from dead organisms for others to use. In the decomposition process of this obsolete artifact of human technology, 10th Floor explores the idea of the fungi being able to access and process the information embedded in the iron oxide coated tape wrapped around the spools.
This brings the creators to question: how are fungi responding to what we’ve left behind? What kind of legacy do we want to leave?
I learned about Evan Abramson and his company Landscape Interactions through the Permaculture Design Course (PDC) I took with Kay Cafasso of Sowing Solutions in Shelburne Falls, MA in 2020. I was struck by how many directions permaculture can take you, depending on how you “design” your life and goals: from broad categories like food production, natural building, and landscaping, to more targeted endeavors like fermentation and agroforestry. Evan, who took the PDC four years prior, chose to design landscapes and plan corridors for at-risk native pollinators—essentially creating a new specialized service. I wanted to bring his perspective on carving out a regenerative niche to the Soil Centric community.
Meanwhile, as I applied a permaculture lens to our property I saw our priority is enhancing biodiversity. With Evan we are organizing a pollination corridor among landowners in our community. When it comes to threatened pollinators, an island for them is fine, but an archipelago—a string of islands—is that much better!
Photo by Landscape Interactions
Judith D. Schwartz (JS): I was intrigued to hear you had been a filmmaker before you went into landscape design. How did that transition come about?
Evan Abramson (EA): At 23 I spent two years hitchhiking with a friend through Mexico, Central America, the Amazon and the Andes. This was in 2002 when only paramedics and doctors had cellphones, so we were really off-grid—I had just my notebook and camera. We traveled through a lot of indigenous communities, sleeping on people’s floors and relying on the good will of local community members. I had studied creative writing but at one point I put my notebook away and said, “I’m going to be a photographer.” Part of this was to put my focus not on the internal, but the external: accessing others’ experiences and dialoguing with people. This made me a keen observer of human culture and behavior, and kept me pushing the boundaries of my comfort zone and the risks I was willing to take.
For five years I was a documentary photographer based in La Paz, Bolivia, freelancing for publications like The New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and National Geographic Adventure. I returned to the US to reestablish myself in New York City, and it was a struggle. I hustled hard and wasn’t making much money. I started taking photos for nonprofits. There I started to see how climate change impacts like increased flooding and drought events were affecting communities, as well as the underbelly of financial aid, particularly in Haiti after the earthquake. I took an assignment in East Africa and stayed for a couple of months. Carmen, now my wife, helped me research how climate change was driving pastoralists into war over dwindling water resources. I lived among the semi-nomadic tribes of Kenya, Ethiopia, and Sudan, which led to a short film about these conflicts called When the Water Ends.
A few years and films later, we had two children and moved to rural New England. I wanted to be able to pass on skills that would be valuable to their lives in the Anthropocene. I felt filmmaking was esoteric, that I was making something that lives on a computer. Rather than telling the stories of people who were impacted by eco-collapse, I wanted to change things on the planet for the better. After the PDC I decided to be a landscape designer. I got a certificate in biodynamic gardening, worked on a biodynamic farm, and got an accelerated Masters degree in ecological design at the Conway School of Landscape Design. There we did real projects for real clients, alone and in small teams. My second project was a regional pollinator plan for the Town of Great Barrington, MA. That was my first exposure to pollinators. I quickly learned how severely in decline so many species are worldwide, how important they are to ecosystems everywhere, and what they need to survive. I carried that work with me when I left school, first to work as a regional land use planner in Franklin County, MA, and eventually to start my own business.
Photo by Landscape Interactions
JS: You found something you were passionate about—supporting native pollinators—and built a career around that. What advice do you have for those who long to devote their work lives to an ecological issue that might not reflect a well-trodden path?
EA: When I started, people said, “That’s very specific. Are you sure you’ll get enough work?” Intuitively I felt specialization was an asset, and that it would help me stay focused on my goals. You have to be a bit fearless to be an entrepreneur. You have to be okay not having a steady income stream. I had a burgeoning relationship with Robert Gegear, PhD, a pollination ecologist and Professor of Biology at UMass Dartmouth who’s doing cutting-edge research on the behavior of native pollinators. That made me confident. I knew I was building on something that had data behind it. I can’t say it was easy, but I began work on my first project within six months, a big project that was able to carry me through.
My advice is: if you feel strongly about something there’s probably a reason why. Ask, in your heart: Am I for this for selfish or egotistical reasons or for reasons beyond myself? If it’s the latter—to help the planet, other species, other people—go with it. More and more every day, people are seeing that ecological work is the work that needs to be done. And there’s more economic support for it as a result. The difficulty is how to model your goals into something that’s tangible and doable.
Photo by Landscape Interactions
JS: What was the biggest challenge in bringing a new service to the marketplace?
EA: I put a lot of time into setting up our website as an educational steppingstone to learning about our work, why it’s important, and what services we provide. People find me. I don’t have to hustle to find work, so I am able to focus more fully on design and project planning, as well as directing people to our free online resources. I have designs and plans available for download on our site, so that people can mimic the plant arrangements and management guidelines without having to hire us or pay us. I’m trying to encourage people to not hire me, but to DIY it as much as possible. We’re a small company, and I’m not ready to hire a full crew of people to create designs and plans without still being intimately involved.
Each year is bringing brand new projects and approaches. I’ve done a few town-wide plans and we now have a watershed-based project running through dozens of towns. The question that guides me is where can I have the biggest impact? Right now that means doing new types of designs for different types of landscapes, bigger projects in terms of acreage, and projects in different states or regions. Meanwhile we’re building a catalog of a “how-tos” for others to get access to for free, scale it out, and replicate.
Photo by Norm Levey
JS: Many people seeking to devote themselves to regeneration lament the lack of opportunities. What do you see evolving?
EA: It’s probably easier to get a job writing code at Meta, but you have to say to yourself: what will make me happier and able to sleep better at night? We all need to support each other to invest the time, energy, and resources required to make the earth better.
There are lots of opportunities for regeneration in the landscape world because most landscapes right now are not ecological. Every day people are paying others to mow and fertilize their lawns and trim their ornamental hedges. Educating clients as to the many benefits of stewarding their property ecologically and enhancing biodiversity can make a huge impact. Then you have all the stores selling the plants. Demand for true native plants, not cultivars of natives, and plants not treated with bee-killing pesticides like neonicotinoids, will drive better landscaping decisions.
Photo by Landscape Interactions
JS: You mentioned Landscape Interactions is seeking people trained in AutoCAD (a Computer-Assisted Design application) and GIS (Geographic Information System software). What skills are most in demand now, and what do you anticipate in coming years?
EA: We are always looking for talented designers and planners who understand the principles of ecological design and are skilled in those tools. We do also train people. Software skills can be learned without getting an advanced degree, though eventually you have to buy the software. With GIS you can learn a lot online on your own. People are doing good work without an advanced degree, or not even going to college. Hands-on skills are important too: working on farms, in landscaping, conservation, trail-building, invasive species removal. Down the line you can always earn a degree and learn the software. If you can use machinery, that’s also helpful. In today’s design world, so much is done on the computer. A nice balance between digital software skills and understanding the landscape—that’s where it’s at. If you’ve worked on a farm or done trail-building and also have software skills, you are a valuable employee. If you’ve done scientific field research, that’s very marketable in conservation work. If you can identify native plants and know their habitats and can also do mapping, that’s a great combination of skills.
Photo by Tom Halliwell
JS: Do you recommend taking a Permaculture Design Course as a way of opening doors?
EA: The PDC first exposed me to landscape design, because doing a design is required for the certificate. The PDC is a low-hanging fruit. It costs much less than graduate school, and it gives you a good grounding in basic ecological processes. Permaculture can play an important role in urban and suburban areas, since we’ve already altered the landscape so much. But I’m concerned with permaculture’s tendency to recommend certain plant species, all the time, over and over again—the “Permaculture All-Stars” as some call them. In most cases these plants are exotic to the landscape, with no evolutionary relationship to the variety of animals (including insects) that inhabit it. They certainly don’t support species at risk. We should not put the same list of plants on every site. We as humans do need food, but so do moths and bees. We also know we need insects in order to survive, and not just species but complex relationships among species that run throughout the food web, all the way up to top predators including humans.
Systems thinking informs my work, but so does hitchhiking and documentary photography. That taught me to observe, how to ask the right questions, and determine somewhat quickly what a given situation requires. I encourage people not to be afraid of having different “micro-careers” at different times. And if you have a diversity of experience, landscape design is a great place to bring that all together.
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Judith D. Schwartz is the author of three books on regeneration —The Reindeer Chronicles, Cows Save the Planet, and Water in Plain Sight — each of which has advanced the regenerative movement. She is a founding member of Soil Centric’s Advisory Board.
Soil Centric was founded on the premise that everyone has a role to play in solving the climate crisis. By aggregating and curating opportunities, resources and examples of regeneration taking place around the world, we’re here to help you find your role! Our web-based app can help guide you on your regenerative journey.
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Brittany Cole Bush (BCB) is a modern-day shepherdess and the founder of Shepherdess Land and Livestock, a targeted grazing business based in Ojai, California providing climate beneficial vegetation management services. Their goats and sheep reduce fuel load for wildfires, enhance native habitat by eating invasive species, and promote soil health and watershed function.
Soil Centric (SC): Let me start off by saying I'm so proud of you for starting a targeted grazing business! Can you explain to our readers how good grazing practices reduce the dangers posed by wildfire?
BCB: Diana, it’s so exciting to be sharing this chapter of my journey as a next-generation agrarian now with my own grazing business! I’m grateful for friends and mentors like you who cheerlead folks like me and believe that it’s absolutely essential to have this support while we forge new pathways to this meaningful work.
To answer your question: we’ve been lacking the on-the-ground management needed to adapt to the realities of a changing climate. Our landscapes are in dire need of tending and the managed grazing of small and large ruminants is growing in response to this need.
Our animals are “biological masticators” that essentially chew up vegetation that has built up over time from lack of animal impact, or management, in areas deemed critical to fire prevention. Grazing animals are a tremendous alternative to fossil fuel dependent machinery that spews carbon into the atmosphere at alarming rates. Instead of throwing the C02 upwards the animals help bring it back down to the Earth and into the soil with the help of their plant pals and the animal’s basic biological activities of dunging and urinating. It’s quite a match made in heaven when we are looking to find alternative solutions to the current norm! Along with machinery, the use of chemicals has been prevalent in the management of fire hazardous vegetation. Although an often temporary solution, chemicals do not solve the underlying problem of an ecology out of balance.
A healthy ecology is one that has functioning biological processes and symbiotic relationships to the animals that rely on productive cycles and feedback loops in nature. As land stewards we can usher in practices that help restore the momentum of the Earth’s powerful ability to recover and adapt but it takes proactive tending to do so. In short, well-managed grazing can support the transition back to a healthy, functioning ecology that is fire safe and fire ready.
SC: Tell us about the mini transhumance adventure you and your team embarked upon last November.
BCB: I have to say that ending the first season of the first year in business with a three-day trek on foot with a team of shepherds, two horses, herding dogs, and yes, my very own parents was one of the most incredible experiences in my life. When I recognized that the last areas that we were contracted to target-graze was connected to our winter grounds through a large network of canyons and old ranch trails and in the management of the client, I thought to myself that it would be possible to herd the animals on foot rather than loading them up in a trailer. There are many reasons why herding the 16 miles on foot was my preferred choice to ending the season and, although not the quickest way to move the herd of 500, it was an incredible experience for the team, reinforcing the culture we are co-creating while celebrating the work of land and livestock grazing for good. It was the grand finale to experience real tried-and-true shepherding outside the containment of fences, working with our dogs and one another in the backcountry of the most populated counties in California. My team experienced this timeless activity of moving animals in a present-day context less than an hour and a half (depending on LA traffic!) to the heart of Los Angeles. It was something that we were awestruck by and was evident in our glances at one another, with jaws dropped, saying, “I know! Right?!”
To be caring for the animals while experiencing their interaction with the environs that I grew up in, the familiar smells, the colors, the sounds, affirmed that I am doing the work that I am called to do. Transhumance uses all of the skills I’ve built working throughout California, while grounding the knowledge I’d gained by studying pastoralism and the art and science of shepherding in Spain and France.
Transhumance is a practice, a traditional way of life recognizing the relationship between an animal's life cycle with the seasonal shifts on the landscape. Pastoral stewards of the land and domestic grazers work to mimic the rhythms of wild grazing herds. Those in the Northern Hemisphere, for instance, traverse up into high grounds for spring and summer to graze the bounty of growth after seasonal rains and then seasonally migrate back down to valleys and flats to have their offspring.
Grazing animals have played a central role in the evolution of so many landscapes around the world. Historically, wild herds grazed many continents, informed by mass movements of “predator pressure.” This pressure created the perfect scenario where the animals in high density cause high impact on the vegetation and the Earth below them, but for short periods of time. This recovery period allows grasses, forbs, shrubs, and trees to regrow often with vigor, stimulating the growth of deeper root systems that store carbon at depth.
SC: Do you have plans to do it again in 2022?
BCB: Absolutely. Simply for camaraderie and celebration of a season well worked with the team of shepherds the trek is well worth it. Meaningful work must include a culture of celebration of the way of life we are dedicated to and that feeds us, not just monetarily (not much at this point!) but the nourishment this work provides for heart, mind, body and soul. I believe that it’s truly the spirit of the work that gets us through the heat, the long days of toil, never truly clocking out, the pain of loss and suffering of the animals that we cannot save despite our enduring efforts.
SC: Speaking of meaningful work, there's a lot of action at the state level on climate here in California right now. In fact, Governor Newsom's 2022-23 budget includes money for the University of California for "workforce development for climate-focused careers." What role do you think college students can play on working landscapes?
BCB: I believe that investment in workforce development for climate-focused career development is absolutely necessary. And, I think that universities play an important role contributing to the research, access to expertise in various fields, and the system that supports higher education but I feel that true momentum will be built when more avenues for training and education are available to more people who don’t go the route of higher education. This means community colleges, trade schools, vocational training programs, certified apprenticeships, non-profit job placement and labor equity groups are also elevated and equipped to make training possible for a much broader range of society. Training for veterans, previously incarcerated, youth at risk, indigenous community, individuals in underserved communities who lack accessible pathways to break open cycles of oppression, all of these people need to be included in this growing “herd” of individuals who are making a living while making a difference. We need people from different backgrounds, education levels, folks from rural communities, the suburbs and cities to all have the opportunity to plug into a new vocational reality.
There also needs to be support for new businesses. In order for beginning farmers, ranchers, graziers, or land-base entrepreneurs to even get started there needs to be access to land and capital. The limiting factors I’ve struggled with tremendously are the realities of student debt, the cost of living, health care, and land access in a place where the value of land is so high that development will always win over small or mid-scale agriculture. My journey to starting this business has taken me over a decade as so many pieces needed to be created or acquired. Magic opportunities had to emerge and the timing had to be right personally for the leap I’ve made to have any chance of turning from a free fall into a soar. Of course I am not just acting alone but with a community of people who share my vision and values. Vision and values that will keep our heads and heart in the game.
SC: What advice do you have for young people who are concerned about the climate crisis, but don't know how to get started on their path to regeneration?
BCB: It’s our responsibility to build resilient systems of all kinds and we can do it wearing many different hats. If we are brittle as a society we will break. So how do we stretch our limiting beliefs to create the flexibility, the bravery, and the hope to adapt? I believe that it is through collaboration, collectivity and redefining community that really is “community” where we trust, serve, and feel safe to depend on one another, that stepping into the unknowns of change are possible.
In most industries I think there’s a way to find a career that in some way, big or small, can make an impact. Create your own true North, a compass of what you stand for. Mine is called my “holistic context”. Create your own “constellation of stars”: various people throughout time or present day who inspire you, have qualities that you aspire to, or have accomplished things that are super exciting to you. I have had a growing list of individuals who have impacted my life and career on my own pathway and their inspiration, collaboration, and belief in me and my pursuits have kept my light of hope alive many times.
SC: What is your biggest frustration / biggest joy with this profession?
BCB: My biggest career frustration has been the speed (or lack thereof) in which decision-makers, government, academic institutions, and industry have taken to look towards alternative solutions. It is disheartening to me that even with the privilege I have as a white educated woman who has built a career in the world of regeneration, it has been incredibly difficult to acquire the resources my new business has needed. This includes acquiring the capital to operate efficiently, effectively and safely while paying the people who are a part of my founding team enough to meet the local cost of living. I’ve been preparing for years and yet the pressures of access to capital, land tenure, student loan debt, health care, and ability to retire someday are realities that I don’t think will let up any time soon for me or most anyone who is bootstrapping a business like mine. I feel like I’m a poster child for the grazing movement and yet the path to even get to the starting line has tested every bit of me. I kind of feel that if I can’t do it, I don’t know how folks with less privilege, access, experience, or tenacity can forge a path as entrepreneurs in this work.
My biggest joy, on the other hand, is meeting and beating the limiting factors and challenges I’ve faced. Despite these challenges, I made the leap. I built the team. We grazed hundreds of acres as contracted land stewards with hundreds of animals together working to build a more fire safe and resilient community in the Ojai Valley. We have begun to create our own culture of being SoCal shepherds. We work hard. We care for one another, have pride in what we do, and are part of a regional guild of folks who are practitioners, entrepreneurs, educators, and the like who are running beside us with the shared mission of making our region a better place. All the while having a quality of life that is fulfilling, rewarding, full of friendship and camaraderie and it’s worth every square inch of sunburn, hours of thirst, chasing goats or guard dogs, or getting tangled up in electric fence netting.
SC: In closing, what's something you'd like the public to know about being a modern day Shepherdess?
BCB: As much as I love working with the animals on the land, the way I define my role as a modern-day shepherdess is actually shepherding people to discover their own pathways so they too can contribute to regeneration.
With Shepherdess I’m testing a model that has yet to be proven but I know through adapting, enduring, and navigating the challenges of starting a new business in a burgeoning industry in very strange times, with my comrades, almost anything is possible. I think the message is clear: stay optimistic, lean on those who are cheering you on and those more experienced, and know that if you want to live and work and play in a way that is rewarding and bigger than yourself, don’t quit trying.
Check out the following on Soil Centric’s App:
For targeted grazing businesses:
Shepherdess Land and Livestock - Preventing Fire with Four Legs
Cuyama Lamb - Growing Land, Lamb and Wool
Kaos Sheep Outfit - Eat Lamb. Drink Wine. Wear Wool
For Women by Women:
Attend New Cowgirl Camp 2022 or Fund a scholarship for someone else to:
(Goleta, CA March 21-25) (Cheney, WA June 20-24; August 22-26)
Read:
“Pastoral Song” by James Rebanks
Watch:
“Resilience in Practice” a video produced by Fibershed & Soil Centric
Buy:
regenerative clothing from Fibershed’s Producer Directory
For a complete listing of opportunities enter the search term “grazing”
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By Judith D. Schwartz
Paul Hawken is the kind of one-step-ahead thinker we need right now. With the 2017 best-selling book Drawdown, the noted environmentalist and his team brought the notion of returning excess carbon to natural sinks—soils, living plants, and marine systems—into the climate lexicon. His new book, Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in a Generation, is stunning in ambition and scope. Every bit as encyclopedic as Drawdown, this volume adds another dimension: how we relate to the natural world and to each other. Like those of us already committed to the Regeneration, Hawken sees that healing the planet entails Nature’s immense power of self-renewal. In my recent exchange with Hawken, he shares why this irrepressible life force is at the core of climate solutions. Note: Once you’re primed to start your own path to regeneration, check out the organizations, opportunities, and resources on SoilCentric.org as a guide.
Judith Schwartz: We live in an age of buzzwords, with the result that important concepts can be watered down until they’re meaningless. (Who pays attention to the word “natural” on a label anymore?) I was struck by your defining regeneration as the default mode of life. Why did you choose this description, and do you feel it can withstand attempts to co-opt the word?
Paul Hawken: Actually, in the first sentence of the new book I describe “regeneration” as “putting life at the center of every action and decision”. The word “natural” is an adjective. “Regeneration” is a noun. It is the name of a process that suffuses and defines all of life, constantly, unceasingly, and ubiquitously. I am not worried the word will be co-opted because it already has been by Cargill, Bayer, Corteva [formerly DowDupont], ADM [Archer Daniels Midland], Bunge, Danone, and more. The difference here is that one can readily distinguish what is regenerative from what is not, regardless of the word’s usurpation and corruption by industrial agriculture companies. They have latched onto “regeneration” as an agricultural technique to sequester carbon in the soil. Big Ag thinks it can promote chemicals like glyphosate and be regenerative. It is still the kill-more-life-to-get-more-life paradigm that has ruined our soils and planetary health. The goals and means of regenerative agriculture include soil health, water infiltration, pollinator diversity, erosion elimination, in-farm fertility, animal integration, agroforestry, nutrient density, and much more. Carbon sequestration is an outcome of regenerative agriculture: it is a measure, but not the goal as such. In the book, I apply the word regeneration to the whole of existence—not just agriculture—from oceans to neighborhoods, cities to cultures, forests to favelas.
JS: Your influential book Drawdown focused on strategies to reduce CO2. Regeneration brings in another dimension: our relationship with the earth, and, ultimately, with ourselves. What was your personal journey from Drawdown to Regeneration?
PH: The origin of Drawdown was the 3rd Assessment of the IPCC in 2001. At that time, I asked NGOs and universities involved with climate science why we were not naming the goal. “Fight”, “tackle”, “combat”, and “mitigate” are not goals. These are verbs—actions. I proposed using the word “drawdown”, a noun. In the context of climate, it means that point in time when greenhouse gases peak and begin to decrease on a year-to-year basis. The only goal that makes sense is to reverse global warming. The overwhelming focus of the IPCC was on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. I urged institutions to map, measure, and model existing solutions. I wanted to include solutions that bring carbon back home to earth because that is the only way to achieve drawdown. After 12 years of encouraging other institutions to conduct and publish the research, I decided to do it, and formed a small team that included Amanda Ravenhill, Chad Frischmann, and Crystal Chissell. While writing Drawdown I already knew I was going to create the sequel, Regeneration.
JS: The two books have similar formats, but a different feel. How would you characterize this?
PH: The difference between the two books is simple. Drawdown is mechanistic: map, measure, and model. Regeneration is systemic: connect, protect, and act. Drawdown is a what-could-be-done book. Regeneration is a how-to-get-it-done book. It leads to a website that is the world’s largest catalogue and network of climate solutions. Called Nexus, it spells out what everyone can do at all scales and levels of agency including how to find and implement solutions as well as how to connect with people and groups in your region and the world.
JS: A prominent theme in both books is the role of girls and women, notably the importance of girls’ education in boosting positive social and environmental outcomes. What is the story behind that?
PH: It is true we were the first to introduce to the climate world something that seems so obvious. With due respect to the IPCC and early solution providers like the Princeton Carbon Mitigation Initiative, their climate-solving proposals were missing a few things: Indigenous People, Agroforestry, Marine Protected Areas, Rewilding, Electrifying Everything, Regenerative Agriculture, Seaforestation, Plant-rich Diets, Degraded Land Restoration, and at least 40 other major initiatives, approaches, and practices. Notably, what was also omitted was an entire gender. With the exception of Eunice Newton Foote’s 1856 announcement of her discovery [that CO2 amplified solar heating], climate science has been dominated by men and male thinking. There has been a bias toward “fixing it”, as if there were an “it” somewhere to fix. This continues to characterize the dominant approaches to climate, as exemplified in Bill Gates’ work. Supporting the education of girls and young women was not our idea. It had roots in the work of Barbara Herz and Gene Sperling, and the efforts of Girls Rising. What we did was measure the impact in terms of emissions reductions that would occur due to changes in life trajectories of women whose lives were not pre-ordained by men, religion, cultural biases, or preclusion. It was dramatic. However, the one thing I regret about Drawdown was measuring the impact of Girls Education in terms of greenhouse gas reductions. Although the math may be approximately correct, we do not do this in Regeneration. We believe education is a basic human right. Using a CO2-based metric to measure the value of educating girls is a colonial mindset, no different from installing tree plantations in the Global South to offset greenhouse gas emissions in the North.
JS: Public discussions of climate solutions tend to favor technologies, as if people were passive spectators. In Regeneration, you call attention to the important work that needs to be done by people, from revegetating landscapes to building local food economies. While many, particularly young, people yearn to engage in this work, there are few paying jobs. Do you see this changing?
PH: I believe the climate movement will become the largest movement in the world due to one factor—the weather. No one is coming to save us. The only way to successfully reverse climate change is to regenerate life on earth. Does the capitalist/corporate/banking system that is extracting all value from the earth, seas, forests, and cultures see that? No. It is caught up in the system of degenerating life in order to create more capital: money. That said, the penny will drop—is dropping. We can see the end of the degenerative road we’re on. It does not go much further.
What you see around the world is young people taking this into their own hands and doing whatever they can, wherever they can, by whatever means they can to mobilize and regenerate life on earth. We can see these pioneers as another type of “essential worker” the world needs, and that they are rehearsing the future. This is regeneration. This is a burgeoning movement. It is only a matter of time before the world pivots to regeneration because there is no other way to secure our future. It is excruciatingly painful to see that the US spent $2.6 trillion on its misguided adventure in Afghanistan, with hundreds of thousands of deaths, a miserable ending, and over half of that money being spent on weapons. We are being home-schooled by the planet. The lesson plan is to align our activity with life itself, with the principles and miracles of biology. Clear choices will need to be made. My vote is that life will prevail.
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Judith D. Schwartz is the author of three books on regeneration —The Reindeer Chronicles, Cows Save the Planet, and Water in Plain Sight — each of which has advanced the regenerative movement. She is a founding member of Soil Centric’s Advisory Board.
Soil Centric was founded on the premise that everyone has a role to play in solving the climate crisis. By aggregating and curating opportunities, resources and examples of regeneration taking place around the world, we’re here to help you find your role! Our web-based app (free on our site) can help guide you on your regenerative journey.
]]>In honor of World Environment Day, the United Nations is launching the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration—“a rallying call for the protection and revival of ecosystems all around the world, for the benefit of people and nature.” The UN campaign asks us to reimagine, recreate and restore. Applying the prefix “re” to words and concepts imbues them with new energy, rousing us to reevaluate many of the global problems we face. This is our decade for renewal.
For starters, we need to rethink some dominant narratives, including the current, largely unspoken idea of civilization’s “inevitable doom.” Granted, scaring people may motivate some into action, but it can also result in unproductive despair or paralyzing climate anxiety. And it robs us, particularly the young, of our agency and hope.
How about we retire the “we’re toast” narrative. Let’s instead put the emphasis on all that is still within our power to protect (including intact functioning landscapes like old growth forests) and regenerate (degraded agricultural landscapes). Climate science tells us we have the solutions we need at hand, and, if we act with the urgency demanded of us, we have time to change the story’s ending.
The answer, available to us immediately, is to work with nature. Her immense capacity for regeneration is the strongest force at our disposal to heal the Earth. As humans, we have the ability to create the conditions that will unleash these vast healing powers.
Examples of successful regeneration projects exist the world over:
Using adaptive grazing principles as a management tool, Alejandro Carrillo and his family have brought back grasslands on 25,000 acres (10,117 hectares) in Mexico’s Chihuahuan Desert, a region that gets just eight inches of rain a year. Their Las Damas Ranch, once over grazed, is now a lush haven for grassland bird species. A broader regenerative effort in the region, covering more than a million acres of ranchland, is underway.
Pioneering a method of aggressive pruning known as “chop and drop,” Brazil’s Ernst Götsch created the conditions for 1,200 acres (500 hectares) of clear-cut land to once again harbor streams and waterfalls. Biomass left to accumulate created a layer of protection for the soil that reestablished life below ground and supported prodigious above-ground growth. Today Götsch’s legendary farm is one of the most biodiverse remnants of the Atlantic Rainforest.
In Saudi Arabia, American Neal Spackman worked with a Bedouin community to green the desert by building simple check-dams, capturing precious rainwater that had previously washed away. When funding for the Al Bayda Project ran out in 2016 and work ceased, the saplings that had been planted tapped into the groundwater that had infiltrated along the rock dams and continued to grow without further human intervention.
In England’s Lake District, James Rebanks, a shepherd whose family has been on the land for six centuries, created a diversified farm and welcomed back the region’s iconic curlew, a bird species that has been in serious decline. Rebank’s lauded 2020 book, English Pastoral, outlines his family’s multi-generation journey from traditional to industrialized agriculture and, ultimately, to nature-friendly farming.
At Soul Fire Farm, in upstate New York, sisters Leah and Naima Penniman and their team are using Afro-indigenous practices including agroforestry and silvopasture to regenerate 80 acres (32 hectares) of land that was historically stewarded by the Mohican Nation. These ancient farming practices simultaneously increase topsoil depth, sequester soil carbon, and increase biodiversity.
Beyond these pioneering farmers and ranchers, a global network of Ecosystem Restoration Camps is emerging. The camp network, run by volunteers, is the brainchild of documentary filmmaker John D. Liu. When I first met Liu in 2016, the Ecocamps were working to launch their first site, Camp Altiplano, in arid southern Spain. Today there are 38 Ecocamps around the world powered by citizens contributing their skills and labor to regenerate degraded lands and damaged ecosystems.
As my friend Precious Phiri, a community organizer in her native Zimbabwe, points out, “With the right management tools, there is a possibility to reverse vicious cycles of desertification and poverty; Nature is forgiving.”
This long-awaited book by Suzanne Simard, a brilliant pioneer of plant communications, will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about the lives of our tree friends. A professor of forest ecology, Simard's profound love for and connection to the majestic forests of her native British Columbia is evident on every page.
James Rebanks (author of another favorite The Shepherd's Life) grew up farming with his grandfather in the Northwest of England. English Pastoral traces his family’s multi-generation journey from diversified traditional, to industrialized, and ultimately to nature-friendly farming. Along the way Rebanks examines the pressures farmers face to provide food at the cheapest possible price and why this extractive model leaves so many rural communities in crisis. Ultimately, however, he offers us an alluring path forward: one making room for the survival of flora and fauna that make the landscape home.
All We Can Save is a collection of essays and poems from women at the forefront of the climate movement. It’s organized in an ingenious way and we particularly loved hearing from so many emerging young leaders. Soil Centric’s advisor Judy Schwartz’s essay “Water is a Verb” is timely reading for those of us in the parched Western U.S.
In this uplifting book, Robin Wall Kimmerer, a botanist and a member of the Potawatomi Nation, explores our reciprocal relationship with the natural world. Kimmerer’s emphasis on nature’s generosity and beauty invites you to fall in love with Mother Earth all over again.
An instant classic, we like to reread this book every couple of years because it sheds light on age-old questions about why civilization after civilization has ceased to exist. We’ll give you a hint, they exhausted the soil’s fertility. Soil depletion isn’t the history typically covered in school, but it’s a story we no longer afford to ignore.
By Precious Phiri
A few weeks ago, I participated in a chat at Commonland with my friend the author Judith Schwartz, talking about the “Unbreaking News.” (meaning: news that will not break our spirits, but rather fortify us for the Earth-healing work that needs to be done.) The conversation, attended by a global audience, was an activator of happy hormones, making us confirmed “hoptimists” (yes to hopeful and optimistic). We were not talking about Utopia, though it helps to always have that picture, we were chatting about real people, facing real situations in dealing with nature and harsh conditions and yet in ways beyond imagination, they still have incredible stories of change and success in regenerating highly degraded landscapes. Stories that writers like Judith and platforms like Soil Centric, Regeneration International, and many others are sharing to let the world know that regeneration is both possible and happening.
I am given this opportunity to share a little bit of my own inspiration and lessons in my journey in regenerating landscapes both with my communities home in Zimbabwe, and Africa-wide with some incredible partners. My work involves conversations, and decision-making that help us transition from poverty to abundance, rebuild soils, as well as dignity and pride, and restore water and food security; for people, livestock and wildlife above and below ground. One of my greatest privileges in life to date has been exposure to, co-creating with and learning from different groups using the Holistic Management framework as a Savory Accredited Professional.
Looking back at my life, my inspiration is deeply founded on being raised by a heroic grandmother, who passed on leaving me to lead our household at the young age of 16. I see that my path collided with regeneration as my struggles (especially with food insecurity) started me on a path of seeking solutions, so that if possible everyone could live off their land and thrive. Now, as a new mom after a long wait, the pursuit of a regenerative legacy has never been stronger.
There are a few lessons I have learnt and continue to learn in this work. One of the most important ones is right here; while land may look arid, continuously deteriorating beyond repair, most of the spaces are proving that with the right management tools, there is a possibility to reverse vicious cycles of desertification and poverty; Nature is forgiving! She has shown us in many places that we as humans are not able to manipulate parts of nature and win, because living systems self-organise and sometimes humans get outcomes we didn't intend. This means, as land managers, we have a responsibility to consider ourselves as part of the complex systems we have an opportunity to manage. If after a careful consideration of biological, economic and social consequences, contextually relevant tools are adopted by a committed group of people, we’ll create the potential to turn individual places around and thrive to their potential. What we’re doing is enabling the effectiveness of ecosystem processes. This allows the land we depend on to be resilient and continuously prosper in its diversity. These photos are from my friends and partners at Soft Foot Alliance showing a spot that was losing soil and getting worse every year. Through the regenerative tools of animal impact, water harvesting and permaculture design framework, it is once again a thriving ecosystem full of ground-cover and growing food. Taken by drone, the photos illustrate regeneration taking place on what had been a highly degraded landscape:
Left: Site in 2018 same season before impact, Right: Regenerated site in 2021 in the same season.
The communities with which we work have experienced some tough times in the face of massive land degradation, and dreaming of a better future is getting more and more lost. In Zimbabwe, our focus is on a language of positivity. This means seeing opportunity to regenerate rather than focusing on the challenges, abundance thinking instead of scarcity thinking and talking about “WE” instead of me. The challenges are ecological and economic and the impacts include social unrest. As this journey continues, in one place after another, we are learning that no land is hopeless! Examples around the world are proving land has the capacity to regenerate and nurture life.
For us to start making contextually appropriate decisions, as facilitators of regeneration, we have a huge responsibility to keep asking questions. Asking questions will help us understand what once made these ecosystems and the people thrive. The citizens are part of the regeneration rising story.
A photo showing the Land management herd at ACHM
In my experience, it's been helpful to ask the elders, and the young, for wisdom and attitudes that existed before things went wrong. It is by no means an act of over-romanticizing the past, but there usually are some important lessons on how they coexisted with nature, their attitudes, cultural idioms, sayings, taboos, sacredness of certain things that inform us how they managed to curtail extractive behaviors.
As a student and practitioner in the regeneration movement, these stories, from others and from my own people, have completely changed my life. Below I share a photo of an incredible group of women from Samburu Northern Kenya, a place that left a significant mark on my journey. From how different the community is from mine -- these communities are purely pastoral, facing the harsh realities of advancing deserts, social insecurity (i.e. gun violence with neighboring settlements) due to scarcity -- to the incredible wisdom and leadership of the elders, warriors and the women. The dynamics of the social structure here is completely different from my native background, but I learned the power of harnessing my assumptions about a certain group of people and assuming I am wrong. I work with them purely because they are human, powerful and life changing. I am forever grateful.
As I continue to learn together with communities and collaborative partners in my journey, it is getting clearer to me that we are ever-learning and never superior to the land on which we depend. Thank you for taking time to read through this small offering, my hope is that the few stories inspire you on your own amazing regenerative journey ☺.
Precious Phiri is founding director of EarthWisdom Consulting Co., which directs community organizing and training in regenerative and restorative agriculture and holistic grazing practices in the Hwange Communal Lands region of Zimbabwe. Her work focuses on training rural communities and collaborating with networks in Africa to reduce poverty, rebuild soils, and restore food and water security for people, livestock and wildlife and reduce drought and flood risks. Precious’ previous work includes nine years with the Savory Institute Hub in Zimbabwe, focused on training and community engagement. She serves as a Steering Committee member for Regeneration International. We are incredibly honored that she also serves on Soil Centric’s Advisory Board.
Here at Soil Centric, we’re always on the lookout for organizations that are supporting regeneration, so we’re excited about our partnership with a climate-positive bank. Our new partner ATMOS Financial is offering FDIC-insured savings accounts designed to tackle the climate crisis...
]]>Here at Soil Centric, we’re always on the lookout for organizations that are supporting regeneration, so we’re excited about our partnership with a climate-positive bank.
Our new partner ATMOS Financial is offering FDIC-insured savings accounts designed to tackle the climate crisis by investing exclusively in climate positive infrastructure.
Money in an ATMOS account will help fund the transition to renewable energy, electric transportation, and, yes, regenerative agriculture! And, unlike a lot of banks, ATMOS won’t fund fossil fuels, factory farming or other extractive pursuits.
If you open an FDIC-insured savings account with ATMOS, your money will only support climate solutions and you’ll get up to 10x the national average in interest. And, if you pick Soil Centric as your non-profit partner, we’ll get a monthly donation helping us to diversify our funding stream and increase our impact. It’s a win-win just like regenerative agriculture!
If you’re able to open a savings account, please use this link, and connect your new account to Soil Centric. (There are no minimum balances requirements and no monthly fees). It’s a great way to earn more money on your savings, creating the conditions for regeneration to take root while showing the financial markets that you care about what your money is doing out there!]]>- Diana Donlon, Executive Director of Soil Centric
By Visala Tallavarjula
From the moment I set foot on campus, I knew that University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) was the perfect environment for me. It lured me in with its beautiful beaches and the welcoming community of Isla Vista, but I stayed for the top-notch academics, insightful professors, the plethora of opportunities, and, last but not least, its history as one of the first universities in the world to establish an undergraduate environmental studies program. Established in 1970, the Environmental Studies Program at UCSB was created in response to a terrible oil spill in Santa Barbara. I’ve just finished my first quarter as a Sophomore at UCSB, but the university has already made such an impact on me. When I just began my studies, I was so lucky that I knew, from the beginning, what I wanted to major in. For many people, figuring out one’s major is a lengthy process but I knew from the moment that I chose to go to UCSB that I wanted to major in Environmental Studies.
How could I be so sure about this? I honestly couldn’t. I had to trust my intuition on this one and it’s probably one of the best things I've ever done because I love my major, my professors, my community, and my college. I’ve always been extremely interested in conserving the earth’s natural resources (especially water), reducing CO2 emissions, and protecting our wildlife but until I took English 23 (a.k.a. Climate Crisis 101) my freshman year, I’d never taken a course that gave me information that I could actually apply to my own life and share with my peers. This course, taught by Dr. Kenneth Hiltner, a professor in the English and Environmental Studies Department, gave me tangible and effective ways to help combat the climate crisis.
Would you like to know the # 1 way to actually make a difference in the world as an individual? Eating only what we need to eat, and no more thereby reducing food waste. (It turns out that so much food is currently wasted worldwide that if food waste was a country it would be the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases). Dr. Hiltner (or Ken, the way he prefers students to address him) details the different ways we can reduce the amount of carbon emissions we each emit on his website. In fact, taking not only this overview course but also a few other courses Ken taught inspired me so much that I realized that I want to do more with my background in Environmental Studies.
I’ve discovered that I want to use my background knowledge of environmental studies as a starting point for something else: Environmental Journalism (combined with Environmental Policy). And it was at this point that I learned about Soil Centric, an organization dedicated to helping people uncover their path to climate action by getting involved with regenerative agriculture and ecosystem restoration. Soil Centric’s interactive Pathfinder Tool is really interesting to me because I’ve been studying ways to reduce fresh-water wastage in agriculture for about five years. The Pathfinder provides a wide array of resources and opportunities focused on building soil health. Healthy soil directly increases the ground's water holding capacity and is a critical component of my interest -- water conservation.
Soil Centric also provides real-life examples of how people have found their way to regeneration. Exploring the site, I saw that other students also want to make a difference in the world by helping our environment and this makes me so excited and hopeful for the future!
For example, “Alex’s Guide” particularly inspired me because I felt that I could really relate to her journey. Alex, a young Canadian woman, and I actually had very similar experiences when it came to inspiring instructors; She also once had an influential Environmental Studies teacher who taught her about how humans have induced climate change. Alex felt that this was a significant moment for her in terms of realizing how much she truly wanted to devote her time and energy towards preventing climate change. Listening to Alex’s story on “Unconventional Paths” Soil Centric’s podcast, I found comfort and solace. Not only is her path similar to my own, but to that of other students that I’ve met throughout my life who are looking for nature-based climate-solutions.
Life is full of ups and downs, twists and turns, but every person can make a difference on this earth. Perhaps we all have a unique path that will eventually take us in the right direction- and this Pathfinder can help us find it faster! Even after my time at UCSB, I will continue to refer to Soil Centric's Pathfinder whenever I seek inspiration from others who, like me, are dedicated to making a world of difference.
Visala Tallavarjula’s passion for water conservation started in high school during which time she was the Council Chair, Youth Commission of the Santa Clara Valley Water District. She was also a finalist for MIT's THINK Scholars for her project, "Smart Scheduling of Irrigation using Weather Sensor Data." Ms. Tallavarjula is currently a sophomore at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
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By Kiley Clark
Over the last several years of planning obsessively for my future farm, my idealistic dreams have been altered, compressed, and evolved in various forms. While my business plan is in flux, the reasons why I want to be a farmer remain the same. I really enjoy working outside with my hands. Farming with ecologically sound practices, I can be part of the solution and I can both feed the community and contribute to building the community.
The thinking behind the changes in my gameplan is that if I’m adaptable, more options would be available to me. When I really stop to analyze my challenges, they seem insurmountable but I realize that I am not alone. The pervasive barriers to entry for me are one in the same for most beginning farmers--lack of access to capital and lack of access to farmland.
A 2017 survey by the National Young Farmers’ Coalition found that 61 percent of respondents listed affordable access to land as one their biggest challenges to starting a farm. The majority of those surveyed stated that the cost of land is greater than what they can produce on the farm. It is often suggested that leasing land is the next best option to purchasing land. Nearly 40 percent of farmland in the United States is leased or rented from non-operating landowners. The process of leasing farmland, however, is nebulous.
Whether purchasing or searching for a lease opportunity, there are similarities in what to look for in prospective land. Farmland Advisors with the American Farmland Trust (AFT) lists the four characteristics of access as: available, affordable, appropriate and secure.
Available means there is an adequate supply of land that may be used for farming and affordability requires that land is priced appropriately for agriculture. Development eats into the availability and reduces the affordability of land for farming. According to AFT’s report, between 2001 and 2016, 11 million acres of farm and ranch land were converted into suburban residential use and highly-developed urban use. Around the country, housing developers are able to purchase land at prices unfeasible for most farmers, leaving most of us unable to compete for prime farmland near large markets of potential customers located in urban areas.
Photo Credit: Kiley Clark
The last two access criteria--appropriate and secure farmland--I can say from personal experience have so far eluded me. Appropriate farmland needs to be in the right location, have infrastructure and the necessary natural resources (i.e. water for irrigation, soil type, and terrain).
One lease offer that was made to me seemed perfect on the surface. But, the land’s allure was diminished by a 14-mile drive on a washboard dirt road before reaching the main road. The well also had a very low flow rate in the winter and went dry every summer. Another potential lease opportunity offered no security, guaranteeing access for only one year. That is unfeasible for growing row crops on land that had never been farmed before. Both options were unrealistic. So I continue my search.
Most beginning farmers like me do not come from families with land to pass on. I was raised in a low-income area of South Los Angeles without any family interested in farming. Here in Sonoma County, parcels over five acres with a home easily are priced over one million (or more) and most likely are planted in wine grapes. I commend farmers who remove acres of grapes to grow food. But there is no way I can compete with folks who don’t bat an eye at the cost. I am very much under resourced. With student loans still to pay off, it has been challenging to work in the food industry and save capital for my future farm. So, I want to exhaust all possibilities.
Government programs like loans available from the Farm Service Agency (FSA) that were once a non-starter for me have eased on some of the eligibility as far as requiring a minimum of three years farm management. It is possible to reach the conditions with one year of management experience and work with a Small Business Administration SCORE mentor. A considerable downfall is that “substantial” farm management positions are far and few between and rarely become available. I have worked with SCORE before. However, my SCORE mentor lost interest in helping me with a business plan immediately after I turned down his offer of land with little water down that 14-mile dirt road!
Photo Credit: Kiley Clark
One option I’ve considered to start farming sooner is to leave my home state. It is no secret that California is one of the more expensive places to live. Even some of the more remote areas of the state are cost prohibitive. So, I’m expanding my search to all of the West Coast, a state or two in the southeast, and I try to picture how well I would handle snow if moving to the Midwest or northeast portion of the country.
I’m open to exploring all avenues including agri-hoods, farm cooperatives, intentional communities, and urban farming on small plots. The possibilities keep me hopeful in knowing that there are hundreds of ways to farm.
Kiley Clark is a farmer and photographer residing in Sonoma County, California. She lives in a tiny cabin in a nature preserve with her wife and 60-lb lap dog. This is Kiley’s first season working at Radical Family Farms in Sebastopol. You can help her raise money for a downpayment on a regenerative farm of her own by joining her crowdfunding campaign.
Photo Credit: Portraits to the People
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Are you finding yourself bored at home? Do you have extra time and don’t know what to do with it? As a recent high school graduate who is new to regenerative agriculture, I have found these resources helpful because they have both informed and inspired me. Now is the perfect time to delve deeper into learning about regeneration and its amazing potential!
Alan Savory's TED Talk "How to green the world's deserts and reverse climate change” - video
This video is an excellent place to start learning about regenerative agriculture. Climate change can be a scary topic, but I finished watching feeling enlightened and hopeful. So hopeful in fact that I immediately shared the good news with my teachers and friends! That is why this now legendary TED Talk is first on my list.
After you watch Savory’s TED Talk and learn what is possible, be sure to watch The Story of Al Baydha: A Regenerative Agriculture in the Saudi Desert. In it, Neal Spackman shows us how he worked with settled nomads to regenerate desert in one of the world’s most desertified regions!
He points out that “humans aren’t destructive by nature, but by habit,” leaving on a hopeful note that humans can have a positive influence on the land.
Regenerative Agriculture: A Solution to Climate Change - video
In this concise explanation of regenerative agriculture the thinker Charles Eisenstein outlines the conditions we need to create for regenerative agriculture to scale. Spoiler alert, we’ll need a lot more people actively tending the land and that is where we come in!
Ariel Greenwood on Being a Young Female Farmer - video
In this short video interview, Greenwood, an experienced grazier dedicated to regenerating grasslands, speaks about her experience as a young female working on the land. It is compelling to see someone who is so talented reflect on the need for endurance and brains in her chosen profession.
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture - podcast
In this podcast, Koen van Seijen talks to experienced people in regenerative agriculture to gain insight into the question “[how to] put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems while making an appropriate and fair return.” This is the perfect way to gain insight into the finances of regeneration while driving or doing chores around the house.
You can listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Drawdown - book
Published in 2017, bestselling book, Drawdown, has a wide range of information on climate solutions. Regeneration is one of those solutions, but it covers many more. I finished this book feeling shocked yet motivated. Shocked, because it so blatantly pointed out that the main obstacle to climate progress is a lack of government action. And, motivated because there are so many viable solutions - including regeneration!
This is just my list. We’re sure you will have many other resources that resonate with you personally and we would love to hear what they are! Be sure to check back on Soil Centric Pathfinder Tool as we’ll be adding more resources in the coming months.
By Jennifer Morehouse
The pandemic has exposed glaring vulnerabilities in the industrial food system; there are miles-long lines at food banks and empty store shelves while mountains of potatoes once destined for restaurants are being dumped and COVID19 outbreaks wreak havoc at industrial meat processing plants. These unsettling realities and weak links have us contemplating where our food comes from and how it is produced.
Now think longer term; If the current system isn’t up to the challenge of the coronavirus pandemic, imagine how it will stand up to escalating climate uncertainty. Back in 2013, Soil Centric’s Executive Director, Diana Donlon wrote “The Agricultural Fulcrum: Better Food, Better Climate,” a piece for The Atlantic where she highlighted the importance of creating a resilient regional, diverse food system based on agro-ecological principles rooted in the realities of local climates and cultures.
Well, here we are; crisis is calling us to build this resilient regional food system with urgency. Despite the chaos, there is a silver lining: Regenerative producers, many pivoting from a business model based primarily on restaurant contracts to selling directly to consumers, are quickly building robust regional supply chains-offering direct links between eaters and farms and ranches. Along the way, they are building in transparency about their agricultural practices, growing healthy soil, providing nutrient-dense foods, and sequestering atmospheric carbon. The regenerative food system is evolving into one that simultaneously addresses long supply chains and climate change - and eaters are responding.
Julie Morris, Co-Owner of Morris Grassfed Beef and regenerative land steward is seeing this transition first-hand. “Business was strong before but has increased substantially as consumers look for certainty about their food source. And, they want their food dollars to work harder, so are happy to support our work in building healthy ecosystems”.
It is difficult to discuss the promise of a forward-looking new system without addressing the upfront price of food but, as Morris notes: “In the United States, we have been shielded from the true cost of our food for decades in the form of subsidies for commodities like corn and soy and low wages for agricultural and food service workers. It’s time all of the inputs - a living wage, insurance, even the costs to hire a fence builder - are accurately reflected”. So, while regeneratively grown food can be more expensive than conventional, supporting a regenerative producer is like good insurance, invest in resilience to withstand the next external disruption, like a pandemic or a climate event, and the land and your food source remain intact.
Soil Centric is helping producers by expanding access to and knowledge of regenerative farms and ranches. In that spirit we’re happy to announce a new feature to our Pathfinder Tool - a listing of regenerative producers now selling food directly to eaters, either online or through a subscription based model known as Community-Supported Agriculture, commonly abbreviated as a CSA, that allows users to source their food directly from a farmer. If you can, spend your food dollars with producers who are doing the right thing - for the planet, for human health, and for their communities. Maybe it’s once every six months or maybe it’s once a month, every action will help build the future food system that will benefit us all. We are just getting started and will continue to add new names, so please keep checking Soil Centric.org.
We are at the very beginning of building a stronger, more nimble food system and there is much to be done to build out the infrastructure -smaller, decentralized processing facilities to relieve current bottlenecks, more USDA inspectors, and addressing the impending labor shortage. But that’s for another essay. For now, collectively supporting regenerative producers gives us an incredible opportunity to create the more stable and climate positive future we need.
]]>By Charlotte Canner
As we shelter at home, tending to plants and the earth provides hope and nourishment. Gardening, at any scale and level, can also create a sense of connection and add some much needed peace of mind and joy during these scary times. So whether you’re an expert or just starting out, are in an apartment with a few indoor plants, have a balcony, or are in a house with a yard, there are lots of things you can do for your plants (and yourself). Here are five ideas to get you gardening!
Spring is the perfect time to clear out the old and prepare for the new. Dust off and lightly shower your indoor plants so their leaves are ready to absorb the increased light. Repot indoor plants with fresh soil and move them to bigger pots if needed. Prune off dead branches and leaves, and deadhead flowers. Spring is also an ideal time to amend your garden beds and pots with compost. Gently work compost and fresh soil into beds, trying not to disturb the hard-working microbiology in the soil too much. Adding compost gives your plants a nutrient boost as they’re emerging from the dormant season.
The term “Victory Garden” originated during the first World War when governments in Europe and North America encouraged citizens to utilize their yards for food production in order to supplement their wartime food rations, lessen the demand on commercial production of food and materials needed for the troops, and to boost morale. The idea of victory gardens is having a resurgence as grocery shopping is becoming more difficult, anxiety of supply chain disruption grows, and evidence shows that home gardens help fight climate change.
Planting your own edibles can be a fun, satisfying project and if you’re currently home-schooling, teaching children to grow food is an invaluable lesson! Start small and expand as your space and environment allows. Grow microgreens on a sunny windowsill and herbs like basil and mint in a window box. Arugula and lettuces both grow quickly and can be grown in smaller pots and window boxes as well. For some fruits and veggies, you don’t even need seeds, you can grow several from their own scraps in a glass of water! Potatoes are super satisfying to plant as they grow easily in barrels and cloth bags, using cuttings from organic potatoes. If you have the space, raised beds allow for more variety and production. You can start seeds indoors (egg cartons work well as trays) in a sunny window or buy plant starts from a nursery or hardware store. If you have the energy for a bigger project, now would be the ideal time to rip out the front lawn and join the #Foodnotlawns movement.
If you don’t have a compost pile, there are many ways to make compost. If you have little or no outdoor space, you can house a worm bin inside. The thousands of red wigglers will happily devour your raw food scraps and create a rich fertilizer for you to use on your plants. (Don’t worry the worms don’t smell; Compost City by our friend Rebecca Louie provides practical composting know-how for small space living). If you do have a yard, you can start a compost pile or a 3-bin hot compost system with yard and food waste. The compost you make will give your plants slowly-released nutrients, increase microbiology, improve soil texture, and increase the water retention of your soil. Compost is basically “gardener’s gold.” (If making it at home doesn’t work for you, nurseries and hardware stores also often sell bagged compost and worm castings).
While we are social distancing from our human friends right now, we can invite over our beneficial insect friends. Encouraging butterflies, lady beetles, bees, parasitic wasps, syrphid flies and other beneficials into your garden will help keep pests under control while pollinating your fruit and flowers. Plant a “good bug tub” on your balcony or add plants to your garden beds that attract beneficials. Look for plants with small clusters of flowers like alyssum, yarrow, and buckwheat or daisy-like flowers such as sunflowers, cosmos, aster, and of course, daisies. The flowers provide nectar and pollen to the insects once the pests are gone.
Gardeners of all experience levels need help and advice sometimes. Fortunately the garden community has a wealth of knowledge and loves to share! Even in this time of quarantining, gardeners are getting creative with sharing through social media, webinars, and blogs. Check out some of Soil Centric’s Partners in Regeneration (currently on the beta of our Pathfinder Tool) on Instagram:
@FarmerRishi - Rishi Kumar is a small-scale farmer who also teaches an online Regenerative Gardening class for Kiss the Ground.
@soulfirefarm - Soul Fire Farm hosts “Ask a Sista Farmer” on Fridays answers your call-in questions about gardening, livestock, agroforestry, plant medicine and food preservation. Centered on voices of Black, Indigenous, People-of-Color, Trans, Disabled, Immigrant and Poor communities but everyone is welcome to watch and listen.
@edibleschoolyard - The Edible Schoolyard features engaging activities and lesson plans for at-home learning in the kitchen and the garden.
@apricotlanefarms - Apricot Lane provides pure inspiration for what an integrated, regenerative farm can be!
Please show us your how your garden is growing by tagging us on Instagram @soil_centric
Guest blogger Charlotte Canner took Kiss the Ground’s Soil Advocate Training course in 2018 launching her regenerative journey toward environmental education and advocacy. She works as an Integrated Pest Management Advocate in San Francisco and can be found on Instagram at @earth.ally.
]]>Last December, I had the privilege of attending the Soil Health Academy (SHA) at Chico State University in North Eastern California.
When Soil Centric recommended SHA to me, I wasn’t sure I was the right audience. Although my extended family has a cattle ranching operation in South Dakota, I myself have no ranching or farming background.
]]>By Jennifer Morehouse
Last December, I had the privilege of attending the Soil Health Academy (SHA) at Chico State University in North Eastern California.
When Soil Centric recommended SHA to me, I wasn’t sure I was the right audience. Although my extended family has a cattle ranching operation in South Dakota, I myself have no ranching or farming background. I also don’t garden (yet!) and have a spotty track record with household plants. However, I am deeply interested in regenerative agriculture and implementing the practices on our land in South Dakota and knew I needed to learn more.
In reviewing SHA’s site, I was immediately intimidated by terms like ‘paddock size’ and ‘plant brix’. So, I reached out asking if this was the best place for someone like me to learn about soil health and was shocked to get a response from none other than Gabe Brown himself. A North Dakota farmer, Brown is well-known in regenerative agriculture circles. He explained that the Academies focus on ecosystems and how they function and that understanding this is essential knowledge for everyone: farmers, ranchers, land stewards, gardeners, and newcomers like me. And, he is exactly right.
I convinced one of my brothers to join me and we spent three days at Chico State University learning from regenerative agriculture’s leading experts. Dr. Allen Williams, Ray Archuleta, Shane New and Gabe Brown have decades of experience regenerating their own farms and ranches and in the evolving field of soil science. The class went deep on the six soil health principles and three rules of adaptive stewardship that form the foundation of the regenerative approach.
We spent time in the field performing water infiltration tests to understand soil composition, looking at a monoculture orchard and its impact on the soil, and observing birds and insects, whose presence confirm an ecosystem is healthy. Back in the classroom we mapped a rotational grazing plan to understand how a proper plan will spur the regeneration of healthy grassland.
The technical and hands-on knowledge SHA provides is first-rate and, if you are a farmer or rancher (or thinking of becoming one), this is absolutely the place to go to learn about how to regeneratively manage land and increase profitability in the process. If you focus on soil health, greater profitability follows - SHA is crystal clear on this point. You will leave with more information than you can imagine and a clear path forward on how to get started.
If you aren’t a farmer or rancher, you will leave inspired to engage in the regenerative agriculture movement. I left the academy with a clear grasp of soil health principles and how to apply them but also with an awareness that I am at the very beginning of this journey with so much yet to learn. There is great opportunity on my family’s ranch but nothing will be done without collaboration, working with experts and those with complimentary skills sets. It will truly be a team effort, and I will continue to learn from those around me, share knowledge, and - hopefully - build healthy soil and sequester carbon in the process.
But perhaps the biggest takeaway from the academy were two things the team said that go beyond farming & ranching and apply to us all:
Everywhere we look, whether it is acres of ranch-land or our own backyard, what do we observe? What opportunities exist to work with and regenerate the soil? Where do you see soil that needs some attention? Part of observation is asking these questions.
For my part, I’m starting in my own backyard where the plot of dirt (and, yes, it is currently lifeless dirt) will soon be converted into living soil to support a pollinator garden. I am seeking out farms, ranches and brands engaged in regenerative agriculture and supporting them with my family’s food dollars. And, my family and I are actively working to ensure that our South Dakota land will be managed regeneratively for years to come.
Gabe Brown was right when he said that understanding how ecosystems function and the role healthy soil plays is essential knowledge for everyone. In these unsettling times, the word that continues to come to mind is resilience. While so many of us are at home during this pandemic, trying to figure out a path forward in our new normal, soil seems to be the best place for us to start. Better nutrition, better health, better resilience for ourselves, our communities, and our planet - healthy soil can provide all of this. I can’t think of a more important mission than that.
About the Author
Jennifer Morehouse is veteran of the food industry with a passion for regenerative agriculture. She is actively engaged in educating herself and others on the importance of soil health and is currently volunteering with Soil Centric.
]]>Caney Fork Farm
By Piper Atkinson, Intern, Soil Centric
In the world of regenerative agriculture, real-life work experience is invaluable. But, what if you are new to farming and ranching? How can you gain this foundational experience? An on-farm or on-ranch internship may be what sets you on your path. An internship can provide an opportunity to delve into a prospective career in regeneration. Agrarian internships gather a range of like-minded people for action. Along the way, you’ll gain agricultural knowledge, first-hand experience, and create valuable contacts. However, it can be difficult to know what internship will be right for you. What skills do you need to get started? What will the farm or ranch environment be like?
On a recent webinar organized by the Savory Institute’s Abbey Smith, Kevin Watt from TomKat Ranch and Alexis Bonogofsky with the Quivira Coalition offered us some practical information to help answer these questions. Both Kevin and Alexis have experience managing interns and internship programs.
To start, you’ll need to be in good health and be comfortable doing physical labor on a daily basis.
If you are applying for a farming internship, basic farming skills, like how to use a hammer and back up a trailer, are needed so that time can be spent learning more in-depth skills.
You need to have decent communication skills. It is important that interns can effectively communicate with their advisors and vice versa. Be sure to ask your advisor what they expect from you. And, to make sure you are having an experience that is right for you, also be clear about what you expect to gain from the internship.
Nature can be unpredictable so you need to have the resilience to deal with abrupt changes due to unusual weather and other unplanned challenges like a power outage or an escaped goat.
Now is the season to be applying for summer and fall internships. Some farms and ranches have firm deadlines and others accept applicants on a rolling basis.
Don’t romanticize a life in regenerative agriculture. While it can be incredibly rewarding it can also be physically and emotionally taxing.
Don’t assume there is a set way to do things. Each farmer and rancher has their own methods and practices. Ask questions about why things are the way they are. You may have a valuable idea of how to be more efficient that hasn’t been thought of. Don’t be afraid to share your ideas.
Once you’re in your internship, be sure to practice self-care. If you take care of your health and wellbeing, then it will ultimately make you a more productive and successful intern or apprentice.
Keep a journal to document your experiences, and tips you have learned. Look for patterns of what works and what doesn’t.
If you realize the internship is not right for you, it’s okay to quit. If you stick with an internship that you don’t enjoy, then not only you will suffer, but your advisor and peers will too.
Tom Kat Ranch where Kevin works is looking for interns and apprentices right now.
Quivira Coalition where Alexis works has a New Agrarian Apprenticeship Program in several western states.
For more information about these and other opportunities in regenerative agriculture be sure to check out Soil Centric’s Pathfinder Tool.
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Dimitri Tsitos and Diana Donlon on Mazi Farm, a regenerative farm in Greece. (photos by Warren Karlenzig)
Dimitri Tsitos meets us in Styra, a village mentioned by Homer in the Iliad in the 8th century BC. Tall, blonde and wise beyond his 25 years, Dimitri is the founder of Mazi Farm, a regenerative farm featured on Soil Centric’s new recommendation tool. The town square is eerily silent. As we walk back to the rental car we’d ditched on the outskirts of town, he offers Warren, my
partner, and me each a section of freshly picked yellowish-pink pomegranate to sample. The translucent seeds are dripping with juice and the flavor is subtle and sweet and bears little resemblance to the tart crimson orbs we get at home. Eating an iconic fruit that figures prominently in Greek mythology while walking along a marble path bathed in crepuscular light, I feel enveloped by the enormity of Greek history.
Mazi Farm is a short way up the same ridge from the village. Dimitri bought the stark five-hectare hilltop parcel with his parents in 2017. The rolling terrain has a stunning, unobstructed view of the Aegean Sea below, but the soil is obviously degraded and there is almost no infrastructure save a large pergola for shade. “We have water” says Dimitri cheerfully “and
gravity-fed irrigation, but no electricity. Right now, the view is the best thing we have going for us.”
Mazi means “together” in Greek and so far, Dimitri and a team of volunteers including family and university friends, have planted 8,000 trees: almond, fig, pistachio, prickly pear cactus, and yes, pomegranate, together. Eucalyptus, cypress, acacia and other fast-growing species are planted like sentries between the fruit and nut trees to protect the saplings from the now-barren island’spunishing conditions. “Evia Island is incredibly windy” Dimitri tells us. It’s hard not to notice the giant wind turbines spinning along the island’s spine.
Wind Turbines on the Island of Evia
Directly across the Aegean from Athens and the Greek mainland, Evia is the second largest island in Greece. For much of its modern history it has existed to provide natural resources for the capital’s metropolitan region of just under 4 million. The majestic oaks that characterize the neighboring island of Kea are largely absent as are the tourists that flock to other islands. It is the end of September, and like much of California’s agricultural land, it is hot, brown, dry and increasingly menaced by fire. We walk along the rolling slopes and Dimitri is excited to show us patches of earth where perennials plants are starting to pop-up even before the first rains have started. “With their deep and powerful roots,” he explains that “these native perennials have potential to de-compact soil on the farm.” Photosynthesis drives the system by taking light energy and converting it into biochemical energy resulting in more life above and below ground. The young plants transpire moisture and have a cooling effect on the ambient temperature. Leaves, stems and flowers provide habitat for insects, birds and other creatures as well as food for pollinators. In time they will provide food for humans and an income stream for the fledgling farm.
As a university student, Dimitri was overcome by climate anxiety and moved to South America where he thought hard about what he really wanted to do with his life. When the opportunity to apprentice with the legendary Ernst Götsch in Brazil presented itself, he seized it. Götsch, who grew up in a Swiss farming family before moving to Brazil in 1976, favors a form of regeneration based on syntropic farming and agroforestry. Using nature as his model, he follows the laws of syntropy where, contrary to entropy, more energy in generated in a natural system than has been invested. Agroforestry is the intentional integration of trees and shrubs into crop and animal farming systems to create environmental, economic, and social benefits; Within this system Götsch is particularly known for his heavy pruning-to-mulching technique known as “chop and drop.” Applying these principles in the tropics produces jaw-dropping results. Götsch has personally regenerated 500 hectares (1,200 acres) of degraded land in Brazil’s Atlantic Rainforest. Working at Götsch’s side, Dimitri learned to heal the land and his climate anxiety.
Inspired by what he experienced in Brazil, Dimitri returned to Europe and convinced his Greek father and French mother to move from the city (Athens) to the countryside (Styra) and help him create a working model of regeneration for the Mediterranean. The new farm would draw largely
on principles he’d learned from Götsch.
In addition to planting 8,000 trees, Dimitri has also hosted Meet Ups in Athens, launched a successful crowd-funding campaign, built the large pergola and, this past August, hosted a team of international volunteers who harvested and then dried figs; A neighboring organic farm was looking for help during the harvest and invited Mazi to collaborate with them.
After a spectacular sunset, Warren, Dimitri and I go back to the village square to eat a freshly prepared feast at a table outside under the stars. The village has come to life and the food is the best we’ve had anywhere in Greece. Dimitri tells us that until the 1980s Styra was a thriving agricultural community. He says the old timers tell him that farming used to be so much easier: “They’d plant tomatoes, eggplant, garlic. They would get a good harvest and would sell it at the weekly market.” Government policies helped to encourage an urban exodus. They built New Styra a no-frills government-backed seaside resort town a few kilometers downhill. Today only a
few hundred people live in the original village and the young are largely absent. As a young farmer new to Styra, Dimitri is something of a curiosity and a celebrity.
As we tuck into plates of fava bean hummus and tzatziki we talk about everything: his immediate needs to make his farm economically viable, perhaps getting laying hens to fertilize the land and produce eggs that could be sold in the village, ways to lure young people back to agrarian life, and the exciting possibility of regenerating large parts of the globe for food, water and climate security.
As a beginning farmer, Dimitri realizes he lacks access to inter-generational knowledge and would love a mentor he can call weekly to talk about what’s happening on the land. This in turn would help him set up “smart and regenerative systems.” He’d like access to serious interns and volunteers. He thinks long term about systems that create opportunities for farmers to transition to or start regenerative farms. We discuss how my organization, Soil Centric, can help connect him to these resources.
The postmaster walks up to our table and hands Dimitri a package. It’s a book he’s ordered. When he’s not in the field, he’s hungrily reading everything he can about regeneration, soil, farming, agroforestry, holistic management, permaculture and design. He’s connecting with the regenerative community around the world and pouring his youthful energy into realizing the
positive, syntropic feedback loop that is his vision for Mazi Farm. Situated as it is in the cradle of Western Civilization, where everything is both ancient and very new, I can think of no better place to create a farm for the future.
Sunset at Mazi Farm above the ancient Greek village of Styra.
If you’ve seen the movie “The Biggest Little Farm,” you’ve caught a glimpse of nature’s superpower in living color. It is a power that she uses quietly and faithfully. It is a power we could harness right now across Earth’s 1.1 billion acres of deserted farmland to combat the escalating perils of biodiversity loss, food insecurity, and global warming. It’s a power we humans continuously fail to recognize. What is it? It’s nature’s power of self-renewal, known in farming parlance as regeneration.
As shown in the movie which has been playing in theaters since May and is scheduled for release on Amazon and iTunes this week, Molly and John Chester harness this force on their farm, Apricot Lane in Moorpark, California. It’s a vibrant place where earthworms, snails, snakes, bees, chickens, cows, ducks, dogs, pigs, hawks, gophers, hummingbirds, and even coyotes all play a role. It’s a farm where, instead of continually waging war against nature, the Chesters actively foster the conditions that allow her to breathe, flourish, and regenerate.
You won’t find monocultures in nature, because they suppress her palette of song, beauty, color and complexity. But for roughly the last eighty years, we’ve pushed farming in that direction—toward intensive productivity focused on yields of single crops. This reductionist framework is ruthlessly extinguishing the diversity of life, as is demonstrated by the precarious fate of entire species, like the Monarch butterfly.
Monocultures aren’t resilient, and they are a dangerous template for the 21st century. As you've surely been told by your grandma, or perhaps an investment advisor, it is not smart to put all your eggs in one basket. Diversification is one of the guiding philosophies at Apricot Lane, where in addition to rearing an ark of animals, they grow seventy-five different varieties of fruit, including citrus and stone fruits. This integrated and diversified approach creates resilience, so that the farm remains viable even as the weather becomes prone to wild and unpredictable fluxes.
"The Biggest Little Farm” will likely leave you inspired, hopeful even, and you'll want all your friends to see it. But the movie is much more than simply an ode to the Chesters' storybook vision and grit. The story of the triumph of Apricot Lane Farm provides us with a model that can lead our planet back to health.
How exactly did the Chesters, who had no farming background, resuscitate the parched and degraded landscape that first greeted them? Most essentially, they began by nursing their soil back to health. They composted like crazy to enhance fertility above and below ground. They planted cover crops in the neglected fields. They brought in flocks of animals to graze and fertilize the land with dung and urine. They moved these animals regularly so that the pastures received the benefit of animal impact but were not overgrazed. Let’s also look at what was off the table: They did not spray poisons that kill life in the soil as well as non-target species like songbirds. They didn’t till, thereby allowing soil aggregates to form and soil structures to rebuild.
By keeping their soil fed, covered, and protected, they succeeded in increasing the soil’s carbon content, its water-holding capacity, and its fertility in just a few years. And once the soil was healthy, everything started falling into place. Green grasses flourished. Saplings grew into trees. Animals had babies. Ducks happily took care of the snail problem plaguing the orchard. Hawks snatched up the gophers that had been mowing down the roots of young trees. Carbon in the soil held precious groundwater despite a prolonged drought. Life on the farm became increasingly abundant and resilient.
When presented with remarkable examples like this of nature using her superpower, many people say, "That’s wonderful, but it can never happen here. We have a different climate. It's hotter here. It's colder here. We have a different type of soil. We get more rain. We get less rain.” They would be wrong. It is true that different crops flourish in different climates, but the principles that the Chesters followed to turn Apricot Lane Farm from an arid wasteland to a verdant paradise are straightforward and universal. The key is in building carbon-rich soil.
The real takeaway from this movie is that the miracle of self-renewal can happen anywhere, once soil-health restoration becomes the priority and the processes that allow nature to regenerate are set into motion. Many of us long to be part of that healing and to feel more connected with the rhythms of nature. We intuitively understand that bringing life to the land, as we see happen at Apricot Lane Farm, is a critical part of addressing the looming climate emergency. It’s time to invite everyone to engage in solutions that teach us to be stewards. Anyone can plant a fruit tree or start a community compost project. Let’s make nature’s life-affirming potential central to our collective vision of the future—a future that offers hope instead of a doomsday scenario. Let's get to work to help nature unleash her super healing powers. There are 1.1 billion acres of abandoned farmland just waiting to be restored, and nature is dying to help.
Written by Diana Donlon. Originally posted on CommonDreams.org
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