Creative Destruction - Honest Conversations About Farming, Business, And Life

Today’s guest is Joe Baird.  Joe and his family are taking on the task of restoring the village of Veglio. It is a place that has family ties and ties to when things were much simpler. The way of life in Veglio, then and now, is a stark contrast to the way of life in Joe’s current home in Orange County California. Despite the contrast to today’s technological world, much of what was done in Veglio for hundreds of years provides incredible lessons for us to thrive for hundreds of years into the future. And it those lessons that we are talking about today. Building the future by uncovering and rediscovering the past, The Veglio Project. with Joe Baird.. Veglio: Small village in northern Italy near the Switzerland border. Originally only accessible by foot. Estimated to be about 1000 years old and at one time it supported 250 people. Currently restoration efforts are underway to restore many of the original stone buildings. Show Notes: permaculturevoices.com/84

Key Takeaways: -Even if the worst happened and the business failed. How bad would it actually be? -Learn stuff as you need to. You don't have to learn everything up front. Doing is more important that constantly trying to learn more and know it all. -Often times a hard commitment or commitment to deliver is what can really make you go out and take something on and work it out and make it happen. -If it has been done before, then it can be done. -Realize the power of saying no. You can't do it all. -Don't over complicate the model. Get it up and working and stable, then innovate, tweak and push the limits. -Consider the value of your time. Are you spending your time doing high dollar activities? -80% of your profits come from 20% of your crops. What crops are you focusing on? -80% of land is dedicated to high and medium value crops. -You don't have to quit your job to do this. Start on the side. Show Notes: permaculturevoices.com/83

-Key Takeaways: Hugelkultur mounds are usually positioned perpendicular to the wind. Sometimes used as a staging process to dispose of wood and build soil which can then be spread onto crop land. Think of a hugelkultur as a produce aisle raised bed. Make sure the design fits into how you live your life and how you want to live your life. -Hugelkultur Benefits: Soil building structure. Semi-permanent planting bed. It creates microclimates. Lifting the soil surface towards the sun and that adds degree days. with Javan Bernakevitch of Permaculture BC. Show Notes: permaculturevoices.com/82

This episode is a compilation of interviews that I recorded during PV1 - March 13-16, 2014. The general theme of this episode is how business can benefit from permaculture. How we as the permaculture community can positively impact the future of business. THE INTERVIEWEE'S FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE: Bill Bean of the Green Planning and Coaching Ryan Harb of RyanHarb.org Curtis Stone of Green City Acres Dave Boehnlein of Terra Phoenix Design Paul Greive of Primal Pastures Xavier Hawk of Permacredits and Colony Earth Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms Show Notes: permaculturevoices.com/81

This show is an interview with Peter McCoy of Radical Mycology. Radical Mycology is a movement and social philosophy based on accessibly teaching the importance of mushrooms and other fungi for personal, societal, and ecological health. Radical Mycology differs from classical mycology in that classical mycology generally focuses on taxonomy, identification, mycophagy (eating mushrooms), and the more personal benefits of working with fungi while Radical Mycology is about using fungi for the benefit of larger communities and the world. As a concept, Radical Mycology is based on the belief that the lifecycles of fungi and their interactions in nature serve as powerful learning tools for how humans can best relate to each other and steward the world they live in. Show Notes: permaculturevoices.com/80

In Woody Agriculture, crops would be planted only once in a lifetime. The use of woody perennials for agricultural staple commodities production would result in little or no use of tillage, as well as the presence of a permanent cover during both the growing and the dormant seasons. Not only would this lead to a vastly lower rate of soil loss and less runoff into water supplies and aquatic environments, but there would be a reduced need for the fossil fuels consumed in plowing and tilling. In addition, use of pesticides needed for the establishment of annual plants could be sharply reduced. A further important benefit would be the reduction of soil compaction, since far fewer trips through the fields with heavy equipment would be required. Key Takeaways: Breeding: You cannot work with more than two traits at the same time. The most important trait is to have a population that actually survives. When you sell products off of your farm (like nuts) you are exporting a lot of minerals. It is important to reminera

This is an interview with Neal Spackman. And while you probably haven’t heard of Neal the work that Neal is doing to regreen an area of the Saudi Arabian desert is monumental. The work that he is doing is every bit as great as the work that Geoff Lawton has done. And I mean that. We are talking about regreening a portion of the desert that gets 3 inches of rain a year on average, but lately they aren’t even meeting the average. Greening the site by using true cost water accounting, meaning that they only use the equivalent of water that falls onto the site to establish the vegetation. With minimal rainfall, no pre-existing plant life and 100 plus degree summer temperatures, it is no easy task. Throw in the economic and social challenges of the village that he is working with and the task becomes even harder. But despite those challenges, progress is being made, and the sounds of crickets are now being heard. Life is coming back. The upside potential here is huge. And as Neal says, “"There was some real risk,

The episode is a compilation of interviews that I recorded during PV1 - March 13-16, 2014.  Each of the interviewees was a speaker at PV1.  The general theme of this episode is how we can use better management practices and plants to improve the land, increase it's resiliency, and reverse desertification. THE INTERVIEWEE'S FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE: Allan Savory of the Savory Institute Willie Smits of Masarang Phil Rutter of Badgersett Research Corporation Dr. Elaine Ingham of Soil Food Web Joseph Simcox Miguel Uribe Peter Hirst of New England Biochar Show Notes: permaculturevoices.com/77

Today’s show is a pretty inspirational one. What would you do if you only had a year left to live? And if you aren’t doing that now, why not? Keep that phrase in your head during this episode with Fraser Bliss of Farmwell.com. Show Notes: permacultureVOICES.com/76

This book is about designing sustainable human settlements, an preserving and extending natural systems. It covers aspects of designing and maintaining a cultivated ecology in any climate: the principles of design; design methods; understanding patterns in nature; climatic factor; water; soils; earthworks; techniques and strategies in the difference climatic types; aquaculture; and the social, legal, and economic design of human settlement. It calls into question not only the current methods of agriculture, but also the very need for a formal food agriculture if wastelands and the excessive lawn culture within towns and cities are devoted to food production and small livestock suited to local needs. This book is Permaculture, A Designers’ Manual. And this show is Geoff Lawton covering the whole Permaculture Designers’ Manual in about an hour at PV1 in March 2014. Show Notes: permaculturevoices.com/75

Given the amount of confusion that I see on a day to day basis, and the fact that there seems to be a lot of unknowns out there about PDCs, I created this episode to try to answer a lot of the questions that I was getting regarding PDCs. Now, I am not a PDC instructor and I have only taken one PDC, so I turned to eight well respected PDC instructors (names below) to get their thoughts on ‘What’s a PDC?‘ Combined these eight instructors have taught hundreds and hundreds of PDCs over the last 30 years and each brings their own twist to the PDC. I asked them all the same questions and compiled their thoughts into two easily digestible episodes. At the end of each episode Byron Joel, a PDC instructor himself, joins me and we recap and discuss what we heard, and give our thoughts on PDCs based on our experiences with them. To keep things interesting the subject matter was broken up into two pieces… In Part 1, episode 073, we take on the task of answering, What is a PDC? and What isn’t a PDC? In the next episode, P

Given the amount of confusion that I see on a day to day basis, and the fact that there seems to be a lot of unknowns out there about PDCs, I created this episode to try to answer a lot of the questions that I was getting regarding PDCs. Now, I am not a PDC instructor and I have only taken one PDC, so I turned to eight well respected PDC instructors (and former PDC students themselves) to get their thoughts on 'What's a PDC.' Combined these eight instructors have taught hundreds and hundreds of PDCs over the last 30 years and each brings their own twist to the PDC. I asked them all the same questions, and compiled their thoughts into two easily digestible episodes. At the end of each episode Byron Joel, a PDC instructor himself, and I recap and discuss what we heard, and give our thoughts on PDCs based on our experiences. To keep things interesting the subject matter was broken up into two pieces... In Part 1, this episode, we take on the task of answering, What is a PDC? and What isn't a PDC? In the next epi

This is the real world view of an organic farmer who is serving a community by producing food on scale, farming organic or better, for over 30 years. It hasn’t always been easy, and every day isn’t a tea party, but it has been enjoyable and resulted in a lot of great friendships and memories. This is the story of Nigel Walker and Eatwell Farm. "Communication is the key, and it is the number one priority for the whole farm for me every week." "Make your best educated guess, then see what happens and have a contingency." Key Points brought up by Nigel: Money is the energy to do things. Realize the importance of understanding money. Run the numbers and use the numbers to help think of things on the farm and make priorities. When buying land think of the water situation. Is there a stable water source? Keep all of the water on the farm. Harvest every drop that falls from the sky. Always be looking for new business opportunities and value adds. There are big benefits to shelf stable products. You can sell those pr

As my guest today David Pagan Butler of OrganicPools.co.uk says, "If you want really healthy water, you want it full of life; not devoid of life." That is what today's show is about. Creating the conditions for life to happen within the water in natural swimming pools. Natural swimming pools unlike their chemical counterparts use no chemicals. The pool water is cleaned biologically by plants and organisms within the water. No smells, no chemicals, no pathogens, biology creating water so clean you can drink it. David has developed a system of building natural pools that is both cost effective and ecologically enhancing. Natural pools that utilize natural biological processes to keep the water clean. The classic case of nature doing something equal to or better than some chemical made in a factory - clean, pathogen free drinking water, in swimmable form. Show Notes: permaculturevoices.com/71

I want to talk about something which I call the impossible task. It is something that each one of us struggles with. We all have something that that we really want to do yet we don't think it is possible, at least not easily possible, and we don't try it. I am here to tell you today, that it is possible and worth trying for.I want to start today talking about a woman name Bronnie Ware. You probably haven't heard about her, but she is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. As humans at the end of our lives we have very clear visions as we look back. Everything comes to the surface. Bronnie would ask them "do you have any regrets, would you do anything over?" One of the top five regrets was:I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. Show Notes: www.permaculturevoices.com/70

I think we are in the perfect storm right now for regenerative agriculture and permaculture. The economy isn't great. We have a huge number of people dissatisfied with their jobs who are looking for a fulfilling and creative outlet. People that want to work and make a difference. The environmental side of things is a mess. So much so that we have big scientific meetings in Beijing talking about it. We have a food and water crisis brewing that is legitimately viewed as a looming global problem. But all of these crisis's have created an opportunity. An opportunity for permaculture to step to the plate be the solution. The tools are there. And this is the hard part of the game now because it is early in the game, but it isn't as hard as it was 20 years ago or 10 years ago. Forward progress will be made, but I think it is going to take some balls and strategic planning. We need to realize that we are pioneers forging a new path and and we don't have a ton of models to refer to and to fall back on. But there are

While many of us will never use permaculture outside of our own backyard or community, there is a whole world out there than can benefit from permaculture design. Places where small incremental changes that can have huge effects. Life is hard in places and Rosemary is someone who has lived her life helping hard places. She has dedicated her life to teaching and helping people. She is a true permaculture pioneer and an inspiration.People often ask, does permaculture work?From a western standpoint, the definition of work is usually form of ultimate abundance, some unrealistic expectation of what the land should be producing on a huge scale with little input; in other words, a miracle. When those results don't magically appear, people are disappointed and say, see it doesn't work.When I asked Rosemary if permaculture worked, she said absolutely, she has seen in. She has spent most of her time in the harshest places on the planet; places where the miracle isn't ultimate abundance. The miracle is merely having mor

My guest Pete Kanaris is a serial entrepreneur. He has started a whole bunch of businesses, some have worked, some haven't. Despite the failures, he has always found a way to push on and try new things to ultimately get to where he wants to be. That also references another unique point in Pete's story. One of Pete’s most successful businesses was a lawncare business. It was a business that Pete ran for over 10 years and it was really successful. But it wasn't something that Pete liked doing anymore. Along the way he became exposed to permaculture and it became clear that the pathway into the future didn't involve cutting grass, it involved permaculture. So he put it all on the line and started a permaculture design company, Green Dreams. It wasn't about the money; he wanted to do something that he loved doing and something that he believed in. Given the risk and uncertainty involved in starting any new business it would have been easy to take the safe route and stick with what he had, a thriving lawncare busi

"Instead of trying to support 1000's of people, let's get really good at supporting 150 people and we'll duplicate it." Once we do that we will have models that we can refer back to. Models that can be used to train people to go start other small impact zones. Then we start getting more and more impact zones, and suddenly the picture looks a lot brighter. But that will take time, and it's early in the journey, but the conditions are ripe for change. We just need to kick start it, by incubating innovation.Creating the conditions for success and sustainability to happen, something that I learned from Larry. In fact it's one of the many things that I have learned from Larry. Larry has a wealth of knowledge and the experience to back it up. He's a permaculture pioneer having involved with permaculture since the 80s. He has travelled with Bill Mollison. He's worked on countless projects in the country, the city, and other countries. He gets it. And in Southern California when you mention permaculture, there is one

This is a real story, about a real farm based business, that is now profitable. In a world filled with reasons why things won't work and with stories about why your children shouldn’t grow up to be farmers, this is story about why they should.Philippe's story is another story about what is possible. He will tell you that anyone could do this, he wasn't unique, but it does take work and time. But that’s the nature of farming. In an industry where the median farm income was negative $1453 in 2012 you can decide how your time is spent. Show Notes: www.permaculturevoices.com/65