WEBVTT - Fixing Our Dirt 0:00:01.639 --> 0:00:10.480 Hmm, it's soil Tom. Hello, welcome to it could happen 0:00:10.560 --> 0:00:16.480 here we're talking about we're talking about dirt today, big big, 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:19.439 big dirt fans here. We love we love dirt, we 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:24.640 love soil. Um. And to help us talk about soil, dirt, ecology, growing, 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:29.120 for forging all of this kind of stuff, we have 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:33.159 Andy from the Poor Pearl's Almanac podcast about you know 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:37.080 what to do after you know, stuff kind of crumbles 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:38.920 away slowly, kind of kind of like kind of like 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:42.879 our podcast. Um. And we're not like our soil hopefully. 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:46.920 Well I got some bad news for you there. Some 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:49.720 of us are not great at cultivating soil, which is 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:52.519 what we are talking about today is how to avoid 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:54.480 getting a lot of void, Like, how can we help 0:00:54.880 --> 0:01:00.320 help against our soil just blowing away? Um? Yeah, that 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:02.400 is that is that is our discussion. I I wrapped 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:07.120 up like a week of research on California's specific climate 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:10.480 and drought and what all the farmers are doing. Um, 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:12.600 and a lot of their soil is blowing away and 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:14.959 so far their solution to that is just spray more 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:17.880 water on it, which the problem is there's not tons 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:22.560 of water. Um. So let's talk about dirt. Let's talk 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:26.479 about soil. I will hand it over to the residents. 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:30.720 Soy boy, the soil expert here, because I don't know 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:33.760 what I'm talking about with dirt. My puns are getting famous, 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:36.920 I know I have. That was that was just that 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:39.679 I was just ripping, ripping off of a title of 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:42.200 one of his episodes. So that's not original. Blame him 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:47.000 for the pond. Sorry, I do that a lot. So 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:51.680 in terms of building soil, there's it's really a basic 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:55.680 idea of how to do it, and it generally comes 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:58.880 down to understanding what a soil needs and how to 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:02.920 let the soil build through rest. And generally speaking, when 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:05.640 we plant our annual crops, what happens is you put 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:07.920 your tomato plants in the ground, whatever it might be. 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:11.840 You've got a great harvest, you let them die, clear 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:14.839 them out, and then the next year, maybe you throw 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:17.560 some more compost on it, or maybe you're like, I 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:19.639 just don't want time, I won't do it, and you'll 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:21.560 grow and you might have a pretty decent crop again, 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:23.840 and then usually by like the third year, you start 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:26.080 to notice that your plants just aren't doing as well, 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:28.520 Like all the nutrients and the minerals have started to 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:31.360 get taken out of the soil, so you can either 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:35.600 continuously add new material to it which comes from somewhere. 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:39.880 Doesn't seem very sustainable. Yeah, it's absolutely not sustainable. And 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:42.000 the alternative is to think about how can I build 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:44.720 up that soil without doing that, And there's a couple 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:48.600 of different ways we can do that. The soil can 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:51.680 get built from things like cover crops, so we can 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:56.559 add cover crops generally things like nitrogen fixing plants, clovers, 0:02:57.160 --> 0:02:59.800 hairy vetch, and a number of others that we can 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:03.079 used to help fix nitrogen into the soil, or we 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:06.560 can add other things to add biomass. So certain grasses 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:09.400 and things like that can be planted and they'll mind 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:12.240 deep into the soil to pull up nutrients when they 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:14.840 die off, or you can cut them down they start 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:17.519 breaking down, they return those nutrients back, but they're on 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:19.840 the top soil now, So that's another way we can 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:23.200 do it. Alternatively, if we're talking about a little bit 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:28.560 more land, you can take advantage of using animals so chickens, rabbits, 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:33.680 cheap cows, whatever it might be, reintroduce nutrients back into 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:37.520 the soil through things like rotational grazing, and there's a 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:40.160 you know that that's a whole other subject of you know, 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:44.440 how different methods are better or worse for fixing nitrogen 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:47.440 and all the other nutrients back into the soil. And um, 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:49.200 we can talk about it. I don't know if you 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:52.160 want to spend an hour talking about it. I assume 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:55.280 that that definitely depends on the scale of your operation. 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:58.040 I would assume absolutely. And you can do that on 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:03.080 a smaller scale, not necessarily cows, but like chickens. Chickens 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:05.080 can be run through chicken tractors, which can be as 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:08.200 small as you know, three ft by six ft. And 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:12.160 we were making yeah, we were making some fertilizer a 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:16.920 few months ago and basically we raked up well I did. 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:19.599 I I watched as people did this because I was lazy. 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:25.360 I watched people just rake up tons of sheep shit um, 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:28.360 because there we have there's a little sheep set up. Um. 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:31.479 And they were just raking up all the ship and 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:35.640 putting into a pile of dirt. And now it's been 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:37.279 like a it's been like a month or two, and 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:40.719 we should have some okay fertilizer by now, which we 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:45.640 can you know, use however we see fit. But chickens, chickens, 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:48.880 chickens as well not not everyone probably has sheep or 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:53.919 access to sheep um, but chickens are surprisingly easy to get. Yeah, 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:56.800 and depending on the city or in h you can 0:04:56.839 --> 0:04:59.599 live in pretty dense places and still legally have chickens. 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:01.440 You might have to get comfortable with the idea of 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:04.679 slaughtering a rooster, but other than that, you know, there's 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:06.640 it's funny because what you'll see is like in the 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:09.719 early spring, everyone gets chickens and then by like July 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:16.760 u on on Craigslist or Facebook or Instagram, everyone's like, 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:23.159 free rooster to good home because they can't slaughter themselves. Yeah, 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:25.719 I've had I've had to watch a few roosters get 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:30.279 the get the old old acts. There was there was 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:33.520 this one rooster that would always wake up as we 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:35.200 were all going to bed. We would have like we 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:37.920 have like a movie night um, and we're like going 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:39.960 to bed at four am, and that's when the rooster starts. 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:43.120 We're like no, we're trying to sleep, and we're like 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:47.760 we need to kill that rooster. It's only time one 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.080 bad day to be like I cannot listen to that 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:55.080 sound again at least at least it went to some 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:59.240 good use. Yeah. Anyway back to dirt. Yeah, let's see 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:02.840 where were were talking talking about reintroducing stuff via you know, 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:06.240 chemical means I mean, or or just using animals and stuff, 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:10.000 or or rotating plants. Yeah. So there's a bunch of 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:12.200 different ways you can do it, and obviously it's all 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:16.480 defined by what your site needs. You know, the way 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:18.359 we're talking at this point has been mostly about like, 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:20.599 you already have a garden and that soil needs to 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:23.760 be amended to improve it. But if you're working with, 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:26.640 say a site that has almost no top soil. So 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:30.320 for example, a friend of mine out in California lives 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.680 near a highway and they had scraped all the top 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:37.120 soil around the highway to build up the highway. So 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:40.880 now there's no top soil, it's just garbage. So how 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:42.839 do you build that soil up? And there's a bunch 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:44.840 of different ways we can do that, whether it's through 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:49.760 taking advantage of free resources like um mulch. Like if 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:51.760 you see a tree getting cut down and they chip 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:54.040 it all up, those guys have to pay to get 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:56.039 rid of it most of the time, or they get 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:58.680 paid just enough to cover their gas. So if you 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:00.000 see it down the street and say, hey, you want 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:02.719 to drop it off in my house, they'll happily do it. Yeah. 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:05.400 We we just found out there is this business in 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:09.000 Portland that you can email them to do a chip 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:11.400 drop where they take all of their mulchion wood chips 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:14.200 and drop them off in your driveway and it's completely 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.600 free you you you you don't need to pay for it. 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:19.400 You can just schedule them to drop it off anywhere. 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:21.680 And a short aside, we also found out that they 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:24.600 don't require address verification, so you can do this as 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:28.320 a prank. Um. You can find out where the mayor lives. 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:32.080 Um or where I don't know a particularly bad person lives. 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:36.320 Let's say he wears armor and he brutalizes people and 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:38.720 threatens them with guns while having a badge. You can 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:40.840 find out if you know where it lives, you can 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:44.080 just deliver tons of wood chips right right on this driveway. Um. 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:46.480 And and they have a rule on their website is 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:49.000 once a delivery has been initiated, it's like once the 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:52.040 truck leaves you know, their office, it cannot be stopped. 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:55.040 There's no way, there's no way preventing it, And they 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:57.960 don't contact the house beforehand, no way preventing it. Just 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:02.360 a random, random wood chip drop anywhere in any driveway. 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:05.120 It's a magical system. But you can also just use 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:07.680 this for you know, getting wood chips to help grow things. Yeah, 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:10.680 and we'll just such an underrated medium. It's like really 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:13.760 good for like water retention and helping soil not dry 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:16.760 out too fast. It's it's not just like aesthetically nice 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:20.280 looking and accessible. It's also like really good for the plants. 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:23.080 So I'll add two caveats to that, And the first 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.120 is that it's really important to know what species you're 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:29.280 dealing with that are the woodchips, because certain species have 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:34.360 chemicals on them that will reduce growth or stop it completely. 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:37.800 So like black walnuts are really well known on the 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:41.440 East Coast as having what's called juglone, And there's a 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:44.480 bunch of different species that again are probably unique to 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:46.240 where you live that you should just be aware of. 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:50.160 And the second one is that mulch and wood chips 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:54.520 are fantastic for your garden. However, the one drawback is 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:57.720 that for the wood chips to break down, they actually 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:00.480 utilize a lot of the nitrogen in the soil. So 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:02.280 that's just so you may have a bit of a 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:04.880 nitrogen problem or some kind of nitrogen fixing, So it 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:07.959 would be more important to think about cover crops and 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:12.240 either adding fresh compost or whatever it might be help 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:15.719 offset some of that nitrogen absorption. So so it's not 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:18.640 it's a great resource. It's just not perfect. You just 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:32.920 have to be aware of the limitations. I would like 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:37.200 to touch on why we're in a bit of a pickle, 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:40.880 like what what what what have we done agriculturally to 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:44.400 kind of make our soil so unfragile? Like what what 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:47.600 did we do wrong? Um on? Like even on like 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:50.520 a larger scale, and how how might someone like me 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:53.240 who just has a small set up, you know, not 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:56.199 make the same mistakes in my own personal garden. Sure, 0:09:56.280 --> 0:10:01.480 so the beginning of the food system becoming what it 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:07.120 is today really started with oil. Access to things like 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:11.280 petrochemicals allowed us to start rethinking about how we grew 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:16.600 food and forgetting about traditional methods pummarily things like using 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:19.199 the newer I mean you think about it, You eat, 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.960 all the nutrients go out the sewer and then they 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:26.680 never go back into the soil. And we're constantly taking 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:29.480 from the same soils year after year, and the only 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:32.400 way we continue to produce is because we're dumping chemicals 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:35.280 and forcing the soil, which is just a medium at 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:38.880 this point, just dirt. It's not soil, and we're just 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:41.160 making it grow food because we're adding the chemicals the 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:44.400 plants need. But we've destroyed things like the bacterial community, 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:48.120 the fungag community, all these different things that are so 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:51.560 crucial for our food systems to be resilient in terms 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:55.400 of how can we move forward. Building that soil is 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:58.079 super important and understanding these cycles of where our food 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:02.040 comes from. The biggest challenge really is that we're trying 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:08.679 to create ethical food systems under an inethical economic model. Sure, so, 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:11.680 like you'll see, like perma culture is like a really 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:14.480 big thing today and for a lot of good reasons 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:20.880 because it challenges that methodology. However, because of things like capitalism, 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:23.439 we can't really have an honest conversation about the fact 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:25.920 that a lot of people will tell you can make 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:28.840 money doing perma culture, and you some people do, but 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:32.600 it's not it's not really what people think, Like there's 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:37.400 no way to ethically grow food and not have the 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:42.360 problems of yeah, you're you're facing or competing with somebody 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:45.640 that doesn't have any ethical guidelines or framework that you 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:48.240 have to compete with. And I mean there's plenty of 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:50.839 things we can say that there are problems with perman culture, 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:52.520 and if you want, we can talk about that further. 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:56.600 But this is the primary reason why we can't really 0:11:56.880 --> 0:12:00.920 fundamentally rethink our food system until things either fall apart 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:05.199 or capitalism no longer exists, or there are major subsidies 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:09.240 for these alternatives, whatever it might be. Yeah, let's see, 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:13.080 Like is even something like would you even say, just 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:17.120 like someone buying pre made fertilizers should be avoided in 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:19.240 that case, Like would you would you rather you know, 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:21.640 someone trying to make it ourselves? And like what's cheaper 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.480 you know, like is just buying fertilizer or cheaper than 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:26.280 I would to actually make it yourself. There's another kind 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:28.760 of problem with these types of things that it turns out, 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:30.920 you know, the way to make things better might cost 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:33.520 some people more money, you know than people who don't 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:35.360 really have as many resources, you know, just like a 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:37.839 regular person who's trying to do this, you know, they 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:40.160 don't have as much money, and would would just buying 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:43.360 pre made chemicals be you know, easier and cheaper than 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:46.079 doing work to kind of build it up more like 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:51.400 ute unquote naturally, I mean obviously, I think under capitalism, 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:55.720 anything that's efficient in terms of time and um, taking 0:12:55.720 --> 0:13:00.679 advantage of things like scalability, which you know, mining nutrients 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:02.839 is always going to be more efficient when you're doing 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:06.079 it on a massive global scale, Like you really can't 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:10.160 compete dollar for dollar. And that's at least with what 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:12.200 I do with the poor pros almanac. We don't really 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:14.880 focus on that and instead say this is how things 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:18.040 should be, and how do we do that and when 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:20.079 do we need to start doing that if we know 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:24.040 that what exists today isn't sustainable and that ultimately this 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:28.600 is gonna fall apart in some capacity. Yeah, you talked 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.520 more about like trees specifically, and I would love to 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:34.560 love to hear more about that, you know, outside of 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:37.960 just you know, making your own like edible garden, doing 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:42.240 doing other kind of ecology related related work. Sure, so 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:46.360 trees have you know, so many benefits outside of the 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.800 fact that they can produce food. Um, we could look 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:52.720 at things like how they can manage a landscape and 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:57.880 reduce temperature extremes the way they can maintain soil quality 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:01.920 because of UM reducing things like runoff from major storms, 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:05.680 which are happening more and more frequently. Further, like I said, 0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:09.000 they do produce food, and they sometimes they produce food 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:13.840 for us, sometimes they produce food for our livestock. Um. Additionally, 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:17.959 there's a process called silvil pasture, which is essentially when 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:19.480 you think of a farm, you think of a cow 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:22.600 walking around in a field. Instead that cows walking around 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:27.320 and a managed forest and the forest floor gets enough 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:30.000 sunlight to grow grass, so you're getting the benefits of 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:33.000 the grass as well as the trees. And you can 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:35.680 either be using those trees for lumber or for food 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:37.960 crops or whatever it might be, and you're getting the 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:40.840 best of both worlds. And in a lot of ways, 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:44.680 the civil pasture system more accurately represents the way the 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:47.960 landscape had been managed, especially here in the northeast and 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:51.560 generally the East coast by indigenous people. Um. You know, 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:54.640 they weren't using cows, they were doing prescribed burns and 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:57.760 things like that. But those environments are actually better for 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:01.200 things like a deer, which like like to exist on 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:05.080 like the margins of forests where they're getting the best 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:07.240 of both worlds. So that was how they managed a 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:13.160 wild Essentially they're wild grazing the native species. Yeah. We 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:16.440 just I'm just trying to think there's like we we 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:18.520 don't really have anything like that on a on a 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:22.400 large scale anymore. We've we've just jumped right into like 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:26.040 the the field and pasture thing. Yeah, I mean, you 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:28.120 think about it, it it makes sense that we haven't because 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:32.720 of the fact that to do that requires individuality. In 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:35.160 terms of how we manage a landscape. You can't run 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:38.600 a machine through you sbo pasture. You can't just make 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:41.040 like a template and apply to every situation. Everything is 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:44.960 much more unique based on their individual environment and ecosystem. Yeah, 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:47.440 and then it becomes less efficient to manage in terms 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:50.920 of how we manage things as a successional thing where 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:53.800 we have you go through the field and you seat 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:56.080 it with a giant machine, because you can do it 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:59.200 faster that way, you can add whatever amendments you need 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:01.840 more quickly. When it's just a flat piece of land 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:04.200 with nothing in the way, so on and so on. 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:06.560 It's just it doesn't It goes right in the face 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:09.720 of how we think of efficiency despite the fact through 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:13.640 it's diversity, it's more resilient to what's coming in terms 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:17.640 of climate change, especially the logs run. Yeah. Um, in 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:19.920 the last episode we talked a bit about grilling gardening. 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:22.880 Can this like intersect with with this idea of like 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:25.680 growing in the forest? Um? Is there? You know? I 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:30.200 assume there's like a decent cross over there. Absolutely. So 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:33.600 generally speaking, a lot of people that are into silvil 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:36.800 pasture are also thinking about things like tree crops. And 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:38.720 one of the things that I really focus on is 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:42.720 thinking about foods that we don't traditionally think of as foods, 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:45.320 or at least not as like staple crops. So like 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:47.880 while people might be familiar with kind of the odd 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:50.520 fruits like per simmons, you might know what a persimmon is. 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:52.320 You might have one or two, or maybe make per 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:56.760 simmon bread. That's not usually a large part of anyone's diet, no, 0:16:57.280 --> 0:16:59.600 And that's like, that's the challenge that we really have 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:02.720 is while people like to incorporate these types of things 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:05.800 in permaculture into you know, how they think about their 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:09.600 relationship with the environment, Like nobody's giving up their toast 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:11.320 in the morning and that's you know, a third of 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:13.400 your diet or whatever it might be, and that's where 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:16.280 we need to fundamentally shift how we think about food. 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:19.800 So you're saying that we need to change in order 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:22.800 to address these large systemic issues that have caused many problems. 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:26.479 We need to change the way we extract resources from 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:30.600 the earth and maybe reevaluate how much we do. So yeah, 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:32.760 I mean, you know, it's it's no small feet, is 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:34.959 what I'm saying. I know, I'm just saying, like, you know, 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:39.159 that's the this specific thing around like food and diet 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.000 is the same route problem we have with climate change 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:46.639 on a larger scale of like just doing you know, 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:50.800 progress for progress's sake without realizing that this is not 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:54.399 a sustainable way to do things. And infinite growing and 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:58.040 like infinite expansion, maybe it is a bad idea and 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:01.119 maybe it has some consequence. Who has some costs? Who 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:03.760 would have thought that infinite growth on a finite planet 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:20.520 wasn't sustainable? Oops? Yeah, The point that I'm really trying 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:23.560 to drive home is that we really need to rethink 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:25.960 what food looks like and it has to be in 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:29.040 a meaningful way that it can't just be those odds 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:32.399 and ends. And that the thing I think people forget 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:34.919 is that food is a huge component of our culture 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:38.439 and our identity. Absolutely think about food and identity. The 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.200 reason why our identity is surrounded around food is because 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:43.760 food is the byproduct of the environment that we live in. 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:46.919 And it's you know, for it's been a couple of generations. 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:50.240 And we went from the reason why Italians eat x 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:53.399 y z s because that's what grows there. Two I 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:55.760 eat this because my family does, but I don't know why. 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.600 And that's the way those things relate to one another 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:02.439 is have been completely lost, and we need to figure 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:05.520 out how to do that again. Can you point to 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:08.840 any examples of these things you're talking about of like 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:11.879 you know, of systems existing now or in the past 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:15.760 that of kind of shown these methods of viewing food 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:20.959 and viewing you know, growing and soil cultivation, so like 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:25.040 any indigenous practice. And like we say indigenous, and we 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:28.600 usually mean like North America or South America or Australia. 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:32.120 But even if you look across Europe, you know, before 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:36.879 capitalism kind of got its clause into the rest of 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:39.240 Europe or all of Europe, like there were plenty of 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:45.320 indigenous practices and in some places they continue and the 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:49.680 way that people lived um reflected the needs of their 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:52.720 ecology and how people could relate to that ecology. The 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:55.879 reason why Nordic countries have high amounts of meat in 0:19:55.920 --> 0:19:57.960 their diet is because of what grows there and what 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:01.480 how they can utilize what grows there to feed themselves 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:05.960 through animals and things like that. Hmm, yeah, I mean 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:08.320 that is that is generally what we we hear is 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:12.480 you know, look at the various indigenous methods of growing 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:15.040 um and how they how they fed people in their 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:17.439 media area, and thinking like, how can we take those 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:20.600 similar ideas and scale it up? Because I mean, they 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:23.119 weren't growing food for seven billion people. But I know, 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:26.280 like we grow way too much food for what for 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:29.360 many people, maybe not too much food, just we distribute 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:31.679 it in a very unefficient way because we don't do 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:33.479 it for what we need. We do it for profits, 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:35.359 and like we we we throw away so much food 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:38.800 that we grow as you know, globally UM. But I 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:41.160 you know, when I think of these more like older 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:44.080 methods of growing food, it's it's harder for me to 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:47.840 picture that, you know, feeding an entire city, right, And 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:50.040 I don't know what the solution is here. This isn't 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:52.840 really the thing I focus on a lot. But is 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:54.639 there a way to kind of scale up these like 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:56.439 smaller scale things that you know, people can do in 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:59.399 their own yards on any kind of mass level or 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:01.520 is that just kind of rely back on the same thing. 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:04.199 We've need to like re reevaluate how much we consume 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:06.480 and how we consume it. So I think there's a 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:08.119 little bit of both. I think we do need to 0:21:08.119 --> 0:21:11.640 reevaluate what we're consuming and the volume that we're consuming, 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:15.880 as well as um, you know, the the waste specifically 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:18.520 in terms of those two things that we tend to 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:22.280 lose a lot of food that otherwise is useful um. 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:25.919 But also there is a lot of opportunity and wild 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:29.720 places like maybe New York City because of the development 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:32.359 around the city, might not there might not be any 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:35.879 way possible to grow food like within the metropolitan or 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:40.239 even the region. We know that, like, and this is 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:42.720 something I probably should have checked before the staff, But 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:45.439 it's something like there's four acres of arable land for 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:51.080 every person on Earth, and four acres is like that's plenty, 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:55.760 that's plenty, That's absolutely plenty. UM. But like, one of 0:21:55.800 --> 0:21:58.320 the things that's really important is to start thinking about 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:01.520 how we can decentralize these systems in order to have 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:06.200 those clusters of places where those things are more um 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:10.320 capable of growing and handling the production that's necessary. And 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:13.600 so maybe rethink about what what urbanization really should be 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:16.359 and what it should look like. And you know, in 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:19.280 the future, while things might seem like, well, you can't 0:22:19.280 --> 0:22:22.440