Though we’ve covered many aspects of soil health on this show in previous episodes, this is an area of scientific and agronomic study which is constantly growing and evolving. It seems that there are a growing number of specialists who are pioneering research in very specific and detailed aspects of soil health which helps to expand our overall picture of the ecosystem under our feet.  At the same time it’s essential to be able to translate all of this advanced biology, chemistry, and even...

This week I want to build on the panel discussion that I started previously in the panel episode with the group from the Alpbach forum. In that conversation we looked at various visions on what a regenerative food system could look like from representatives from Nestle, Agrana, and a conservation farmer.  Today I want to bring another perspective into this idea of building healthy and resilient food systems from a friend of mine who has been working on this by connecting stakeholders...

The growing popularity of permaculture food forests and backyard multispecies orchards is part of a movement that I’m 110% in support of. Any addition of native and food producing plants in diverse multispecies configurations is a wonderful thing.  I want to see as many people as possible find success with these plantings, and that’s why I’ve been a bit concerned by the way that many designers and landscapers oversell the benefits and expectations to people who want to plant their first fruit...

Any of you who’ve been following the show this season will remember one of my favorite episodes from the beginning of the year in which I documented a water restoration job I went out to Nicaragua to go in collaboration with Restoration Agriculture Development, the contracting company founded by Mark Shepard. There I worked under the guidance of Jake Takiff, RAD’s dryland restoration specialist and the lead designer on that job.  I got along famously with Jake and learned a ton from working...

At the end of August I had a unique opportunity to attend the European Alpbach Forum in Austria, as I was invited by organizers at Nestlé to moderate an event they were organizing. This was a unique session that included a guided hike in the Alps around the town and a discussion centered on the core themes of which structures, innovation, incentives, models, and mindsets are necessary to enable the transition to regenerative food systems.  As listeners of this show already know, I’ve explored...

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

 This is part two of the conversation started last week with Akiva Silver. Co-owner of Twisted Tree nursery and homestead. If you haven’t yet heard the first part, you can find the link in the show notes for this episode on the website at regenerativeskills.com You’ll remember from last week that one of the first projects I encourage people to do when starting any land based project is to start a plant nursery. Not only will you start the long process of coaxing plants into maturity which is...

After the last few weeks of focus on the intricacies of Holistic management and building community in agriculture, I wanted to go back to some technical information on specific farming enterprises.  One of the most common questions I get asked from listeners and clients who are starting new projects is about where to begin. Those of you familiar with permaculture will know of the common advice to live and wait a full year on your site before beginning to design and implement your vision. This...

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

One of the emerging practices in the regenerative work space is that of citizen science. This covers an infinite range of scientific specialties, but I’ve especially seen amazing things come from two areas in the last couple years. These would be mycology and the study of soil. That isn’t to say that traditional institutions aren’t making advances in these fields, but passionate amateurs have also been leading some incredible innovations in these areas. Incredibly, at the center of both of...

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...

I’ve touched on this topic briefly in previous interviews, but it bears repeating. Agriculture around the world is going through a critical moment. The skyrocketing prices of petroleum products, meaning most agriculture chemicals and fertilizers as well as machinery fuel, is causing a tipping point for many farm businesses. Operations that have long been dependent on these synthetic inputs are facing tough decisions. Do they double down and continue to keep their land on life support,...

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

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

A lot of my work these days revolves around communicating with farmers around Europe who are at various stages of a transition towards regenerative management. For many different reasons farmers are looking for solutions outside of the conventional industry of chemical and technological manipulations and are rediscovering the potential of partnering with natural cycles and processes. Though there are a handful of examples of growers who’ve been pioneering these practices around the continent,...

Welcome to a very special episode of the regenerative skills podcast. This is the 300th episode that I am publishing today, and to make the occasion I wanted to try something new. At this point the show has grown immensely from where I started it and I would imagine that most of you who are tuned in now haven’t been here since the beginning.  For that reason I’m going to revisit the origins of this show and explain the context in which this podcast was started, how it’s evolved along with my...

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...

Today’s episode is going to require some context for anyone who’s not familiar with the origin of this show. Back in 2017 when I started this podcast I was doing an internship with my friend and mentor Charlie Rendal on bamboo building in Lake Atitlan Guatemala. I had been traveling back and forth from Guatemala for a number of years. I had originally gone down there with a friend to learn Spanish and I ended up coming back for years to see friends and just because I love that country. In my...

Since the three part series that Nick and I recorded about the vast array of drought mitigation and recovery solutions for people in different living situations we’ve gotten a lot of follow up questions from listeners who want to go deeper into this subject.  Luckily one of my friends and mentors who’s had an outsized influence on my educational journey and inspiration to work with farmers and land managers in helping them to make the most of the water resources has just come out with a new...

Just checking in while still on a short holiday. I just dropped my mom off at the airport at about 3 yesterday morning after a wonderful week of her visiting us, my sister, and her girls at the farm. It’s been such a blessing to have almost all my favorite women under the same roof for a time. My family is scattered all across the world, so these moments when a number of us can be together is really precious to me, and a big motivation of why Alba and I moved out here to begin with. Though we...

Over the next two weeks I’m going to be taking some much needed recharge time with my family here on the farm. I've got my little sister Emily here and her three little girls Selma, Rawan, and Lujane who came from Kuwait city to spend the summer with us, and my mom who just arrived on Wednesday who will be spending a week with us. We’ve got outdoor education time around the farm (which we call Jungle School), a number of fairs and local festivals in the area we’re going too, and a lot of good...

Welcome to the final episode in mine and Nick’s 3 part series on drought. In the first episode we talked about how drought was affecting our two homes at the moment. His home on the island of Tenerife, and my own in Northeastern Spain. We went over the definition of drought and some common myths and misconceptions, as well as the major factors that can make drought more common and severe.  In the second episode we turned to look at the myriad of options that are available to mitigate and...

Continuing with our deep dive into drought, my good friend Nick Steiner and I are going to move now from defining drought and the its myriad of causes and factors that make it worse, to a wide range of solutions and opportunities available to people who are living in different environments and with different access to land and space.  You may not be surprised to hear that we ended up running long and so I split the episode into two parts. In this session we cover mostly the order of...

It’s that time again. In todays’ regenerative round table, my good friend Nick Steiner and I give updates on our respective projects. Him on the Island of Tenerife and myself in the mountains of central Catalunya in Spain. In the update we talk about some of the challenges we’ve been experiencing this year. The big topic at the moment for us, and many other in this area of the world, is drought. Partly because Nick and I live in parts of the world where drought is a common factor we’ve been...