(Conversation Recorded on October 10th, 2023)
Show Summary
On this Reality Roundtable, Nate is joined by small-scale farmer Jason Bradford, permaculturist and documentarian Andrew Millison, regenerative agriculture activist Vandana Shiva, and regenerative farmer and educator Daniel Zetah to discuss the feasibility of a food system fully or mostly independent of fossil fuel inputs. While a non-industrialized agriculture system is certainly possible (it was the norm for the majority of human history), what that will look like and how we even begin such a transition is daunting with a population of 8 billion humans to feed. How do we teach people the skills they’ll need as fossil inputs become less affordable, reliable, and accessible? Can we create a cultural shift towards a slower lifestyle that is more connected to the land which provides us food? What do the people of a society look like where we are once again centered around agriculture and in tune with the flows of nature? How would our relationship with jobs and the land have to change?
About Jason Bradford
Jason Bradford has been affiliated with Post Carbon Institute since 2004, first as a Fellow and then as Board President. He worked for the Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development at the Missouri Botanical Garden, was a Visiting Scholar at U.C. Davis, and during that period co-founded the Andes Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research Group (ABERG). He decided to shift from academia to learn more about and practice sustainable agriculture, and in the process, completed six months of training with Ecology Action (aka GrowBiointensive) in Willits, California, and then founded Brookside School Farm.
About Andrew Millison
Andrew Millison is an innovative educator, storyteller and designer. He founded the Permaculture Design education program at Oregon State University (OSU) in 2009. At OSU Andrew serves as an Education Director and Senior Instructor who offers over 25 years of experience, and a playful approach to regenerative design. Andrew is also a documentary videographer who travels the world documenting epic permaculture projects in places such as India, Egypt, Mexico, Cuba, and throughout the US. You can view his videos and series on his YouTube channel.
About Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva is a well known activist, author of many books, and is a global champion on regenerative local agriculture, biodiversity and nutritious food. She has a PhD in physics and 40 years ago founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, an independent research institute that works on the most significant ecological problems of our times.
About Daniel Zetah
Daniel grew up on a farm in Minnesota where he learned to fix all manner of things driven from an insatiable curiosity about how things worked. He studied economics and business at university. After waking to our planetary predicament, he became a full time environmental activist, then moved to an off grid community in the mountains where he studied permaculture and built straw bale houses. He moved back to America to help steer culture in a more sane direction. He and his wife Stephanie moved back to the family farm in Minnesota where they are growing 80% of their calories, rebuilding the local ecology, and educating and empowering people to wrest back control of their sovereignty as human beings.
Watch on YouTube
Show Notes & Links to Learn More:
00:00 – Jason Bradford works, info, + TGS Podcast, Andrew Millison works, info, youtube channel, + TGS Podcast, and Vandana Shiva Works, info, + TGS Podcast, Daniel Zetah New Story Farm, New Story Farm Resiliency School, + TGS Podcast
04:24 – We use 10-14 for each calorie delivered to the table
04:45 – Limited fossil fuel resources and their ecological consequences
05:58 – Re-ruralizing
06:55 – Power complexity of modern cities
07:23 – Bill Rees + TGS Episode, Ecological Footprint
08:25 – Amount of energy used in transport/packaging of food
08:41 – The Future is Rural
09:16 – Much of the world is still rural
11:20 – Composting toilet
15:10 – Paani Foundation
16:44 – Mississippi Watershed, largest area of navigable river
19:38 – Most people globally are peasants
19:56 – US Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz, we’ve got to squeeze the farmer off the land
20:13 – The US was an agrarian society a century ago
20:58 – Milpa System
21:21 – Yield per acre
21:53 – Nutrition per acre and soil fertility is much higher in organic agriculture
26:05 – Most americans are nutrient deficient and obese
31:10 – ~1% of American population involved with agriculture, 70-80% in India
32:20 – Less than 1% of farmers are farming organically
33:30 – Conventional agriculture actually requires more inputs
34:39 – Amory Lovins, energy slaves
35:20 – Great Depression, Great Dust Bowl
35:31 – Conservation Corps
41:50 – Sahel
42:01 – Senegal imports 70% of food
50:40 – US rates of depression in youth
56:54 – Keystone Species
1:00:54 – Apprentice Systems
1:04:38 – Chipko Movement
1:04:59 – Year of Millets
1:07:55 – Roots of regenerative agriculture in ancient practices
1:11:08 – Silvopasture, agroforestry
1:19:22 – $182 billion dollars spent on agriculture subsidies in the US, and effects on the agriculture market
1:20:29 – Vandana on Green Revolution
1:20:59 – Seed and plant patents
1:21:24 – Districts corresponding to watershed boundaries
1:22:21 – Andrew’s permaculture class at OSU
1:23:07 – One Planet Development Program
1:27:24 – Climate migration
More: The Future is Rural: Source data for diet and land model tables (shared publicly)
