Regenerative Skills

I’ve been so happy to see how popular the concept of growing one’s own food has become in recent years. Especially since the pandemic, a lot of us have connected deeply with the need to build food resilience by cultivating our own gardens, and quite a few have even gone further and started to grow at a market scale.  It’s a beautiful thing to be able to eat fresh healthy produce from your own land...

I’ve been observing an interesting trend in the regen ag space. The concept and awareness of regen ag has been growing exponentially with many people exploring ways to start their own farms and to participate in and support those who are already involved. At the same time the current economic situation and the complexity of regulations, paired with skill worker shortages, and other challenges are...

We live in a time when everyone seems to be looking for high tech solutions for every problem. Maybe it's due to all of the new tech that has come out in recent decades with lofty promises of new frontiers, or the fact that so many of us are removed from regular interaction with the natural world, but I genuinely believe that technology is more over-applied and responsible for more problems than i...

I’ve been lucky in recent months to be able to speak to people who’ve been leaders and change makers in the regenerative space for a significant amount of time. Building on that knowledge and experience I got to speak with Dr Mark Nelson.    Mark is Chairman of the Institute of Ecotechnics, head of Wastewater Gardens International and has worked for several decades in closed ecological system rese...

A few months back when I covered the topic of landrace gardening and crop breeding, I had no idea what a passionate and knowledgeable community around the world that I was tapping into.  The seed savers and plant breeders who I’ve been in touch with, including quite a few who are part of the Discord community for this podcast, are working on everything from quinoa crosses for tough climate staple...

My guest today needs no introduction if you’ve been paying attention to the regen ag scene in the last decade, but just in case you’re new to this topic and community let me catch you up to speed   John Kempf is an entrepreneur, speaker, podcast host and teacher. He is passionate about the potential of well managed agriculture ecosystems to reverse ecological degradation. It is John’s mission to h...

Despite the popularity of regenerative agriculture at the moment and the fact that there are many inspiring farmers involved in the movement, it’s still rare to find experienced farmers, especially in large scale operations that have been working to regenerate their ecosystems and communities for more than 20 years.  For this reason I was thrilled to connect with Will Harris of White Oak Pastures...

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...

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 fo...

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...

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 an...

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 th...

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...

 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...

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...

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 sh...

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...

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 i...

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 fac...

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...

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 pret...

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...

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 thi...

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...

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...