I tell my son to hold his breath when we
drive past row after row of banana
plants in Central America the chemical
pesticides that hang in the air smell
like death and I get that same sinking
feeling like when we drive by acre after
acre of blackened hillsides slashed and
burned to grow a few subsistence crops
in other places the topsoil has already
been lost the land reduced to a
moonscape of baked red clay but we keep
driving to visit the farms that are a
green patchwork of trees rice paddies
and garden beds alive with hummingbirds
butterflies and human beings when my son
and I are greeted by giggling children
who spill out of small palm roofed homes
with earthen walls and dirt floors I’m
struck by how much we face losing to
threats such as climate change but I’m
also struck by what a wonderful solution
is right under our feet the soil that
grows our food is also key to
regenerating the planet and a climate
suitable to human life whether we’re
talking about the threats or the
solutions farmers are our future so how
do we shift our eating habits away from
unhealthy food grown on conventional far
that degenerate the environment to food
that regenerates healthy bodies healthy
ecosystems and a healthy climate that’s
the question I was asking when I
graduated from college and when most of
my friends were contemplating where
they’d find a job that would pay the
rent serving as a Peace Corps volunteer
in Panama showed me how subsistence
farmers could lead the world to a
regenerative food system living in rural
Panama I saw slash and burn farming
firsthand a farmer cuts down some
forests and burns it so the ash helps
grow a few subsistence crops but burning
also harms the soil and most of those
nutrients that were in the forest they
go up in smoke contributing to global
warming in a few months the ash and
topsoil wash away so the farmer moves on
and burns more forests after this cycle
is repeated a number of times the
topsoil is completely lost along with
its capacity to store the water and
carbon plants need to grow over time
this d generates the planets ability to
sustain human life the farmers in panama
wanted a better way of farming they just
never had the opportunity to learn one
they couldn’t transform how they’d
farmed for generations with only a few
months of technical assistance
especially from a gringa who had just
recently learned the language well
enough to stop saying three fleas when I
meant three inches they needed long-term
support from a local expert if they were
going to grow an abundance of food that
would regenerate the planet
so after Peace Corps I went to work for
an organization that I thought could
provide that kind of assistance but just
a few weeks after I hired the first two
field trainers in Honduras my boss
announced that he wasn’t gonna pay their
salaries
so naturally I quit that day and gave
myself 24 hours to figure out another
way to pay their salaries I thought you
know if I can’t figure it out quick I
might as well stop wasting everybody’s
time well the next morning a miracle
happened even though it seemed like
there’s no way I’d start a new nonprofit
with no money I got an email that
morning from a Swiss tourist I’d met on
my last trip to Central America he’d
seen the reforested farms from my Peace
Corps days and so on the very day when I
was either gonna start a new nonprofit
or give up and get a real job this man I
hardly knew offered to wire me some
startup money I ran right to the bank
opened a new account and the next day
there was six thousand dollars from
Switzerland in that account and that’s
how I was able to start sustainable
harvest international within a few years
we had a half dozen Central American
field trainers teaching farmers what I
considered sustainable farming practices
I encouraged an organic ecological
approach but sometimes the field
trainers told me that chemical
fertilizers were the only thing that
would work on such poor soils so I went
along with this because I didn’t have a
lot of confidence in my farming know-how
and I figured hey it’s better than
running more forest right well over the
years my colleagues and I have gained a
lot more knowledge and we’re now certain
that chemical fertilizers degenerate the
environment just as much
burning does and we’ve seen how organic
practices can outperform conventional
farming so by 2007 sustainable harvest
international was promoting 100% organic
practices it was a year later in 2008
that de metrio Martinez a farmer in
membrillo Panama joined our program he’d
grown up seeing his family burned more
forests every year to grow their crops
but still not have enough money to send
him to school beyond the 6th grade when
de metrio became a father himself he
wanted more for his own children so he
went to work on a conventional rice
plantation where his co-workers got sick
and died from exposure to agro chemicals
it hardly seemed worth the 6 dollars a
day that he earned but de metrio didn’t
see a better option until our field
trainer offered to visit his family
every week to share knowledge that would
allow Dimitrios family to produce an
abundance of food without burning and
without chemicals after five years de
metrio had the confidence to continue on
his own and share what he’d learned with
other farmers by then he was comfortable
using compost cover crops and mulch to
regenerate healthy productive soils and
he knew how to create an agro ecosystem
of fruit hardwoods spice and nut trees
growing together with coffee and sugar
cane around rice plantations that are
weeded and fertilized by fish more
fruits and vegetables grow on a terraced
hillside so now his farms ecosystem
takes care of itself with birds bees
soil microbes and all sorts of creatures
that have come back to the land each
playing their part
and now Dimitrios family grows enough
for a healthy diet and income to meet
their other basic needs plus since they
grow in the same land every year they
don’t have to burn more forests they
don’t burn more forests now this might
not mean a lot if we’re just talking
about the four acres that Demetrio farms
but Demetrio is one of 3,000 sustainable
harvest international farmers who’ve
transformed twenty five thousand acres
of degraded land to regenerative organic
farms planting four million trees over
the last twenty years
yeah I’m psyched that’s great but you
know what it’s not nearly enough and
that’s what keeps me up at night our
current food system is responsible for
about half of the world’s greenhouse gas
emissions and even if we stop all
emissions tomorrow our planet is going
to keep warming because of what we’ve
already put into the atmosphere we’re
gonna continue down the path towards
extinction but there’s still something
that can save us and it’s the soil on
farms like Dimitrios all we have to do
is increase the carbon in the world
soils by four parts per thousand or 0.4%
and we can totally do that there are 500
million small-scale farms that produce
most of the world’s food with almost no
resources if we help these farms become
regenerative like Dimitrios farm they’ll
draw down 6 billion tons of carbon out
of the atmosphere into the soil every
year which is equivalent to shutting
down every coal-fired plant on earth and
they’ll create yeah all the good food
and not only that they’ll also create 3
billion acres of habitat for more
biodiversity that’s 30 times bigger than
all our country’s national parks
combined and of course they’ll produce
delicious nutrient-dense poison free
food for all of us and these 500 million
farmers are ready to do their part but
they can only do it if we do our part so
here’s a couple easy ways that you can
join them first by as much food as you
can from regenerative organic farms
preferably in your own community Eliot
Coleman my favorite farmer here in Maine
likes to point out that we happily pay
more for better car
furs TVs shoes but when it comes to the
food that will either degenerate or
regenerate our bodies and our planet why
won’t we pay a little more for something
so much better and second support
programs that help farmers make this
transition to regenerative farming it’s
time for all of us to come together to
build the fertile ground for a more
abundant future when I see my son’s face
light up when he pulls a bright orange
carrot out of the rich earth I know
his children won’t have such a joyful
life unless humanity digs in and gives
it all we’ve got in the next ten years
if we want a happy healthy future for
our children will support regenerative
farms because farmers are our future
thank you
you
drive past row after row of banana
plants in Central America the chemical
pesticides that hang in the air smell
like death and I get that same sinking
feeling like when we drive by acre after
acre of blackened hillsides slashed and
burned to grow a few subsistence crops
in other places the topsoil has already
been lost the land reduced to a
moonscape of baked red clay but we keep
driving to visit the farms that are a
green patchwork of trees rice paddies
and garden beds alive with hummingbirds
butterflies and human beings when my son
and I are greeted by giggling children
who spill out of small palm roofed homes
with earthen walls and dirt floors I’m
struck by how much we face losing to
threats such as climate change but I’m
also struck by what a wonderful solution
is right under our feet the soil that
grows our food is also key to
regenerating the planet and a climate
suitable to human life whether we’re
talking about the threats or the
solutions farmers are our future so how
do we shift our eating habits away from
unhealthy food grown on conventional far
that degenerate the environment to food
that regenerates healthy bodies healthy
ecosystems and a healthy climate that’s
the question I was asking when I
graduated from college and when most of
my friends were contemplating where
they’d find a job that would pay the
rent serving as a Peace Corps volunteer
in Panama showed me how subsistence
farmers could lead the world to a
regenerative food system living in rural
Panama I saw slash and burn farming
firsthand a farmer cuts down some
forests and burns it so the ash helps
grow a few subsistence crops but burning
also harms the soil and most of those
nutrients that were in the forest they
go up in smoke contributing to global
warming in a few months the ash and
topsoil wash away so the farmer moves on
and burns more forests after this cycle
is repeated a number of times the
topsoil is completely lost along with
its capacity to store the water and
carbon plants need to grow over time
this d generates the planets ability to
sustain human life the farmers in panama
wanted a better way of farming they just
never had the opportunity to learn one
they couldn’t transform how they’d
farmed for generations with only a few
months of technical assistance
especially from a gringa who had just
recently learned the language well
enough to stop saying three fleas when I
meant three inches they needed long-term
support from a local expert if they were
going to grow an abundance of food that
would regenerate the planet
so after Peace Corps I went to work for
an organization that I thought could
provide that kind of assistance but just
a few weeks after I hired the first two
field trainers in Honduras my boss
announced that he wasn’t gonna pay their
salaries
so naturally I quit that day and gave
myself 24 hours to figure out another
way to pay their salaries I thought you
know if I can’t figure it out quick I
might as well stop wasting everybody’s
time well the next morning a miracle
happened even though it seemed like
there’s no way I’d start a new nonprofit
with no money I got an email that
morning from a Swiss tourist I’d met on
my last trip to Central America he’d
seen the reforested farms from my Peace
Corps days and so on the very day when I
was either gonna start a new nonprofit
or give up and get a real job this man I
hardly knew offered to wire me some
startup money I ran right to the bank
opened a new account and the next day
there was six thousand dollars from
Switzerland in that account and that’s
how I was able to start sustainable
harvest international within a few years
we had a half dozen Central American
field trainers teaching farmers what I
considered sustainable farming practices
I encouraged an organic ecological
approach but sometimes the field
trainers told me that chemical
fertilizers were the only thing that
would work on such poor soils so I went
along with this because I didn’t have a
lot of confidence in my farming know-how
and I figured hey it’s better than
running more forest right well over the
years my colleagues and I have gained a
lot more knowledge and we’re now certain
that chemical fertilizers degenerate the
environment just as much
burning does and we’ve seen how organic
practices can outperform conventional
farming so by 2007 sustainable harvest
international was promoting 100% organic
practices it was a year later in 2008
that de metrio Martinez a farmer in
membrillo Panama joined our program he’d
grown up seeing his family burned more
forests every year to grow their crops
but still not have enough money to send
him to school beyond the 6th grade when
de metrio became a father himself he
wanted more for his own children so he
went to work on a conventional rice
plantation where his co-workers got sick
and died from exposure to agro chemicals
it hardly seemed worth the 6 dollars a
day that he earned but de metrio didn’t
see a better option until our field
trainer offered to visit his family
every week to share knowledge that would
allow Dimitrios family to produce an
abundance of food without burning and
without chemicals after five years de
metrio had the confidence to continue on
his own and share what he’d learned with
other farmers by then he was comfortable
using compost cover crops and mulch to
regenerate healthy productive soils and
he knew how to create an agro ecosystem
of fruit hardwoods spice and nut trees
growing together with coffee and sugar
cane around rice plantations that are
weeded and fertilized by fish more
fruits and vegetables grow on a terraced
hillside so now his farms ecosystem
takes care of itself with birds bees
soil microbes and all sorts of creatures
that have come back to the land each
playing their part
and now Dimitrios family grows enough
for a healthy diet and income to meet
their other basic needs plus since they
grow in the same land every year they
don’t have to burn more forests they
don’t burn more forests now this might
not mean a lot if we’re just talking
about the four acres that Demetrio farms
but Demetrio is one of 3,000 sustainable
harvest international farmers who’ve
transformed twenty five thousand acres
of degraded land to regenerative organic
farms planting four million trees over
the last twenty years
yeah I’m psyched that’s great but you
know what it’s not nearly enough and
that’s what keeps me up at night our
current food system is responsible for
about half of the world’s greenhouse gas
emissions and even if we stop all
emissions tomorrow our planet is going
to keep warming because of what we’ve
already put into the atmosphere we’re
gonna continue down the path towards
extinction but there’s still something
that can save us and it’s the soil on
farms like Dimitrios all we have to do
is increase the carbon in the world
soils by four parts per thousand or 0.4%
and we can totally do that there are 500
million small-scale farms that produce
most of the world’s food with almost no
resources if we help these farms become
regenerative like Dimitrios farm they’ll
draw down 6 billion tons of carbon out
of the atmosphere into the soil every
year which is equivalent to shutting
down every coal-fired plant on earth and
they’ll create yeah all the good food
and not only that they’ll also create 3
billion acres of habitat for more
biodiversity that’s 30 times bigger than
all our country’s national parks
combined and of course they’ll produce
delicious nutrient-dense poison free
food for all of us and these 500 million
farmers are ready to do their part but
they can only do it if we do our part so
here’s a couple easy ways that you can
join them first by as much food as you
can from regenerative organic farms
preferably in your own community Eliot
Coleman my favorite farmer here in Maine
likes to point out that we happily pay
more for better car
furs TVs shoes but when it comes to the
food that will either degenerate or
regenerate our bodies and our planet why
won’t we pay a little more for something
so much better and second support
programs that help farmers make this
transition to regenerative farming it’s
time for all of us to come together to
build the fertile ground for a more
abundant future when I see my son’s face
light up when he pulls a bright orange
carrot out of the rich earth I know
his children won’t have such a joyful
life unless humanity digs in and gives
it all we’ve got in the next ten years
if we want a happy healthy future for
our children will support regenerative
farms because farmers are our future
thank you
you
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