Can Your Beans Do That?: Recent Episodes
Farmer Sledge
Musings on how raising and eating rotationally-grazed meats is an unrivalled venue to address a host of issues; starting from the regeneration of our soils to many environmental, economic, social, and moral issues branching out from the life-sustaining ecosystem beneath our feet. The podcasts are best listened to in chronological order as many concepts build on each other.
Nature scales through gestalts, not linearly. I suggest that water provides us with an appropriate model for scaling.
Arguing that intelligence is a great deal more than processing and computation. Also that viewing the world through the single lens of cause and effect is a form of insanity.
The most common criticism against regenerative agriculture is that it can't accomplish what conventional agriculture can; specifically in terms of "feeding the world". Not only is the question loaded, it conceals some nasty realities.
Audio from a VABF webinar on soil health. Delves into how, compared to vegetable or grain growing, rotational grazing has very different leverage points of entry into Nature's systems.
I've been wanting to do an informal conversational format for a while, and who better to start with than my good friend, Inga, who is passionate about agricultural and the myriad of issues that interconnect. Let me know if you enjoy this sort of format.
Technology is anything but neutral. And yet we swim in it like fish in water. Best we take a step back and reconsider exactly what we get out of technology and what it takes away from us.
Some question why taste is included in the web of sustainability. Rather than just a cherry on top, I see pleasure as essential to the whole endeavor of regenerative agriculture.
Most rural agricultural communities have suffered the same fate as soils and African countries at the mercy of foreign aid. Supporting local is part of the antidote by buffering the constant flooding of the market and revitalizing the infrastructure that supports appropriately-scaled agriculture.
In order to remain successful and regenerative at the same time, a farm must keep a number of issues synergistically in tension. Championing one at the expense of others typically results in a warped operation. Big thanks to Natasha Shannon who is now my coach and editor.
Helping is an art. And when done improperly, can cause great harm and foster dependency. What applies to aid in Africa has pertinence to ameliorating soil when vegetable farming. Appropriate inputs are vital, but so is appropriate scale.
I eat a lot of organic vegetables. Boy do I eat those veggies. Then why do I insist on bringing up the 'dark' side of vegetable operations? In order to distinguish the baby from the bathwater, I discuss the difficult hurdles vegetable growers, as well as grain growers, face in order to meaningfully call their agriculture regenerative.
In which I zip through a ridiculously simplified history of Western philosophy, and then address the most over-looked feedback loop of them all.
Behind the scenes, systems are maintained by exchange of information at the micro level.
Introduction and defining terms in the context of how I understand the difference between conventional-industrial farming and regenerative or sustainable agriculture.