Regenerative Skills

Welcome to a very special episode. For the first time on this show I've given the mic over to the participants on my regenerative design course and told them they can ask me anything. This was completely unplanned and came out of some of the many amazing conversations with the group in the evenings. Many of the people who came out to learn with us here on the Green Rebel farm are long time listeners of the podcast and they were excited to take on a leading role on this episode. They also saved my from having to stay up late and edit the episode that I'm behind on producing, so a big thanks to them. I hope you enjoy a window into my own opinions on these topics we explore and if you'd like to hear more about my work and passion projects, just reach out and let me know what you're interested in. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community

Today I’m back with part 2 of my interview with Blake Cothron, the author of the new book “The Berry Grower: small scale organic fruit production in the 21st century.” Just in case you missed the first part of this episode, Blake Cothron is an organic farmer, educator, professional horticulturist and small business owner in Stanford, Kentucky, USA. He has been a grower for over 25 years and has been operating an organic plant nursery business for almost 10 years. His specialties are small fruit production, orchard care, nursery production, and temperate fruit growing. There’s a lot more to his backstory, but he explained everything in part 1 of this interview so be sure to go back and listen to it if you haven’t already. Building on the topics we covered in the beginning, Blake starts by explaining all you need to know about sourcing plants and propagation material and navigating the complicated world of plant nurseries and online plant vendors. It turns out there’s a whole lot more to it than most people are aware of. We also break down the practical assessments for planning a profitable berry business and how to design and plan your cultivated space to ensure you don’t have difficulties and inconveniences that cause you to lose money. As a bonus to this series on small fruit and berry growing, I’m also giving away two copies of Blake’s new book, thanks to the generous people at New Society Publishers, to members of our Regenerative Skills Discord server. If you’re not already a member you can join for free on the homepage of the website at regenerativeskills.com or through the link in our linktree on the Instagram Bio. Once you’re in, just send me a DM and let me know you’d like to be entered to win a copy of the book. I’ll be announcing the winners one week after the second part of this series comes out Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: The Berry Grower https://peacefulheritage.com/

I’m super excited to share with you all what is about to be a deep dive into one of the most promising and often overlooked small farm enterprises, small fruit and berry growing. In order to get the scoop on berry growing, I went straight to the source to speak with Blake Cothron, the author of the new book “The Berry Grower: small scale organic fruit production in the 21st century.” Blake Cothron is an organic farmer, educator, professional horticulturist and small business owner in Stanford, Kentucky, USA. He has been a grower for over 25 years and has been operating an organic plant nursery business for almost 10 years. His specialties are small fruit production, orchard care, nursery production, and temperate fruit growing. There’s a lot more to his backstory, but he lays it all out in the first few minutes of the episode so I’ll leave it for him to tell you. We went really deep into this topic in our interview and covered more than 2 hours of material. For this reason I’ve broken the discussion into two parts to make it more manageable to get through. In this two part series, we covered almost the full range of the main topics in his book. In this first session we started by exploring why small fruit and berries are such an attractive enterprise and what sorts of farms they might be best suited for. We also look into the challenges and difficulties of growing bush and vine fruit that many people are yet unaware of. From there we dissect some essential learning and evaluation you should do of your land and climate in order to choose the cultivars that are best suited for your site and business as well as how to source your planting material considering all of the pitfalls of ordering seeds and plants from nurseries and online. We even start talking about maintenance considerations of different cultivars and care and fertility methods that Blake has found success with in his ample experience.All of this is going to set you up really well for the second part of the series when we break down the practical assessments for planning a profitable berry business and how to design and plan your cultivated space to ensure you don’t have difficulties and inconveniences that cause you to lose money. As a bonus to this series on small fruit and berry growing, I’m also giving away two copies of Blake’s new book, thanks to the generous people at New Society Publishers, to members of our Regenerative Skills Discord server. If you’re not already a member you can join for free on the homepage of the website at regenerativeskills.com or through the link in our linktree on the Instagram Bio. Once you’re in, just send me a DM and let me know you’d like to be entered to win a copy of the book. I’ll be announcing the winners one week after the second part of this series comes out Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://newsociety.com/books/b/the-berry-grower https://peacefulheritage.com/

Today I’m excited to share a special episode which comes from a presentation I gave about two weeks ago with Gaia Education, an leading organization in providing education in sustainable development.Through Ecosystem Restoration Camps, the NGO that I used to work with, I have co-facilitated the design portion of their Ecosystem Restoration Design course for the last few years. Now, for the first time they’ve made the course available for open rolling registration, which means you no longer have to wait for the bi-annual signup times and take the course within a 6 month window. In order to promote this they organized and online summit and I was invited to present on a topic that I’ve been passionate about for years and that is the core motivation behind this podcast, which is to spread the message that Regeneration is for everyone. So in this talk, which you can also find online in its unedited video form, which you can watch on the show notes for this episode on the website, I introduce some of the key concepts that differentiates the concept of regeneration from other paradigms of thought. To illustrate some of the myriad examples of regeneration in action I highlight 6 stories of amazing individuals that I’ve had the pleasure to interview on this show in the past, and that have inspired me in my work. At the end I wrap it up by outlining some of the design concepts and processes that I teach in the course to guide students through the creation of their own projects through the group activity. Though there is an important visual component of this presentation I know you’ll get all the essential information from the audio and I also highly encourage you to listen to the interviews from the past with each of the people that I highlight in the talk. And a quick reminder if you’re inspired by the concepts in this talk and the massive potential of designing through this process, I’ll be teaching a five day intensive in-person course on regenerative design between the 11th and the 16th of October at the beautiful Green Rebel farm in Miravet, Spain. We still have one or two spots available and you can find out all the details on the website or through our bio on instagram. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsSl3cZPyjM https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-from-poverty-to-permaculture-and-beyond-with-luwayo-biswick-director-of-the-permaculture-paradise-institute-071/ https://regenerativeskills.com/dani-baker-on-why-its-never-too-late-to-start-your-home-scale-forest-garden/ https://regenerativeskills.com/invest-curate-mend-a-manifesto-for-our-clothing/ https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-sean-sherman/ https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-meredith-leigh/ https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-fighting-food-apartheid-and-empowering-people-of-color-to-get-back-to-the-land-with-leah-penniman-author-of-farming-while-black-091/ https://www.programmes.gaiaeducation.uk/ecosystems-restoration

A lot of my work at the moment is centered around building community and connecting people across Europe who are on a journey into regenerative agriculture. As I learn more and more about the farmers that I’m working with and their challenges and desires for the future I’m struck by the stories that unfold. Stories of legacy, perseverance, experimentation, recovery from adversity, hope, and so much more. As I work to gather and record these stories and to connect these people so we can better collaborate and support one another, I’ve been drawn to reflect on some of the past episodes in this podcast that featured the unique stories of growers and land stewards.One of my favorite episodes that centered around telling the stories of farmers was with Elvira Di'Brigit, the author of the book “Why We Farm” which is an investigation into the whole truth about life as a modern day farmer. Viewed through the lens of the environment within the Capay Valley of northern California, each chapter features a different model of farming. In each profile, farmers share the stories behind their work and their lives on the farm; the business side of production, the personal challenges they face, and words of advice for the would-be-farmer. The book asks hard questions and gives a reverent yet realistic picture of a thriving local food system.In this interview from back in season 1 of this show, Elvira talks about how she first came to the Capay Valley and her motivations behind wanting to live a farming lifestyle. We talk about how the farmers profiled in her book tell a larger story of modern farming in the United States, and even the trends and challenges facing the agricultural industry around the world. Elvira also gives a unique perspective into the growing community outreach that is strengthening the bonds in the valley and fostering a larger network of resilience that should be inspiring for anyone living in a rural community. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: Elvira on facebook http://whywefarmcapay.com/

It’s no secret that the farmer population in Europe and many other places has been diminishing and growing older for a long time now. There are however still lots of younger folks who are interested in becoming farmers, but are struggling to get their foot in the door. Barriers to entry such as high land prices, high startup and infrastructure costs, lack of loan options, bureaucratic difficulties in inheritance, and a steep learning curve if you don’t already have experience farming are holding a lot of us back. Despite these challenges there are some incredible stories of new farmers who are finding success and fulfillment on the land. They’re often the ones pioneering new business models and best practices in ecological management. That’s why I reached out to Lynn Cassells, who along with her partner Sandra Baer own and operate Lynbreck Croft, an award winning farm in northwest Scotland. Lynbreck Croft is a 150 acre mixed land holding of everything from fields and woodlands, to hill ground and bog located in the Cairngorms National Park with the land ranging from 320m to 450m above sea level. Like many new farmers, Lynbreck has a unique origin story. Lynn and Sandra first met while working as rangers for the National Trust in the UK and soon realized that they shared a dream of living closer to the land. They bought Lynbreck Croft back in March 2016 – which they describe as 150 acres of pure Scottishness – with no experience in farming but a huge passion for nature and the outdoors. They now raise heritage breeds of cattle and pigs, grow produce and have become a model farm in their region for ecological production practices. Lynn and Sandra also wrote an inspiring book all about their journey of moving onto the land and how they've developed their idea of the farmers they want to be and their involvement in their new community which you can find through Chelsea Green books. In this discussion I speak with Lynn about the initial challenges they faced in finding land and learning to make a living from it. We talk about the steep learning curve and the resources they turned to to make it manageable. Lynn also tells me about the unique challenges they have in the notoriously harsh climate of northwestern Scotland and how they’ve made choices on the farm to mitigate these difficulties. This discussion is full of insightful advice and learnings from a unique journey from two farming newcomers who’ve demonstrated that you can build a farm business from scratch in modern times. Be sure to listen to the end when Lynn gives valuable advice for other people who dream of starting their farm without any previous experience. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.lynbreckcroft.co.uk/ https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/our-wild-farming-life/ https://www.instagram.com/lynbreck_croft/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRJrQZN4-Boka2m88TKB-1w https://www.facebook.com/lynbreckcroft/

Ever since moving to Europe three years ago, I’ve been working to understand both the differences and similarities between the cultural, societal, and governmental background that I’m more familiar with from the USA and Mesoamerica compared to Spain and the larger European Union. Especially since my work is centered around agriculture and how we can set up the infrastructure to assist growers on this continent who want to shift to regenerative management, I need to first gain an understanding of what has incentivised and built the system we currently have. One of the largest influences that governs and regulates how people all around the different parts of Europe farm and manage land is the Common Agriculture Policy, known as the CAP. In order to get a better understanding of the complex history and nuanced current reality of the CAP, I reached out to my friend and colleague in Climate Farmers, Mateusz Ciasnocha, our Policy & Industry Advocacy Lead in the company. In this episode, Mateusz explains a bit about the history of the CAP and how it’s been used to accomplish its stated goal of creating food security as well as its effect on the development of the agricultural sector in Europe in the past decades. He also helps me to understand how the different countries within the European Union work within the CAP as well as its differences in implementation in each member country. From there we talk about how the CAP will be changing in this next 7 year cycle and how current events are creating controversy and challenges to the new rollout. Be sure to stick around until the end when Mateusz gives his own opinion on how the CAP can be leveraged in the future to facilitate a regenerative transformation of agriculture in this region as well. As a new resident in this continent, all of this information has been new to me and I’m also realizing the global implications of the European Common Agriculture Policy, so even if you don’t live in Europe, this is a good subject to build an understanding of because it may affect you more directly than you think. Also, please try and forgive my bumbling misunderstandings along the way in this interview. Terminology always trips me up. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.climatefarmers.org/

This week I wanted to get back to one of my favorite formats from the early days of this show in which I just take the time to speak with some of my close friends and collaborators about what we’re working on. Today I grabbed my good friends Nick Steiner and Jacob Evans. Nick is one of my closest colleagues in my work with Climate Farmers. He leads the Academy at the company and has spearheaded the coach matching service where we put farmers in touch with other farmers and experts who can help them in their transition to regenerative agriculture. He also recently invested in a property in Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands and has been renovating an off-grid homestead for the last several months. Jacob is another close friend of mine and earlier this year we taught an introductory course on syntropic agroforestry at the Green Rebel farm in Miravet, Spain. Jacob has been teaching syntropic agroforestry for arid climates and managing the farm at Suryalila Yoga retreat center for the last few years. He is also in the early stages of a big transition as he moves his young family back to Argentina where his wife is from, and will be starting a small farm there later this year. He also has a lot of experience setting up and running food production systems in the challenging climate of southern Spain. The reason why I called on these guys is because most of the clients that come to me and the students that join in my courses are working towards a big transition onto the land. Some are in the early stages of considering buying land and starting a farm. Others are actively looking for property, and some have already bought a place and are beginning the development process. As a result I get tons of questions about how to choose a property, what important things they should be looking for, what to prepare for and be aware of, how to avoid mistakes, etc. I myself am in the process of working to move onto a property in the mountains of central Catalunya in Spain and am drawing from my own learning journey from the past when I began my first homestead with my colleagues in Guatemala almost 5 years ago. I know now that there are so many things I would do differently with more knowledge and hindsight. Because of all this shared experience me and the other two guys have in common with making and preparing for this type of lifestyle transition I wanted to have an in depth chat about the most important learnings we gained from these experiences. We also talk a lot about what we’ll be drawing from in our new endeavors and the advice or guidance we would give our former selves based on what we’ve learned from so many mistakes and blunders. It’s really interesting to me to understand the patterns and commonalities that come out even from the different circumstances and motivations that we’ve had and that I’ve heard from all my students and clients over the years. If you like exploring this topic and want to hear more about it after this episode, I’ve posted the details of the upcoming instagram live session that I’ll be doing with Nick this weekend on Saturday evening. We’ll be answering listener questions about learnings and important considerations when looking for land in the country and the reality of making that kind of a lifestyle transition so be sure to check it out. We’d love to see you there. With that out of the way, let’s get started with the first of what I hope will be a lot more regenerative roundtable sessions. Join the discord discussion channel to win a copy of Coppice Agroforestry and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.instagram.com/regenerative_skills/ https://www.instagram.com/permanick_permaculture/ https://www.instagram.com/wizard_permaculture/ climatefarmers.org Jacob's land in Portugal for sale https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IDypfVMrP4s

I’ve been taking it easy since my sister and her little girls are over visiting from Kuwait for the month and my Granny on the Isle of Man was also able to stop by for a week. So for that reason I’m going to rebroadcast one of my favorite episodes on agroforestry from two seasons ago with Patrick Worms. I hope all of you out there are also finding time to unwind and enjoy this summer despite all the challenges and extremes we’re experiencing. With regenerative agriculture and agroforestry increasingly becoming popular topics in environmental and even political circles. I wanted to do a one-on-one session with one of my favorite speakers in this sphere, Patrick Worms. Many of you frequent listeners will remember him from the panel discussion on agroforestry two weeks ago that I hosted with Climate Farmers. I got to know Patrick’s work and perspective more intimately as part of the online course on ecosystem restoration design that we both teach on. Patrick is the Senior Science Policy Advisor at World Agroforestry, President of the European Agroforestry Federation, and trustee of the International Union of Agroforestry, he’s also a valued member of the advisory council with the Ecosystem Restoration Camps. In the courses and conversations I’ve seen with him, I’ve always been struck by the stories and compassionate understanding of the people that Patrick has met in his work and travels. In order to make some of these stories and insights available to you listeners, I let go of the usual focus just on actionable information to let this chat take its own course. Though we still cover a lot of practical advice in this talk, what I often take away from listening to Patrick is a renewed reverence for the individual people who are working to manage their lands and produce food around the world. It’s easy to think of agriculture and the food industry as these monoliths without faces, but the lives of the people who make up these systems, from those to tend the land all the way through the logistics, distribution, transportation, all the way to our kitchens are important to remember ad pay attention too as well. To get us started off with some background though, Patrick shed some light on the history of agroforestry and it’s deep traditions in Europe specifically. Join the discord discussion channel to win a copy of Coppice Agroforestry and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.worldagroforestry.org/ https://www.cgiar.org/ https://euraf.isa.utl.pt/welcome https://www.iufro.org/ https://www.evergreening.org/ https://ejpsoil.eu/

Though we’re quite a few episodes into this series on tree planting and agroforestry already, I had a unique opportunity to go back to the roots and explore some of the fundamentals of the plant kingdom and how we can actively work to preserve the wonder and diversity of vegetative life. The truth is that the challenges of climate change and ecosystem mismanagement aren’t only having an effect on humans and animals. Despite the fact that plants make up the vast majority of living biomass on earth, they’re just as vulnerable in their own unique ways to warming climates, missing elements in their food webs, natural disasters and other challenges. In order to get a better understanding of both the beauty of life in the plant kingdom and the difficulties of caring for such broad and diverse lifeforms, I spoke with Paul Nicholson, horticulturalist with the Royal Botanical Gardens of Sydney Australia. Paul has nearly 30 years working as a horticulturist curating diverse collections such as: palms, camellias, begonias, succulents and Australian rainforest plants. He also instigated and helped develop the Cadi Jam Ora – First Encounters garden and Spring Walk and Palm Grove restoration programs. Paul is especially motivated to help people understand that plants are central to their lives, that plants are interesting, exciting, engaging and the more time you spend with plants the happier you are likely to be. His role as a tour guide and volunteer program manager has also given him an incredible ability to communicate his passion for his work and the collections at the gardens. Since we’re already so far into this series exploring trees and various configurations of reforestation, this episode is a good chance to reconnect with the full range of the wild and wonderful world of plants, botany and horticulture in order to see it as a more complete picture. Join the discord discussion channel to win a copy of Coppice Agroforestry and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/ https://www.instagram.com/rbgsydney/ https://www.facebook.com/RBGSydney/

Welcome back to another episode in this ongoing series on tree planting and agroforestry. Today we’re going to pick up where we left off last week in our conversation with Mark Krawczyk about the practice of coppicing woody perennial plants and woodland management as a whole. For a quick recap, Mark Krawczyk is the author of the new book Coppice Agroforestry: Tending trees for product, profit, & woodland ecology. Mark is an applied ecologist, educator, and grower incorporating the practices of permaculture design, agroforestry, natural building, traditional woodworking, and small-scale forestry. He owns and operates Keyline Vermont LLC, providing farmers, homeowners, and homesteaders with education, design, and consulting services. He and his wife also manage Valley Clayplain Forest Farm, 52 acres of field and forest in New Haven, Vermont. Despite the focus on coppice agroforestry systems that this conversation continues to revolve around, Mark and I also go into a wide array of other topics including the long history of forestry management in indigenous cultures around the world, understanding invasive species, woodland products and small craft economies, fire mitigation strategies, and a whole lot more. This is the second of the two part episode, and if you missed the fist portion, I highly recommend you go back and have a listen because it’s really worthwhile and it’ll help put more of what we’re talking about today into context. Another bonus that comes along with this episode is that thanks to New Society, the publishers of this book, I’ll be offering a free volume of Coppice Agroforestry to listeners of this show. And yes, even though I first announced this last week, there’s still a chance to win. Be sure to stay tuned until the end of the episode where I’ll let you know how you can win your own copy. Join the discord discussion channel to win a copy of Coppice Agroforestry and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.keylinevermont.com/ http://www.coppiceagroforestry.com/ https://www.valleyclayplain.com/ Book recommendations Sproutlands Tending the wild

Welcome back to another episode in this ongoing series on tree planting and agroforestry. So far we’ve taken a broad look at many types of reforestation and how to integrate trees and woody species into farming systems, but there’s another side of the coin in this conversation. Today we’re going to start another two part session focusing on the management of woody perennials, specifically the practice of coppicing. In order to get a better understanding of this ancient woodland management system I reached out to Mark Krawczyk, the author of the new book Coppice Agroforestry: Tending trees for product, profit, & woodland ecology. Mark is an applied ecologist, educator, and grower incorporating the practices of permaculture design, agroforestry, natural building, traditional woodworking, and small-scale forestry. He owns and operates Keyline Vermont LLC, providing farmers, homeowners, and homesteaders with education, design, and consulting services. He and his wife also manage Valley Clayplain Forest Farm, 52 acres of field and forest in New Haven, Vermont. Despite the focus on coppice agroforestry systems that this conversation will revolve around, Mark and I also go into a wide array of other topics including the long history of forestry management in indigenous cultures around the world, understanding invasive species, woodland products and small craft economies, fire mitigation strategies, and a whole lot more. Since the conversation spanned an hour and a half, I split it into two parts so it’s not too much of a marathon to get through in one go. Join the discord discussion channel to win a copy of Coppice Agroforestry and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.keylinevermont.com/ http://www.coppiceagroforestry.com/ https://www.valleyclayplain.com/ Book recommendations Sproutlands Tending the wild

Welcome back to this ongoing series on tree planting and agroforestry. This week we’ll wrap up the two part interview I did with Philipp Gerhardt, the founder of the website baumfeldwirtschaft.de (which translates basically to tree farming) and managing director of Deutsche Agroforst GmbH. He is considered a leading expert for keyline design in Central Europe and is active in research projects and as a lecturer in seminars. As a pioneer in agroforestry, he has developed new approaches with his team to implement modern agroforestry and water management systems. Together they develop holistic concepts for protection against drought and floods for companies or municipalities with elements from Keyline Design and regenerative agriculture, and climate-friendly forest conversion. He has advised numerous companies that are changing the landscape in the long term and are building new climate-friendly ways of doing business. As a quick recap of what we discussed in the first part of this interview, we covered some of the history and early innovators of the formal science of forestry. Philipp described his personal journey into the study of forest management and also permaculture and ecological restoration through keyline design as well as how all of these design concepts fit together. We also explored the potential for low density agroforestry planting over a large enough area to have a massive effect on the way we experience climate change on the ground. If you haven’t yet listened to the first half, I highly recommend that you check it out. In this conclusion to our conversation, Philipp and I explore some of the unique roadblocks to implementing the scale of agroforestry needed to feel the difference in cooling and increased humidity. Philipp also breaks down some of the opportunities for funding at a national level in Germany and some ways he’s found to navigate the subsidy and regulation system there. That leads into an exploration of the career and business potential in forestry management and agroforestry as well as advice for people getting started in these fields or aspiring to work in ecological regeneration. This is a great portion of the conversation for those of you who are looking into getting into these lines of work even if your funding and regulatory structures are different from those in Germany. Swale / keyline design from Germany in the 1960s Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: http://baumfeldwirtschaft.de https://www.youtube.com/c/Baumfeldwirtschaft https://www.instagram.com/baumfeldwirtschaft/

Welcome back to this ongoing series on tree planting and agroforestry. This week will be the first of a two part interview I did with Philipp Gerhardt, the founder of the website baumfeldwirtschaft.de (which translates basically to tree farming) and managing director of Deutsche Agroforst GmbH. He is considered a leading expert for keyline design in Central Europe and is active in research projects and as a lecturer in seminars. As a pioneer in agroforestry, he has developed new approaches with his team to implement modern agroforestry and water management systems. Together they develop holistic concepts for protection against drought and floods for companies or municipalities with elements from Keyline Design and regenerative agriculture, and climate-friendly forest conversion. He has advised numerous companies that are changing the landscape in the long term and are building new climate-friendly ways of doing business. I first got to know Philipp in person while I was working with our team at Climate Farmers to organize our conference last year. I was thrilled to find him in our group of agroforestry nerds and learned so much from him in just a few days. One of my highlights from the event was getting to listen in on the conversations Philipp and Mark Shepard had about the history and evolution of forestry science, and I knew that I had to get Philipp on an episode one day. Well it finally happened and the result was an hour and a half conversation that I’ve split into two parts in which Philipp and I explore both high level concepts of integrating trees into agricultural landscapes and the role they play in restoring the healthy function of the hydrological cycle to the land, all the way to detailed stories of case studies and projects that Philipp and I are working on. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: http://baumfeldwirtschaft.de https://www.youtube.com/c/Baumfeldwirtschaft https://www.instagram.com/baumfeldwirtschaft/

Welcome to a special episode edition of this ongoing series focusing on tree planting and agroforestry. So far I’ve had a lot of interviews talking about tree and perennial systems and we’ve mostly looked at things from a macro perspective. Today we’ll take a closer look at one of the most incredible families of plants that are present in the majority of temperate ecologies around the world, the family Quercus, more commonly known as oaks. Here to give us a window into the undervalued world of oak trees as well as a glimpse into how humans have formed relationships and uses for this incredible plant that have shaped our own cultures and evolutionary trajectory is Byron Joel an internationally recognised author, media presenter and leader in the field of Ecological-Agriculture. For over 15 years he has worked, consulted, designed and taught across four continents. In 2011 he was resident Manager of Horticulture at the PERMACULTURE RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF AUSTRALIA and in 2012 transitioned to the same position at the sister institute in New Zealand. He has over 1000 hours teaching and presenting on regenerative agriculture in Australia, the USA, Africa and New Zealand. Byron acts as managing consultant for Oak Tree Designs, assisting in the greater eco-agricultural movement as systems designer and consultant, focussing on the Mediterranean regions of his home nation, Australia, where he advocates for a greater recognition, honoring and implementation of Indigenous Australian land stewarding practices. This is a special episode, much the same as last week, because it comes from one of my favorite episodes from one of my favorite podcasts, The Plant Report with my dear friend Jill Cloutier. The Plant Report is an educational podcast about plants, herbal medicine, ethnobotany and the human-plant relationship highlighting the fact that every plant has a story. Jill has such a wealth of knowledge and love for plants herself that when she gets together with others to talk about the wonderful world of vegetative life you can count on podcast magic. Since I can hardly hope to improve on Jill’s exceptional interviewing style from her two shows, The Plant Report and Sustainable World Radio, I reached out to ask if she would allow me to rebroadcast her session with Byron and she generously agreed. Jill and I, along with our friend and colleague Scott Mann from The Permaculture Podcast have teamed up to form the Regenerative Media Alliance, a union of independent media producers working to broadcast regenerative solutions across the world. If you’re interested in learning from seasoned pros in independent regenerative media production, be sure to stick around until the end where I’ll share more information about this alliance and give you the early signup information for the RMA’s professional development conference. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://oaktreedesigns.com.au/ https://www.instagram.com/oak_tree_designs/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=3&v=AWIx9kc7Hw4&feature=emb_imp_woyt https://www.williambryantlogan.com/oak https://oaktreedesigns.com.au/dehesa-australis/ https://theplantreport.libsyn.com/

Welcome to a special episode edition of this ongoing series focusing on tree planting and agroforestry. Often when we think about agroforestry we think first about food. Orchards of fruit and nut crops are certainly an important aspect of agroforestry, but so is the responsible harvesting and care for woodlands for building materials and fuel. For a long time now I’ve admired the work of Ben Law who’s a woodsman, permaculture practitioner, and author of many books on developing, tending, and using the products that come from the woods. Ben is a wealth of practical knowledge and is a founding member of the Forest Stewardship Council. He also has worked for Oxfam as a permaculture consultant. He’s also the author of The Woodland Way: A Permaculture Approach to Sustainable Woodland Management. Ben’s woodland house has been featured on The World’s Greenest Homes, a series of the Discovery Channel’s Planet Green and his latest book, Roundwood Timber Framing, is a full color guide to his beautiful and traditional building techniques. This is a special episode today, because it comes from the archives of one of my favorite podcasts, one that helped to inspire me to begin my own back in the early days. Since I can hardly hope to improve on my friend Scott Mann’s exceptional interviewing style in the Permaculture Podcast, I reached out to him to ask if he would allow me to rebroadcast his interview with Ben and he generously said yes. Scott and I, along with our friend and colleague Jill Cloutier from Sustainable World Radio have teamed up to form the Regenerative Media Alliance, a union of independent media producers working to broadcast regenerative solutions across the world. Be sure to stick around until the end where I’ll share more information about this alliance and give you the early signup information for the RMA’s professional development conference. In this interview, Ben and Scott discuss a wide range of woodland management ideas and options like coppicing and pollarding. Ben describes some of the valuable skills and products that can be central to profitable forest management or forest based businesses. Overall I really love this conversation for the mindset that comes through from Ben as he describes his deep relationship with the woodland that he stewards and I hope that it helps you to look at the forest in a deeper way as well. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://ben-law.co.uk/ https://ben-law.co.uk/product-category/books-dvds/ https://www.thepermaculturepodcast.com/web/ https://regenerativemediaalliance.com/

Welcome back to this ongoing series on tree planting and agroforestry. As I’ve been researching this topic for years I’ve begun to see a spectrum of tree planting concepts that look like a gradient based on the diversity in the system. On one extreme you have monoculture orchards and timber plantations which are just a single species on large tracts of land, and on the other extreme you have syntropic agroforestry for productive systems and what are known as Miyawaki forests for native reforestation initiatives. In both cases these are very densely planted areas of tens or even hundreds of different species. In both cases the idea is to accelerate the succession and maturation of the system by leveraging the diversity of plant communities to mimic natural forests to promote growth and resilience in the plantation. In today’s episode we’re going to take a deep dive into the world of Miyawaki forests with Hannah Lewis, the author of the new book, “Mini-Forest Revolution.” Hannah Lewis is a writer focusing on people, nature, and conservation. She edits the Compendium of Scientific and Practical Finding Supporting Eco-Restoration to Address Global Warming, published by Biodiversity for a Livable Climate, an environmental nonprofit based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, she discovered the Miyawaki Method and wrote Mini-Forest Revolution while living with her partner and their two children in France. In this episode we’re going to get into the history of Akira Miyawaki, the visionary scientists and ecologist behind the tree planting method. We’ll also break down the details of what makes this way of planting native forests so effective and revolutionary, from the deep research required to create a planting list, how to prepare the ground to ensure the trees get off to a healthy start, how to maintain the planted area as it gets established and a lot more. We also explore the powerful community building potential of getting people together to replant degraded areas, so make sure to listen all the way to the end when Hannah gives her advice on how to start a Miyawaki forest for yourself. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/mini-forest-revolution/ https://www.youtube.com/c/AfforesttGlobal https://regenerativeskills.com/how-to-grow-a-healthy-native-forest-in-record-time-with-afforestt-founder-shubhendu-sharma-146/

Just as promised from last week’s episode exploring the wide and unknown varieties of fruit and nut trees for cold climates, we’re going to go deeper into getting forest gardens established in frigid zones. It turns out there are tons of planting options for people who live in hardiness zones 6 and below. There are even some advantages in maintenance and pest pressure since you get a long dormant season and the low temperatures prevent a lot of warmer climate pests from reproducing. To learn more about all of the unique benefits and challenges of getting a diverse forest garden established in the cold north, I reached out to Dani Baker, the co-owner of Cross Island Farms on Wellesley Island in the St. Lawrence River between New York and Canada, where they raise certified organic produce and grass-fed beef and goats. Dani and her husband David purchased the 102 acre farmstead only after retiring from their careers. They became intrigued by the idea of making the land productive again, while being good stewards of the land and water resources entrusted to them. Dani a self-taught gardener who learned her craft by immersing herself in reading, poring over nursery catalogs, attending workshops on permaculture and gardening, and enthusiastic trial-and-error experimentation. Dani now conducts workshops and tours at her edible forest garden as well as giving presentations at organic farming conferences and other venues. In this interview, Dani and I start by talking about what inspired her to start a forest garden after retirement and how she built up her knowledge and experience so quickly. We then dive right into the practical aspects of how she worked to get the wide variety of perennial species established on her heavy clay and waterlogged site. She also gives insights into pest and disease management, her long term maintenance strategies for the system, the plant guilds that she’s found success with, and a lot more. Be sure to stick around till the end where Dani gives great advice on managing volunteers and how to get started planting your own forest garden at any scale. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: http://www.crossislandfarms.com/ https://www.enchantededibleforest.com/ https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/the-home-scale-forest-garden/

There are so many interesting perspectives to approach this topic from and today we’re going to hear from two people who turned a personal love of plants into a thriving botanical garden and nursery. Allyson Levy and Scott Serrano started creating a botanical garden in their backyard 22 years ago by planting native trees, shrubs, perennials and unusual edibles. Soon after they became interested in bog plants, hardy cacti, woodland species and non-native trees as well. T ogether they fenced in 3 acres, made tags to identify the species they had, and recorded what they planted over the past decade with the intention of one day being a public garden and an educational resource. Jump to today and the Hortus Arboretum and Botanical Garden boast an amazing collection of both native and exotic species. They also propagate rare and unusual plants from their collection to sell, to help spread plant diversity around. In all of this variety Allyson and Scott have discovered a wide range of fruit and nut species that can thrive in their cold New York climate, and that’s exactly what we focused on in this interview. Their new book, “Cold-Hardy Fruits and Nuts” is a one-stop compendium of the most productive, edible fruit-and nut-bearing crops that push the boundaries of what can survive winters in cold-temperate growing regions. While most nurseries and guidebooks feature plants that are riddled with pest problems (such as apples and peaches), Allyson and Scott focus on both common and unfamiliar fruits that have few, if any, pest or disease problems and an overall higher level of resilience. In this interview we cover a wide range of information from the unique and hardy plants that do well in cold-temperate climates themselves, but also their amazing journey of discovering them. We also talk a lot of practical plant care techniques, design and placement considerations, and then we get going into the world of plant nurseries and all their discoveries about propagation and managing the business side. This was such a fun discussion and I’m already looking forward to the next time I can speak with Allyson and Scott, so if you are left at any point during this interview with more questions, be sure to reach out to me so I can get them answered for you the next time I get them on this show. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.hortusgardens.org/ https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/cold-hardy-fruits-and-nuts/ https://www.instagram.com/hortusgardens/

Welcome to a brand new series. Over the next months we’ll be exploring a wide variety of perspectives and knowledge about tree planting, agroforestry, forestry management, and everything to do with woody perennial species. In the last couple years you’ve probably seen tons of articles and promotions about reforestation and tree planting initiatives around the world. Many of these are tied to specific climate change mitigation metrics as it becomes more and more apparent just how vital trees are for the health of life on this planet. You may have also seen a lot of critical hit pieces about the inefficacy of many of these same planting projects when they’re poorly planned or executed. It turns out you can’t just go throwing any old tree in the ground anywhere and hope that it’ll either survive, thrive, or have a beneficial impact on the local ecology. The need for better planting project planning, based on essential environmental observations and long term maintenance plans are the difference between catchy programs with big numbers attached to them, and initiatives that actually grow trees and can transform the health of the environments and communities where they’re grown. There are so many good reasons to integrate trees into the majority of our landscapes and today I’m going to kick this series off by looking at the advantages from an investment perspective of planting profitable agroforestry systems. In order to explain the complexities of financial modeling for perennial agriculture systems, I caught up with Harry Greene. Harry is the Cofounder and Chief Investment Officer for Propagate Ventures,an agroforestry investment platform focused on bridging the capital and operational needs to integrate tree crops into farmland. They’ve built agroforestry analytics and project development tools to support farmers in the design, implementation, and management of tree-crop systems to increase farm profitability and ecological capacity. By partnering with operational farms and internationally-renowned farm designers, they work to implement realistic, functional agroforestry solutions. Propagate works within their partner farmers' operational requirements, conventional or organic, to deploy proven agroforestry practices. From ranches to small family farms to large-scale grain operations, they help to find a solution that fits for any farm business. Harry has also traveled around the world researching agroforestry systems and traditions. In this episode we cover a really wide variety of topics. Harry starts by explaining the origins of Propagate Ventures and how he and his partners saw an opportunity to make a strong investment case for tree based production systems. From there we go into the barriers that growers and investors face to starting agroforestry systems and some of the solutions to getting past them. We also talk about the tools that their software Overyield makes available when planning the potential profitability of a new agroforestry investment, and some of the key considerations that are automated in the platform. This talk is a lot more than the business and financial case for planting trees on farms. We go deep into the practical considerations of planting at different scales, the amendments and assistance that can help trees survive the first crucial years, the many configurations of tree planting that can compliment rather than hinder other farm enterprises and a whole lot more. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.overyield.com/ https://propagateag.com/

Today is the last episode of the series on building community. Though there remains so much to say on this subject, I wanted to wrap up this endlessly complex and nuanced topic with a discussion about the challenges and learning of integrating into a foreign community. I have a lot of my own thoughts and stories on this, but I also immediately thought to check back in with a friend of mine who’s been on this show before in a previous series on homesteading, and who’s had similar experiences which he’s developed much much further than I ever have. Zac Barton is a permaculture designer, activist and teacher who has been living in Nepal since 2003. In 2005, he founded the Kamala Foundation—an organization committed to bringing the principles of permaculture to life and providing community-based programming to cultivate resilience and revitalize traditional and ecological ways of being. He established Almost Heaven Farm in 2013, where he researches, demonstrates and trains local farmers and international visitors in permaculture design, earth-based building and ecological restoration. Specializing in program design and implementation, Zachary has worked in communities across Nepal and was instrumental in co-founding the Resilience Through Recovery Project, which employed permaculture techniques to help villages recover from the devastating earthquakes of 2015. He is currently working to develop a network of communities committed to regenerative development across the Himalayan bioregion. In this conversation, Zac and I focused on our shared experiences working to integrate ourselves into the foreign communities where we’ve settled. We talk about the challenges and even hilarious failures we’ve faced in the process and many of the learnings that have come out of it. I work with many people who are moving to foreign parts of the world and are working to establish land and community based projects. For a lot of reasons, my guidance always centers around putting their efforts into the personal growth and learning required to become a part of the culture and social space they’re hoping to live and work in. Zac particularly is one of my favorite examples to point to of a westerner who’s found an important place for himself where he lives that he’s cultivated through humility, deep listening, patience, and a priority on respect for the people around him. This turned into a really fun conversation with admissions of both of our embarrassing learning curves as well as honest admissions of the fact that we’re both still very much growing and evolving in this space. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://permaculturenepal.com/ http://kamalafoundation.org/ https://www.instagram.com/almostheavenfarms/ https://www.facebook.com/AlmostHeavenFarms/ https://www.facebook.com/zachary.barton.75 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMczBdb0Weqt1YpnKHi6I3g https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachary-barton/

As we come to the end of this series on building strong communities, I wanted to revisit one of the most impactful conversations I had from last season. Last year you may remember that I released an 11 episode series of expert panels focused on various aspects of regenerative agriculture. In the final panel session I recorded a discussion with Allan Savory, Ana Digón, and Rudolf Buehler all of whom have been catalysts for for the creation of community for growers and land stewards around the world. Since this is the aspect of my work that I spend the most time on, and because the insights in this conversation have been so formative in the way that I approach my work with Climate Farmers and the European agriculture community, I wanted to revisit this discussion and include it in this series on community building In this session I hosted a discussion on building community in agriculture with my friends and colleagues at Climate Farmers, a non-profit organization working to build the infrastructure to scale regenerative agriculture in Europe. In my work as the Community Coordinator with Climate Farmers I’ve heard from so many of the people in our network that they feel lonely or isolated in their work and in their own communities. Despite the work of many organisations to bring together growers in various regions, many farmers still don’t know where to turn to for support and connection. For this panel I was fortunate enough to be joined by three world renowned teachers and farm community builders from Zimbabwe, Spain, and Germany to focus on the nuances and challenges of building agricultural communities from their own unique experiences. We’ll hear from Allan Savory of the Savory Institute and international Holistic Management network, Ana Digón from the Agricultura Regenerativa network on the Iberian Peninsula, and Rudolf Bühler, leader of the farmers movement BESH and initiator of the UN’s peasant rights in Germany. We’ll go into some key starting points in bringing farming communities together, and what it takes to sustain them in the long term. We go from the importance of managing communities to alternative structures, important aspects of rural priorities, and a lot more. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: climatefarmers.org https://www.schloss-kirchberg-jagst.de/ https://www.agriculturaregenerativa.es/

Over the last decade I’ve begun to see a subcategory of permaculture learning start to gain attention. As more and more people encounter the principles of this ecological design framework and experiment with different ways of applying it in their lives there’s been an emergence of social permaculture to integrate the patterns of nature to tackle inner challenges. The wonderful book Human Permaculture: Life Design for Resilient Living by Bernard Alonso and Cécile Guiochon was my first introduction into this realm and since then I’ve wanted to bring an insight into some of the ways that the concepts of Permaculture, which were so influential in my learning almost a decade ago, could be used outside the garden. So on a kind recommendation from David Holmgren, I reached out to Looby Macnamara, a pioneer of personal and social permaculture in the UK. Looby is an author, facilitator, designer, gardener, and mother who has written 4 books; Cultural Emergence, People & Permaculture, 7 Ways to Think Differently and Strands of Infinity. She first came across permaculture in 1999, and was deeply inspired by the collaborative learning environment and the focus on emerging solutions through collective wisdom. Since then she’s been deeply immersed in the permaculture movement, and has been a trustee and chair of the Permaculture Association and senior diploma tutor. Looby has been teaching since 2002 and has run many courses including a dozen teacher trainings. In 2016 she set up the Applewood Permaculture Centre with her family, where they run courses and grow food.In this interview, Looby walks me through her journey of learning and development of permaculture principles in the social space and how it can be applied to community dynamics and the concept of cultural emergence. We also explore how we learn from the patterns of the natural world to inform healthy personal development and much more. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://cultural-emergence.com/ https://applewoodcourses.com/ https://newsociety.com/books/h/human-permaculture https://www.instagram.com/culturalemergence/ https://www.instagram.com/loobymacnamara/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvLh8dxAZdMoxZhHCKNFkHQ/videos https://www.facebook.com/groups/449388955801111/ https://twitter.com/permaculturemag?lang=en

As I continue to explore the knowledge and wisdom of people around the world working to build and strengthen their communities, I’ve been uncovering inspiring examples of local initiatives striving for a carbon neutral future. Inspired to act by the global efforts to reduce nonrenewable fuel dependence and to uncouple their essential infrastructure from fossil fuels, communities have taken it upon themselves to do their part to transition towards a sustainable future even if governments at the national level have been lagging behind. One of the more advanced of these community projects with a track record of enduring change and resilience is that of the community of Hepburn Shire in Victoria, Australia where a community partnership called Hepburn Z-NET is working to make the Hepburn Shire the first zero-net emission shire in Australia. One of the people who has been instrumental in organizing community efforts to come together around the goal of net zero emissions is Taryn Lane. Taryn designed and led the Hepburn Shire Z-NET project which modeled a “whole municipality” 100% renewable and carbon-neutral pathway. For the past decade Taryn has also managed Hepburn Wind, the first and largest community-owned renewable energy facility in Australia. The 4.1MW wind farm hosts two turbines, called Gale and Gusto, that produce enough clean energy to power more than 2000 homes. She has also undertaken a Churchill Scholarship looking at community energy projects around the world. Taryn is also a founding director of the Australian Wind Alliance and the Coalition for Community Energy. She has recently developed two best practice community engagement guides for large scale renewable energy developments for both the Victorian Government and the Clean Energy Council. The project is open source and a best practice approach to bottom-up transition. In this interview we discuss a wide range of topics from the more technical side like the breadth of factors in calculating the emissions impact of a community, the various technologies needed for a resilient system throughout the year, and strategic financial planning in the long term to reach goals that are out of reach at the beginning.We also dive deep into the community organization aspects which are essential to success lik gaining the trust of local residents, bringing together people from various sectors, managing expectations, and including diverse voices in each level of decision making. I especially recommend sticking around to the end of the interview when Taryn gives her advice for people looking to start similar initiatives in their own communities and where they can find tools and resources to help them get started. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: http://hepburnznet.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Z-Net_CTP_Screen-1.pdf https://hepburnznet.org.au/ hepburnwind.com.au https://www.instagram.com/hepburnenergy/ https://www.facebook.com/HepburnZnet https://c4ce.net.au/knowledge-hub/

You can now get connected to the vast network of experts, consultants and coaches who are part of the Climate Farming network. We know that making the transition to profitable regenerative agriculture is hard enough, but without support from people with experience and who understand your unique context, you can waste needless time, money, and effort along the way. So don’t do it alone. Just click on the link below and we’ll help you find tailored assistance that can fasttrack your transformation and get you where you dream of going. Click here to be matched with an expert consultant or mentor for your regenerative farm I’ve touched on this topic briefly in previous interviews, but it bears repeating. Agriculture around the world is going through a critical moment. The skyrocketing prices of petroleum products, meaning most agriculture chemicals and fertilizers as well as machinery fuel, is causing a tipping point for many farm businesses. Operations that have long been dependent on these synthetic inputs are facing tough decisions. Do they double down and continue to keep their land on life support, sticking with the system they know, but which is becoming more and more unsustainable, or do they take a gamble on new management methods that prioritize soil biology and multiple ecosystem services?There are no easy answers since for most growers who’ve relied on these inputs for years if not decades, there will need to be a period of transition, even if they chose regenerative management, in which their yields could suffer.Luckily, there are a few well qualified professionals out there with a track record of guiding farmers through the challenge of transitioning their land management practices, and I had the chance to speak to three of them in a special panel discussion. In today’s session I’ll be speaking with Ian Robertson, Ben Taylor-Davies, and Ed Brown. Between these three fellas they have decades of experience at the forefront of regenerative agriculture, and continue to push the advancement of agroecological innovation at both the individual farm scale as well as the institutional level. All three of these guys are good friends who attest to speaking to one another just about every day and you’ll hear the characteristics of their friendship come out in this insightful and also light hearted discussion. Links: https://www.regenben.com/ https://www.hlhltd.co.uk/ https://soiladvice.com/ https://twitter.com/EdCTBrown https://www.instagram.com/eb_agroecology/ https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/boats-flerds/id1576334053?i=1000531588261 https://www.regenben.com/ https://soiladvice.com/

Learn more about the Regenerative Media Alliance and our events and resources here! I’m very excited for today’s episode, because it’s been in the works for quite a long time. For years I’ve been thinking about how to connect with some of the other podcasters and content producers that I’ve admired and learned from. My initial motivation after all was to contribute something to the incredible body of work being built online and made available for free. These resources are behind my own professional growth and the success of many of the projects I’ve been involved with. Eventually I wanted to take the next step and work directly with other creative producers in hopes of growing beyond each of our skill sets. If anyone else listening is also involved in creating online content, you can probably relate to the fact that it can be quite lonely at times. I’m lucky that I get to speak with new and fascinating people all the time, but it’s almost always over a zoom call. After the episodes go live, I receive a lot of positive feedback, often from people I’ve never met as well. And yet one of the primary motivations for doing this work is to build community around the ideas and skills that are presented on the show, and for a long time I was looking for a way to work more closely with others who are motivated by the same goals. About a year ago, I figured I’d reach out to a few of my heroes in the podcasting space to see if they’d be interested in creating a group to support one another to continue to improve the quality of our shows and brainstorm ways of supporting others, especially newer creative producers, to launch their own shows and channels, all with the vision of strengthening regenerative focused media.I was amazed to get enthusiastic replies from two of the podcast hosts that had been instrumental in the formation of my own show, and from there the idea began to grow. Little by little we overcame big time differences, conflicting schedules, and the nervousness of working with people we still didn’t know too well. Gradually, our meetings became more frequent and our little concept began to take shape and grow beyond my own initial vision. Today I’m proud to announce the launch of the Regenerative Media Alliance. Jill Cloutier from Sustainable World Radio, Scott Mann from the Permaculture podcast, and myself. This episode is a celebration of the journey that brought us to podcast production, but also to the friendship that has grown from the development of this Alliance.If you’re unfamiliar with Jill and Scott from their shows, let me give you a quick bio on each.Jill offers solutions-oriented interviews with experts from around the globe; designers, environmentalists, farmers and earth activists who learn from and work with nature on her show Sustainable News Radio. With her guest, she explores wider questions about permaculture and sustainability, encouraging listeners to appreciate the land, water, plants, and people that sustain their lives. When not working producing Sustainable World Radio or working at her day job as the PR Director for Explore Ecology, an environmental education and arts nonprofit, you can find her in the garden, concocting herbal remedies, creating hydrosols with a funky homemade still, or dyeing clothes with natural plant dyes. With a background in radio, broadcasting, and technology, Scott Mann started his podcast the same week he graduated from his permaculture design course back in 2010. Originally started as a way to share what he learned about permaculture with the world, the show has since transformed to focus on interviews with world renowned teachers and authors alongside regional experts and local specialists. Through this approach, he continues to push the edge of what it means to practice permaculture on the ground and beyond the landscape. When not sitting behind the mic or in front of a monitor editing a new episode,

In today’s episode I’m going to bring us back to an aspect of strengthening community that I first began to explore in this series with David Holmgren and Charles Marhon. Back then we looked deeply into how suburbs and towns can work at a foundational level to regenerate their communities through civic planning and collaboration through each level of local government. In today’s episode I spoke to Sarah James, the co-author of the book The Natural Step for Communities which provides inspiring examples of communities that have made dramatic changes toward sustainability, and explains how others can emulate their success. Sarah is the principal of a city and town planning consulting firm specializing in participatory planning methods. She co-authored the American Planning Association's Planning for Sustainability Policy guide, and has published articles and given workshops throughout the United States. In this interview Sarah breaks down the natural step framework designed to guide change makers through the process of coordinating positive change through many different aspects of their community. She recounts the inspiration she found in the eco municipalities in Sweden that she visited and the examples that prove that sustainable towns are possible. We also navigate the obstacles that you’re likely to face in the change making process as well as strategies that have been shown to work. We also go into the mindset of successful sustainability leaders, advice for aspiring change makers, some of Sarah’s own learnings while teaching these steps, and much more. If you’ve been following along since the beginning of the series you’ll undoubtedly be picking up on many recurring patterns in the advice and success examples from many of the interviews, and this session with Sarah is a wonderful reinforcement of these important learnings. Links: https://www.sustainablesweden.org/?page_id=72〈=en

You can now get connected to the vast network of experts, consultants and coaches who are part of the Climate Farming network. We know that making the transition to profitable regenerative agriculture is hard enough, but without support from people with experience and who understand your unique context, you can waste needless time, money, and effort along the way. So don’t do it alone. Just click on the link below and we’ll help you find tailored assistance that can fasttrack your transformation and get you where you dream of going. Click here to be matched with an expert consultant or mentor for your regenerative farm I’m really excited to present today’s interview. It’s probably going to sound nerdy to have had so much fun talking about farm finances and profitability, but trust me, by the end of this session you’ll completely understand. Let me start out by saying that I’m a complete novice to the world of finance, accounting, and really just simple math. I mean, I get by just fine. I even think that I organize my personal finances better than most people, but that’s because I’m organized, not because I have any training in financial planning or bookkeeping. Despite this lack of formal knowledge, I’ve long admired people who are able to compute the large amounts of numbers and financial data that come in and out of a business and use them to make sense of its operations. The truth is that being able to decipher balance sheets, cash flows, profit and loss statements and other windows into the fiscal health of a business unlocks the power to diagnose problems while they’re still easily manageable and to predict the trajectory and risks you’ll encounter throughout your year and beyond. I know there are tons of business and accounting professionals who specialize in just about every job sector and industry out there, but I’ve rarely come across people who specialize in farms and who understand the wild variables and complexities of farm businesses. Luckily though, after our last interview, Nicole Masters from Integrity Soils suggested that I reach out to a friend and colleague of hers in Australia who she promised could shed some light on the lingering questions I had. That brings me to Kim Deans. Kim has 30 years of experience and has worked closely with hundreds of farming businesses through processes of change. Alongside her work with other farmers Kim has been implementing methods now known as “regenerative” agriculture on her property in NSW over the past 17 years. Kim specializes in working with innovative farmers who are disillusioned with the high input, industrial farming models to tailor a unique strategy for reinventing their whole agricultural business. She works with clients to support them as they build a solid foundation of soil health, profit and resilience into their businesses with the aim of making farming enjoyable again. Over her career, Kim has created well tested processes designed to empower farmers to break out of information overwhelm and confidently take the next step to implementing regenerative agricultural practices that are appropriate to their scale and context. At the core of this process is financial diagnostics to illuminate issues in management at various levels of the enterprise. In this interview Kim tells me how her early work as a financial advisor to farmers shone a light on the issues of soil degradation and made it clear exactly how important caring for the health of a farm ecosystem really is for the health of farm businesses. We talk about specific strategies and techniques she's found most helpful in guiding people through the financial planning process, especially if they're new to it. We also talk about the essential skills that someone needs to practice to begin thinking analytically about how to improve the profitability of their farm business, de-risk their enterprises, and even assess the profitability of a new farm enterprise.

Today I want to build on the focus of last week’s episode with Morag Gamble in which we explored the challenges and opportunities for environmental and societal regeneration in refugee communities. One of the people that Morag mentioned in the interview who is also pioneering regenerative work with refugee communities was Natalie Topa. I immediately recognized that name from an inspiring webinar that I’d watched in which Natalie presented her work and design methods from her experience working in post conflict and disaster zones as well as refugee communities in east Africa. In general I have so much respect for people who take on both the personal risk to go ad work in conflict or post disaster areas, and who take on the heavy responsibility of deeply listening to members of the communities they’re working in to understand their unique situation before jumping to conclusion about the solutions they think those people need, and Natalie is an inspiring example of both of those capabilities. But let me take a few steps back and give you some context.Natalie Topa was born to a Polish immigrant mother and a Ukrainian refugee father who grew up in Rio de Janeiro. Natalie herself was born in Buffalo, New York and then moved to Denver at age five and grew up in Colorado where she completed her Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Human Services, and a Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning with a focus in Economic Development. She later moved to South Sudan after the signing of the 2005 Peace Agreement to work on post-war town planning and reconstruction, and then started to work with displaced populations on community reconstruction, agriculture, health and school facilities, water provision and civic engagement. Since then, Natalie has directed programs in climate change resilience using a systems-based approach that includes local governance, gender empowerment, market systems development, financial inclusion, food security and natural resource management. ​Today, Natalie works on a global scale in applying regenerative design for resilience in the contexts of disaster, displacement and development” with experience in Africa, Middle East and Southeast Asia.. In this interview Natalie started by mapping out her wild journey into her unique line of work. From there we talk about the learning journey that has added new tools and options to her repertoire along the way. From there we started to explore the types of situations and challenges she encounters when she is brought in to work with a community and the processes she has developed to uncover the needs as well as the resources that those communities have. Natalie has so many examples of activities and exercises that she uses to get the full range of people involved with the design and development process and her stories are truly inspiring. This conversation goes into some incredible and unexpected places and Natalie isn’t in the least bit shy about talking about the realities and causes of the situations she’s encountered. Prepare yourself for a very candid and powerful conversation, Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74zRegYj1JA&t=7422s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlEuMJFDn0M&pp=ugMICgJlcxABGAE%3D https://www.soberaniaalimentaria.info/otros-documentos/experiencias/898-la-regeneracion-del-entorno-en-el-contexto-de-los-desplazamientos-forzadoshttps://www.facebook.com/groups/484088199220373/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/211662703849588/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/144726600554690/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/123605349596707/https://www.facebook.com/groups/248533970003360/https://regenerativeskills.com/morag-gamble-on-hope-for-regeneration-in-refugee-communities/

Learn more about Morag Gamble's online permaculture training here! As we continue to dive deeper into this series on how to build strong communities I wanted to take the time to try and understand some of the unique challenges of some of the most difficult community circumstances. I’m talking specifically about refugee settlements and communities of displaced people. It’s unfortunately true that camps and shelters for people who’ve been forced to move are growing massively in recent years. Conflicts in Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia, Syria and most recently in Ukraine have caused millions of people to flee to neighboring countries and further abroad in just the last couple of years. Conflict is certainly not the only reason for mass migration either. Natural disasters have exacerbated and floods, fires, drought and storms are increasing in intensity and frequency causing a growing population of climate refugees.While there are so many different approaches to solving these growing issues, I want to focus on how to bring progress and hope of regeneration to the people in these vulnerable living situations. I have my own experiences from living in developing areas of the world. I distinctly remember teaching courses at the houses of my neighbors in Guatemala to build more efficient earthen cook stoves for people who were used to cooking on open fires in one room adobe houses. During my travels I’ve seen and interacted with many communities of few material and financial means, but I’ve never worked closely with displaced people or gotten to know the challenges they face. For this perspective I reached out to Morag Gamble about her direct work with refugee settlements in different countries. Morag is the founder of the global Permaculture Education Institute. She teaches permaculture educators and [pr]activists online, but also in universities, libraries, ecovillages, community gardens and refugees settlements on 6 continents. She experiments with one-planet living at her ecovillage home in Australia and in her award-winning permaculture garden where she has lived since 1998 with her family. Morag mentors the global Permayouth and has supported over 1500 refugee youth and women to access free permaculture education through her charity Ethos Foundation. She’s a permaculture writer, podcaster, YouTuber, and blogger who speaks up for the wellbeing of life on this planet as a planetarian [pr]activist. Morag is also a core member of Permaculture for Refugees, and collaborates with permaculture humanitarian organizations and speaks daily to refugees. In this interview, we start by exploring how Morag’s background in permaculture instruction led her to working with displaced communities. She helps me to understand both the differences and similarities between refugee communities and others that she’s worked with. We talk in depth about how permaculture education is relevant to people who’ve been displaced and are living in extremely difficult circumstances and scarce resources. Morag also sheds light on the concepts that have really stuck with the people she’s worked with there and how they’ve integrated the concepts into their own knowledge, culture, and interpretations. It’s really worth sticking around to the end as well as we explore Morag’s vision for how the international community could transform how it deals with displaced communities. How we could all begin to see these people for the incredible potential and gifts that they bring with them to the communities they seek refuge in and how we might contribute to their recovery and integration. We also explore how people who are interested in getting involved with this kind of important work can get started. Morag has an online course right now that can serve as a stepping stone into bringing hope and ecological abundance to these vulnerable communities Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the who...

Click here to be matched with an expert consultant or mentor for your regenerative farm journey! Agriculture around the world is at a critical moment. We find ourselves between simultaneous crises in which the long term effects of the pandemic continue to shine a light on the instability of our global food system, all while the war in Ukraine is resulting in a shortage of grain and synthetic fertilizers. The full effects of these scenarios are still a long way from being felt, but I can tell you that the dramatic rise in cost for these commodities is already throwing many farm operations into a panic. Many growers are now faced with excruciating choices to make on whether they try and force every square meter of their land to produce at a maximum in order to justify the steep prices of inputs, all while the weather continues to throw curveballs and threaten the viability of their crops, or take a risk on overhauling their land management models and make a dramatic shift to low or zero fertilizer farming that their ecosystem may not be prepared for. At the center of this are annual crop producers, mostly the growers of wheat, corn, soy, and other cereal and legume crops that make up the majority of cultivated land around the world. For decades now they’ve been lobbied and incentivised to increase their fertilizer and chemical inputs to produce ever more quantities on their land by both the agro chemical suppliers and the government subsidy systems that have promoted a “get big or get out” model of payouts.This has resulted in unprecedented biodiversity and topsoil loss in a race for higher yields that have eroded both the land and the viability of small to medium sized farms around the world. As dire as this scenario sounds, there are viable options and processes that have been tested and proven in many different contexts to wean your cropping operation off of these inputs and to step of the treadmill of extractive production by revitalizing the life in the soil and reducing or eliminating the chemical inputs and machinery intensive management of these staple crops. I’m keenly aware from my conversations with growers around Europe and other places that this is a vast and controversial topic, but to get us started I reached out to Timothy Parton, to break down the process that he went through to wean the farms that he manages off of chemical inputs and the reality of what that transition process has looked like. Tim is a Farm Manager from South Staffordshire in the UK, farming 300 ha of arable land who has pioneered no-till management in his area by focusing on promoting biology as much as possible to replace chemical inputs. He attests to using bacteria to fix nitrogen, release phosphorus, and fight off disease. He has massively reduced the use of Glyphosate where possible, using rolling/crimping to terminate cover crops, and he hasn’t used insecticides for the last 5 years, all while working to improve soil carbon content through rotation and cover cropping, also using companion cropping where possible. These efforts have earned him accolades including being named arable Innovator of the Year by British Farming Awards and receiving the Farm Innovator of the Year award from Farmers Weekly. This episode is a bit different from others that will be coming out in this series in that it comes from a live skill exchange call that I hosted from late last year, and the last half of the recording goes into the Q&A portion from farmers in our network. In this episode Tim and I discuss a wide range of essential aspects around the topic of regenerative transitions for arable crop operations. We start by looking into Tim’s own transition and the mindset shift that made the concepts and practices “click.” From there we go into the options available for weaning off of chemical inputs and how to make decisions that are right for the unique context of your land and farm business.

Learn more and register for the Profitable Syntropic Agroforestry course today! Fill out this form to receive free trees and planting support as well as a consultation call with Oliver As we continue in this ongoing series on building strong communities, I wanted to take a step back and focus on the youngest members whose needs and considerations are often overlooked as the adults take charge and make decisions. Childhood education, especially nature reconnection and environmental knowledge has come to the forefront of my thinking this year when my sister and the three little girls came to visit from where they live in Kuwait for the whole month of January. Going into this visit I was feeling really excited to spend time with them after a two year absence during the pandemic, and I started planning all kinds of activities for what we started calling Jungle School. Jungle School was thought up as the time I was going to set aside in the mornings to bring the girls outside to discover all the wonders of nature and the different forms of plant, animal and fungal life that we have in this environment. The setting was perfect. Thanks to a connection that my partner has, we were able to put them up in a Catalan Masia set in an organic hazelnut orchard where there's outdoor play areas, fruit trees, chickens and rabbits, and even horse stables. I figured I got this. I mean, I used to work at a camp counselor at summer camps and at a guest ranch, and one of my first jobs was a before and after school program at an elementary school. I love working with kids and I in the zoom calls before they came out, I got them all worked up about the coming adventures of jungle school. You’re probably thinking by now, “Oliver, you’re hyping this up a lot but it sounds like you’re setting this all up for a big let down,” but that’s not the case. All in all, things went incredibly well. The girls loved going out to feed our food scraps from the kitchen to the pig, and pick leaves to feed to the rabbits, and the oldest, Selma, who’s 6, ran around the orchards with me playing Harry Potter and hunting Voldemort. At the same time though, if I’m being honest, a lot of the activities I’d planned and set up for outdoor activities were not a huge hit. I could tell pretty quickly that some of them were really fun for a 6 year old, while Rawan at 3 lost interest real fast, or vice versa, Rawan would play constantly in a sandpit forever while Selma got bored and a little cranky. All of this is to say that I got a renewed respect for the insight it takes to plan nature activities for kids and the thoughtfulness required to guide them through environmental learning in a way that connects with young digital natives. Lucky for me there are some amazing resources out there that can help us out and so I reach out to Jacob Rodenburg the coauthor and author respectively of The Big Book of Nature Activities, and The Book of Nature Connection. Both of these titles focus on unique ways that Jacob has learned to engage children and adolescents with the wonders and science of nature. Jacob is the Executive Director of Camp Kawartha, an award winning summer camp and outdoor education center which uses music, drama, hands-on exploration, games and activities to inspire awe and wonder for the local environment. He teaches part time at Trent University, where he spearheaded the development of an "Eco Mentor" certificate program for teacher candidates which was subsequently adopted by several other universities. As well as publishing numerous articles on children, nature and the environment, Jacob has worked in the field of outdoor education for 25 years and recently received the Ontario Society of Environmental Educators Award for "Leadership in Environmental Education". In this interview, Jacob and I unpack the myriad reasons as to why it’s so important for children to learn to connect with nature at an early age,

In this ongoing series on building strong communities, we’ve already taken a look at the buildings and infrastructure that are more conducive to regenerative living and connected populations, but I want to return to a broader range of contexts and applications from around the world in this episode. Much like the first session from this series with Zach Weiss in which he profiled amazing examples from across the globe of communities who have come together to achieve incredible transformations of their ecosystems through landscape hydrology restoration, there are so many case studies to draw from.In my own travels I’ve witnessed inspiring groups of people who’ve overcome massive disadvantages such as lack of access to materials, funds, and antagonistic governments by banding together in their common vision of a better life and future. Some of the most notable projects I remember from an earlier stage in my work when I designed and built natural homes. There were technical skill training programs for single mothers and disadvantaged youths to give them higher wage job opportunities when I lived on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. A few of the graduates of that program worked side by side with me on natural building projects and ran restaurants that I frequented. In that same area I worked with a clinic that also had a low cost home building program which worked with the residents around them to identify the most vulnerable people living there to build stable housing for. In Senegal my Dutch clients worked with their local fishing community to create communal meeting spaces near the dilapidated fishing docks and establish a fresh food market run by women at the entrance of the town. Here in Spain I’ve visited a hotel and ranch that are working with local authorities to manage the forests in their area to reduce fire risk by harvesting discarded wood to turn into mushroom substrate, an enterprise that also works with at-risk youth from Barcelona to give vocational training and has also hired from that group. So many of my collaborators and clients from around the world have exemplified community collaboration and outreach and I’ve often wondered if there’s a playbook that one could access to begin the nuanced process of bringing people together to work towards common goals.Luckily, the new book by Dr James Gruber called Building Community: Twelve Principles for a Healthy Future does exactly that, and I reached out to the author (who prefers to go by Jim) to get his take on the steps in this process. The book profiles tons of exceptional examples of community projects from around the world. Some of which Jim has studied and others of which he was involved with directly and helped to facilitate in his role as a community consultant. In this interview we talk about some of the important considerations when first approaching a community based project. Jim outlines many of the key steps that nearly all of the case studies he’s seen have in common and are not to be skipped if long term success is what you’re after, and he shares inspiring anecdotes from his facilitation role and observations of this process unfolding organically in different places. He also gives insight into his toolbox of leadership strategies meant to guide newcomers of community development to help ensure that your project gets started on the right foot. Oh and a quick bonus for those of you who really want to dive deeper into community building, my good friends at New Society who published this book are offering a giveaway for listeners of this show. Just stick around till the end of this episode where I’ll tell you just how you can get a free copy of Building Community for yourself. A little disclaimer, I had a short delay on my side of the connection in the beginning of this interview so you’ll hear me clumsily interrupt Jim a few times at the start. Luckily it doesn’t last for too long.

Click here to be matched with an expert consultant or mentor for your regenerative farm journey! Today I’m excited to announce a completely new thread to this podcast. I’ve teamed up with Climate Farmers, the company that I’ve been working with for over a year now, that is working to scale regenerative agriculture in Europe by assisting farmers in their transition toward regenerative management of their land and businesses. At the beginning of this year our whole team invested a lot of time in reaching out to the people in our network all around Europe in order to learn about what their goals are, what they’re struggling with, and how we can co create solutions together. One of the primary things we found is that many of us are searching for specific connections in order to have dedicated support as challenges inevitably come up. As a result, we’ve begun building a consultant matching service for farmers who are looking for knowledgeable and experienced consultants, coaches, or experts. Luckily, we have a growing list of people around the continent who fit that description and are available to offer assistance. Since we also know that it can be tough to choose between so many experts, we offer help in this area by selecting from the criteria and experience that's important to you and is relevant to your context. In order to showcase the astounding knowledge and expertise of some of the people in our network, I’m starting off this first episode of this new thread on Climate Farming to highlight some of the best regenerative agriculture consultants from around the world in order to get a better understanding of the process of transitioning a farm to regenerative management. In the coming months we’ll explore the steps that our experts advise to guide growers through the essential journey of mindset change, observation, learning, experimentation, monitoring, and evolution of ideas in order for farmers to transform their relationship with the land. Along the way, if you, or anyone you know, would like to reach out directly to the people that we interview, or are looking to be connected with a regenerative agriculture expert in your area, you can get in touch with us directly by clicking the link I’ve put up on the show notes for this episode on the Regenerative Skills website. The same goes if you’re a regenerative agriculture coach or consultant who would like to be featured on our roster of experts. You can find that easily at regenerativeskills.com or through our linktree on Instagram With all of that said, I wanted to get this series started off with a deep dive about what it means to be an effective assistant to farmers and land managers in transition. Whether you call yourself an educator, consultant, coach, mentor, or something else, everyone has a different approach and has a different process. That’s why I reached out to Nicole Masters, who’s now launching a program to train highly effective coaches and consultants called CREATE. Nicole is an agroecologist, educator and systems thinker with nearly 20 years’ of extensive practical and theoretical experience in regenerative land practices. She has been communicating these methods throughout Australasia since 2003 and North America since 2013; helping to inspire and guide producers into new and innovative ways to produce food. Nicole has a deep commitment to finding win-win solutions for both the wellbeing of landscapes and land managers. As a seasoned soils coach, she has a proven record in supporting producers in meeting their goals. With over 1.2 million acres under her programs, Nicole excels at identifying and solving challenges through proactive management. Her passion for fostering the growth of these farming practices calls upon diverse skills in facilitation, conflict resolution, an understanding of behavioral change and science communication. With soil as a major driver for ecosystem health,

Learn more and register for the Profitable Syntropic Agroforestry course today! Fill out this form to receive free trees and planting support as well as a consultation call with Oliver I’ve often wondered what in the world goes on in the thought process behind the planning and design of the newer towns that I’ve lived in. In the case of really old places, the layout and architecture always made more sense to me. Streets are laid out with orientations to sun patterns or for ease of access to important markets or buildings, and the homes reflect the integral relationship between extended family or workers, animals, and the processing of food and household goods, and the simple natural materials with which much of it is built is integrated with art, gardens, and water features which also serve important cultural functions In contrast, while modern civic planning is very utilitarian, the utility appears to ignore many essential human functions for the ease of machinery and transport. I knew neighbors who would drive to get their mail at the end of the street because there were no walkways, and who spent countless hours maintaining lawns that their children rarely walked on. There were few if any gathering spaces or community activity centers unless you count shopping malls or gyms. When you grow up in those environments they seem pretty normal, but once I got to travel and see the contrast of places that were built before cars, concrete, and steel, I began to wonder why we ever abandoned that style of building. I’ll put in a disclaimer here that I will stop short of over romanticizing the past. I’ve learned enough about history that I don’t envy the sanitary or living conditions of almost any previous century, nor do I want to gloss over the challenges that these old places are having in integrating with the modern world. There are many complex and contextual reasons why these places are both heralded for their picturesque tourist value while the younger generations flee to find work and opportunities in new developments. And yet, I wanted to gain some insight about why modern towns abandoned some patterns that we know to be more conducive to connected living and what can be done to retrofit and redesign the infrastructure we have. For this I spoke to Charles Marohn, professional engineer and a land use planner with decades of experience. Marohn is the author of both Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity, and Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town. He hosts the Strong Towns Podcast and is a primary writer for Strong Towns’ web content. He has presented Strong Towns concepts in hundreds of cities and towns across North America and Planetizen named him one of the 10 Most Influential Urbanists of all time. In this interview we explore the transformation of urban planning over the last few decades and Charles gives vivid examples from well known studies of major cities around the United States of both the dire consequences of poor planning and the potential of better design. We also look into the simple steps that anyone can take to begin to reverse the disconnection of their community and begin to create connections and deeper relationships that can set their community on a new trajectory. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.strongtowns.org/ https://twitter.com/clmarohn https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesmarohn/ https://www.facebook.com/marohn https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-mark-lakeman/ https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-city-repair/ https://regenerativeskills.com/david-holmrgren-on-the-hidden-regeneration-potential-of-the-suburbs/

Learn more and register for the Profitable Syntropic Agroforestry course today! Fill out this form to receive free trees and planting support as well as a consultation call with Oliver I’ve had the privilege of being able to travel to many places around the world to design and manage projects for organizations and clients, and the one constant that I find whether it’s getting a natural home off the ground, planning an agroforestry plantation, or even remotely consulting with someone on their dream project, is that the community element is the most often overlooked. Time and time again I’ve seen projects stall or move backwards because they think they just don’t have the monetary or material resources to continue, when in fact it’s their social capital which is lacking. On the other side I’ve seen the power of collaboration overcome shortages of money and institutional support as neighbors and friends offer their creativity, expertise, or even just emotional support to get past the inevitable hurdles that come up. Despite this, there are far fewer resources and courses in the regenerative fields on how to build social capital, involve and connect your community, or how to apply the patterns of nature to organize people and our institutions. So today I want to kick off this series by going to the source of permaculture study by speaking to the co-originator of permaculture, David Holmgren. Back In 1978, he and Bill Mollison published Permaculture One, starting the global permaculture movement. Since then, David has developed three properties, consulted and supervised on urban and rural projects, written eight more books, and presented lectures, workshops and courses in Australia and around the world. His writings over those three decades span a diversity of subjects and issues, whilst always illuminating aspects of permaculture thinking and living. While there are endless things I could ask David about, In this interview we focus on his newest book, RetroSuburbia: the downshifter’s guide to a resilient future, his 592-page manual showing how Australians can downshift and retrofit their homes, gardens and selves for resilience into an uncertain future. We talk about why he chose to focus on the suburbs when many people are now looking to abandon them and move to more rural areas. We explore the potential that there is in retrofitting the infrastructure of peri urban environments that were poorly designed and the source of much wasteful energy and material use. This is a wide ranging conversation that explores the evolution of permaculture, various cohabitation arrangements, getting around strict regulations, and much more. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://holmgren.com.au/ https://online.retrosuburbia.com/ https://www.youtube.com/user/MelliodoraHepburn/videos https://www.facebook.com/MelliodoraHepburnPermaculture https://www.facebook.com/groups/retrosuburbia/

Zach Weiss on the power of community collaboration to revive rivers and bring back the rain

Welcome back. Today we’re going to continue with this focus on the design process of regenerative projects at various different scales. We’ve already covered small and residential scale projects with Rob Avis, homesteading projects aiming for self sufficiency with Drew Grim, farm scale and production focused projects with Darren Doherty, and today we’re going to cap it all off with an intimate look at the most ambitious large scale projects that aim to transform whole ecosystems while creating a profit for the local community and investors alike. Naturally for this scale of work I reached out to Neal Spackman. If you’re not already familiar with Neal from the two previous interviews I did with him on this show, I can tell you that Neal is best known for his work on the Al Baydah project in Saudi Arabia, and as the co-founder of the Regenerative Resources. With the Al Baydah project he’d been working for nearly a decade in one of the most arid regions of the world in a severely desertified region of Saudi Arabia to regenerate the landscape there through permaculture methods focusing on water harvesting techniques. As a former student of Geoff Lawton, Neal began work on the project with no prior experience with either permaculture or dryland restoration, but in a remarkably short time he and his team have completely transformed the way the land both sequesters water and builds topsoil, and has even reached the point where the trees no longer need any water from drip irrigation in a desert that receives only a few centimeters of rainfall a year. In this episode we’re going to take a look at the new projects that he and the team at Regenerative Resources are launching. Their ambitious goals of using some of the most degraded coastal land on the planet to restore mangrove ecosystems with the aim of establishing agroforestry systems and productive fisheries is now starting to take shape in a big way. Neal and I start by talking about all the changes and challenges that he and the company have been going through as they’ve traversed the globe looking for project sites, connecting with communities, and researching the feasibility of their projects. From there we talk about the key differences and considerations when designing projects at this massive scale and how they work to calculate the feasibility out into an uncertain future. We also get into the inevitable finance aspect of large initiatives and the disconnect between the investors and companies that say they want to fund regenerative projects, and all of the projects that are struggling to find funding. This conversation strays a lot more than the others in this series from mere design and ecological considerations, but is essential for anyone who has dreamed of creating a bigger impact with a regenerative land based project but can’t wrap their heads around the daunting task of finding the resources and support needed to get it off the ground. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://medium.com/@neal.spackman/the-valley-of-death-bc66c6812bb6 https://regenerativeresources.co/ https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-desert-regeneration-and-showcasing-examples-of-permaculture-success-with-neal-spackman-of-the-al-baydah-project-and-sustainable-design-masterclass-019/ https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-neal-spackman-2/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P1rPnVUME4

Learn more and register for the Profitable Syntropic Agroforestry course today! Fill out this form to receive free trees and planting support as well as a consultation call with Oliver As we continue through this series on regenerative design we’ve taken a look at small and residential scale projects with Rob Avis of Verge Permaculture, last week we explored the homestead scale with Drew Grim from The Schoolhouse Life, and this week we’re getting into the larger scale of properties and how regenerative design can be applied to farms. For this subject, my go-to source for practical and professional farm design is always Darren Doherty. Darren describes himself as a 5th generation Bendigo region land manager, developer, author & trainer who has been involved in the design & development of well over 3000, mostly broadacre projects across 6 continents in more than 50 countries, ranging from 1 million hectare cattle stations in Australia’s Kimberly region to 110,000 acre Estancia’s in Patagonia, EcoVillage developments in Tasmania to public:private R&D agroforestry & education projects in Viet Nam, novel AG Machinery development + family farms across the globe with a range of private, corporate, government & non-profit clients. Darren is the originator of the Regrarians Platform® process which outlines a strategic & logical process to the development of regenerative agricultural systems and is the program extensively outlined in the Regrarians Handbook which is now being released chapter by chapter as an eBook; along with the Regrarians Workplace which is the online content management and professional liaison platform for all client, associate, training and alumni relations. Though I’ve interviewed Darren a couple times before on this show, this session in particular was very timely for me as I’m currently working through the Online REX program for the design of my own property while guiding our Climate Farmers Pioneer group through the same process. With a more intimate understanding of Darren’s design system I was looking to gain insight to the lineage of his learning and experience as well as the mind behind the process.Darren has a unique way of teaching in that many of his answers to questions come in the form of stories and explain not only the answer you were looking for but the history and context around it so that you can develop your own answers in the future.This interview takes a much more philosophical bend than I had anticipated going into it, and as a result I learned a lot more than what I had expected since I’m now quite familiar with his teaching material. So get comfortable for this one and just let the stories unfold Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: http://www.regrarians.org/ http://www.regrarians.org/webinars-ron/ https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-darrendoherty/ https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-darren-doherty-2/

Last week I started off this series on the regenerative design process, first focusing on small scale and residential properties, let’s take the next step up and look into homesteads. Homesteading is something of a unique concept to colonial American culture and the term was coined during the homesteading acts of the 1860s. That said, there are plenty of similar concepts in other parts of the world. The ones that I’m most familiar with are small-holdings and crofts, from England and Scotland respectively. In general though a homestead refers to a home and a plot of land where the residents work to provide a large portion of what they consume and it usually includes some small production or service enterprises such as growing and processing food for market, craft and artisan goods and services like repair and fabrication. The distinction that is often made these days is that of whether or not the enterprises in the home and on the land are primarily for sale or for use and consumption by the residents. In today’s session, I’ll be speaking with Drew Grim, a long time homesteader and educator, and the cofounder of The Schoolhouse Life with his wife Lacey. He has been formally trained in permaculture design, Regenerative Agriculture, and Holistic Management, and he uses those trainings along with years of experience to coach people in how to live a more connected life as a homesteader or farmer. A life where the everyday decisions look holistically at the land, livestock, and farmer, both physically and spiritually. In this interview, Drew and I talk about some of the common motivators for people moving to more remote areas and working to become more self-sufficient. Much of this is connected to fears and uncertainty in the wake of the pandemic, but a lot come from environmental, better health, and even personal interest goals as well. We talk about the need for realistic expectations and easing into the lifestyle rather than jumping in the deep end without any experience. From there Drew tells me about how he has learned to manage his time with all of the unending projects and tasks that their home and land require, and how he has learned to manage it all holistically. We also spend a good bit of time talking about the community aspect of homesteading, which often seems antithetical to the idea of moving away from people and becoming self-sufficient, but from my own experience and Drew’s as well, we’ve found that building a strong community is as essential as a good food supply. Drew and I have been through many of the same training and design programs and I loved hearing how he’s used permaculture design and holistic management principles among others to create the life that he and his wife have always wanted for their families. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.theschoolhouselife.com/ Permaculture Homesteading in Nepal: A Story of Community Connection, with Zac Barton of Almost Heaven Farms https://regenerativeskills.com/essential-things-to-consider-when-making-the-shift-to-a-homesteading-lifestyle-with-natalie-bogwalker-of-wild-abundance/ Get the book "Homesteading for Every Home" for free!Receive the book directly in your inboxPlease enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Name *FirstLastEmail *EmailDownload

Check out New Society Publisher's sustainability practices for digital reading Welcome to the very first episode of Season 6 of this show. This podcast has undergone a lot of changes and evolutions since I began as the Abundant Edge podcast back in 2017 in Guatemala. Back then I was working mostly in natural building designing homes and managing construction sites for friends and clients around lake Atitlan, now it’s been two and a half years since I moved to Spain to be with my partner, and after years of searching and planning, we’re now preparing to move to a new property later this year in the Catalan mountains. Yet through all of these changes, my fascination for the knowledge and stories of folks around the world who are working to regenerate this planet and their communities has only grown. This year and over the 48 weeks of this podcast season, I want to take you through a learning journey through some of the most important concepts, skills, and experiences that I’ve come to value in my professional work, as well as the path that I’ll be taking to move into our new property and design the place to accomplish the personal, financial, and community goals that my partner and I have set out for ourselves. I’ve also been listening keenly to the valuable feedback and ideas that have been coming up from the Discord channel. Many of you there have voiced a clear interest in hearing more in-depth and long form interviews, and so that’s exactly what I’ll be working to provide. So to start off this season, I’ll be doing a deep dive into the design process from some of the most renowned permaculture and regenerative project planners that I know. Since all of you are coming from different contexts and resource bases, I’m approaching this topic from different angles. In this first session I spoke with Rob Avis from Verge Permaculture. For 12 years now he and his wife Michelle along with a growing team of designers have been elevating professional permaculture design in Canada and have written and produced professional resources and educational content in order to make permaculture and environmental design learning accessible to as many people as possible. Since launching Verge, he’s helped more than 5,000 students and a growing number of clients design and/or create integrated systems for shelter, energy, water, waste, and food, all while supporting local economies and regenerating the land. In 2019, Rob moved to a 65-hectare [160-acre] wooded property in central Alberta, Canada, and now spends most of his free time building his own permaculture property. In this session we covered a lot of ground, but focused on the design process specifically for small and residential scale projects. We talk about the differences in the process at small scales and the advantages and disadvantages of the space limitation. Rob shares a lot of his personal learning from being a designer and educator for over a decade and the aspects of the learning and observation process that he’s expanded or now breezes past. We also spend some focused time talking about the opportunities outside of just growing food that he sees in making a living and building business through the application of permaculture training. Be sure to stick around all the way till the end where Rob gives a sneak peak at the new blockchain project he’s launching this year with the cofounders of the Ethereum cryptocurrency with the goal of regenerating the planet by 2049. Rob brilliantly mixes a deep and philosophical understanding of earth care and environmental patterns with a practical and focused approach of a career engineer. You’ll want to take the time to hear this one all the way through. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: Vergepermacuture.ca https://www.youtube.com/c/VergePermaculture https://www.instagram.

If you have a restoration or reforestation project anywhere in Europe, click the link to fill out a short information form and see if you’re eligible to receive free trees and support in planting them. This can be a project of almost any size so don’t hesitate and check today to receive all the support you need to get your planting project off the ground and into the ground!If you're early in the process of starting an ecological restoraton project and you want to learn how to make your own your own ecosystem restoration design, consider the Gia Education online course which includes incredible teachers such as Alan Featherstone Watson, Neal Spackman, Precious Phiri, and a slew of accomplished and knowledgeable restoration professionals including myself to guide you through every step of the process and help ensure the success of your project. From grasslands to oceans, urban landscaped to old growth forests, nonprofits and business plans, this course has what you need regardless of where in the world you are. Click the link to sign up for the next round of classes. Climate Farmers is working to build the infrastructure to scale regenerative agriculture in Europe. We offer the highest value carbon credits on the market to help in the financial transition and our developing academy, community of professional regenerative agriculture consultants and support for you in the transition process will help you restore the health and future of your farm landscape. Learn more at ClimateFarmers.org Learn more about the unique and pioneering work of New Society Publishers and check out their extensive catalog of books to build a better world. From natural building to, gardening, homesteading, and holistic parenting advice, you’ll find the best quality information on what you’re looking for at NewSociety.comLink to Documentary If you’re inspired to follow me and my partner on our journey to develop our property in the mountains of Catalunya and build a resilient community around us in the process you can follow us on our Youtube channel by searching Regenerative Skills, our Instagram account by the same name which has all the pictures from the descriptions of the new site, and for the more personal parts that I keep off the public forums as well as the opportunity to share your own journey and interact with the whole Regenerative Skills community, you can sign up for free to our Discord channel Want to take the next step in your own learning journey from this podcast? You can gain access to all of the unedited interviews and Skill exchange calls as well as resource packets from the episodes starting at just $5 a month on our Patreon. If direct guidance is what you’re looking for I have a couple spots open for personalized coaching calls in the new year as well, so sign up before they fill up. Would you like to join me, Koen from the Investing in Regenerative Agriculture podcast, and Dimitri from The Regenerative Agroforestry Podcast for a community call to start 2022 off as the Year of Regeneration! You can join the three of us on an open Q&A where we’ll be talking about our own projects and what we’re most excited for and inspired by in the year to come. You can register for free here to join us together on January 10th at 7pm CET. sign up before spots fill up! Sign up through this link. Don’t hesitate, places are limited to 100. And as always, if there’s anything else you want to reach out to me about, you can get in touch directly at [email protected]’s it for this fifth season of the podcast. Thanks sincerely to all of you who’ve made it an unforgettable one. Thanks to you and your loyal listenership, this show is now in the top two percent of podcasts worldwide based on weekly downloads, which is just so much more than I ever could’ve hoped for, so thank you dearly for your support and encouragement to get this far. The launch of season 6 will be back like clockwork every Friday starting February four...

Let's start 2022 off as the YEAR OF REGENERATION! Join the community call with me, Koen from "Investing in Regenerative Agriculture," and Dimitri from "The Regenerative Agroforestry podcast" at 7pm CET on January 10th. Sign up through this link. Don't hesitate, places are limited to 100. The topic of fertilizers and inputs for farming is a contentious one. Most chemical options either use mined minerals or petroleum products through destructive industrial processes that may improve yields, but commonly pollute waterways, destroy soil life, and are extremely expensive. But what’s the alternative? If you have degraded or poor soil where little will grow, you have to improve it somehow right? Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could make your own fertilizers and soil amendments that didn’t contaminate the ground but rather enhanced biological activity? Luckily Nigel Palmer, lifelong gardener and the author of The Regenerative Grower’s Guide to Garden Amendments has been researching and developing just these types of solutions for decades. Not only has he been able to dramatically improve the health and composition of his soil over time, he’s been able to make his amendments easily and cheaply at home by harnessing the power of weeds and household products to create extracts, ferments, and inoculants. The result has been delicious and nutrient dense food that you simply can’t buy. In this interview from an earlier skill exchange call with the farmers in the Climate Farmer network here in Europe, Nigel and I spoke about some of the most important steps and knowledge in creating your own amendments. Nigel first talks about how to assess the health of your plants to know which amendments to consider. From there we look at a few different homemade products, how they work, and when to use them. We explore how plants take up nutrients in different forms and how to intervene when they need it the most, as well as a lot of other useful advice and tactics that any gardener can use to care for their plants regardless of the context they’re in or the challenges they face. If you want to hear the full unedited interview from the skill exchange call with the Q&A session at the end as well as access the resource packet which includes amendment recipes from the book, just check out the subscription options on our Patreon page. This is really empowering information because the recipes are very approachable and have the power to help break any addiction to chemical fertilizers as you build towards healthy resilient soil. Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/the-regenerative-growers-guide-to-garden-amendments/ https://www.nigel-palmer.com/ Nigel Palmer's YouTube channel

Welcome back everyone. This is part two of the conversation started last week with Akiva Silver. Co-owner of Twisted Tree nursery and homestead. If you haven’t yet heard the first part, you can find the link in the show notes for this episode on the website at regenerativeskills.com You’ll remember from last week that one of the first projects I encourage people to do is to start a plant nursery. Not only will you start the long process of coaxing plants into maturity which is worth beginning as soon as possible, but you’ll also learn valuable plant care and propagation in the process. Planting your own nursery can also save you money when you eventually begin planting out your design, and if you enjoy it enough and can find a market for saplings and seedlings, you can make good money selling nursery stock as well. There are also real advantages to growing your plants in the soil and environment where they’ll live so they get the chance to acclimate rather than suffer a harsh adjustment from the heated greenhouse and chemical fertilisers so common in most plant nurseries. In order to get a better understanding of just how easy and enjoyable it can be to start a nursery, I spoke with Akiva Silver who owns and operates Twisted Tree Farm, a homestead, nut orchard, and nursery located in Spencer, New York, where he grows around 20,000 trees per year using practices that go beyond organic. His background is in foraging, wilderness survival, and primitive skills. He has been observing nature intensively for the last 20 years, and cultivating a deep appreciation for life in that time. In the first portion of this episode we dove into how Akiva first began to propagate trees and his transition into making a business out of it and supporting his family by growing plants. We also got into all kinds of propagation methods and where and how to find the best materials for growing nursery stock. This week I’ll conclude this interview by exploring how to build a business around growing the plants you love, improving your soil enough that you can eliminate fertilisers and other inputs, the maintenance and care of your nursery through the different seasons, and the sales and marketing side of the business. In the lead up to the Holiday season, my good friends at Chelsea Green publishing have offered to give away two copies of Akiva’s book “Trees of Power” to our listeners in Europe. If you live anywhere in the Euro zone or the UK you can win your own copy by joining the Regenerative Skills Discord server and messaging me that you want to win a copy of the book. I’ll be selecting two people by the end of the week when the second half of this episode is released, so you’ve still got plenty of time. This is a great way to shortcut a little portion of your Holiday shopping to sign up and send me a message right away. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: http://www.twisted-tree.net/ https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/trees-of-power/

After the last few weeks of focus on the intricacies of Holistic management and building community in agriculture, I wanted to go back to some technical information on specific farming enterprises. One of the most common questions I get asked from listeners and clients who are starting new projects is about where to begin. Those of you familiar with permaculture will know of the common advice to live and wait a full year on your site before beginning to design and implement your vision. This time of observation and information gathering can be essential to avoiding common mistakes and preparing your place and design adequately to begin, but it can be frustrating for many people who just want to get started. For that reason, one of the first projects I encourage people to do is to start a plant nursery. Not only will you start the long process of coaxing plants into maturity which is worth beginning as soon as possible, but you’ll also learn valuable plant care and propagation in the process. Planting your own nursery can also save you money when you eventually begin planting out your design, and if you enjoy it enough and can find a market for saplings and seedlings, you can make good money selling nursery stock as well. There are also real advantages to growing your plants in the soil and environment where they’ll live so they get the chance to acclimate rather than suffer a harsh adjustment from the heated greenhouse and chemical fertilisers so common in most plant nurseries. In order to get a better understanding of just how easy and enjoyable it can be to start a nursery, I spoke with Akiva Silver who owns and operates Twisted Tree Farm, a homestead, nut orchard, and nursery located in Spencer, New York, where he grows around 20,000 trees per year using practices that go beyond organic. His background is in foraging, wilderness survival, and primitive skills. He has been observing nature intensively for the last 20 years, and cultivating a deep appreciation for life in that time. This is a longer episode for this show and it’s packed with useful and practical information so I’ve split it into two episodes. This first one dives into how Akiva first began to propagate trees and his transition into making a business out of it and supporting his family by growing plants. We also get into all kinds of propagation methods and where and how to find the best materials for growing nursery stock. Next week I’ll conclude this interview by exploring how to build a business around growing the plants you love, improving your soil enough that you can eliminate fertilisers and other inputs, the maintenance and care of your nursery through the different seasons, and the sales and marketing side of the business. In the lead up to the Holiday season, my good friends at Chelsea Green publishing have offered to give away two copies of Akiva’s book “Trees of Power” to our listeners in Europe. If you live anywhere in the Euro zone or the UK you can win your own copy by joining the Regenerative Skills Discord server and messaging me that you want to win a copy of the book. I’ll be selecting two people by the end of the week when the second half of this episode is released, so you’ve still got plenty of time. This is a great way to shortcut a little portion of your Holiday shopping to sign up and send me a message right away. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: http://www.twisted-tree.net/ https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/trees-of-power/

Welcome to the 11th of the monthly expert panel discussions, and our final panel of this year. Each month I've been hosting discussions and debates between some of the most prominent voices in regenerative agriculture, soil science, restoration land management and more. In this session I hosted a discussion on building community in agriculture with my friends and colleagues at Climate Farmers, a non-profit organization working to build the infrastructure to scale regenerative agriculture in Europe. In my work as the Community Coordinator with Climate Farmers I’ve heard from so many of the people in our network that they feel lonely or isolated in their work and in their own communities. Despite the work of many organisations to bring together growers in various regions, many farmers still don’t know where to turn to for support and connection. For this panel I was fortunate enough to be joined by three world renowned teachers and farm community builders from Zimbabwe, Spain, and Germany to focus on the nuances and challenges of building agricultural communities from their own unique experiences. We’ll hear from Allan Savory of the Savory Institute and international Holistic Management network, Ana Digón from the Agricultura Regenerativa network on the Iberian Peninsula, and Rudolf Bühler, leader of the farmers movement BESH and initiator of the UN’s peasant rights in Germany. We’ll go into some key starting points in bringing farming communities together, and what it takes to sustain them in the long term. We go from the importance of managing communities to alternative structures, important aspects of rural priorities, and a lot more. Don’t forget that if you want to hear the full, unedited version of this interview with the entire Q&A session at the end, be sure to check out the different subscription options on the Regenerative Skills Patreon page. Since these discussions are longer than the regular weekly episodes, and I give the more detailed descriptions of the participants in the beginning of the interview, I’ll keep the intro short and jump right into the introductions for our panelists. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: savory.global What is Holistic Management? https://www.agriculturaregenerativa.es/ https://www.schloss-kirchberg-jagst.de/ https://besh.de/

Welcome back to the second part of my interview with Allan Savory. If you haven’t yet heard the first part of the session you can find the link in the show notes on the website. Make sure you check that out first if you haven’t already. Last week we covered some of Allan’s insights into where he’s putting his efforts at his stage of his career and the aspects of Holistic Management that are tough for many to grasp despite the simplicity of the practice. He also made the important distinction that management is something you practice rather than apply, and how this shift in language can precipitate a change in mindset as well. We left off last week with Allan describing some examples of people who he’s worked with who have made quick and remarkable breakthroughs working with their holistic contexts, and we’ll pick up today with a continuation of that question. Since I’ve come to understand just how broadly holistic management can be practiced despite its primary association with grazing animals, I’ve been keen to understand some examples of the different contexts in which people have used the framework outside of farming, so let’s jump back in. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: savory.global What is Holistic Management? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1287318.Holistic_Management https://www.3lm.network/

this interview has been on my podcasting bucket list for a long time. Like so many others, I’d been intrigued by Allan’s work since I saw his iconic TED talk a few years back. The promise of the ability to restore grassland ecologies through carefully managed grazing made so much sense to me. Allan adeptly explained how he learned to mimic the migration patterns of herd animals on the plains in the African savannah by bunching them together to imitate predator pressure, and then move them through paddocks to allow the land to rest and recover in between impact cycles. Through careful observation he learned to time these grazing and rest cycles in such a way that the perennial grasses could grow larger than ever thought possible and so many other healthy functions of the land were restored in turn. It seems so simple and yet has marked a revolution in ranching and livestock management around the world, giving rise to the prominence of Holistic Management through the Savory Institute and an ever expanding network of Savory hubs around the world. I myself dabbled in the core teachings which are based around working with whole systems rather than reductionist scientific methods, and defining one's own holistic context within the whole under management. From there you learn to make decisions based on the quality of life you desire for yourself and those you love and assess the resources you need to produce or acquire to maintain that quality of life indefinitely. I began to see these principles pop up in other books I was reading and Allan’s teachings were quoted in nearly all of the courses on regenerative agriculture I came across. Many of my mentors have cited this framework as the foundation on which they design farms and manage ecologies. The pieces just get coming together Recently I finally committed and enrolled in the Holistic Management accredited professional course offered by 3LM, the Savory hub in the UK, which is responsible for training many of the other managers and trainers I’ve connected with around Europe. All of this led me to play hooky on my weekly online training to finally get to speak with the man himself. To be honest, this whole preamble was to try and explain why I sound so nervous in this interview. And just as Murphy’s law would have it, when I finally got Allan on the call, my connection began to fail me. So with the combination of me sounding much like I did back on the early seasons of this show and some annoying glitchy sound issues (which I promise I mostly cleaned up in the post production) I invite you to have a listen to the first of a two part call with Allan Savory in which we explore some of the insights that he’s gained from decades teaching and developing his framework all around the world. In this first half, we start by talking about what Allan is working on these days and what he still sees as the unfinished business of a very long career. We dissect some of the more challenging concepts in Holistic Management to grasp and also to teach, and Allan uses some of my inept use of language to illustrate some common misunderstandings that arise with newcomers like myself. If you’re interested in getting a chance to hear Allan Savory speak live and ask him some questions of your own, there are still spots open to register for the expert panel call that I’m hosting with him and Rudolf Buehler of the BESH farmers association this upcoming Wednesday at 8pm Central European time. It’s free to register and I’ll be posting the link on the discord channel which you can access through our website or instagram page. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: savory.global What is Holistic Management? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1287318.Holistic_Management https://www.3lm.network/

Welcome to the 10th of the monthly expert panel discussions. As I mentioned before, each month I’ll be hosting discussions and debates between some of the most prominent voices in regenerative agriculture, soil science, restoration land management and more. In this session I hosted a discussion on innovative marketing and sales models for farms with my friends and colleagues at Climate Farmers, a non-profit organization working to build the infrastructure to scale regenerative agriculture in Europe. In this panel I invited Alfonzo Guzman, the former head of the Alvelal cooperative in the Altiplano region of Spain and Stefan Sobkowiak of Miracle Farm and the Permaculture Orchard film. Each of them come from a background in regenerative agroforestry systems, but that’s where most of the similarities end. Alfonzo has helped to organise a growing network of farmers in one of the fastest desertifying regions of Europe to transition to regenerative farming practices by planting profitable tree species that do well in dry regions like almonds and focusing on restoring soil health and integrating animals. Through the creation of the Almendrehesa brand of regeneratively produced almonds, they’ve helped to significantly increase farmer earnings so they can reinvest in their natural capital and local communities. Stefan on the other hand is working at a much smaller scale and for decades has demonstrated innovative ways, not only to bring holistic health and biodiversity back to the conventional orchard that he has revived using permaculture methods, but has also pioneered a U-pick business models that focuses on the experiences and relationships that customers have with his farm. In this discussion, both Alfonzo and Stefan go into great detail, not only about how their farm operations and businesses work, but also the challenges that they’ve overcome along the ways and the unique aspects of their management that have helped them stand out from the competition and increase their sales and profits as well. I will give one disclaimer that the audio quality in this chat isn’t the best. I’ve done my best to clean things up, but bear with me through some rough connection issues. Think of it as a bit of turbulence on the flight, but don’t worry I’ll get us to our destination safely. Don’t forget that if you want to hear the full, unedited version of this interview with the entire Q&A session at the end, be sure to check out the different subscription options on the Regenerative Skills Patreon page. Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://miracle.farm/ https://miracle.farm/pruning-demo/ https://www.alvelal.net/ Check out previous expert panels https://regenerativeskills.com/how-to-make-and-analyse-high-quality-compost-expert-panel-8/ https://regenerativeskills.com/how-to-repair-the-hydrological-cycle-of-a-landscape-expert-panel-7/ https://regenerativeskills.com/the-broad-applications-of-the-holistic-management-framework-expert-panel-6/

I’ve been working on a very special project with Climate Farmers for the last few months and I’m proud to say we’re finally ready to announce our new Pioneer Program for farmers in Europe. For this round we’ve partnered with a long time hero of mine, Darren Doherty and his Regrarian’s platform, to bring the most complete regenerative farm training program together with our unique Carbon+ credits for transition finance assistance. The Regrarian’s online program is built around their expanded scale of permanence through which you’ll learn essential elements of Holistic Management, Keyline Design, farm infrastructure development, soil health, business and finances, and so much more. All of this will be accompanied by access to some of the biggest names in regenerative agriculture around the world through our Skill Exchange calls, Expert Panel Discussions, and a chance to get dedicated attention from some of the best ag consultants in your region, as well as guidance through the application process to the Carbon+ credits. Along the way I’ll be leading weekly coaching calls for the whole group, and you’ll be able to interact and ask questions to your peers and the whole regrarians network with access to their Workplace community. All of this amounts to the most thorough and robust program to guide you on your journey to profitable regenerative farming. Whether this is your first introduction into agriculture, or you’re a seasoned veteran who’s been growing for decades, whether you’re only planning a small farm or you’re managing thousands of hectares, you’ll find everything here that you need to make the journey as smoothly and confidently as possible. Applications will only be reviewed until the 5th of November and there is a limit to how many people we can accept into the program, so don’t hesitate. Even if you’re not farming right now I’ll bet you know someone who could benefit immensely from this kind of guidance and training. For more information on how to apply to become a Pioneer farmer you can follow the link in the show notes or go directly to ClimateFarmers.orgIf you’re not farming in Europe but still want to be involved with the Regrarian’s program and work with me over the next few months, you can sign up through this link here. Welcome back everyone. Today we’ll be picking up where we left off for the last installment of the three part series with Greame Sait. For a long time I’ve been working to connect the pieces between ecological health, regenerative methods of farming, and the health of the human body. Though many of you will find the connection between those three elements very intuitive, I’ve worked to find experts and practitioners who’ve illuminated some essential pieces of that puzzle. Up until now most of the discussions on this show have focused on just one of those elements at a time, but today we’ll continue with the last of the three part series with Graeme Sait who has made it his life’s work to marry these disciplines and train farmers, health care professionals, and ecologists around the world in the importance of caring for our bodies and our ecologies as a single organism that requires all of the pieces to be in place for optimal function. If you didn’t have the chance to hear the first two parts, I highly recommend it to give context to this episode, and I’ve linked to them in the show notes. For a quick recap, Graeme Sait is the internationally acclaimed author and educator who co-founded Nutri-Tech Solutions (NTS) and Nutrition Matters as well as hosting the Nutrition Farming Podcast . He has written hundreds of published articles and the popular book "Nutrition Rules!". Graeme has formulated many of the soil health and human health products for which NTS are renowned and he has developed all of the nutrition programs that are the keystones of their proactive management approach. Greame also owns Nutrition Farm which comprises two distinctly different properties dedicated to t...