Podcast – Page 4 – Regenerative Skills

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Pioneering regenerative dairy production, with Phyllis Van Amburgh

At this point I’ve covered a wide array of practices and management styles that fall under the broad umbrella of regenerative agriculture. Some could be considered traditional while others are more modern and innovative and they span continents, climates, biomes and industries. Nonetheless I’ve noticed a pretty big gap that I’ve yet to cover in detail that I hope to begin to fill in today. Dairy farming has been under sharp criticism in recent times. Scrutiny over everything from the appropriateness of dairy in the diet to the methane emissions of cows and the controversial practices of early separation of […]

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agroforestry

Akiva Silver on propagating plants and starting a nursery business: Part 2

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 when starting any land based project 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 […]

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ecosystem regeneration

Akiva Silver on propagating plants and starting a nursery business: Part 1

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 […]

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Transition to regenerative ag

Championing the alternative to a farm free future, with Chris Smaje

I’ve been watching an interesting and important discussion play out for a number of years now within the environmental movement and ecological farming community. It appears that on one hand we have a group that is convinced by the data that farming to feed a population which is growing exponentially through traditional land based means is doomed to be an ecological detriment. Our current system should instead be replaced with high tech solutions such as vertical farms and laboratory processes to create the nutrition this population needs. As a result we could return much of our farmland to rewilding efforts […]

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soil building

Matt Powers on discovering the world under our feet with soil microscopy

One of the emerging practices in the regenerative work space is that of citizen science. This covers an infinite range of scientific specialties, but I’ve especially seen amazing things come from two areas in the last couple years. These would be mycology and the study of soil. That isn’t to say that traditional institutions aren’t making advances in these fields, but passionate amateurs have also been leading some incredible innovations in these areas. Incredibly, at the center of both of these movements I regularly find my good friend Matt Powers, the author of many well known volumes including the Permaculture […]

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Interviews

Building community for farmers with Klarien Klingen

Since last year much of my work with Climate Farmers has been in building the European farmer community and creating connections so that members can learn from each other. I admittedly don’t have a lot of prior experience with this so I went looking for experienced and successful community builders to mentor me in the process. One of the most helpful and inspiring people the this search put me in touch with is Klarien Klingen, one of the primary organizers of the Dutch agroecological community called Toekomstboeren which translates to future farmers and works to strengthen the connection and representation […]

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regenerative skills

Ian Robertson, Ed Brown, and Ben Taylor-Davies on the knowledge and mindset needed for regenerative farm transitions

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 […]

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Design Criteria

Leveraging native plant communities and ecological succession for regeneration, with Henry Anderson

One of my favorite topics to explore on this show is how other people with unique skill sets and talents look at the natural world and the ecological design process. I’ve been fortunate in my network of designers, educators, farmers, and academics to peer into the specialties of ecological understanding and design thinking from many points of view, and today is one of those opportunities. I first met Henry Anderson through a design project that our mutual friend Juan Pablo was working on in Portugal through the Climate Farmers Pioneer program. We were looking at a feasibility test for a […]

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perennial plants

Joseph Lofthouse shows how anyone can get started with landrace gardening

I’ve been looking forward to today’s session for a good couple months now. Though it’s been years since I got excited about seed saving and heard the first little bits of the ideas around landrace gardening, I only recently got a window into its real potential. I honestly feel a bit embarrassed that I didn’t know more about landrace plant breeding until recently since it’s the reason we have pretty much all the domesticated and semi-domesticated varieties of food that you can find all over the world. It also turns out to be an incredibly approachable practice that throws out […]

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orchard management

Helen Atthowe shares her secrets for long term ecological farming success

A lot of my work these days revolves around communicating with farmers around Europe who are at various stages of a transition towards regenerative management. For many different reasons farmers are looking for solutions outside of the conventional industry of chemical and technological manipulations and are rediscovering the potential of partnering with natural cycles and processes. Though there are a handful of examples of growers who’ve been pioneering these practices around the continent, the vast majority are fairly early in their journeys. It’s still rare to find an experienced commercial grower who has found success through organic, no-till, low input […]