Podcasts about climate farmers

Welcome back to another interview from the skill exchange calls that I've been running with Climate Farmers for our regenerative farming network in Europe.  In this session I had the good fortune of introducing Stefan Sobkowiak to our group. Many of you who've been listening to this show for a while will remember the last interview I did with Stefan in the last season during the series on agroforestry. Stefan is one of my favorite sources for practical and honest techniques for managing the whole ecology of an orchard from propagating new tree species through maintenance, pest management, harvesting and even processing and marketing your products. His film, the Permaculture Orchard has help people around the world to transition towards diversified, resilient, and more profitable models of running their tree crop businesses. His YouTube channel goes even more in depth as he's always creating videos about the innovations and even struggles that are going on at his orchard Miracle Farm in Canada.   In this session we cover a lot of ground in a short time. We talk about How to manage pests and diseases by improving soil health and biodiversity in the orchard. How to care for the health of your trees for better yields and profit. Integrating other crops and animals into the system for ecological and economic resilience. And how to adapt common methods to your unique climate and context.  There's a whole Q&A session that happens after the half hour interview on these skill exchange calls which are exclusive to the Climate Farming network here in Europe. So if you're interested in attending these calls in person to have your own questions answered by the experts and tap into the growing community of farmers, consultants, and educators around Europe, you can register right now at ClimateFarmers.org

I'm excited to announce that we've restarted the panel format. Many of you will remember that I used to put together monthly panels with experts on popular topics. The truth is that they can be tough to coordinate and take a lot more planning than regular interview episodes so I let them go while I focused on other projects, but thanks to help from some digital tools and popular requests from listeners, we're working to bring these episodes back on a monthly basis. So if you haven't heard previous panel episodes, I'll give you a quick recap. As part of my role building the Regen ag community in Europe with Climate Farmers, I'm always trying to facilitate access to good information from experienced practitioners in regenerative agriculture. Oftentimes I look to organize these panels around the common questions that come up in our community chats. In other cases I see a lack of clear and concise information around a topic of interest. Other times I hear people referencing the work of other practitioners around the world for opportunities and inspiration and I try to connect them with each other in the Q&A sessions. Another motivation for organizing these is to increase awareness of the practicalities that are behind the aspiration to great achievements in land management. I hope that all of you out there listening to these episodes leave after having heard these episodes feeling that the incredible accomplishments and projects of the people we highlight are achievable and replicable and that you can do things like this too. You may not personally identify with their particular contexts or want to mimic them or their work exactly, but I hope you might find a point of connection in their stories and their journeys. Every project starts as an idea or a dream or a feeling that is nurtured into its potential by the people and communities that have skin in the game and dedicate their time and efforts to co-create that potential. With that said I want to introduce the panel and our speakers for this episode. So today we'll be exploring the challenges and opportunities in mixed enterprise farming. By that I mean farms that sell and range of products, especially of different food categories such as cereals and cattle, or market garden and laying hens and agrotourism and farm tours. I was really lucky to get three farmers together from very different regions who are pioneering diverse enterprise farming on their land. Now it's not usually the case that the farmers I get to speak with are people I've met in person or farms that I've physically visited, but in this case I've been to and even ran some events and projects with each of the farmers who I'm speaking with. Maria Gimenez comes to us from Wilmers Gaerten just south of Berlin Germany. Francisco Alves comes from Herdade de Sao Luis, Porcus Natura in Alentejo Portugal, and Ariane Lotti joins us from Tenuta San Carlo near the Tuscan coast in Italy. They each give much better intros of themselves and their farms than I can so I'll let them do that, but before we jump into the panel, you should know that there's a video version of this panel that includes the Q&A session in this last half hour which I am clipping off here for the podcast version. You can find that on the Climate Farmers YT chanel and if you happen to be an active farmer anywhere in Europe, you can also join the Climate Farmers community for free and participate in the farmer to farmers learning platform that we've built by going to Climate Farmers.org The community is part of a non-profit dedicated to assisting farmers at all levels of their transition to regenerative management.

This last week has been incredible for me. After almost 5 years of being connected to different aspects of the work at the farm in La Junquera, first through my connection with Silvia Quarta the leader of Camp Altiplano, the first in the global Ecosystem Restoration Communities network back when I worked at the restoration coordinator, then through collaborations with Alfonzo and Yanniek through the Climate farming community, and also with their incredible staff of Clara, Jeronimo, and Jacobo in coordination and organizing, I was finally able to visit them in person. In the first few days we did some course planning and taught a two day intensive on water resource management for farmers. I stayed a few days to talk about their new collective project to restore the watershed of the Quipar river, and then represented Climate Farmers in a Benchmarks soil health program. It has been surreal to meet the heroes who are working tirelessly to pioneer regenerative management in their semi arid location and to build friendships that go far beyond the occasional zoom call. That brings me to our interview today with Silvia Quarta.

In this session I hosted a discussion on the importance of restoring proper hydrological function in a landscape and the steps to achieving it with my friends and colleagues at Climate Farmers, a non-profit organisation working to advance regenerative agriculture in Europe. In this panel I got to speak with three of the most experienced and influential educators working on this from a farming perspective. Since landscape hydrology and its proper function is often overlooked in its importance in regulating global temperature, I wanted to focus on this specifically. I was lucky enough to bring together three of the experts that have most guided my learning in this field, Zach Weiss, Nicole Masters, and Mark Shepard. Don't forget that if you want to see the video of the full event, you can check it out on the Climate Farmer's Youtube channel through the link in the show notes for this episode. Zach Weiss is the protégé of revolutionary Austrian farmer Sepp Holzer, Zach is the first person to earn Holzer Practitioner certification directly from Sepp. Zach went on to create Elemental Ecosystems to provide an action-oriented process to improve clients' relationship with their landscape. Elemental Ecosystems is an ecological development, contracting, and consulting firm specializing in watershed restoration and ecosystem regeneration. The firm's work includes Aquaculture, Agroforestry, Water Retention Landscapes, Terrace Systems, Spring Development, Natural Building, and more. Mark Shepard is the CEO of Forest Agriculture Enterprises LLC, founder of Restoration Agriculture Development LLC and award-winning author of the books, Restoration Agriculture and Water for Any Farm. He is most widely known as the founder of New Forest Farm, the 106-acre perennial agricultural savanna considered by many to be one of the most ambitious sustainable agriculture projects in the United States. Nicole Masters is is an independent agroecologist, systems thinker, storyteller, educator and author of the book “For the Love of Soil.” With over 20 years of practical and theoretical experience in regenerative agriculture, she is also recognised as a knowledgeable and dynamic speaker on the topic of soil health. Her team of soil coaches at Integrity Soils work alongside producers in the U.S., Canada and across Australasia supporting producers and organisations who cover over 24 million acres, to take their landscapes to the next level in nutrient density, profitability and environmental outcomes.

Agriculture has been by far the biggest driver of land change and land degradation worldwide. And yet, it is also fundamental to the very existence of humankind. This mismatch often comes up in public discourse. Over the past year or two, for example, several European countries have seen extensive farmer protests - against rising costs and restrictive environmental regulations, among other things. Environmental groups have responded to the farmers' appeals mostly with indignation… and yet farmers and environmentalists have a lot in common - at east potentially.Philippe Birker is co-founder of “Climate Farmers”, and his work is aimed mostly at promoting regenerative agriculture. He and I cover a range of topics in the discussion that follows, from the farmer protests to the relationship between agrochemical companies and government. Along the way, there were several “rabbit holes” that we could have gone down, and several points that I would have liked to challenge Philippe on in greater depth. But, with limited available time, I needed to bookmark most of these for another time and for future guests.Visit www.case4conservation.com

I have to admit, there is an unsung hero behind many of my favorite interviews of the past couple years. Connections and recommendations to some of the people who I've learned the most from in some recent discussions with people like Phyllis Van Ambraugh, Ben Taylor Davies, Ian Robertson, Ed Brown, and others have all come from a good friend of mine Andre Antunes who you'll finally get to know on this episode. I met Andre first in a car ride with our mutual friend and the co-founder of Climate Farmers, Philippe Birker, on our way to the first ever company team retreat at a little farm near Dijon in France. Andre and I immediately hit it off for our mutual love of learning from cutting edge innovators in the regenerative space, and his personal experience working as a veterinarian and professional market gardener gave him a grounded perspective on farming that a lot of advocates in this movement are lacking. Since that first meeting we've been in close contact as we both work closely with farmers in the company network to assist them in their transition to regenerative management of their farms, and Andre has gone on to manage large transition projects with multinational companies which you'll hear about very soon. He has also traveled all over Europe making connections in the industry, attending events, and visiting renowned farmers around the continent, always facilitating connections and collaborations, many of which have led to partnerships and events with Climate Farmers. At this point he is becoming one of the best known consultants for regenerative farming in Portugal and I finally made the time to catch up with him for today's episode. In this discussion we cover a lot of ground from the unique journey he's taken to get to where he is now, all of the influences and mentors that he has learned from and worked alongside to build up his knowledge and skills, stories from the farmers he works with and the projects he's helping to advance in places like the Azores islands, and much more. Together we look into trends and hurdles in the regen ag movement in Europe as a way of checking in with how far the movement has come in recent years as well as identifying where we still need to focus efforts to continue to make progress. All in all I'm just thrilled to be able to highlight Andre and his work here because he has also been an invaluable mentor and friend to me and is one of those people who I'm never surprised to find working behind the scenes of some of the most inspiring and innovative projects of recent years.

This week: Do you like cookies? What about olive oil cake? What about chocolate chip coffee cake? Listen on.Here's What You Can Do:

Today's conversation is the first of a two part conversation with Anne Va Leeuwen from Bodemzicht in the Netherlands that I've been looking forward to for quite a few years. Anne and her husband Ricardo and I met for the first time at the first Climate Farmers conference in Germany 3 years ago. By then they were already building a reputation in the Dutch regen ag scene as leaders and innovators. Since then they've continued to take a leading role in bringing visibility to regenerative farming, the challenges that farmers face, and advocate for the creation of a regenerative agrifood system in the Netherlands and beyond. At the core of their advocacy has been the inspiring example of their own farm which not only produces high quality produce and animal products for locals, but has served as a hub for training, presentations and community gatherings since it began. I organized this interview with Anne as she and their organization have just completed a move to a new farm location. Their tenure at their original site was up and we had been in communication throughout their process of looking for new land and all of the planning, preparation, and logistics involved with moving their operation to a new place. Now that they're getting settled, I was excited to have Anne share her learnings and experience from the process on this show. Beyond the moving experience, Anne and I also cover a lot of other topics which range from the learnings they've gathered in the previous years both in pioneering their innovative farm model, regenerating their environment through conscious cultivation and care, navigating the challenges in the current farming system in the Netherlands, new cooperative farming models, lobbying for European Agriculture policy reform, and much more.

In this Best of episode, Philippe Birker, co-founder of Climate Farmers, debunks two of the biggest myths around regenerative agriculture: you cannot feed the world with it and scaling regenerative culture cannot be done. Listen to the episode to learn what are the challenges regenerative agriculture farmers face and how Climate Farmers is helping them transition.Sounds interesting? Then go and listen to the full episode with Philippe about What is regenerative agriculture? How do you put impact first with an economic model focused on growth? And how to choose and prepare best for an accelerator program? Listen to the full episode here - https://smartlink.ausha.co/mission-first/38-feeding-the-world-with-regenerative-agriculture-with-philippe-birker-climate-farmersWatch the full episode on YouTube - https://youtu.be/kCHCY9ZTgZkResources:Philippe LinkedinClimate Farmers website===Watch my video presentation “3 key strategies to grow a following of 7500+ changemakers on Linkedin”

I've talked a lot about drought and water management on this podcast. It's becoming a bigger and bigger part of my work and specialization, both in the work I do with private clients and through the network of farmers that I work with through Climate Farmers. At the moment, these topics are hitting home for another reason. Catalunya, the region where I live in Northeastern Spain is currently experiencing the most severe drought in its recorded history, and there is little relief in sight.  Now obviously I'm not from this area of the world myself and though I've built a competent understanding of my local context and the water management history of this region, I'm always looking to better understand the scope and options of what is happening in this time of climate emergency. Another big focus of mine lately has been to reach out and make connections to others in the area who are working on nature based and regenerative solutions to the challenges we face in hopes of supporting existing efforts and making myself useful to the people and organizations who've been working in this space for a long time. One source of unification around these efforts in my area and consistent messages of inspiration and hope come from the small company La Casa Integral, and today I had the pleasure of speaking to Aline, one of the co-founders of the company. Aline Van Moerbeke is Flemish Belgian by birth but feels most Mallorquina after spending over 20 years in San Roqueta on the island of Mallorca. She now lives with her partner Juan Pedro in the Maresme region just up the coast from Barcelona in Catalunya where they run their business La Casa Integral, a permaculture and ecological design company focused on the needs of the communities of the Balearic Islands and Northeastern Spain. Aline is also the co founder of Permacultura Mediterranea and is highly active in many networks and initiatives in the region.    In this episode, Aline and I begin by talking about the unique journey that she took to begin a career in permaculture education and regenerative design. From there we go into the unique context behind the current drought and how Catalunya is wrestling with this challenge. Since she has made an incredible effort to participate in and lead many discussions at various levels of government, industry, and communities, she gives me an overview of the ideas and solutions that are being proposed and the entrenched ways of thinking that are holding progress back. Through her work at La Casa Integral she and Juan Pedro have advanced many unique water saving and recycling solutions and we explore some of them and even take a closer look at natural blackwater filtration systems that they are known for designing and installing for many different use cases.  We also talk about reasons for hope in the policy and institutional structures at our local level and explore the first steps that anyone listening can take to gain a better understanding of their own opportunities to participate in the restoration of their own water systems, at any scale. This interview is a first step towards two things that I am trying to do more of in this season. The first is to highlight the incredible work that is being done by so many local people in my area, partly to build closer relationships with them myself, partly to demonstrate that most of the really effective people in this space are not the big name famous people from your documentaries and social media threads, and partly to show what it could look like for some of you listeners to explore your own local scene of regenerative workers and advocates instead of always looking outside your communities for solutions. Many of the topics that I'm passionate about and like to focus on might not be relevant or interesting to you, but the idea of connecting with and exploring the hyper local community of like-minded people doing good work around you is more important than a couple highly effective but isolated actors. Another theme I'll be promoting this season is that of inspiring examples of collaboration. People who break the mold of protectionist business practices, ivory tower academics, and competitive paradigms of commerce. Aline and La Casa Integral are a perfect example in my area of folks who are leading through collaboration and by including the voices and expertise of as many people as they can. Their creation and participation in countless committees, online groups, advocacy organizations, and volunteer initiatives show a true commitment to the larger vision of realizing change in our region, and I know this chat will inspire you as it did for me, even if the challenges in your region have more to do with too much water rather than too little.

Philippe Birker is the Founder of Climate Farmers, which supports European farmers across in the transition towards regenerative agriculture by providing a supportive community, context specific transition knowledge, and financing in the form of carbon and biodiversity credits. Philippe is a part of Ashoka's Changemaker community, the BMW Foundation Responsible Leader network, TED Countdown, Viva con Agua and the Love Foundation, which he co-founded in 2013. He also serves on the Board of Top 50 Farmers. When he is not attending events or visiting farmers, Philippe is living in the Serra da Estrella mountain range in central Portugal where he is rebuilding an abandoned village into a music and art residency combined with a regenerative farm. In this episode, we discuss: How to scale regenerative agriculture in Europe Why we need new farmer role models Regenerative business models and how to find aligned financing as an impact company Stakeholder capitalism and the golden share Philippe's backstory and journey into entrepreneurs Embracing regenerative principles as a leader and in your personal life Why a strong vision and values is key for creating change Connect with Climate Farmers Collective: Want to connect with Philippe? Subscribe to the Future Food newsletter to access her contact details and the episode transcript. Your subscription will also power the production of more episodes like this. Get access now! Related Episodes: Visionary Leadership: https://nordicfoodtech.io/visionary-leadership/   Regenerative Leadership: https://www.regenerativeleadership.co/ Top 50 Farmers: https://www.top50farmers.org   About Analisa Winther: Analisa Winther is an ecosystem developer, consultant, and coach in the agrifood industry. Analisa advises corporations on where to partner and invest in the agrifood space and coaches startup founders helping them to attract the right investors and create their career. Website: www.analisawinther.com Newsletter: www.analisawinther.substack.com Instagram: @analisa.winther Show Host: Analisa Winther Join the community: This show is listener-supported. Your contribution directly enables more awesome content like this. You'll also get access to discounts, special events, and episode transcripts.

If you are into agriculture, food supply chain, non-profit, community building, accelerator programs. This episode is for you.  What if farming wasn't just a means of survival but a way to nature restoration? And instead of being part of the problem destroying our soil, biodiversity, and amplifying climate change, it became part of the solution?Let me introduce you to a new (not so new

There are a few farms and organizations here in Spain that have been gaining international attention for their work and initiatives in the past few years. Partly through reaching out directly and partly through the Climate Farmers network I've been connecting with them to bring their inspiring stories and innovative knowledge to the farmers community that I help to manage.  One of the most established and accomplished of these farms is La Junquera, an 1100 hectare farm in one of the most environmentally challenging regions of Spain in the south eastern province of Murcia in the altiplano region. Now some of you may remember previous interviews I've done with Alfonzo Chico de Guzman, the owner of the farm and one of the driving forces of the Alvelal cooperative that he helped to found, but today I'll be speaking with his wife and co-owner of the farm to get a deeper look at all the projects that she has helped to lead simultaneously. Yanniek Schoonhoven is also the co-founder of the Regeneration Academy, a physical learning hub and model farm in La Junquera, focused on building a space and community to help students become practitioners, entrepreneurs, innovators and leaders in the field of regenerative agriculture and eco-system restoration, specialized in semi-arid climates.  Yanniek has built a reputation in the regen ag space as an expert connection builder, weaving partnerships from the local community around them in Spain all the way up to the European Union level along with universities and non-profits. All of these connections are fueling the positive change that The Regeneration Academy and the farm itself are having on the ecology as well as the human communities around them. In this session we explore the journey that led Yanniek to southern Spain and the creation of all the projects that she now helps to coordinate. Yanniek talks about the unique challenges that they face in their remote rural area as well as the climate and ecological challenges of rebuilding the capacity for life on the land there. We also dig into the connections that she's helped to build and strengthen that have brought visibility, support, and recognition to their efforts on the ground while making it possible to include more people in their training and projects. This is also a great opportunity to announce the collaboration that I'll be doing with them as I'll be co-facilitating a course in the upcoming year with them about water resource management.  At the end of the episode we give an overview of the curriculum that we'll be teaching through a highly immersive project of gathering essential data, co creating a design for water retention on a micro watershed on their farm, and actually implementing the design on the site.  We'll be training participants on a wide range of tools for site design and layout as well as building experience with everything from hand tools to guiding heavy machinery in order to install the design. You can find all the details about the course which will be from April 8th-11th in the show notes for this episode on the website,

“Most of the regenerative farms are still surrounded by conventional farms. Nevertheless, the food from the regenerative farm will be more nutritious and more healthy than the food from the conventional farms just 20 meters over the fence.” —Philippe Birker This week, we are joined by Philippe Birker. Philippe's passion for regenerative agriculture's potential to address climate change and related challenges led him to co-found Climate Farmers, where he and his team assist farmers in adopting more sustainable methods. Hit play and join this insightful conversation as Justine and Philippe provide an understanding of solutions to climate change through sustainable food production. They also discuss the principles and benefits of regenerative agriculture, how regenerative practices help build healthy soil and increase biodiversity and drought resilience, the challenges of transitioning to regenerative agriculture, why regenerative farmers are the unsung heroes of the food system, and why a systemic change is necessary.     Meet Philippe:   Philippe Birker is the Co-Founder of Climate Farmers, an organization working to transition Europe's food system to regenerative agriculture. Based in Portugal, Philippe bought an abandoned village in 2017 and has been rebuilding it while learning about regenerative farming practices. Prior to founding Climate Farmers, he worked for several tech startups. Through visiting regenerative farms across Europe, Philippe became passionate about the ability of regenerative agriculture to tackle climate change and other issues, leading him to support farmers transitioning to more sustainable methods.   Website Facebook Instagram LinkedIn YouTube   Connect with NextGen Purpose: Website Facebook Instagram  LinkedIn YouTube Episode Highlights: 03:00 Regenerative Agriculture and Its Benefits 07:05 The Lack of Support from the Current Agricultural System 11:14 A Need for Systemic Change 18:31 Regenerative Agriculture and Its Impact on Health and Climate Change 22:27 Regenerative Agriculture vs Conventional Farms  

A conversation with Ivo Degn and Philippe Birker, founders of Climate Farmers, about the reason why they picked carbon credits as the first business to focus on, how they recently raised $2,5 million in a very unusual way, at least for a startup, what they consider a regenerative investment and much more.How a beer in the summer of 2019 in Mauerpark in Berlin at the then hottest day ever recorded led to the foundation of Climate Farmers, a non-profit and for-profit focused on accelerating the regenerative transition in Europe.---------------------------------------------------Join our Gumroad community, discover the tiers and benefits on www.gumroad.com/investinginregenag. Support our work:Share itGive a 5-star ratingBuy us a coffee… or a meal! www.Ko-fi.com/regenerativeagriculture----------------------------------------------------More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/ivo-degn-philippe-birker.Find our video course on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/course.----------------------------------------------------The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.Support the showFeedback, ideas, suggestions? - Twitter @KoenvanSeijen - Get in touch www.investinginregenerativeagriculture.comJoin our newsletter on www.eepurl.com/cxU33P! Support the showThanks for listening and sharing!

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 of ecological farmers in their country.  They've made commendable progress in advancing awareness of their community and hosting events that connect farmers around their country in the process. Both of which are things I aspire to do with the Climate Farmers community.  In this conversation, Klarien and I explore her own background as a farmer and what has motivated her to unite others around her. We also look into what is behind the growth and success of Toekomstboeren as well as the collaborations and alliances that have strengthened their efforts.  I have found the information and experience I've gained from my consultations with Klarien to be quite universal beyond just the particularities of the farming community. Her observations and learnings ring true for many of the other community efforts and unification projects I've observed and been a part of.

Today's episode touches on a very timely topic for me. I'm currently developing a program to assist European farmers in their transition to regenerative management of their farms, and the big challenge is to make a program that is relevant for the vast array and contexts and differences that farmers across this continent are working from. No set of information is appropriate. No one teaching style is going to connect with everyone.  Even the regulatory frameworks and incentive structures can vary a lot. I've long since observed this as an obstacle for design frameworks like permaculture which have a solid foundation in the principles and patterns of nature, but often get lost in the details and techniques like swales, chicken tractors, or herb spirals. I'm of the opinion that we're all overwhelmed with information and possibilities in our bizarre anthropogenic world and more options and information often only serve to make choosing and taking action tougher.  I believe that simple and reliable processes and organizational support have a much bigger role to play in helping us to set priorities, put parameters on our options, and make the overwhelm more manageable, especially when it comes to the complexities and timescales of working with living systems.  Lucky for me, one of my friends and respected colleagues in the permaculture space has just developed a course and accompanying tools to assist precisely in this area. William Horvath, founder of “Permaculture Apprentice.” William studied permaculture in Australia before quitting his job as a geologist for the mining industry there and moved with his wife back to Croatia where he is originally from.  For years now he's been developing his own permaculture paradise and writing and educating about his experiences on his blog and through his design and consulting services through permacultureapprentice.com. He has also begun teaching permaculture courses for people looking to start their own farms and transition to a regenerative lifestyle. In today's session we pick apart the common hurdles that lead to inaction and paralysis despite having all the knowledge and information we may need. We talk about the common problem of having lofty goals, many projects going on at once, and limited time and resources to do them. From there we go deep into defining the What, Where, and How of your goals in order to build them into a process. William talks about how to break them down into manageable chunks from there through phases and steps of development as well as sharing tools and advice for keeping everything organized and scheduled in calendars and to-do lists so you never miss essential windows again. I really want to express just how important I believe that this piece of the puzzle is for all of us in reaching our goals. I know from my own experience how much getting organized, building routines, planning ahead in detail, and creating loops of experimentation, monitoring, and revision have all been in my life and in my success with clients and in business.  Though I've come a long way personally, I still have a lot of learning in this area and doubling down on preparation and planning has always paid dividends for myself and those I know who excel in their chosen fields. Before we get started, I'll also recommend that you go over to the links in the show notes where William has given exclusive access to some of the tools and templates that feature in his course in order to get you started.  And if any of you want to stay up on the development of the transition program I'm building for Climate Farmers, the beta program will be available for members of the Climate Farmer's community this fall and you can sign up now on our website at climatefarmers.org.

"Wir könnten den Klimawandeln tatsächlich sogar umkehren, wenn wir global regenerative Landwirtschaft betreiben"Philippe Birker, Mitbegründer von Climate Farmers, ist in Geilenkirchen groß geworden. Nach einem Studium in den Niederlanden und der Mitarbeit an Unternehmen wie Fairphone, kaufte er sich zusammen mit einer Gruppe von Freuden ein leerstehendes Dorf in Portugal, wo er begann, sich für regenerative Landwirtschaft zu interessieren. Zentral war dabei für ihn die Frage: "Wie kann ich die Leute aus der Stadt in die Natur bringen?" Bei einer Pilgerreise zu 60 Landwirten in ganz Westeuropa fand er dabei für sich die Antwort auf viele der Probleme, die wir heute haben: Die Skalierung von Regenerativer Landwirtschaft. Um Landwirten bei der Umstellung zu helfen, gründete er Climate Farmers. Ziel ist, dass Landwirte nicht wie aktuell für mehr Ertrag belohnt werden, sondern für den Aufbau gesünder Böden und Kohlenstoffspeicherung.Zur Flutkatastrophe die vor ein paar Jahren auch sein Heimatdorf Geilenkirchen betraf, hat die Bodenerosion maßgeblich beigetragen, findet Phillipe. Bodengesundheit aufbauen, so meint er,  würde nicht nur die Wasserspeicherkapazität unserer Böden verbessern, sondern auch generell für mehr Resilienz in der Landwirtschaft sorgen.Hör rein um mehr zu erfahren!

What is regenerative production? And how can farmers help address the damaging effects our industrialised food system has on the climate and biodiversity?In this episode, we'll hear from Philippe Birker, co-founder of Climate Farmers, an organisation working to empower farmers. We also visit Nunwell Home Farm to learn how they are using regenerative methods to improve biodiversity and soil health on their farm.This episode was supported by players of People's Postcode Lottery.Find out more about our food work. 

Today's interview has been in the making for me for a couple years now. I first got to know Michael Reber through the pioneer program with Climate Farmers that I directed two years ago. Through that program we guided farmers from around Europe through existing online regenerative farming courses and helped them to adapt the information and techniques to their own businesses and contexts. By this point Michael had already gone through a few major transitions on his own farm and was in the process of diving deeper into soil health and improving the soil function on his 200 hectare grain and silage production operation in the south of Germany. During this period and through events like the Climate Farming conference that we hosted for the last two years, I got to know Michael's remarkable story and see his farm in person.  Since a large part of what I do is centered around communicating with farmers in Europe to understand their needs and challenges in their transitions toward regenerative management of their farms, stories like Michael's are so important to highlight. There are many specific parts of what he and his family have been through that are very unique, but through all of it I hear similarities in the journeys that other farmers are on as well. The patterns of disruption in the business that cause people to reevaluate their priorities. Internal disputes that set us on a different trajectory. Daily learnings and the patience needed for observation and understanding to accompany us on our learning journeys, and other events like this resonate with so many of us, not only farmers.  Despite Michael's self consciousness about his level of English, he does a remarkable job in this interview in giving me a window into the changes and adaptations that have brought him and his farm to where they are now as well as the difficulties they've had in the past and still have in getting their land on a regenerative trajectory. As much as the details about soil health and the techniques he's been trialing and the results they've achieved, I love the human side of his story that I know many of you listening will connect to as well.  Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: Join the Climate Farmers Community Michael's Podcast: https://bodenundleben.podigee.io/feed/mp3 Web: https://innovativelandwirtschaft.de Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Landwirtschaft.Reber/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/MichlReber Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michael.reber/ YouTube: Innovative Landwirtschaft Reber

In this episode, we welcome Philippe Birker, co-founder of Climate Farmer-- visionary and adventurous--on a mission to scale regenerative agriculture through a community of practice for farmers and carbon.We dive into: what is regenerative farmingsoil healththe role that farmers play in maintaining healthy ecosystemsit's not the cow, it's the howthe need for a better subsidy frameworkmore transparent pricing through the supply chain and more value being passed to farmers for their hard workthe challenges of the availability of landand the need to create a movement of future farmers for our future generationPhilippe is deeply knowledgeable and it was a pleasure to receive his hard-earned insights, which I'm now happy to share with you. Let's get into it. Who is Philippe BirkerPhilippe Birker is a regenerative farmer and leader, committed to helping humanity transition toward a regenerative future. Philippe is on a mission to support regenerative farmers in Europe and experiments with regenerative culture and leadership. He believes that regenerating our soils through climate farmers is crucial for a sustainable future.If you are interested in compensating your CO2 emissions through regenerative agriculture or implementing regenerative culture in your organization, Philippe is the person you want to talk to. He has also worked for five years in business and community development for different impact start-ups, including Peerby, Fairphone, and Ritual technologies.Aside from his work in regeneration, Philippe holds the world record for simultaneous fire breathing since 2009. He is also a member of Ashoka's Changemaker community, the BMW Foundation's Responsible Leader network, Viva con Agua, and the Love Foundation, which he co-founded in 2013.Where shall we go next, what questions shall we ask? To co-create the podcast with us, connect with fellow change makers in the FuturePlanet community of action, visit www.futureplanet.love to sign in or sign up.

Now that I'm spending so much time out on the land here at the new farm I'm becoming a lot more conscious of my health. Nutrition has been really important for me in the last handful of years as I've struggled to overcome the chronic digestive issues that plagued me until my 30s. Over time I've dug deeper into whole food nutrition, fermentation and the gut microbiome, the importance of healthy fats and unpasteurized products, and quite a few others.  At the same time, I've read and researched a lot of work that's very dogmatic and extreme in their nutritional and healthy living advice. Some of the recommendations are really unrealistic for my lifestyle or miss important holistic concepts of an overall healthy way of living in connection to one's surroundings and sources of food. For this and many other reasons I've been closely following the development of Richard Perkins new book titled  Farm Fish Hunt Pick Bake. Like many young farmers and homesteaders, I know Richard from his work and educational videos around the development of Ridgedale farm in Northern Sweden. I've interviewed him now a few times in the past on previous seasons of this show and hosted skill exchange events online with him for the Climate Farmers community. Cooking and nutrition has been a minor part of his online teachings until recently, but has been very much in line with the ethos of his ideas on reconnecting with the land and living in close relationship with your food sources, both plants and animals.  As Richard has been transitioning from beyond full-time farming he's collaborated with the incredible chefs who've catered his many farm events and trainings to create a cookbook that conveys the full scope of not only the recipes, but also the process of foraging, farming, processing, and preserving all the food that Ridgedale farm is well known for.  In this interview Richard and I explore where the inspiration for this new focus on food came from, and how the book has come together. We also dive into reemerging traditional concepts from the book like nose-to-tail eating, the art and culture of fermentation, the importance of both raw and properly cooked foods, the redemption of animal fats, and so much more.  I've often thought that even if I didn't love the farm lifestyle I'd still be in love with regenerative agriculture just for the food, and this massive volume covers so much of exactly what it means to reconnect with the ecology and processes of your food sources to make the enjoyment, appreciation, and reverence for what we eat a part of our lifestyles once again.  Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/828829028/farm-fish-hunt-pick-bake?ref=checkout https://www.richardperkins.co/ https://www.youtube.com/@regenerativeagriculture  https://www.instagram.com/richardperkins.co/ https://regenerativeskills.com/richard-perkins-helps-troubleshoot-your-market-garden/ https://regenerativeskills.com/richard-perkins/ https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-richard-perkins-042/

If you've been following the episodes so far this season, you know I've got a lot of projects and travels going on right now. Since the episode I recorded in Nicaragua, I've also been on a project on the island of Madeira and just two days ago I got back from a 9 day trip to Portugal. Though I haven't been able to record everything like a diary the way I would have liked to, today I did get a chance to sit down with Nick Steiner who was with me every step of the way during the tour around three of our favorite farms around the Alentejo region.To keep things short, we start by talking about the activities we were involved with and the farm visits with the Climate Farmers team. Then we go into more detail about the enterprises as well as the management techniques and experiments that each of them are implementing and having stunning results with, and then, since it wouldn't be an episode with me and Nick if we didn't geek out about water management, we talk about the opportunities we observed from the different farms on how to hold and store water better, and what implications this could have for the fertility and production on each of their landscapes.  I know that this will be only one of many visits we make to Portugal, especially given the requests and interest we've been getting from other farmers in the region to help with water scarcity issues. In future episodes, Nick and I will start to move from the larger overview talks like today, and go into more detail on the causes and effects of broken water cycles, the range of techniques available for specific contexts, and actual tutorials and classes where you can transform your land into a water retention landscape. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.permanick.com/welcome https://instagram.com/herdadesluis_porcusnatura?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=https://instagram.com/permanick_permaculture?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=https://instagram.com/montesilveirabio?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=https://instagram.com/sergio.grapegrower?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

In this episode of EnvironMental Podcast we spoke with Nick Steiner, Founder of PermaNick and head of Coach Matching at Climate Farmers about regenerative farming! Listen to learn about Climate Farmers and how regenerative agriculture is scalable! Regenerative ag is something that we have been hearing and talking about since the beginning of EnvironMental, but we have never actually had someone on the podcast that could speak to its scaling potential. We were beyond excited! You can find climate farmers here: https://www.climatefarmers.org/ And you can connect with Nick through Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/permanick_permaculture/ Full story; https://dandelionbranding.com/ep-nick-steiner-regenerative-agriculture/

One of the most important resources we've been working to create for our network of farmers here in Europe through my work at Climate Farmers is what we've called our coach matching service. We've long since seen that one of the hurdles that farmers face in their transition to regenerative agriculture is either one of two things. Either not the right specific information and support based on their unique context, or as is more common in the internet age, too much information to the point of overwhelm, inaction, and self doubt.The truth is that  having too much information fighting for space in your farm management plan is often more damaging than not knowing what to do.For this reason we've put a significant effort into finding the most reputable and experienced coaches and consultants in regen ag around Europe in order to help match farmers who are looking for assistance with the right professional for them.  I also put emphasis on the title of coach there because we recognize that these transition journeys are part of a long term strategy for the health of farm ecosystems, businesses, and the health of the people involved.  No matter where you are in your own journey it can be helpful to receive some dedicated support and assistance from someone with an outside perspective and experience in your challenges to get you over the hurdles in your way to break through to the next level.  At the same time, this represents a paradigm shift in the conventional attitude. Many farmers are used to receiving advice from consultants and “experts'' who give calculations and recommendations which are to be followed precisely. Coaching relationships on the other hand assume that farmers and land managers know their land and businesses better than anyone and only need some guidance, new ideas, and structure to reach their own potential and that of their farm ecologies.  For that reason I reached out to one of the most prominent voices in this space, Nicole Masters,  who is also a trainer of farm coaches to help me better understand the value of coaching relationships and journeys.Though Nicole has been on this show a few times now, we've mostly explored the more technical details of water management and soil science, but in this episode we'll look at her perspective on the work she does with growers directly as well as the programs she's created for the professionals who are guiding farmers on their transition journeys.  Nicole talks about the paradigm shift in coaching that needs to accompany a paradigm shift in land management as well as how it can be approached from both sides. From the coaching side we talk about the abilities and characteristics that make for an effective coach. From the farmers' side we discuss how they can prepare themselves for a successful coaching relationship as well as how to assess a potential coach to see if they'd be a good fit for them.  Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://integritysoils.com/ https://integritysoils.com/pages/create-coaching

What do we incentivize when we incentivize regenerative agriculture? Our guest on the Season 2 opener today, Climate Farmers co-founder Ivo Degn, offers his analysis on this issue. He also talks to us about farmers earning carbon credits, the changing attitudes of investors when it comes to regenerative agriculture, and our options as a planet if we want to continue feeding ourselves. Shownotes: Climate Farmers: https://www.climatefarmers.org/ The History of Carbon Offsetting: https://impactful.ninja/the-history-of-carbon-offsetting/ Nori Carbon Removal Marketplace, USA: https://nori.com/ Project Together: https://projecttogether.org/ Music: This Science by Coma-Media

ep. 111: Volkert Engelsman · Marketing Mastermind | Guru of Differentiation Forces of Nature is a talkshow miniseries featuring dynamic leaders from across food & environmental movements. Tune-in for a dose of optimism.   FOOD FULL OF THOUGHT w/ host: Aaron Niederhelman Volkert Engelsman is CEO of EOSTA, the EU's largest importer of organic and biological fruit. Volkert is nothing short of a mastermind when it comes to marketing product differentiation, and amplifying how those differences benefit each stakeholder involved. In this conversation we hear what it has taken for Engelsman to become a leading force connecting the worlds of healthier food and thriving soils.  “When you commoditize products, you anonymize origin and backstory,” explains Engelsman in describing why he launched food integrity platform Nature & More.    The Sustainability Flower by Nature & More is used to evaluate, manage and communicate the net positive environmental impact and social welfare achievements of organic growers and supply. It's a sticker that validates production and sourcing claims on each piece of fruit, and a robust platform behind it all that gives it the integrity to make the storytelling stick with consumers. If you're a grower, retailer or consumer like us all - listen-in to this episode to hear how we'll get to a point of food full of thought.   - THE KAYAK OF REGEN INCENTIVES In an effort to establish financial rewards for the positive externalities derived from regenerative land management, Volkert has initiated the Business Alliance for Regenerative Agriculture (BARA). The objective of BARA is to work with existing initiatives, and suss-out new reward structures that incentivize more stakeholders for ecosystem health and the social benefits tied to regenerative agriculture.    COALITION OF THE WILLING  Eighty (80) initiatives and companies from all over the world have come together to launch BARA. At October's kick-off gathering held at EOSTA's home office in Waddinxveen, Netherlands, cohosts Climate Farmers of Berlin and EOSTA defined seven working groups to build upon: Carbon Methodologies, Policy Engagement, Trading Positive Externalities, Sharing & Exchanging Experiences, Consumer Awareness & Retail Storytelling, Setting up Farms & Transforming Regions, and Organic Meets Regenerative. A next BARA conference is scheduled for 2023. It's been designated to review initial working group findings, and to continue to move the ball. For decades, Volkert has used a unique marketing prowess to differentiate better quality foods grown in healthy soils as acts of climate & social action. The Nature-&-More platform and now BARA are intuitive POCs that are ripe to translate the positive impacts of food with the UN's 17 SDGs.  It is palatable action in every mouthful that benefits people and the planet.  - “Tomorrow's profit will include externalities, and social and environmental costs – which is precisely what is happening right now in Europe. In fact, you see it everywhere this is gradually descending into the DNA of financial markets, taxonomies, and fiscal incentives. The definition of profit is changing.”  - Volkert Engelsman - CALL TO ARMS Volkert Engelsman has a call to action for us all in food / planetary movements...    get out there and Dream, Dance and Deliver. According to Engelsman, we need more skilled and ambitions (big) dreamers on this stuff.  We learn that if you really want to make change happen – it's on you – so, you'd better learn how to dance. Figure out how to make nice with others, how to choose partners, and how to keep dancing. This creates results. Often smaller wins, but more results. It's consistency of those small wins that gets us to tackling those big dreams.

It's been a wild couple of weeks for me and as a result I'm struggling a bit to catch up. After the 5 day regenerative Design course at the Green Rebel farm in Miravet, Spain, then the three day Climate Farming conference at Schloss Kirchberg in Germany, and I'm now on a short break visiting the small farm of a good friend of mine in Dessau between events before a week long team retreat with the Climate Farmers team in Brandenburg. When I get back I've got tree planting events lined up in the Pyrenees and then I'll be facilitating a course in Tuscany on restoring hydrological function to the landscape with Zach Weiss and Lorenzo Costa. Maybe by the end of November things will calm down in time for my partner and I to move into our new property which we were finally able to sign the papers on after a year of paper and admin work! Fewf!All of that is to say though I've got plenty of great interviews lined up for you, I might be a little irregular in releasing the episodes over the next month.But enough about me. This week I'm thrilled to present the first in a two part series exploring the topic of building true resilience in agriculture. Resilience is often thought of as the ability to bounce back from a disturbance or a challenge, but in these two episodes we're going to dig deeper and not only broaden the theory of true resilience, but also to look into case studies of growers and land stewards who are building lasting resilience on their farms. To help me to understand all of this better and to give practical advice that all of us, even those of us that don't work directly with the land can use in our lives, I had a wonderful conversation with Laura Lengnick.Laura is an award-winning soil scientist with 30 years of experience working as a researcher, policymaker, educator, activist and farmer to put regenerative values into action in U.S. food and farming. Her research in soil health and regenerative farming systems was nationally recognized with a USDA Secretary's Honor Award in 2002 and she was a lead author on the 2013 USDA report, Climate Change and Agriculture in the United States: Effects and Adaptation. Since 2015, Laura has led research and planning projects exploring agricultural climate solutions, developed carbon management plans for organizations, and designed and delivered climate risk management workshops for farmers. Laura is also the author of The 2nd edition of her award-winning book, Resilient Agriculture: Cultivating Food Systems for a Changing Climate in which she explores climate change, resilience and the future of food through the adaptation stories of 45 sustainable, organic, climate-smart and regenerative farmers and ranchers across the U.S. In 2021, Laura joined the Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming as the Director of Agriculture. You can learn more about Laura and her work at www.cultivatingresilience.com In the first part of this series, we'll explore how changes in climatic patterns and rise in temperatures are affecting farmers around the world and how they can understand the risks they'll likely encounter in the coming decades. We also talk about the unique sensitivities that each landscape and farm has, and how you can use this understanding to build your own resilient capacity. Thanks to my partnership with New Society Publishers who published Laura's book, as well as many other invaluable volumes centering on topics of regenerative living, listeners of this show who are also signed up on our Discord community, can now win either a physical or digital copy of Resilient Agriculture over the next two weeks. It's super simple to be eligible to win. All you have to do is sign up for free to the Discord server either on the homepage on our website at regenerativeskills.com or through the link on our bio on instagram. Once you're in, just send me a direct message letting me know that you'd like to win a copy of the book and I'll enter you in the drawing which I'll do a w...

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

In this episode, I speak with Philippe Birker, co-founder of Climate Farmers, a social enterprise working to jump start the transition to regenerative agriculture in Europe. We cover the many ways that Philippe and his team are working to support this transition through lobbying, developing carbon credits, providing on-farm training,  consulting through experts, and creating a community of like minded farmers who can support each other. You can follow Philippe on:LinkedInAnd follow Climate Farmers at:Instagram @climatefarmersAlso:An overview of some of the farmers of ClimateFarmers  And here is all information about the annual Climate Farmers conference       - 25 - 27 October in southern Germany!

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/

Silvopasture is the practice of grazing livestock in a forested area instead of an open pasture. It's a very old practice that might see new life.

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/

Dieses Mal spreche ich mit Ivo Degn - dem Gründer von Climate Farmers. Technologien, die CO2 aus der Luft ziehen erfahren gerade einen extremen Hype. Dabei haben sie aber oft noch einen sehr langen Weg vor sich, um relevante Mengen an CO2 aufnehmen zu können. Da trifft es sich ganz gut, dass Natur-basierte Lösungen bereitstehen - unter anderem sogenanntes Carbon Farming. Dabei geht es um Farmmethoden, mit denen der Kohlenstoffgehalt unserer Böden schrittweise erhöht wird. Angenommen wir erhöhten den Kohlenstoffgehalt unserer Felder weltweit jährlich um 0.4%, dann würde das ausreichen, um alle anthropogenen Treibhausgase zu kompensieren. Um Carbon Farming zu verstehen, aber auch in Frage zu stellen, hab ich Ivo also gefragt:  Welchen systemischen Hebel Carbon Farming darstellt Wie die Climate Farmer Plattform Carbon Farming skaliert  Welche Vor- und Nachteile Carbon Farming birgt Das Gespräch mit Ivo hat richtig Spaß gemacht. Vor allem, da er sich der Stärken und Schwächen seines Modells sehr bewusst ist, aber auch weil man merkt wie weit im voraus Ivo denkt. Er denkt strukturiert über mehrere gesellschaftliche Ebenen, über mehrere Zeitachsen hinweg. Da war es schwer manchmal mitzukommen. Also gibt es einiges zu lernen, viel Spaß!   climatefarmers.org https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivo-degn-50668658/  

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/

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,

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 info@regenerativeskills.comThat'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...

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 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...

The world is overpopulated and over-consuming, but we want to live in sustainable ways. In a world where we are increasingly disconnected from nature, permaculture is a practice that helps us reconnect with the land. It's about designing your lifestyle in a way that allows you to live in harmony with nature and is based on ethics of care for people and care for the environment. The ultimate goal is to create permanent culture (and not just permanent agriculture) that fulfills human needs but at the same time partially fulfilling the needs of the natural environment. ---------- Who is Nick Steiner? Nick is passionate about solving the climate crisis using permaculture thinking and regenerative agriculture. As Permanick he brings inspiration and practical solutions to individuals with the aim of living more regenerative lives. Together with a group of friends he is building up Climate Farmers to support regenerative agriculture all over Europe. ---------- Websites: www.permanick.com www.climatefarmers.org Social Media Platforms Instagram: @permanick_permaculture Instagram: @Climatefarmers Twitter: @permanick   Dig Deeper Club: https://soillearningcenter.com/digdeeper See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 last week in our 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 second 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 part, I highly recommend it to give context to this episode, and I've linked to it 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 the production of nut...

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.   Today is going to be the start of a unique journey with a very special guest. 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 begin with the first episode of a 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.  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 the production of nutrient-dense, chemical-free food with forgotten flavors and enhanced medicinal qualities. One of these farms is based in a sub tropical zone on the Sunshine coast in Queensland,

Welcome back to another interview from the skill exchange calls that I've been running with Climate Farmers for our regenerative farming network in Europe.  This is one of the many community building activities that I've been organising to help to connect farmers around Europe to some of the best emerging information available, and to get their most important questions answered from our experts around the world.  In this session I had the chance to speak with Charles Dowding in Somerset in England. Many of you may already know Charles as an innovative gardener and author of nine books on caring for soil as well as productive ways to grow food with less weeding through no-dig management. At Homeacres, his small, intensive market garden Charles teaches, runs experiments and above all produces delicious food. Based on his experience of growing vegetables without tillage for 35 years he shows people from all walks of life how to grow more easily, enjoyably and in a time-efficient way.  Before we get started I want to remind all of you who would be interested in attending one of these skill exchange calls live in the future, all you have to do is be a registered farmer in Europe to receive the invitations and call links that we have coming up. I'm planning the next session with Nigel Palmer, author of the book “The Regenerative Growers Guide to Garden Amendments” later this month, so don't wait too long. You can register now at climatefarmers.org 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://charlesdowding.co.uk/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB1J6siDdmhwah7q0O2WJBg https://www.instagram.com/charles_dowding/?hl=en https://charlesdowding.co.uk/courses/ Check out pervious episodes on No-dig gardening https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-the-definitive-guide-to-no-till-organic-farming-with-andrew-mefferd-author-of-the-organic-no-till-farming-revolution-105/ https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-the-definitive-guide-to-no-till-organic-farming-part-2-with-andrew-mefferd-author-of-the-organic-no-till-farming-revolution-105/

Welcome to the 9th 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 regenerative arable farming 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 three of the most experienced and influential educators in the field of arable farming from the USA, Brazil, and England. Arable farming is often the first agricultural practice that comes under fire with criticisms about industrial ag, the troubles of monocropping, tillage, chemical use, and many of the other management methods that need to be abandoned are most closely associated with large scale grain and legume production. Yet cultivation of annual crops, especially grains, are some of the oldest cultivars from the dawn of agriculture itself. Though it's still common practice to destroy the ecology of a piece of land to produce these products, there's still potential to regenerate that ecology if we can move beyond the paradigm of recent decades and learn from natural biological processes. 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, I'll keep the intro short and jump right into the introductions for our panelists. Links: https://soilhealthacademy.org/ https://groundswellag.com/speakers/ademir-calegari/ https://www.regenben.com/ https://treeyopermacultureedu.com/chapter-6-trees/alley-cropping-and-silvopasture/ https://www.agroforestry.org/the-overstory/337-overstory-261-alley-cropping https://regenerativeskills.com/eric-toensmeier-outlines-the-roadmap-to-implementing-the-carbon-farming-solution/

Today's episode has been a long time coming for me. I've followed Eric Toensmeier's work since I first started learning about permaculture and I found his first book “Paradise Lot” about his work in transforming a tiny suburban dirt patch into a perennial food oasis at his home in Massachusetts.  Since then Eric has written many other titles that have kept an eerie pace with my own work and focus over the years. “Perennial Vegetables” was great fodder for my learning in Guatemala with indigenous plant cultures and companion plants to coffee and avocado. The Carbon Farming Solution” helped to turn my attention to the potential of regenerative agriculture at scale, and his contributions to “Project Drawdown” helped me to put agriculture in perspective with the rest of the essential steps to addressing the climate crisis around the world.  In this session, because of its relevance to the work I'm doing with Climate Farmers, I decided to focus on the conclusion of “The Carbon Farming Solution” Part 5, which outlines the implementation of regenerative, perennially based, agriculture. We'll explore Eric's three point plan for scaling up carbon farming, his ideas for ways to support farmers and organizations in the transition, effective financing, removing policy barriers, as well as strategic next steps. We also cover some of his work with Project Drawdown in looking at the global picture and where regenerative agriculture stacks up in the priority list they've created to reverse the effects of climate change.  There's so much more I could say in an introduction to Eric and his work, but instead I'll put all the links to learn more about him and the projects he's involved with in the show notes for this episode and I'll jump right into the first question to start this discussion off. 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: http://www.perennialsolutions.org/ http://carbonfarmingsolution.com/ https://www.drawdown.org/

"An organism that is too greedy and takes too much without giving anything in return destroys what it needs for life." -Peter Wohleben (The Hidden Life of Trees) Imagine a farm that absorbs planet warming carbon emissions, they are fireproof and require hardly any feed? Sounds crazy? It's not because these are regenerative ocean farms. As acres and acres of forests are burning down in wild fires including the Amazon, there has been a growing interest in regenerative ocean farms. One such technology was pioneered by Ben Smith, co-founder of Green Wave. A hunter by profession to now a climate farmer, Ben has had a dramatic transition when he realized that his dream of living a life on the ocean will never come true, if the ocean is dead. Based on the principles of polyculture, Regenerative ocean farming by GreenWave works to mimic the diversity of ocean reefs by growing a mix of species that act in sync and nourish each other to revive ecosystems. Ocean farming eliminates the need for freshwater and zero use of fertilizers and feeds. The yield is used for food, fertilizer, animal feed, bioplastics, and more. Each crop plays a vital role. For example, a single adult oyster can filter as much as 50 gallons of water a day. Combined with the environmental benefits of seaweed, one can now turn regenerative ocean farms into climate solution powerhouses and stack benefits by growing seaweed and shellfish together. Regenerative ocean farms are safe havens for marine life as they improve water quality and provide habitats that foster biodiversity and support the health of an array of aquatic species. What fascinates us even more is their effort to propagate the knowledge to more fishermen and transform them into ocean farmers. GreenWave's 10 year goal is to provide training, tools, and support to a baseline of 10,000 regenerative ocean farmers to catalyze the planting of 1 million acres and yield meaningful economic and climate impacts. To scale, GreenWave cultivates a "Regenerative Reef" model in new regions. Each Reef includes 25 to 50 regenerative ocean farms, a land-based hatchery and processing hub, and a ring of institutional buyers and entrepreneurs developing value-added products. These Reefs are then replicated up and down coastlines. All in all I think GreenWave is building a foundation for a new food system by keeping the environment, jobs revival and justice at the centre of their seafood platter. Keyword : What is a circular economy? Follow our page- (Circular Business Podcast | The Circular Collective) Reach out to us on LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/circular-business-podcast/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/circular-business-podcast/support

Welcome back to another interview from the skill exchange calls that I've been running with Climate Farmers for our regenerative farming network in Europe.  This is one of the many community building activities that I've been organising to help to connect farmers around Europe to some of the best emerging information available, and to get their most important questions answered from around the world.  In this session I had the pleasure of speaking with Harriet Mella, an independent research scientist from Austria known for her work uncovering the unexplained phenomena of plant growth and development. Informed by her background in microbiology, mycology, and biochemistry, Harriet has a unique capacity to describe little-known connections between emerging biological research and agriculture. Her objective is to use the scientific background that we have to introduce agricultural methods that are more resilient and low input for farmers.In this exchange call we take a look at a wide variety of topics surrounding plant health through soil biology. Harriet does a great job of summarising very complex aspects of cutting edge research into practical applications for work on the ground.  At the moment, she's probably best known for the Carbon Micro Cycling course that she teaches on the Agriculture community platform Kind Harvest. She has worked a lot with John Kempf from Advancing Ecological Agriculture and refers to him a few times during this interview.  Before we get started I want to remind all of you who would be interested in attending one of these skill exchange calls live in the future, all you have to do is be a registered farmer in Europe to receive the invitations and call links that we have coming up. I'm planning a session with Charles Dowding about No-Dig market gardening at the beginning of October, so don't wait too long. You can register now at climatefarmers.org Links: Harriet Mella on Linkedin https://kindharvest.ag/courses/ra-cc-carbon-course/ climatefarmers.org

Welcome to the 8th 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 how to make and analyse high quality compost with my friends and colleagues at Climate Farmers, a non-profit organization working to advance regenerative agriculture in Europe. In this panel I invited three of the most experienced and influential educators in the field of compost production and biological soil amendments. This is an area where there is still a lot of contention as you'll see in any online forum on the topic. Differences in opinion about bacterial or fungal dominant compost, hot thermophilic decomposition or cooler and slower techniques. Whether compost teas actually work or if prebiotic food is more important. This is a new and emerging field so there are new discoveries all the time, but rather than get bogged down in technicalities I organised this panel to cut through the confusion and talk about what really works and results in improvement of soil health for growers. Now one mistake that I have to own up to is that I screwed up a bit on the scheduling coordination with the speakers, and for that reason Charles Dowding and Adreinne Goldshalx didn't show up until the end. We'll get to hear a little bit from Charles in the last 15 minutes, but Adrienne only comes in during the Q&A portion which isn't part of this episode. Don't worry though, I have plans to do follow up interviews with them both so we'll hear from them in some of the episodes coming up. Luckily Troy Hinke of Living Roots Compost Tea was a real hero and carried the discussion and all the questions I had all the way through. Don't forget that if you want to see the video of the full event, you can check it out on the Climate Farmer's Youtube channel through the link in the show notes for this episode. Since these discussions are longer than the regular weekly episodes, I'll keep the intro short and jump right into the introductions for our panelists. Links https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9BQ2a952wEchjyRSZPV6-Q https://www.livingrootscomposttea.com/ https://www.instagram.com/livingrootscomposttea/?hl=en https://charlesdowding.co.uk/ https://www.instagram.com/charles_dowding/?hl=en Check out these previous episodes on soil health https://regenerativeskills.com/gabe-brown-on-how-to-restore-soil-and-ecological-health-on-a-massive-scale/ https://regenerativeskills.com/regenerating-the-biology-in-your-soil-expert-panel-4/ https://regenerativeskills.com/robert-pavlis-soil/ https://regenerativeskills.com/matt-powers-regen-soil/

Welcome back to another interview from the skill exchange calls that I've been running with Climate Farmers for our regenerative farming network in Europe.  In this session I had the good fortune of introducing Stefan Sobkowiak to our group. Many of you who've been listening to this show for a while will remember the last interview I did with Stefan in the last season during the series on agroforestry. Stefan is one of my favorite sources for practical and honest techniques for managing the whole ecology of an orchard from propagating new tree species through maintenance, pest management, harvesting and even processing and marketing your products. His film, the Permaculture Orchard has help people around the world to transition towards diversified, resilient, and more profitable models of running their tree crop businesses. His YouTube channel goes even more in depth as he's always creating videos about the innovations and even struggles that are going on at his orchard Miracle Farm in Canada.   In this session we cover a lot of ground in a short time.We talk about How to manage pests and diseases by improving soil health and biodiversity in the orchard. How to care for the health of your trees for better yields and profit. Integrating other crops and animals into the system for ecological and economic resilience. And how to adapt common methods to your unique climate and context.  There's a whole Q&A session that happens after the half hour interview on these skill exchange calls which are exclusive to the Climate Farming network here in Europe. So if you're interested in attending these calls in person to have your own questions answered by the experts and tap into the growing community of farmers, consultants, and educators around Europe, you can register right now at ClimateFarmers.org Come and learn Syntropic agriculture and profitable agroforestry with me in Spain! This is the first announcement that I'm making for an exciting course that I've put together with my friend and Syntropic agriculture specialist Jacob Evans. I interviewed Jacob last season about his experience applying syntropic principles and design to the challenging ecology of Andalucia in southern Spain, and how even with the harsh heat and bone dry conditions that they face there he was able to establish an eden of productive perennial crops and support species on degraded former farmland.  Since that interview Jacob and I have been looking for ways to collaborate and so I invited him to come and teach with me at the farm of our good friends and Climate Farmers, Carlo and Coralie. The two of them have been developing their new orchard a few hours south of me in Barcelona and are super excited to experiment with Syntropic agriculture for all the incredible benefits of mixed biodiversity and ecosystem services that it has the potential to develop. Together we'll be hosting a group of learners for 5 days in which we'll not only go through the principles and theory of how these systems work, we'll be putting it into practice directly on the land as we install syntropic orchard rows on their site. I'll also be going into the practical side of ensuring that this innovative way of planting matures into a profitable venture that can accelerate the development of your farm. We'll cover soil testing and plant health, seed saving and plant propagation, alley cropping and animal integration, and a lot more. There will be team building activities, incredible food from the surrounding community, and much more in this 5 day intensive learning experience. So whether you're excited to develop a large farm with agroforestry, or just see the opportunity to plant delicious fruit trees in your back yard or neighborhood, you'll leave this course feeling confident to go out and start planting no matter what climate or bioregion you live in.  You can find all the details of the workshop at thegreenrebel.org or find them on instagram at thegreenrebel.

Over the last handful of weeks I've had the pleasure of managing an ambitious new project in my role with Climate Farmers, an organization working to build the infrastructure to scale regenerative agriculture in Europe. We call it the Pioneer Program. What this is essentially is a collaborative effort between us and some of the most prominent and experienced educators in regenerative agriculture. In this first program we partnered with Richard Perkins of Ridgedale Permaculture in Sweden and his online masterclass to guide farmers from all around Europe to redesign and transition their farms and businesses towards regenerative models. Through the incredible education provided in Richard's course and guided facilitation from our team and other knowledgeable practitioners around the world, we've helped our group to develop their holistic context, analyse new enterprise options, and map a course for a regenerative future for their land. In a short time we've seen dramatic transformations and progress in both the farm ecology and the mindsets of our program participants.  During this journey I had the pleasure of interviewing Will Harriss of White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia and guiding a Q&A session with our Pioneer farmers.  Since Will does a great job of giving his own introduction early in this interview I'll cut this preface short and jump right in. Don't forget to stick around till the end where I'll tell you how you can join the next Pioneer Program with Climate Farmers and now I'll hand things over to Will Harriss. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://whiteoakpastures.com/ https://www.instagram.com/whiteoakpastures/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-6RVpGF4tM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTmheMIkvmt2T2k62oo-Yfw https://youtu.be/nnYR7onhwc4

Welcome to the seventh 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 the importance of restoring proper hydrological function in a landscape and the steps to achieving it with my friends and colleagues at Climate Farmers, a non-profit organisation working to advance regenerative agriculture in Europe. In this panel I got to speak with three of the most experienced and influential educators working on this from a farming perspective. Since landscape hydrology and its proper function is often overlooked in its importance in regulating global temperature, I wanted to focus on this specifically. I was lucky enough to bring together three of the experts that have most guided my learning in this field, Zach Weiss, Nicole Masters, and Mark Shepard.Don't forget that if you want to see the video of the full event, you can check it out on the Climate Farmer's Youtube channel through the link in the show notes for this episode. Zach Weiss is the protégé of revolutionary Austrian farmer Sepp Holzer, Zach is the first person to earn Holzer Practitioner certification directly from Sepp. Zach went on to create Elemental Ecosystems to provide an action-oriented process to improve clients' relationship with their landscape. Elemental Ecosystems is an ecological development, contracting, and consulting firm specializing in watershed restoration and ecosystem regeneration. The firm's work includes Aquaculture, Agroforestry, Water Retention Landscapes, Terrace Systems, Spring Development, Natural Building, and more. Mark Shepard is the CEO of Forest Agriculture Enterprises LLC, founder of Restoration Agriculture Development LLC and award-winning author of the books, Restoration Agriculture and Water for Any Farm. He is most widely known as the founder of New Forest Farm, the 106-acre perennial agricultural savanna considered by many to be one of the most ambitious sustainable agriculture projects in the United States. Nicole Masters is is an independent agroecologist, systems thinker, storyteller, educator and author of the book “For the Love of Soil.” With over 20 years of practical and theoretical experience in regenerative agriculture, she is also recognised as a knowledgeable and dynamic speaker on the topic of soil health. Her team of soil coaches at Integrity Soils work alongside producers in the U.S., Canada and across Australasia supporting producers and organisations who cover over 24 million acres, to take their landscapes to the next level in nutrient density, profitability and environmental outcomes. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.integritysoils.co.nz/ https://www.elementalecosystems.com/ https://www.waterstories.app/ http://www.restorationag.com/Check out some of the previous expert panels: https://regenerativeskills.com/the-broad-applications-of-the-holistic-management-framework-expert-panel-6/ https://regenerativeskills.com/farm-economics-with-mark-shepard-and-michael-ableman-expert-panel-5/ https://regenerativeskills.com/regenerating-the-biology-in-your-soil-expert-panel-4/

Über folgende Themen sprechen wir:[02:50] Ivos Rolle: den natürlich Fluss wiederherstellen und Potentiale entfalten [05:00] Ist es sinnvoll Veränderung zu erzwingen? [06:48] Was ist Ivos Motivation für seine Arbeit? [08:33] Bedeutung von Fokus und Ignorieren: Wir können nicht alle Probleme lösen. [11:05] Die Bedeutung von Spaß bei unserer Arbeit [12:22] Ivos Prägung in jungen Jahren [14:18] Wie ist Ivo mit dem Scheitern seiner ersten Gründung umgegangen? [25:26] Was ist der Ansatz von Climate Farmers? Wieso hat Ivo es gegründet? Gast dieser Folge: Ivo DegnIvo hat sich während seiner gesamten beruflichen Laufbahn mit Impact Startups beschäftigt. Zunächst als Gründer seines ersten Bildungsunternehmens Knowmads Business School Spain & Knowmads Labs International, ein alternatives Hochschulprogramm für junge Menschen, das sich auf Unternehmertum und Selbstentwicklung konzentrierte. Ivo hat sich schon immer für die ideale Verschmelzung von Business und Impact interessiert, bei der sich Profit und Impact gegenseitig bedingen. Durch sein Engagement als COO und Head of Product Development bei ProjectTogether hat er in den letzten Jahren an der Entwicklung des Impact Entrepreneurship Sektors in Deutschland gearbeitet. Angesichts der wachsenden Bedrohung durch den Klimawandel konzentriert er sich nun voll und ganz auf Climate Farmers, ein skalierbares, technologiebasiertes Impact-Start-up, das einen systemischen Wandel in Richtung CO2-Speicherung im Agrarsektor anstößt. https://climatefarmers.org/ (Climate Farmers) Weitere Themen über die wir bei https://changemakerinsider.de (CHANGEMAKER INSIDER) sprechen:Schmerz und Frustration als Motivator Wie können wir uns vor Verzweiflung und Frustation schützen? Wie Ivo zu ProjectTogether gekommen ist Warum wir? Was macht uns besonders? Was befähigt uns dazu, etwas zu gründen oder eine Lösung für ein gesellschaftliches Problem zu suchen? Was sind Erfolgsfaktoren von und für Impact-Start-ups? Die Bedeutung von Erfahrung Was funktioniert momentan gut im Impact Sector und was nicht? Was sind gute Ressourcen für angehende Changemaker und Social Entrepreneure? Rat von Ivo an sein früheres Ich Neue Gewohnheiten und Lebenseinstellungen, die Ivos Leben positiv beeinflusst haben Was hilft Ivo Ausgleich zu finden und zu schaffen? Was ist Ivo heute wichtig, wenn er neue Sachen lernt? Was ist wichtig bei einem guten Mentor? Wie trifft Ivo Entscheidungen? Möchtest du das ganze Gespräch hören? Dann melde dich bei Changemaker Insider an und erhalte Zugriff auf viele exklusive Inhalte: https://changemakerinsider.de (www.changemakerinsider.de) Support this podcast

Über folgende Themen sprechen wir: [02:50] Ivos Rolle: den natürlich Fluss wiederherstellen und Potentiale entfalten [05:00] Ist es sinnvoll Veränderung zu erzwingen? [06:48] Was ist Ivos Motivation für seine Arbeit? [08:33] Bedeutung von Fokus und Ignorieren: Wir können nicht alle Probleme lösen. [11:05] Die Bedeutung von Spaß bei unserer Arbeit [12:22] Ivos Prägung in jungen Jahren [14:18] Wie ist Ivo mit dem Scheitern seiner ersten Gründung umgegangen? [25:26] Was ist der Ansatz von Climate Farmers? Wieso hat Ivo es gegründet? Gast dieser Folge: Ivo DegnIvo hat sich während seiner gesamten beruflichen Laufbahn mit Impact Startups beschäftigt. Zunächst als Gründer seines ersten Bildungsunternehmens Knowmads Business School Spain & Knowmads Labs International, ein alternatives Hochschulprogramm für junge Menschen, das sich auf Unternehmertum und Selbstentwicklung konzentrierte.Ivo hat sich schon immer für die ideale Verschmelzung von Business und Impact interessiert, bei der sich Profit und Impact gegenseitig bedingen. Durch sein Engagement als COO und Head of Product Development bei ProjectTogether hat er in den letzten Jahren an der Entwicklung des Impact Entrepreneurship Sektors in Deutschland gearbeitet.Angesichts der wachsenden Bedrohung durch den Klimawandel konzentriert er sich nun voll und ganz auf Climate Farmers, ein skalierbares, technologiebasiertes Impact-Start-up, das einen systemischen Wandel in Richtung CO2-Speicherung im Agrarsektor anstößt.Climate FarmersWeitere Themen über die wir bei CHANGEMAKER INSIDER sprechen: Schmerz und Frustration als Motivator Wie können wir uns vor Verzweiflung und Frustation schützen? Wie Ivo zu ProjectTogether gekommen ist Warum wir? Was macht uns besonders? Was befähigt uns dazu, etwas zu gründen oder eine Lösung für ein gesellschaftliches Problem zu suchen? Was sind Erfolgsfaktoren von und für Impact-Start-ups? Die Bedeutung von Erfahrung Was funktioniert momentan gut im Impact Sector und was nicht? Was sind gute Ressourcen für angehende Changemaker und Social Entrepreneure? Rat von Ivo an sein früheres Ich Neue Gewohnheiten und Lebenseinstellungen, die Ivos Leben positiv beeinflusst haben Was hilft Ivo Ausgleich zu finden und zu schaffen? Was ist Ivo heute wichtig, wenn er neue Sachen lernt? Was ist wichtig bei einem guten Mentor? Wie trifft Ivo Entscheidungen? Möchtest du das ganze Gespräch hören? Dann melde dich bei Changemaker Insider an und erhalte Zugriff auf viele exklusive Inhalte: www.changemakerinsider.de★ Support this podcast ★

This episode is the second part in our interview with the cofounders of Climate Farmers, an organization I've been working with for almost a year now that is working to build the infrastructure for regenerative agriculture in Europe. In the first part of the interview from last week we've covered the challenges of modern farming in Europe and the niche that Climate Farmers is hoping to occupy in the transition to a regenerative agriculture future in Europe. We talked about our own strategy of focusing on direct support for farmers through the different projects and departments within the organisation from the ever growing academy making quality educational resources easy to find, to the remote sensing team helping to gather data and metrics on the improvement of the soil and other ecosystem services as these farms transition to regenerative methods.  To wrap up the conversation we're going to go back to the beginning and recap the crazy turn of events that got us to where we are less than a year from launching. You'll get to hear how this small agtech startup has gone from a loose idea to attracting collaboration and support from industries and farmers alike.  The journey is certainly not over, in fact the really challenging parts are still ahead. If you haven't yet heard the first part of this interview I'll encourage you to go back and have a listen because it'll give a lot more context to the wild story that's about to come. So let's check back in with Ivo Degn and Philippe Birker to see how this all started.  Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links:climatefarmers.org

If you've been listening to more than a few episodes this season, you'll certainly have heard me mention a few times that I've been hosting the monthly expert panel discussions with Climate Farmers, an organisation that is working to promote regenerative agriculture in Europe. The truth is that there's a much bigger story behind that collaboration and a whole lot more going on than just the panel discussions.  Today I want to begin to share the story and the journey that my colleagues and I have been on for almost a year now. Until recently I've been a bit apprehensive to talk too much about the work I've been collaborating on with the team at Climate Farmers because it's still a very new project and it's taken us a while for us all to get clear about our direction, strategy, and path towards our goals. All of those have become much clearer in the last handful of weeks however and it's time to unveil this ambitious project and the remarkable people that have worked together to get it off the ground.  So today is going to be the first in a two part interview with Ivo Degn and Philippe Birker, the co-founders of Climate Farmers. In this first part, we'll be talking about the concept of the organization, the current state of modern agriculture in Europe, and the goals that we're working towards in order to directly assist farmers in their transition to more profitable and ecologically viable business management in a challenging and fast changing industry. Next week, in part 2, we'll go back to the beginning and hear from both of them about the wild ride that has brought us so far in such a short time and all the brilliant people that make up the team that is making it all work, so be sure to stay tuned next week as well.  But before we get into the bigger concepts, Let's start by getting to know Ivo and Philippe, and the ideas that turned into this initiative.  Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links:climatefarmers.org

Welcome to the sixth 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 the holistic management framework with my friends and colleagues at Climate Farmers, a non-profit organization working to advance regenerative agriculture in Europe.In this panel I got to speak with three of the most experienced and influential educators from the global network of Savory Hubs to share their knowledge about the wide applications of the holistic management framework. Since holistic management is often only associated with animal grazing, I wanted to hear from the women today about how relevant and influential it can be for people, not only in other types of farming businesses, but also in other aspects of life. In my work with the farming community that we're building across Europe, the topic of holistic management keeps coming up because of this frameworks' focus on managing the complexity that other forms of decision making work to simplify and reduce. In contrast to those methods, the idea of managing anything, from a business, to a community, relationship, or government, holistically involves understanding the whole and all the complexities within it. This is especially necessary when working with living systems and the unpredictable aspects that come with it.Since these discussions are longer than the regular weekly episodes, I'll keep the intro short and jump right into the introductions for our panelists. Precious Phiri: is a member of the Regeneration International (RI) steering committee and also serves as RI's Africa coordinator. She is also a training and development specialist in regenerative environmental issues and community organizing. She recently founded an organization called EarthWisdom, a network which she formed immediately after her full time nine-year career with Savory hub in Zimbabwe. Her work focuses on training rural communities and collaborating with networks in Africa to reduce poverty, rebuild soils, and restore food and water security for people, livestock, and wildlife. Sheila Cooke: works to enable farmers to regenerate soils whilst attaining a higher quality of life. As hub leader for 3LM, Land and Livestock Management for Life, and an Accredited Field Professional with the Savory Institute, Sheila is developing a network of Learning Hubs, Accredited Educators, and Ecological Outcome Verified producers of food and fibre. Sarah Gleason: is a first generation bison rancher based in Hesperus, CO. She entered ranching after building a career first in consumer marketing and later in advocacy for regenerative agriculture and conservation. After working for multiple years with the Savory Institute and Holistic Management practitioners worldwide, Sarah launched into full-time ranching herself. She began her business in 2016, when she purchased her first 15 bred bison. Gleason Bison is a holistically managed, grass-fed bison operation committed to serving its community, regenerating the environment, and producing thriving animals. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: savory.global https://www.3lm.network/ http://gleasonbison.com/ https://regenerationinternational.org/

Welcome to the fifth 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 farm business finances with my friends and colleagues at Climate Farmers, a non-profit organization working to advance regenerative agriculture in Europe. In this panel I got two of my favorite voices on the subject of farm economics and business advice to talk about how managing the whole ecosystem of their farms has saved them money and improved the profitability of their businesses. Since these discussions are longer than the regular weekly episodes, I'll keep the intro short and jump right into the introductions for our two panelists Mark Shepard is the CEO of Forest Agriculture Enterprises LLC, founder of Restoration Agriculture Development LLC and award-winning author of the books, Restoration Agriculture and Water for Any Farm. He is most widely known as the founder of New Forest Farm, the 106-acre perennial agricultural savanna considered by many to be one of the most ambitious sustainable agriculture projects in the United States. Michael Ableman: is a farmer, author, photographer and urban and local food systems advocate who has been farming organically since the early 1970′s and is considered one of the pioneers of the organic farming and urban agriculture movements. MIchael is the author of four trade published books: From the Good Earth, On Good Land, Fields of Plenty, and most recently Street Farm; Growing Food, Jobs, and Hope on the Urban Frontier.  Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: http://www.restorationag.com/ http://michaelableman.com/ Check out previous Expert Panel discussions https://regenerativeskills.com/regenerating-the-biology-in-your-soil-expert-panel-4/ https://regenerativeskills.com/exploring-regenerative-fashion-expert-panel-3/ https://regenerativeskills.com/the-potential-of-agroforestry-expert-panel-2/

Welcome to the second of the Regenerative Skill Building calls that I host with Climate Farmers, a new organization working to promote regenerative agriculture across Europe. These calls are specifically designed for our growing community of farmers around the continent and regenerative agriculture consultants. We listen to their interests and concerns online and then reach out to the experts who can best answer them and offer guidance. In this second call, I was joined by my good friend Zach Loeks who came to speak about his innovative permabed system of integrating perennial crops into the market garden for long term resilience in both the farm business and the site's ecology. We cover skills for reading your landscape and imitating natural systems, and that's all before we opened things up for listener questions. Zach has been a great contributor to this podcast over the years and was the first of my contacts to actually come out to Guatemala where I used to live and teach a permaculture design certification with me and the team at Atitlan Organics.  So be sure to check out some of the previous episodes I've done with him in the past at regenerativeskills.com where you'll also find links to where you can buy his books with an exclusive discount code in the show notes for this episode. So let's get started.   If you're interested in signing up for any of the great courses from ecosystem.com including Food Guild Design, Home Garden Pro, Permabeds, and Community Food Security, I've got links to all of them on the show notes page for this episode. Full disclosure, I do get a small commission if you buy through this link, but you also get a significant discount and it's a great way to support this show without having to donate directly.  Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: Check out the great list of courses in ecosystemu.com and get big discounts by signing up through the links here. You'll love Food Guild Design, Home Garden Pro, Permabeds, and Community Food Security https://www.ecosystemsolutioninstitute.com/ zachloeks.com ecosystemu.com

Get Richard's Mini Series!And all the free resources that come with it There's two quick things I want to mention before we get to the interview. The first is that these skills calls are a new feature of the show that I'll be running with Climate Farmers in our ongoing effort to support and promote regenerative agriculture in Europe and are now going to be offered live every two weeks. These calls will feature interviews and presentations from experts and innovators in farming from around the world, but beyond the people we feature and the topics we cover, there are also extended listener questions and discussion sessions at the end that I won't be publishing either on the podcast nor on our Youtube channel. The reason for this is that we've observed that there's a reluctance in the farming communities to openly share mistakes and difficulties in their journeys with the public, and I completely understand that, There's plenty of things I've screwed up on in this business and back when we were designing the farm back in Guatemala that I didn't put out to the whole world. But in order for our members to feel secure in communicating honestly about the aspects of their lives and operations that they'd rather not show on social media and their own educational content, these sessions are always kept private. We also keep the attendance for the Skill Building calls capped at 25 participants per call so everyone gets a chance to share and ask questions if they want. So If you're a farmer in Europe, regardless of whether you're running a regenerative, an organic, or a conventional farm, we'd love to have you on a call and hear about what you're working on or wrestling with so we can support you and connect you with others near you. We know it can be difficult, often working out in the fields alone or feeling isolated in rural areas, so come and join the Climate Farmer's network where you'll always be in good company. You can register to attend a live call through the links on our instagram account or on our website at climatefarmers.org The second opportunity I want to tell you about is that Richard perkins, The speaker on today's episode, is now offering an intimate look into how he runs his highly successful farm in a new free mini series on profitable regenerative farming which includes some great resources including a downloadable guide on how to build his roll-away nest-boxes, an editable spreadsheet download for the financial modeling of his beef enterprise, and a lot more. The mini series is open now and is only available for a limited time. It'll shut down on June 10th so don't twiddle your thumbs on this one. Check out the link in the show notes for this episode and start your learning journey right away! Now with those announcements out of the way, lets jump into the episode  Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.ridgedalepermaculture.com/

Welcome to the fourth of the monthly expert panel discussions. As I mentioned in the past, 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. If you're a subscribing patreon member, you'll also be invited to the live events and the open Q&A for listeners after the panel.In this session, I hosted a discussion on regenerating agricultural soil with my friends and colleagues at Climate Farmers, a non-profit organization working to advance regenerative agriculture in Europe.In this panel I got two of my favorite educators on the subject of soil science together to talk about how to build fertility and holistic health in agricultural soils. Since these discussions are longer than the regular weekly episodes, I'll keep the introduction short and jump right into the introductions for our two panelists John Kempf has taken on the bold mission of having regenerative models of agriculture management become the mainstream globally by 2040.In addition to being a former grower himself, John is the founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture, Crop Health Labs, Ozadia, and the Regenerative Agriculture Academy. He also hosts the Regenerative Agriculture Podcast, where he interviews top growers and scientists about the principles and practice of implementing regenerative agriculture on a large scale. Dr. Ingham discovered the soil food web nearly 4 decades ago and has been pioneering research ever since. Widely recognised as the world's foremost soil biologist, she's passionate about empowering ordinary people to bring the soils in their community back to life.Dr. Elaine's™ Soil Food Web Approach has been used to successfully restore the ecological functions of soils on six continents. She has helped to make soil health knowledge available to people with no relevant experience – making it accessible to individuals who wish to retrain and to begin a meaningful and impactful career in an area that will help to secure the survival of humans and other species. So let's jump right in! 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://johnkempf.com/ https://www.advancingecoag.com/ https://www.soilfoodweb.com/

Die Landwirtschaft ist weltweit für mehr als ein Drittel der Treibhausgase verantwortlich und somit einer der größten Treiber des Klimawandels. Wie müssen wir die Landwirtschaft verändern, um das Klima zu retten und somit auch den folgenden Generationen eine lebenswerte Welt zu hinterlassen? Darüber spricht Moderatorin Johanna Klum mit Ivo Degn, Co-Founder von Climate-Farmers. Von Katja Seidenschnur, Sustainabilty Director bei Nestlé erfahren wir, wie auch große Lebensmittelkonzerne den Ansatz der regenerativen Landwirtschaft integrieren können und welche Wege Nestlé darüber hinaus nutzt, um ihre Produkte nachhaltiger zu machen.

If you don't know her from her books, Fibershed and Harvesting Color you'll likely remember Rebecca Burgess from the panel discussion two weeks ago that I hosted with the team at Climate Farmers in which she and Aroa Alvarez Fernandez spoke about the potential of regenerative fashion and textiles to transform the current clothing industry. After that discussion I felt compelled to speak to her again to explore some of the options that are available to everyone to rediscover the value in our wardrobes and care for our clothing as investments.  This is no minor change. The fashion industry around the world is now second only to the oil industry as the largest polluter on Earth. This affects everyone and is tied to many aspects of our lives, from growing fibers, to processing fabrics and dying them, to the millions of people who work in the industry from farming to retail. It's responsible for 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions due to its long supply chains and energy intensive production, but even more severe is the industry's impact on our water supplies. For example 85 % of the daily needs in water of the entire population of India would be covered by the water used just to grow cotton in the country, and yet it's estimated that 100 million people there do not have secure access to drinking water. In most of the countries in which garments are produced, untreated toxic wastewaters from textiles factories are dumped directly into the rivers. The contamination eventually reaches the sea and then spreads around the globe. But while the destruction of the clothing industry is staggering, there are a lot of simple things that all of us can change in our consumption and care habits to do our part to fix this. Since this is certainly not my own area of expertise, I asked Rebecca what her own hierarchy of clothing purchases are and how she decides what garments to invest in.  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://fibershed.org/ carboncycle.org https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/fibershed/ colorhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52510936-fibershed?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=9GnJJbKvzv&rank=1

For years we've shaped our agriculture for high yields and food security. Climate Farmers think it's time to reward a different and very important goal: soil health. By helping farmers measure their ecosystem health and diversity, their goal is to store even more carbon in the ground. Recorded remotely in April 2021. Links Climate Farmers' website https://climatefarmers.org/ Bodemzicht's website https://en.bodemzicht.nl/ Planet Progress is part of the Google.org Impact Challenge on Climate. Google.org brings the best of Google to help solve some of humanity's biggest challenges — combining funding, innovation, and technical expertise to support underserved communities and provide opportunity for everyone. To learn more, visit g.co/ClimateChallenge

Welcome to the third 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. If you're a subscribing patreon member, you'll also be invited to the live events and the open Q&A for listeners after the panel. In this session, I hosted a discussion on regenerative fashion with my friends and colleagues at Climate Farmers, a non-profit organization working to advance regenerative agriculture in Europe.Since these discussions are longer than the regular weekly episodes, I'll keep the introduction short and jump right into the introductions for our three panelists. Rebecca Burgess is the executive director of Fibershed, chair of the board for Carbon Cycle Institute, and the author of both Fibershed and Harvesting Color. She is a vocationally trained weaver and natural dyer. Burgess has built an extensive network of farmers and artisans in the Northern California Fibershed to pilot an innovative fiber systems model at the community scale. Aroa Alvarez Fernandez is a sustainability entrepreneur who is one of the founders at Trace Collective & Trace Planet, an activist fashion brand and community organisation on a mission to make the fashion industry a driver of environmental regeneration, and to help communities reconnect with the products that they buy. Real quickly before we get to the panel, we had some technical difficulties when recording and lost the first minute of the call, so we jump into Rebecca's answer a bit abruptly, but the question I asked in the lead up is, What does a global regenerative fashion industry look like in terms of fiber and material production? She started by stressing the need to take care of this at a local in order to better inform a global scale. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://fibershed.org https://www.thetracecollective.com/

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. 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.worldagroforestry.org/ https://www.cgiar.org/ https://euraf.isa.utl.pt/welcome https://www.iufro.org/ https://www.evergreening.org/ https://ejpsoil.eu/ https://www.renature.co/ Check out these other episodes on agroforestry! https://regenerativeskills.com/the-potential-of-agroforestry-expert-panel-2/ https://regenerativeskills.com/alfonzo-chico-de-guzman/ https://regenerativeskills.com/how-to-start-a-profitable-elderberry-farm/ Don't forget to check out

Welcome to the second of the monthly expert panel discussions. As I mentioned last time, 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. If you're a subscribing patreon member, you'll also be invited to the live events and the open Q&A for listeners after the panel.  In this session, I hosted a discussion on agroforestry from three distinct perspectives with my friends and colleagues at Climate Farmers, a non-profit organization working to advance regenerative agriculture in Europe. Since these discussions are longer than the regular weekly episodes, I'll keep the introduction short and jump right into the introductions for our three panelists Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.ecosia-regenerative-agriculture.com/ https://new.worldagroforestry.org/ https://einhorn.my/einhorn-condoms/

It's time we take a look at How To Make Biochar Enriched Compost For Epic Veggies. A lot of what I spend my time on these days, between working with Ecosystem Restoration Camps, Climate Farmers, and running this show, is researching techniques and solutions for people who are working to regenerate damaged landscapes, either for generally healthier environments or for rich and abundant farmland. Since a lot of both of these goals revolve around the health of the soil as a foundation for mycorrhizal and plant life, I continually come back to the power and potential of pyrolyzed carbon, more commonly known as biochar. There are tons of examples of people making this remarkably simple product all around the world and using it to restore health to poor and degraded soils, but since I've been here in northeastern Spain for a while now, I wanted to hear from someone nearby whose worked biochar into a profitable and ecological business. Meet Christer Söderberg, the gentleman behind Circle Carbon Labs on the island of Mallorca. 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://circlecarbon.com/ https://www.permachar.net/kon-tiki-biochar-kiln/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy9k0_sX1xU

Welcome to the first edition of our monthly expert panels. This first edition starts off strong by addressing one of the most talked about issues of our time; understanding the future of regenerative agriculture. For this panel I teamed up with my friends and collaborators at Climate Farmers. Together we're working to advance regenerative agriculture in Europe. For this panel we assembled and all-star list of some of the most prominent voices in the movement today. Benedikt Bösel joining us from Germany, is the managing director of Gut&Bösel, board member of Soil Alliance, Chairman of the AgTech platform Bundesverband Deutsche Startups e.V.Richard Perkins, joining us from Sweden, is the co-owner and director of Ridgedale Permaculture and leading expert and educator on small scale regenerative agriculturePatrick Worms, joining us from Belgium, is the Senior Science Policy Advisor at World Agroforestry, President of the European Agroforestry Federation, and trustee of the International Union of Agroforestry Today we'll be exploring the potential of regenerative agriculture. Not only to address and reverse many of the environmental problems we face around the world, but also revive local economies, improve our health, and reconnect us to the ecologies that we depend on as our natural roles as stewards of the land. We'll also look into some of the important actions we must take to shift the farming industry as well as identify hurdles that must be overcome. Lastly we'll dive into how all of us listening can take part in this transition to a regenerative farming future. Don't forget that these podcasts are just the beginning. The discussion continues on our dedicated Discord server. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.ridgedalepermaculture.com/# https://www.gutundboesel.org/ https://worldagroforestry.org/ If you enjoyed this — or any! — episode of the Regenerative Skills podcast, please leave a review of the show! Reviews help boost the show in rankings, which makes it more visible… and that means more listeners! It's a great way to spread the word about Regenerative Skills!