Regenerative Skills

Allan Savory, Ana Digón, and Rudolf Buehler on building community in agriculture

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/

Looby Macnamara on the use of permaculture principles for social and cultural emergence

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

Taryn Lane on how to mobilize a community to reach net zero

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/

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

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/

Jill Cloutier, Scott Mann, and Oliver Goshey on the launch of the Regenerative Media Alliance

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,

Sarah James on the natural steps for regenerating communities

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

Kim Deans on the power of financial planning to transform your farm

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.

Natalie Topa on emergency regeneration for communities in need

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/

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...

Timothy Parton on the steps to weaning your land off chemical inputs

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.