[Music]
in 2003 my husband and I were like many
young urban professionals we were
stressed out and haunted by the idea
that humanity was rushing towards
self-destruction we were living in
Toronto with two young kids under the
age of two and as many of you know
there’s nothing quite like having
children to bring the world’s problems
into clear focus like many minor parents
I’ve worried for their future I could
manage to ensure that they got enough
sleep ate their vegetables and read lots
of books but how could I protect them
from a world that might become so
polluted that it would be uninhabitable
the news was filled with alarming
stories about climate change
hurricanes forest fires glaciers melting
ocean acidification and carbon the vast
amounts of carbon we were releasing into
our atmosphere not to mention the huge
rise in diet related diseases and cancer
at the same time every scientific report
coming out about climate change in our
somebody’s got to say it we’re in
serious trouble
and every year the findings become more
dire and irreversible
for a while I tried pretending that it
wasn’t happening
but expecting other people to solve
these problems when we carried on with
our normal lives wasn’t an option
we owed it to our kids to at least try
so after much discussion we concluded
that the way we grow our food was
actually the common denominator in many
of the biggest challenges that we were
facing so we did something radical no we
did something crazy we bought a farm and
decided to set out to prove that you
could grow food the right way this firm
we address climate change head-on by
building a sustainable farm employing
practices that put as much carbon back
in the soil as roads we released this
meant that we farmed organically not
using any chemical fertilizers or
pesticides we did almost everything by
hand and we put in solar panels to
offset our electricity use we hear
thousands and thousands of pounds of
really beautiful nutritious organic
produce every year so fast forward 12
years and things look pretty good on our
farm our farm is a place that people
gather to learn about food and build
community we’re profitable we sell our
produce to some of the best chefs in the
country and we have a fiercely loyal
customer base both my husband and I work
full-time on the farm and we have time
in the offseason to travel and enjoy
life and our kids have had an amazing
life a childhood on the farm and they’ve
grown into awesome young adults
my life as a farmer is challenging and
meaningful and good but when I look away
from the farm and out into the world
it’s a different story we’re still in
trouble the world continues to hurtle
towards self-destruction and the
problems have only gotten worse we’ve
realized realized that sustainability is
no longer enough sustaining the status
quo is not an option when the status quo
is going down the toilet here are three
simple stats that illustrate what I’m
talking about
if we were to stop 100% of global carbon
emissions today like right now
it would take 200 years for the co2 in
the atmosphere to return to the levels
that we had in 1970 200 years over 30%
of global firm land has become
desertified turned from arable farmland
into desert through poor farming
practices this is enough land to feed
1.4 billion people and the UN estimates
with current farming practices we have
on average less than 60 harvests left
because before the rest of our farmland
becomes severely degraded or destroyed
well 57 actually that report came out
three years ago we’ve simply past the
point where sustainability can save us
for real
okay so I had planned to give an
inspirational TED talk and I could
clearly see that is not working out that
way I can see that many of you are ready
to crawl into your seats and I felt
exactly the same way until I began to
see this differently there is a small
but growing movement of farmers
researchers and activists who’ve
realized there’s a different path a way
of farming that can not only stop but
can reverse the big scary trends that
threatened to make our planet
uninhabitable a way of growing food that
goes beyond sustainable we call it
regenerative agriculture so what is
regenerative agriculture the easiest way
to understand it is this
there’s too much carbon in our
atmosphere and not enough in the soil
pretty simple right
so the first step is that we have to
stop thinking about carbon as the
problem carbon is a resource it’s
essential for all life on the planet and
especially for growing healthy plants
the problem is how the carbon is
distributed excess carbon in our
atmosphere is causing our planet to warm
and not enough carbon in the soil is
leading to poor crop yields erosion and
desertification this imbalance is
causing climate change so all we need to
do is move the carbon from the air to
the soil so how do we do that the answer
is right under our feet it turns out
that soil is teeming with an abundance
of life there are countless species of
fungi bacteria protozoa insects and
animals that all live in the soil
this soil microbiota is essential for
the growth of healthy plants all food
crops and just about every other plant
the scientists have studied survived
only through a complex symbiosis with
the creatures that are in the soil the
creatures in the soil gather the
nutrients from the air and the land and
feed them to the growing plants the
plants return the favor by feeding sugar
to the soil microbiota sugar is contains
carbon which is made from co2 in the
atmosphere during photosynthesis so when
the plants grow they are continually
pumping carbon into the soil to feed
their microscopic helpers when the
plants die they decompose and their
nutrients are recycled over time the
carbon and soil increases leading to a
positive cycle of increasing fertility
increased soil life and more vigorous
plant growth
all the while drawing carbon down out of
but with the rise in industrial chemical
agriculture over the past sixty years or
so we’ve broken this cycle common
farming practices such as planting big
monocrops the use of toxic pesticides
and continually plowing and tilling the
soil all kill soil life and destroy soil
organic matter on average we have lost
over 50% of the carbon out of our
agricultural soils worldwide for more
than half a century carbon has been
flowing in the wrong direction from our
soils to the atmosphere would dire
consequences for both regenerative
farming is all about reversing that
trend with the regenerative farming we
start moving carbon in the right
direction moving it down instead of up
and the good news is that farming
techniques that store carbon in the soil
are cheap and low-tech and they work let
me tell you about some of the
regenerative farming practices we use in
our farm to protect our soil the first
is really simple we never put anything
on our land that will kill soil life no
chemical fertilizers no pesticides in
order to protect our salad greens from
bugs we cover them with Nets we don’t
plant monocultures we grow a wide
diversity of vegetables and we mix them
up all together the greater the
diversity of plants we have growing the
greater the diversity of life in the
soil and the more carbon we can store
now very importantly we try to never
leave our soil bare so in the fall after
we harvest our vegetables we plant
winter rye and hairy vetch to cover the
soil and feed the soil life over the
winter
and we plant cover crops these are crops
that we plant not to harvest but to feed
the soil life in store carbon we grow
diverse cocktail crops of peas oats
sunflowers and these crazy daikon
radishes that can put a taproot six feet
down into the subsoil to retrieve
nutrients these plants and their
microscopic helpers in the soil they fix
nitrogen store water prevent erosion and
sequester tons and tons of atmospheric
but the most important step and the most
difficult for us is to reduce the amount
that we tell the land there’s nothing
like tillage to kill soil life and
release co2 the goal in both organic and
conventional agriculture is no-till but
that’s really hard to do when you’re
growing little salad greens that only
take three weeks from planting to
harvest we would till then plant then
until again after harvesting replant
harvest until again wheat sometimes till
our soil ten times in a single season
and I really hope there aren’t any
farmers in the room because it’s really
embarrassing to admit that we were
canceling out many of the other efforts
we were making destroyed the store
carbon in our soil that is until we
heard about a really cool solution and
really low-tech
we began experimenting with huge tarps
so instead of tilling we would take a
big tarp and after we harvest our salad
greens we would lay the tarp down and
that tarp would kill like block out the
sunlight kill the weeds and then heat up
the soil which stimulated the soil life
to break down the dead plants after two
weeks a bed of ours harvested salad
greens would go from this to that we
were able to plant the next crop
so we did this we use this method hoping
that after a couple of years we would
see an increase in the amount of carbon
or soil organic matter in our soil but
while we didn’t expect was the immediate
and dramatic benefit to the plants that
we were growing in this field here we
used a tarp that was too short so we
tilled the bed at the end there then we
pulled up the tarp and we planted
spinach and then after about a week or
so we noticed something really strange
the spinach that was growing in the
undisturbed soil where it had been
tarped germinated better grew faster and
didn’t have any weeds to compete with
you can clearly see where the outline of
the tarp was this happened every time we
planted into undisturbed soil better
germination faster growth and no weeds
so for us that meant less labour higher
yields and more profit
every time we planted our salad greens
and to underserved soil they were ready
for harvest more than a week earlier
than the same salad greens we had
planted into soil that had been tilled
so next year we’re hoping to move our
whole farm to no-till and the no-till
revolution is catching on with with
organic and conventional farmers alike
regenerative farming techniques have
huge benefits for our environment and
climate but they also pay big dividends
to farmers new research is showing that
the more carbon you have in your soil
the more money you make so before you
turn off your news feeds and crawl under
your bed let me let me give you this bit
of good news during the Paris climate
summit in 2015
research was released that showed if we
can increase the amount of carbon we
have stored in our soils around the
world by just 0.4 percent per year just
for one thousandth we could absorb all
of the excess carbon we currently emit
all of it if we can do better than 0.4%
or begin reducing our emissions we can
significantly start decreasing the
amount of co2 in our atmosphere today we
don’t need to wait 200 years we can do
it now so I’m gonna give you guys three
things that you can do that can help
make this happen
the first is to resort regenerative
farmers talk to the vendors in your
farmers market and ask them if they’re
farming carbon ask them what they’re
doing to protect their soil I can tell
you as a farmer if there is a market if
there’s demand for regenerative food
farmers are gonna grow it if you can’t
get to a farmers market by certified
organic
many of these regenerative techniques
are already mandatory for organic
farmers
the second thing is to adopt a carbon
diet more vegetables less meat it’s
better for you and the planet if you do
eat meat it’s vitally important to eat
grass-fed inorganic animals raised in
the right way have a big role to play in
regenerative agriculture and building
healthy soil but the way that we
currently firm meat is the single
biggest contributor to global carbon
emissions bigger even than
transportation now these first two are
about personal choice but personal
choice is only going to get us so far in
order to get the kind of radical
transformative change that is necessary
we need to organize and get political
urban is our most valuable global
resource we need to demand a carbon tax
and then take the money that that car
turbine tax generates and support
regenerative projects including
regenerative firming we need to pay
farmers to sequester carbon measuring
soil carbon is cheap and easy and is a
global army of farmers already in place
if we set clear benchmarks and offer
real incentives farmers will begin
storing carbon tomorrow we already pay
all sorts of subsidies to support
promote the wrong kind of agriculture we
need to start paying farmers to move
carbon from the air to their soil so
it’s time to stop wringing our hands and
waiting for the world to end we all have
a role to play it’s not somebody else’s
responsibility the time for
sustainability is passed we can
regenerate let’s eat our way out of this
mess thank you [Applause]
in 2003 my husband and I were like many
young urban professionals we were
stressed out and haunted by the idea
that humanity was rushing towards
self-destruction we were living in
Toronto with two young kids under the
age of two and as many of you know
there’s nothing quite like having
children to bring the world’s problems
into clear focus like many minor parents
I’ve worried for their future I could
manage to ensure that they got enough
sleep ate their vegetables and read lots
of books but how could I protect them
from a world that might become so
polluted that it would be uninhabitable
the news was filled with alarming
stories about climate change
hurricanes forest fires glaciers melting
ocean acidification and carbon the vast
amounts of carbon we were releasing into
our atmosphere not to mention the huge
rise in diet related diseases and cancer
at the same time every scientific report
coming out about climate change in our
somebody’s got to say it we’re in
serious trouble
and every year the findings become more
dire and irreversible
for a while I tried pretending that it
wasn’t happening
but expecting other people to solve
these problems when we carried on with
our normal lives wasn’t an option
we owed it to our kids to at least try
so after much discussion we concluded
that the way we grow our food was
actually the common denominator in many
of the biggest challenges that we were
facing so we did something radical no we
did something crazy we bought a farm and
decided to set out to prove that you
could grow food the right way this firm
we address climate change head-on by
building a sustainable farm employing
practices that put as much carbon back
in the soil as roads we released this
meant that we farmed organically not
using any chemical fertilizers or
pesticides we did almost everything by
hand and we put in solar panels to
offset our electricity use we hear
thousands and thousands of pounds of
really beautiful nutritious organic
produce every year so fast forward 12
years and things look pretty good on our
farm our farm is a place that people
gather to learn about food and build
community we’re profitable we sell our
produce to some of the best chefs in the
country and we have a fiercely loyal
customer base both my husband and I work
full-time on the farm and we have time
in the offseason to travel and enjoy
life and our kids have had an amazing
life a childhood on the farm and they’ve
grown into awesome young adults
my life as a farmer is challenging and
meaningful and good but when I look away
from the farm and out into the world
it’s a different story we’re still in
trouble the world continues to hurtle
towards self-destruction and the
problems have only gotten worse we’ve
realized realized that sustainability is
no longer enough sustaining the status
quo is not an option when the status quo
is going down the toilet here are three
simple stats that illustrate what I’m
talking about
if we were to stop 100% of global carbon
emissions today like right now
it would take 200 years for the co2 in
the atmosphere to return to the levels
that we had in 1970 200 years over 30%
of global firm land has become
desertified turned from arable farmland
into desert through poor farming
practices this is enough land to feed
1.4 billion people and the UN estimates
with current farming practices we have
on average less than 60 harvests left
because before the rest of our farmland
becomes severely degraded or destroyed
well 57 actually that report came out
three years ago we’ve simply past the
point where sustainability can save us
for real
okay so I had planned to give an
inspirational TED talk and I could
clearly see that is not working out that
way I can see that many of you are ready
to crawl into your seats and I felt
exactly the same way until I began to
see this differently there is a small
but growing movement of farmers
researchers and activists who’ve
realized there’s a different path a way
of farming that can not only stop but
can reverse the big scary trends that
threatened to make our planet
uninhabitable a way of growing food that
goes beyond sustainable we call it
regenerative agriculture so what is
regenerative agriculture the easiest way
to understand it is this
there’s too much carbon in our
atmosphere and not enough in the soil
pretty simple right
so the first step is that we have to
stop thinking about carbon as the
problem carbon is a resource it’s
essential for all life on the planet and
especially for growing healthy plants
the problem is how the carbon is
distributed excess carbon in our
atmosphere is causing our planet to warm
and not enough carbon in the soil is
leading to poor crop yields erosion and
desertification this imbalance is
causing climate change so all we need to
do is move the carbon from the air to
the soil so how do we do that the answer
is right under our feet it turns out
that soil is teeming with an abundance
of life there are countless species of
fungi bacteria protozoa insects and
animals that all live in the soil
this soil microbiota is essential for
the growth of healthy plants all food
crops and just about every other plant
the scientists have studied survived
only through a complex symbiosis with
the creatures that are in the soil the
creatures in the soil gather the
nutrients from the air and the land and
feed them to the growing plants the
plants return the favor by feeding sugar
to the soil microbiota sugar is contains
carbon which is made from co2 in the
atmosphere during photosynthesis so when
the plants grow they are continually
pumping carbon into the soil to feed
their microscopic helpers when the
plants die they decompose and their
nutrients are recycled over time the
carbon and soil increases leading to a
positive cycle of increasing fertility
increased soil life and more vigorous
plant growth
all the while drawing carbon down out of
but with the rise in industrial chemical
agriculture over the past sixty years or
so we’ve broken this cycle common
farming practices such as planting big
monocrops the use of toxic pesticides
and continually plowing and tilling the
soil all kill soil life and destroy soil
organic matter on average we have lost
over 50% of the carbon out of our
agricultural soils worldwide for more
than half a century carbon has been
flowing in the wrong direction from our
soils to the atmosphere would dire
consequences for both regenerative
farming is all about reversing that
trend with the regenerative farming we
start moving carbon in the right
direction moving it down instead of up
and the good news is that farming
techniques that store carbon in the soil
are cheap and low-tech and they work let
me tell you about some of the
regenerative farming practices we use in
our farm to protect our soil the first
is really simple we never put anything
on our land that will kill soil life no
chemical fertilizers no pesticides in
order to protect our salad greens from
bugs we cover them with Nets we don’t
plant monocultures we grow a wide
diversity of vegetables and we mix them
up all together the greater the
diversity of plants we have growing the
greater the diversity of life in the
soil and the more carbon we can store
now very importantly we try to never
leave our soil bare so in the fall after
we harvest our vegetables we plant
winter rye and hairy vetch to cover the
soil and feed the soil life over the
winter
and we plant cover crops these are crops
that we plant not to harvest but to feed
the soil life in store carbon we grow
diverse cocktail crops of peas oats
sunflowers and these crazy daikon
radishes that can put a taproot six feet
down into the subsoil to retrieve
nutrients these plants and their
microscopic helpers in the soil they fix
nitrogen store water prevent erosion and
sequester tons and tons of atmospheric
but the most important step and the most
difficult for us is to reduce the amount
that we tell the land there’s nothing
like tillage to kill soil life and
release co2 the goal in both organic and
conventional agriculture is no-till but
that’s really hard to do when you’re
growing little salad greens that only
take three weeks from planting to
harvest we would till then plant then
until again after harvesting replant
harvest until again wheat sometimes till
our soil ten times in a single season
and I really hope there aren’t any
farmers in the room because it’s really
embarrassing to admit that we were
canceling out many of the other efforts
we were making destroyed the store
carbon in our soil that is until we
heard about a really cool solution and
really low-tech
we began experimenting with huge tarps
so instead of tilling we would take a
big tarp and after we harvest our salad
greens we would lay the tarp down and
that tarp would kill like block out the
sunlight kill the weeds and then heat up
the soil which stimulated the soil life
to break down the dead plants after two
weeks a bed of ours harvested salad
greens would go from this to that we
were able to plant the next crop
so we did this we use this method hoping
that after a couple of years we would
see an increase in the amount of carbon
or soil organic matter in our soil but
while we didn’t expect was the immediate
and dramatic benefit to the plants that
we were growing in this field here we
used a tarp that was too short so we
tilled the bed at the end there then we
pulled up the tarp and we planted
spinach and then after about a week or
so we noticed something really strange
the spinach that was growing in the
undisturbed soil where it had been
tarped germinated better grew faster and
didn’t have any weeds to compete with
you can clearly see where the outline of
the tarp was this happened every time we
planted into undisturbed soil better
germination faster growth and no weeds
so for us that meant less labour higher
yields and more profit
every time we planted our salad greens
and to underserved soil they were ready
for harvest more than a week earlier
than the same salad greens we had
planted into soil that had been tilled
so next year we’re hoping to move our
whole farm to no-till and the no-till
revolution is catching on with with
organic and conventional farmers alike
regenerative farming techniques have
huge benefits for our environment and
climate but they also pay big dividends
to farmers new research is showing that
the more carbon you have in your soil
the more money you make so before you
turn off your news feeds and crawl under
your bed let me let me give you this bit
of good news during the Paris climate
summit in 2015
research was released that showed if we
can increase the amount of carbon we
have stored in our soils around the
world by just 0.4 percent per year just
for one thousandth we could absorb all
of the excess carbon we currently emit
all of it if we can do better than 0.4%
or begin reducing our emissions we can
significantly start decreasing the
amount of co2 in our atmosphere today we
don’t need to wait 200 years we can do
it now so I’m gonna give you guys three
things that you can do that can help
make this happen
the first is to resort regenerative
farmers talk to the vendors in your
farmers market and ask them if they’re
farming carbon ask them what they’re
doing to protect their soil I can tell
you as a farmer if there is a market if
there’s demand for regenerative food
farmers are gonna grow it if you can’t
get to a farmers market by certified
organic
many of these regenerative techniques
are already mandatory for organic
farmers
the second thing is to adopt a carbon
diet more vegetables less meat it’s
better for you and the planet if you do
eat meat it’s vitally important to eat
grass-fed inorganic animals raised in
the right way have a big role to play in
regenerative agriculture and building
healthy soil but the way that we
currently firm meat is the single
biggest contributor to global carbon
emissions bigger even than
transportation now these first two are
about personal choice but personal
choice is only going to get us so far in
order to get the kind of radical
transformative change that is necessary
we need to organize and get political
urban is our most valuable global
resource we need to demand a carbon tax
and then take the money that that car
turbine tax generates and support
regenerative projects including
regenerative firming we need to pay
farmers to sequester carbon measuring
soil carbon is cheap and easy and is a
global army of farmers already in place
if we set clear benchmarks and offer
real incentives farmers will begin
storing carbon tomorrow we already pay
all sorts of subsidies to support
promote the wrong kind of agriculture we
need to start paying farmers to move
carbon from the air to their soil so
it’s time to stop wringing our hands and
waiting for the world to end we all have
a role to play it’s not somebody else’s
responsibility the time for
sustainability is passed we can
regenerate let’s eat our way out of this
mess thank you [Applause]
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