July 25, 2024 • 37 mins
What death is required for life to grow? In our culture’s resistance to death we seem to have caused so much of it.
And what if humans aren't inherently a destructive force on the planet? How might we actually be another symbiotic part of our ecosystems?
Jake Marquez and Maren Morgan are the hosts of Death in the Garden, a podcast exploring the complex intersection between myth, civilization, climate change.
Mandy Magill is a regenerative agriculture educator and cofounder of the Earth Regeneration Alliance.
In this episode we’re sharing exerpts from both these conversations to explore our culture’s aversion to death, how food is the nexus of civilization, and alternatives to conventional farming that can regenerate ecosystems and recreate our relationship with nature.
If you’d like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you enjoy your podcasts, leave us a review, and visit humannatureodyssey.com.
Join us on Patreon and get exclusive access to audio extras, writings, and notes.
More on Mandy's organizations: Rooted in REAL (Regenerative, Ethical, Authentic, Local) is an upcoming app that will educate and guide subscribers to food and beverage businesses that are sourcing REAL food and products, along with creating community and philanthropy around living regeneratively. Earth Regeneration Alliance is focused on educating the public, introducing and guiding regenerative legislation, and creating community around the many ways to heal and regenerate Planet Earth.
Music: Celestial Soda Pop
By: Ray Lynch
From the album: Deep Breakfast
Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Going to get some kale and lettuce
from my parents garden.
It's nice to have some time outat the city and visit
friends and family for the summer.
I think I'll get some basil too.
I'm out heregathering a few things for salad.
(00:25):
I've been thinking more about food
since a couple conversationsI had recently.
Not just eating it, but
where our food comes from, how it's grown.
The land.
The food is a part of,and how our food systems
are a critical partof our civilizational transformation.
(00:45):
A couple of tomatoes are ready to.
And Jake Marquez and Marin
Morgan have a lot of thoughts on this.
Their multimedia project called Death
in the Garden is about agricultureand the complex
intersection between myth, civilizationand climate change.
I first stumbled upon their podcast
(01:08):
when looking for other peopleexploring the ideas in the novel.
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.
As you'll hear,they are certainly kindred spirits.
And later in the episode,I speak with another kindred spirit.
Many McGillto learn about regenerative agriculture.
Both of these talks are just piecesof a larger conversation.
(01:29):
You can find the full conversationsin their entirety on our Patreon.
I hope you enjoy.
Welcome to Human Nature Odyssey, a podcast
exploring our species relationshipwith the rest of life on Earth.
(01:52):
I'm Alex Alexis.
Well, I'm curious, just evenon a personal level, how did you guys met?
(02:13):
And can I say part of this interviewyou're dating? Yes.
So this is very, very juicy to me.
I'm curious what the order of operationswas in terms of like meeting each other,
building a relationship,and then also creating this project.
This ongoing, powerful, worldchanging project came first.
(02:34):
And what were the steps?
We actually met onlineon one of those dating apps
because I was like,Oh, I'm in town for a few months.
Maybe I can, you know,have some cool girl or something
and just like totally hit it off.
We had been having these insane mindblowing conversations
the whole timethat we had known each other,
and it just became this sort of thingwhere we're just like,
(02:57):
we should just make a documentary becauseJake had already been doing video work.
He had cameras, that sort of how it began.
I was really just trying to talkabout regenerative agriculture and
and then it wasn't
until later that then we were introducedto Ishmael and Daniel Quinn
and we were like, Oh.
Yeah, I want to flip this question on you.
You know, get your trajectory
and all this too, you know,because what I had met Maron.
I had met myself on a dating app, too. So
(03:20):
it's the
same same story.
So Death in the Garden
is a podcast, but it's also a film,
and you guys are coming at itfrom so many different angles.
(03:40):
What do you see as the connective tissuethat makes death in the garden?
And what has been your visionwith it? Great.
Yeah, great question for me.
And sure,Death in the Garden is trying to get at
modern societies, modern civilizations,relationship with death, and therefore
our relationship to the living worldand to the rest of life.
(04:01):
I had a lot of death, anxietyand trying to evade
death with dietary choicesand lifestyle choices and realizing
that there was no way to live on earthas a human without
having death involved in my own existence.
And through that kind of anxietyand that tension points, I began
to look and read and researchand look for experiences
(04:24):
to help me resolve or understandthat very human existential anxiety.
Hence why I wanted to call the projectDeath in the Garden.
At least my meaning for thefor the death in the garden.
You know, the Garden of Eden.That is that is Earth.
Yeah.
Really, the thread that beganthis whole thing was just this.
This quest of trying to understand why,as far as we're aware,
(04:47):
we're the only animal who has thisconscious awareness of our mortality.
And there's something about that
that makes us distinct, not separate,but distinct from the rest of life.
And so as we were going on this journey,we began with this sort of idea of like,
there's no such thingas a death free diet.
You can't escape the deaththat's required for you to be alive.
That's just how life works.
Life is eating life all the time,and death is inextricable from it.
(05:09):
You can't have one without the other.
And so, you know, there's like a tensionthere that I think is really uncomfortable
for human beings.
And as we started this project,we started to notice that there was
other ways that this sort of death denying
point of view was coming into play.
For instance, you know, for me,a lot of death in the garden
(05:29):
was related to also what kind of deathis required for life to grow.
And in a lot of ways, you know, it may bethe death of this mode of civilization
for the very reason
that industrial civilization
is one of the most destructiveforces on earth,
if not the most destructiveforce on Earth.
But what we were noticingis that when we were interacting
with people who try and are tryingto save the world and, you know,
(05:52):
answering that question of like,do you have an earnest desire
to save the world?
A lot of people will say yes andand go work for a green energy companies
or they'll go vegan or somethinglike that.
And the intentionthere is really noble and valid,
but when you pull back far enough,you start to realize that, okay,
so in order
for us to make all of these solar panels,to quote, quote unquote, save the world,
(06:16):
we have to go destroy an entire landscapejust to get the resources to.
Get this right,the raw minerals and all sorts of stuff
that goes into making solar panels
and the infrastructurethat's required to set them. Up.
Exactly.
And so, you know,we just started to notice this sort of
I don't know if
I want to say hypocrisy, but it's becauseit's not really hypocrisy necessarily.
It's more just a lack of depthor like an obfuscation or an abstraction.
(06:39):
Well, I can view myself as nobleby doing this thing,
by buying this electric car, byby doing these things.
But ignoreall of the stuff that I don't see,
which is all of the other deaths
that I'm doing to tryto avoid the death of the world.
And so that just became a really,really interesting thread for us,
trying to make sense of how, how,how could this be?
(07:01):
How could we be so awareof the destruction
that industrial civilizationis having upon the planet?
Without recognizingthat many of our attempts to save it
are just adjustingindustrial civilization slightly, right?
So that that's sort of,I think what led us into
wantingto talk to all of these different people
and wanting to sort of buildthis understanding that
(07:23):
maybe we somehow condensedinto some sort of school of thought.
I guess that's kind of a longand vain way of describing it.
No, that's great.That's what we're here for.
And I
think what's so interesting, you know,our culture tends to have this simplistic
idea of like life, good, death,bad, and ironically, that mindset
in order to avoid deathhas created so much of it.
(07:46):
What's complex and the past is like,so we're talking about death.
This is a part of life.It's a beautiful thing.
And that's something that the three of usall agree.
And I'm sure everyone listening tothis can understand as well abstractly,
even if we're terrified of experiencing itor don't want our loved ones
to experience, etc..
The irony is those of uswho see death as a part of life are also
(08:07):
the most concerned with the deathof so much around us and the death of life
and the people that are trying to prolonglife as much as possible.
That death of themselveslike they want humans to just live forever
and they don't want any human everdie, are perpetuating,
you know, the mass extinction of
(08:28):
not that those people individually areperpetuating individual mass extinction.
We're all part of this shebang.
But yeah, I just find that so ironic that
there's this
paradox of wanting life at all costs.
Causes so much death.
Yeah. Yeah, it's.
It's like
(08:48):
that.
Wanting to not play by nature's rules.
There are the laws of the universe.
And the problem comeswhen we think that we can be
not subject to those lawsand that we're above them
and we can control themand we can change those laws.
That'swhen the chaos and destruction happens.
And those rules,whether we like it or not, require death,
the death of everything the stars eat,other stars, stars collapse and die.
(09:13):
Everything dies.
And entropy and death is a facet of theuniverse that isn't going anywhere, ever.
And the quickerwe can come to terms with that,
the sooner we can actuallybring the balance on the earth.
I think we're all looking for,but I think that's kind of that thing
people struggle with, especiallyif you're environmentally minded or if
(09:35):
you're a young person who is so sensitiveto seeing destruction of the world.
Is that kind of balancing act
you have to walk for usto have this beauty in this life.
There is the deaththat's required for that.
And that's one of the hardestthings, I think, for humans
to understand and to incorporate,because we are these conscious beings,
because we are so incredibly aware of ourour predicament on Earth.
(09:58):
It's so hard to be able to acceptthe death that's required for life.
I think that sort of ideathat if death exists
and it's evil to us, thenwe have to figure out how to control that.
From that point of view,it's like I can understand
through this sort of rationality,through this this feeling,
this fear of death, that we decidedthat the best way that we can solve
(10:22):
a problem like climate changeis to continue to try to control it,
to continue to try to order and manageand systematize the living world
in order for us to save the world,rather than letting certain
things die off or things die,let you just things die in general,
letting ourselves die,being okay with that, being okay with
and I know I'm not the type of personwho thinks that like humans are a virus
(10:44):
and that we just need to be exterminated.
Like,I don't I'm not an misanthropic at all,
but there is a level of thatwhere it's like
we have to be willing tojust be a part of life again.
And that requires that we're partof living systems,
and living systemsdie and are reborn and regenerate.
And it's just this processthat we all have to be a part of.
Mm hmm.
I was really taken by.
I think it was your first episode.
(11:06):
You both were reflecting on.
You were on a ranch,and they had just killed a bison.
And we're using every part of itas food and for resources
and you're both just reflectingon, you know, putting your money
where your mouth is interms of really having to see like
this is very realand it is very unpleasant
(11:27):
and it's emotional seeing deathon that visceral level.
I after high school, I took a gap yearand I was working on different
small farms,which is like this program. Have you guys
aware of it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's like small farms,usually organic farms that you get to stay
for room and board and work and Iwas on this farm in the Pacific Northwest
(11:50):
and they had a flock of sheep
and they brought these folks outsimilar to how the bison was killed.
Where were you guys? Were?
Where they killed the sheep in the field,where it's with its family
and it's very quick.
The sheep doesn't know it's comingand it's on the land that they grew up in.
And Katie and the woman who runsthe farm was either crying
(12:10):
when they were doing this.
And she was saying,if I ever find myself not breaking down
and fully feeling this when I'mtaking the life of one of these creatures
that I helped raise, then like,I don't want to do this anymore.
And, you know, compare that to factoryfarming.
It's just such a profoundly different wayto exist with it,
and it's also a profoundly different wayto exist with it.
(12:33):
Then how, you know, veganism andvegetarianism are usually thinks of it.
Not that those kinds of dietsand ways of life are
a problem by any means,but like you guys talk about it,
I thought was really profound in terms ofjust having to really accept
and get face to face with this realitythat we're all part of.
Yeah.
(12:54):
And that experiencewas the first time that we had seen death.
We've seen a lot.
And I actually killed a sheep in Sweden.
And, you know, interestingly,like every single one of the shepherds
that are our friends there,they were all former vegans.
And then they they realizedthat there was something missing
with their connectedness to lifethat they weren't achieving
(13:14):
through their vegan diet and,you know, for me, that was a really, like,
insane experience because the night beforeI was supposed to to kill a sheep,
I got the call from my momthat my grandma was dying
and I'm like 35 hours away and, you know,and so I was like,
okay, well, Marin, should you not do thisor do you want to do this?
And it was just this thing whereI was like, I have to I have to do this.
(13:35):
This is the right time.
This is the right thing to do.
It was a sheep who was eight years old.
You who her
teeth were going to start to fall out soonand she hadn't land in a while.
And when I did kill the sheep and,you know, surrounded by its flock
in this beautiful landscape that is just,like so nourished by these sheep, I mean,
the feel better is was likeone of the coolest places on earth.
(13:58):
I, I just had this profound sense.
I was like, the sheep's souljust spread through the flock.
And it was just like this feeling of,there's nothing wrong with this.
And finally, you're putting your moneywhere your mouth is, and finally
you understand what it coststo be alive on earth.
It was just this profound senseof growing up and then, you know, to
(14:19):
like lose my grandmother,who was my my everything as a child
that was trial by fire.
As far as you're growing upnow, this is your initiation into life.
And the main thing that I walked away withwas just this profound devastation in
that not every being dies
as mercifully and quickly as that you did,
(14:41):
knowing that all around the world,factory farms exist.
And it's really hard to know thatno matter how high quality your meat is,
they're not dying in that waymost of the time, in part
because of the way that our lawsare structured around this type of thing.
But it definitely motivated me to be like,okay, well, shit,
part of the reason why I'm here on earthis to make it so that when animals die,
(15:03):
they die like this.
Well, and if I can add on to this,when you when you begin to understand
and experiencethe death that's required for you to live,
whether that is from an animal foodor even a plant food, it changes the way
it makes you a lot more responsiblewhen you witness an animal die,
or if you go and see the landscapesupon which soy is grown.
(15:24):
There's death in both things, and it makesit really hard to see food differently.
Whether I'm eating some grainsor whether I'm eating a piece of meat,
I know what that looks like,and we're lucky enough to get meat
from really good sources.
But I have a really hard time eating meatfrom any other way because I know
it makes you more responsible.
(15:46):
It changes the way I behaveand my day to day life when I know
firsthand and I have a hard timewith a lot of like grains and plant foods
because I've seenthe eviscerated landscapes
so that I can have this grainor this plant food or this strawberry.
When you accept it and you encounterand get as close to that death
that's required for you to live,it makes you a lot more responsible.
(16:09):
And it makes the lines of which foodsor which behavior
patterns are good or bad for the planet,a lot more blurry.
And it makes you want to get closerand closer to the landscape,
and it makes you want to geta lot more responsible about
where your food comes frombecause you know what's its cost.
And watching Merrin killthat sheep and watching bison be killed
and watching cows be killed,it's like, wow,
(16:31):
I need to be way more responsiblefor my life
because every bite of foodI've ever had in my life,
there was a huge amount of sacrificefrom a landscape, from an animal,
from an ecosystem,so that I could live on both sides
of the spectrum of people who don't carewhere the food comes from or people
who think that their plant based diets arethe best thing to happen to the planet.
Quite often we find thatthere is that lack of awareness
(16:54):
and responsibilityfor where their lives come from.
And I mean, ironically,it's like you'd think that
eating food that's such a survival thing.
You'd think that that'skind of the bare necessity.
But in a sense, in our modern culture,that's the luxury to even think about that
the people that are really just surviving
will have to take foodwherever they can possibly get it.
(17:15):
It's an amazing thing for those of uswho are able to appreciate this,
this privilege that we have
to get to think about these thingsand then try to help change the system
so other people can have easier accessto it.
Just thinking about folkswho grow up in food deserts with meaning,
they only have access to fastfood, only access to processed foods.
And there's no way I oftenthink about this in the grocery store,
(17:39):
you know, when there's the apple that's $1and it's just called an apple,
and then there's an organic appleand it's $2 and say, wait a second,
I'm paying more.
So you don't put chemicalsand poison on example.
It's like it's like it feels like athug came up to me in an alleyway.
He's like,All right, dude, give me a dollar.
(18:00):
I'm going to poison on your food.
It's like, What the hellare you holding me hostage with this?
It's just wild that our system is set upwhere the basic level of food
that people are interacting with,the cheapest, most affordable food
that's most of theirill will is the least healthy
and based on the most destructivepractices.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
(18:21):
And I don't want to sound at alllike because you're absolutely right,
most people live we heard somebodydescribe it as also as a food apartheid.
That is the case for most people on earth.
And again, you know,this is why food is such a nexus of
it is the key to civilizationand it is the key and the foundation
of howthis destructive civilization is built.
(18:41):
And and I think that what you're
describing is we don't so many peopledon't have a choice, man.
I barely have a choice.
So many of the privileged barelyeven have a choice of the quality of food
because we've destroyed the planetto such a degree
and polluted it to such a degree.
And very few of ushave that privilege to begin to choose
how we interact with our food.
But our food is the most powerful wayto interact
(19:04):
with the living world, because that'sthe nexus of life and death for us.
That's how you interact. Yeah, yeah.
And that's that idea.
Like also presupposesthat food is like meant to be a product
that you can get profits off of.
And, you know, we've had a reallyinteresting look into the food system.
We have these food baronsthat are incredibly wealthy,
these massive conglomerationsthat build an outsized amount of power.
(19:26):
And one of the best ways
that we could get outside ofthat is to stop participating in it
and to to start participatingwith local farms.
The problem with local farmsis that in order for them to compete
with these big scale conglomeratesis they have to raise their prices.
And so there needs to be somesort of lever that balances things out
where it's actually more affordableto go to the small farm
(19:49):
that isn't even in your local community.
And actually what we found
is that it's kind of the truthwhere we go to the farmer's market,
the beef is the same amountas it is at the grocery store
from a conventional farm.
But a lot of people don't know that.
A lot of people do think thatthese are sort of like luxury beliefs.
And in a sense, they are.
For instance,if you live on the East Coast
and you're buying a $30 chickenfrom Polly Face Farms,
it's like I don't really knowwho that helps other people
(20:11):
wanting to also pat themselves on the backand say that they did a good job.
So there's a lot of complexity to itheading into these sorts of conversations.
Has this really shown us that?
And we really need to think about
how can we make this sort of thingaccessible to people?
And a lot of that is like people coming inand changing the farm bill
and changing legislation, making surethat these types of foods are subsidized
to potentially because they're not,and that's why they're unaffordable.
(20:35):
There's a lot of politics.
We spoke to a farmerand he was just like hunger is political.
That's just a fact.
And Daniel Quinn talks about this as well.
But yeah, so it's
really it's really hard to talk aboutbecause obviously we're outsiders,
but we see so much potential
in these different waysof doing agriculture.
And we see the way that the civilizationjust wants to like stamp it out
(20:58):
and make it not exist.
And then we also see the waysthat this type of agriculture
is acquiescing to the civilizational storyin order for them to survive.
And you can't blame them, but it justit just always comes back to this thing
for us.
Okay.
But then how do we actually move forward?
How do we actually make changesif we just constantly are deferring
(21:18):
to this baseline that we all know is toxicto the planet and toxic to ourselves?
And so it's really it'sreally complicated.
It's a really difficult position to be in.
(21:55):
So Jake and Marianne mentionedtheir first focus was on regenerative
agriculture, which is somethingI wanted to learn more about.
So I spoke with many McGill from Colorado.
Mandi is an educator, consultantand founder of the Earth
Regeneration Alliance.
Okay, here'san excerpt of my conversation with Mandi.
(22:19):
When Iwas a little kid, when I was two or three,
the first thing I wanted to be inthe world was a farmer.
I love the idea.
All my toys were of a bunch of differentanimals and I would get like little toy
barns and stuff,and my mom was really supportive of it.
So we would go to the local farmsand I get to help with the chores.
And then we found this farmin central Pennsylvania where you could do
(22:40):
these guest staysand we would stay for a weekend
and we would return to this farm yearafter year with this family.
They became really close to us and
and over the summersthat I would stay with them.
And I think what I was enjoyingwas it's a way to be in nature
and actually really engage with it.
And it feels like I'm hereto take care of it.
And then also getting older and seeingthat the reality of conventional modern
(23:05):
farming is actually oftenabout controlling nature and
manipulating nature for profit,and so less about taking
care of the animals on these big factoryfarms.
It's about just using themlike they're commodities.
But there's many culturesthat are able to farm in different ways
that are not at odds with thenatural world, but actually a part of it.
(23:26):
And my understanding is, is regenerativeagriculture is this term
that's essentially trying to namewhat that kind of farming is.
Daniel Cohen, in some of his laterbooks, uses the term
to specify the other form of farmingis totalitarian agriculture.
And that's the kind of agriculturethat, like we're saying, is as monoculture
(23:47):
with chemicals into the ground.
It's just trying to get
as much profit as possibleand is viewing nature as a commodity.
And so in contrast to that,how would you describe
what regenerative agriculture is?
Yeah, and I want to say it's it'sno one's fault that we're here.
I went through a phase where I was like,
why don't farmers and ranchersjust change how they're doing things?
(24:10):
And it's like, we are all stuck ina system that is keeping us on this path.
Whether you eat foodor whether you produce it or whatever.
And so I think that's an important thingto realize, like especially post World
War Two, that things got really funneledinto this very industrial way of being.
And it was the Secretary of Agriculture,Earl Buch, back in the seventies
(24:32):
or eighties.
The big approach backthen were get bigger, get out and plant,
grow to fence, grow.
So it was when you think about that,then you start to realize
why farmers and ranchers have to useantibiotics or sprayed pesticides
or synthetic fertilizers or whateverbecause we are actively going against
the way nature would do something.
We're going against biodiversityand all those things.
(24:53):
That is exactly how nature would function.
And so we we have to keep implementingthese things that mean that we can,
quote unquote, control it.
Another thing to point out as well,I got this from Pittsford Brown,
which is an amazing nonprofitin this whole space.
They talk about degenerative, sustainableand regenerative and degenerative.
And like currentagriculture is generating,
(25:15):
the soil is degenerating,the water supplies, all of the things.
Right.
And then went into this whole stageof like, oh, we need sustainable X, Y, Z.
Well, we've degenerated.
So much to the point now, but it's like,is that what we want to sustain?
So that's why regenerative
is such an important termbecause it starts to shift that mindset.
(25:36):
If you had to describe the philosophyof regenerative agriculture,
how would you tryto put it in towards, oh.
Gosh, I guess
maybe the simplest way would be,are you giving back more than you take?
I think it was for Third Plateby Dan Barber.
It was over in Spain.
And I want to say it was an olive grove.
And I remember him saying,yeah, about 50% get eaten by birds.
(26:00):
And he said, but that
that makes total sense to mebecause they're here too, you know.
So I think it's kind of this idea of likeit's it's not it's not ours.
We are part of something.
And so I thinkone of the most profound ways
we can think about that is, for example,when you see a deer crossing a road,
(26:21):
is the deer crossing a roador is the road crossing a forest?
And so when you hear and when you see itlike that, that that changes everything.
And I feel like especiallyI mean, right now the term regenerative
is getting a lot of traction and I feel atfirst I was annoyed about that.
It was like, wait,when we define it, we've now
(26:41):
completely gone against what it is,
because the whole idea is thatit is emergent and evolving
and has potential that we cannot defineand we cannot put limits on.
And yet the reason that I am okay
with this right nowis that we do need that we are
the majority of people are so disconnectedthat we actually need some prompts.
(27:02):
I'm calling them guardrails instead ofguardrails and calling them guide rails.
And, and I feel that we do need thatjust to even have the language around
what it is that we're even trying to feelregenerative is not new.
That is indigenous wisdom, that is nature,that is thinking of nature.
And one of the best waysI think, to explain regenerative is
(27:23):
the connection of ruminant animalscattle, elk, bison,
deer, goats,sheep, their connection with grasslands.
This is holistic prime grazing,
which is from Savory Institute,and it's Allan Savory.
It's an amazing organization.
They're based in Boulder,but they've got global hubs.
And so he went through a whole processthroughout his whole life
(27:45):
of trying to figure these things out,especially grasslands.
Because grasslands, if you thinkabout that in terms of ruminant animals,
North America is a great place to lookbecause we used to have millions of bison
running across the plainsand they would be very compacted
as far as word effect on the landand they would be continually moving.
They wouldn't stay in one placeand the predator prey relationship
(28:08):
would be wolvesthat were coming up on them
and they would be movingand trying to protect themselves.
So I think holistic plan grazingis a really great way to kind of tie
in to how nature co-evolvedbecause grasslands
specifically co-evolvedwith these animals,
because grasslands are not in humid areas,you know, the tropics
do not co-evolved with ruminant animals,the grassland area is dead.
(28:32):
So when you have perennial humidity,
then that area can regeneratewithout animal impact.
But when you're in a more arid areathat gets like
maybe monsoonal rains,that kind of thing, and you're dry.
A lot of the year,the moisture content and nutrient cycling
that the land needsis actually in the guts of those animals.
They're like walking rain forest,they're walking compost machine.
(28:55):
When I see a grassland
without animals on it, movingthe way nature would have them move.
It makes me sad because I know thatthat grassland actually needs them
and vice versa.
So when you have the kind of impactthat comes from
how nature would have these animalsmove, the way their homes break,
the soil crust allows water infiltration,but it's not deep tilling, right?
(29:17):
It's just breaking up.
It's like disturbance on the land.
Also just there, the urine and dung andall of that creates that fertilization.
And so it creates this really beautifulsymphony that happens in the soil
and it builds out soil, organic matter,the way their mouths tear.
The grasses actually spur growth.
And when they're not in one placefor too long,
(29:38):
they have a regenerating impact,which is how that co-evolution happened.
But when you have animalsthat are all over the land all the time
not being moved and kind of this predatorprey relationship kind of format,
then they can actually overgrazed plants,which begins to decertify that land.
And so you can either have no animalson a more arid area
(30:01):
like an arid grassland area,or you can have animals in a way
that they're not meant to be on that landand both of those deserted island.
So it's the waythe animals have been moved
and that disconnection from how
they would naturally move with that landthat has created desertification
and which means that you'rereally turning it into a desert.
(30:22):
So the Savory Institute Mandy mentionedis an organization that Jake and Marriner
involved with to and through the SavoryInstitute's website.
I've been learning a lot more
about holistic management grazing,which is a regenerative ranching practice
which helps move hoofed animalslike cattle, sheep, goats
through landscapes the way large herdsnaturally co-evolved grasslands.
(30:45):
It reflects how ecosystemsevolved to naturally regenerate over time.
Well, so, so many of us
now live in citiesso far away from food systems.
I'm one of those people.
Even though, you know,I wanted to be a farmer
ever since I was two,I feel very removed from the systems
that actually create the foodthat I'm taking in.
(31:07):
And I think that's the casefor lots of people. Yes.
You think about cities and concentratedanimal feeding operations of feedlots.
Technically, cities are also cages because
it's like we're we're exporting wasteand we're bringing in food.
Cities are factory farms.
Yeah, humans.
And look at how how sick everyone is.
So many people are dealing
with chronic health issues or allergiesor autoimmune diseases.
(31:31):
All of these things.
That's in there
I wanted to ask you about,because I think for lots of us in cities,
we can't change the way we're growing foodbecause we're not growing food.
But we can change thethe food that we're eating, if possible.
Some of us have the privilege to.
And so that usually shows upas vegetarianism or veganism.
Those are the waysthat we can interact with our food.
(31:53):
And what I've picked up on fromthe regenerative movement is that it sees
vegan organism,not necessarily as the end all, be all.
I'm curious on your thoughts on that.
How does veganism as a dietand a philosophy
fit in or clashwith the regenerative perspective?
Oh, it's definitely part of it,but it depends on how people understand
(32:17):
whether food is coming from
and if it's actually accomplishinglike how their food is being source.
Is that actually accomplishingwhat their intrinsic desire is?
Because is something like you know, beyondmeat or impossible burger or whatever.
Is that in relationship with the landthe way we are thinking
that we would want it to be basicallyindustrial veganism at this point,
it's like you're you're eating foodthat was industrially harvested.
(32:40):
And it doesn't matter to me what you eat.
Like, that's really not what matters.It matters where it comes from.
It matters how it was grown,how it was raised, how it went into death.
And that is somethingwe are so disconnected from.
People don't even knowabout these things anymore.
So whether or not you eata regenerative local meat burger
or you eat a regenerative, localveggie burger, both of those
(33:02):
are helping to draw downthat legacy load of carbon
in the atmosphere, which is also helpingto unburden the oceans.
But when you're in a city, yeah,how do you sort that way?
Because ultimately,if tomorrow everyone woke up and said,
I'm going to sourcelocally in regenerative we you can't
we don't have enough of it is very fewand far between.
Infrastructure's not there.
(33:24):
Yeah.
We're going to have to go through a largetransition because it is a transition.
This is not something that can happenovernight.
We cannot just stop using fossil fuelsor stop with the industrial food system
right away.
We've got to figure out how to transition.
We can be regenerative.
Humans are not by nature degenerative.
We just have become disconnected.Right. What? Yeah.
What, what you say?
Well, it's funny because probably like
(33:46):
20 years ago there was this comic stripin the newspaper.
Remember my parents side of the table?
And what's the name of that comicwith a penguin?
You know what I'm talking about.
Oh, Opie.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.Something like. That.
What? Opie Yeah.
I don't know what the heck is.
They would observepeople listening to this like idiot.
His name was Frank.
(34:07):
But there's.
I remember and I don't know whythis is stuck with me.
This penguin, this was very concernedwith his environmental impact.
And he was essentially living you know,he was in our society living among humans.
He wanted to go greenand he wanted to reduce, reuse, recycle.
All the big words
that were, you know, inthe 2000s were really becoming mainstream.
(34:27):
And he just kept noticing that like
everything he was doing washe didn't use the language,
but degenerating, you know,it was just taking from the environment.
It's like we can recycle, we can useless water, we can change the light bulbs.
But like, I'm still just taking it,just like I'm taking a little less.
And he really sincerely wanted to not justconstantly keep taking from the earth.
(34:51):
He didn't want have an impact.
And over the course of,you know, a few days,
the comic strips evolvingand you're seeing various ways
he's trying to implement thisuntil finally the finale is
he has himselftied up by the hands and arms
and he's like strung up in his roomso he won't even, like, touch the ground.
And the joke isthat I'm just going to not exist.
How do I because taking up spaceon this planet, if we care about it,
(35:15):
seems like it's just going to constantlytake away from everything.
And the idea that our presence
being here could actually helpactually be part of the ecosystem
and start to actually implement practices
that are regenerating what we've degraded
is pretty profound.
(35:39):
Thank you to Mandy McGillfor joining us today to learn more
about the work Mandy is doing in her homestate of Colorado,
as well as some educational resourceson regenerative agriculture.
Make sure to check out our show notes
and thank you to Jake and Marinfor joining us as well.
I highly recommendyou check out their podcast or Substack
Death in the Garden to hear more from them
(36:01):
and consider joining us on Patria.
There you'll find the full conversationswith Jake
Marin and Mandyand a bunch of other extras.
Your support makes this podcast possible.
As always, our theme music isCelestial Soda Pop by Ray Lynch.
You can find a link in our shownotes.
And before we go,I wanted to share one last thing
(36:23):
from the talk with Jacob Marin.
I'm curious with you guys, with Deathin the garden, in your work,
what do you see as the thing that you'retrying to most pass on?
I think that if there's anythingthat I'm trying to say is that
there's a reasonthat we're born at this time
(36:45):
and that we all have a purpose.
We all have a role to play in thisecosystem and that life does have meaning.
Because I think that's thethat's the thing that has permeated
my childhood the most, was the senseof meaninglessness of all of it.
I think that there's a lot of despairin our generations,
in the younger generations.
And so I think that that,more than anything is
(37:05):
it's like you have a role to play here inlife can be meaningful,
but you have to choose it, too.
You have to choose to be a part of life.
Talk with
you soon.
Going to get some kale and lettuce
from my parents garden.
It's nice to have some time outat the city and visit
friends and family for the summer.
I think I'll get some basil too.
I'm out heregathering a few things for salad.
(00:25):
I've been thinking more about food
since a couple conversationsI had recently.
Not just eating it, but
where our food comes from, how it's grown.
The land.
The food is a part of,and how our food systems
are a critical partof our civilizational transformation.
(00:45):
A couple of tomatoes are ready to.
And Jake Marquez and Marin
Morgan have a lot of thoughts on this.
Their multimedia project called Death
in the Garden is about agricultureand the complex
intersection between myth, civilizationand climate change.
I first stumbled upon their podcast
(01:08):
when looking for other peopleexploring the ideas in the novel.
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.
As you'll hear,they are certainly kindred spirits.
And later in the episode,I speak with another kindred spirit.
Many McGillto learn about regenerative agriculture.
Both of these talks are just piecesof a larger conversation.
(01:29):
You can find the full conversationsin their entirety on our Patreon.
I hope you enjoy.
Welcome to Human Nature Odyssey, a podcast
exploring our species relationshipwith the rest of life on Earth.
(01:52):
I'm Alex Alexis.
Well, I'm curious, just evenon a personal level, how did you guys met?
(02:13):
And can I say part of this interviewyou're dating? Yes.
So this is very, very juicy to me.
I'm curious what the order of operationswas in terms of like meeting each other,
building a relationship,and then also creating this project.
This ongoing, powerful, worldchanging project came first.
(02:34):
And what were the steps?
We actually met onlineon one of those dating apps
because I was like,Oh, I'm in town for a few months.
Maybe I can, you know,have some cool girl or something
and just like totally hit it off.
We had been having these insane mindblowing conversations
the whole timethat we had known each other,
and it just became this sort of thingwhere we're just like,
(02:57):
we should just make a documentary becauseJake had already been doing video work.
He had cameras, that sort of how it began.
I was really just trying to talkabout regenerative agriculture and
and then it wasn't
until later that then we were introducedto Ishmael and Daniel Quinn
and we were like, Oh.
Yeah, I want to flip this question on you.
You know, get your trajectory
and all this too, you know,because what I had met Maron.
I had met myself on a dating app, too. So
(03:20):
it's the
same same story.
So Death in the Garden
is a podcast, but it's also a film,
and you guys are coming at itfrom so many different angles.
(03:40):
What do you see as the connective tissuethat makes death in the garden?
And what has been your visionwith it? Great.
Yeah, great question for me.
And sure,Death in the Garden is trying to get at
modern societies, modern civilizations,relationship with death, and therefore
our relationship to the living worldand to the rest of life.
(04:01):
I had a lot of death, anxietyand trying to evade
death with dietary choicesand lifestyle choices and realizing
that there was no way to live on earthas a human without
having death involved in my own existence.
And through that kind of anxietyand that tension points, I began
to look and read and researchand look for experiences
(04:24):
to help me resolve or understandthat very human existential anxiety.
Hence why I wanted to call the projectDeath in the Garden.
At least my meaning for thefor the death in the garden.
You know, the Garden of Eden.That is that is Earth.
Yeah.
Really, the thread that beganthis whole thing was just this.
This quest of trying to understand why,as far as we're aware,
(04:47):
we're the only animal who has thisconscious awareness of our mortality.
And there's something about that
that makes us distinct, not separate,but distinct from the rest of life.
And so as we were going on this journey,we began with this sort of idea of like,
there's no such thingas a death free diet.
You can't escape the deaththat's required for you to be alive.
That's just how life works.
Life is eating life all the time,and death is inextricable from it.
(05:09):
You can't have one without the other.
And so, you know, there's like a tensionthere that I think is really uncomfortable
for human beings.
And as we started this project,we started to notice that there was
other ways that this sort of death denying
point of view was coming into play.
For instance, you know, for me,a lot of death in the garden
(05:29):
was related to also what kind of deathis required for life to grow.
And in a lot of ways, you know, it may bethe death of this mode of civilization
for the very reason
that industrial civilization
is one of the most destructiveforces on earth,
if not the most destructiveforce on Earth.
But what we were noticingis that when we were interacting
with people who try and are tryingto save the world and, you know,
(05:52):
answering that question of like,do you have an earnest desire
to save the world?
A lot of people will say yes andand go work for a green energy companies
or they'll go vegan or somethinglike that.
And the intentionthere is really noble and valid,
but when you pull back far enough,you start to realize that, okay,
so in order
for us to make all of these solar panels,to quote, quote unquote, save the world,
(06:16):
we have to go destroy an entire landscapejust to get the resources to.
Get this right,the raw minerals and all sorts of stuff
that goes into making solar panels
and the infrastructurethat's required to set them. Up.
Exactly.
And so, you know,we just started to notice this sort of
I don't know if
I want to say hypocrisy, but it's becauseit's not really hypocrisy necessarily.
It's more just a lack of depthor like an obfuscation or an abstraction.
(06:39):
Well, I can view myself as nobleby doing this thing,
by buying this electric car, byby doing these things.
But ignoreall of the stuff that I don't see,
which is all of the other deaths
that I'm doing to tryto avoid the death of the world.
And so that just became a really,really interesting thread for us,
trying to make sense of how, how,how could this be?
(07:01):
How could we be so awareof the destruction
that industrial civilizationis having upon the planet?
Without recognizingthat many of our attempts to save it
are just adjustingindustrial civilization slightly, right?
So that that's sort of,I think what led us into
wantingto talk to all of these different people
and wanting to sort of buildthis understanding that
(07:23):
maybe we somehow condensedinto some sort of school of thought.
I guess that's kind of a longand vain way of describing it.
No, that's great.That's what we're here for.
And I
think what's so interesting, you know,our culture tends to have this simplistic
idea of like life, good, death,bad, and ironically, that mindset
in order to avoid deathhas created so much of it.
(07:46):
What's complex and the past is like,so we're talking about death.
This is a part of life.It's a beautiful thing.
And that's something that the three of usall agree.
And I'm sure everyone listening tothis can understand as well abstractly,
even if we're terrified of experiencing itor don't want our loved ones
to experience, etc..
The irony is those of uswho see death as a part of life are also
(08:07):
the most concerned with the deathof so much around us and the death of life
and the people that are trying to prolonglife as much as possible.
That death of themselveslike they want humans to just live forever
and they don't want any human everdie, are perpetuating,
you know, the mass extinction of
(08:28):
not that those people individually areperpetuating individual mass extinction.
We're all part of this shebang.
But yeah, I just find that so ironic that
there's this
paradox of wanting life at all costs.
Causes so much death.
Yeah. Yeah, it's.
It's like
(08:48):
that.
Wanting to not play by nature's rules.
There are the laws of the universe.
And the problem comeswhen we think that we can be
not subject to those lawsand that we're above them
and we can control themand we can change those laws.
That'swhen the chaos and destruction happens.
And those rules,whether we like it or not, require death,
the death of everything the stars eat,other stars, stars collapse and die.
(09:13):
Everything dies.
And entropy and death is a facet of theuniverse that isn't going anywhere, ever.
And the quickerwe can come to terms with that,
the sooner we can actuallybring the balance on the earth.
I think we're all looking for,but I think that's kind of that thing
people struggle with, especiallyif you're environmentally minded or if
(09:35):
you're a young person who is so sensitiveto seeing destruction of the world.
Is that kind of balancing act
you have to walk for usto have this beauty in this life.
There is the deaththat's required for that.
And that's one of the hardestthings, I think, for humans
to understand and to incorporate,because we are these conscious beings,
because we are so incredibly aware of ourour predicament on Earth.
(09:58):
It's so hard to be able to acceptthe death that's required for life.
I think that sort of ideathat if death exists
and it's evil to us, thenwe have to figure out how to control that.
From that point of view,it's like I can understand
through this sort of rationality,through this this feeling,
this fear of death, that we decidedthat the best way that we can solve
(10:22):
a problem like climate changeis to continue to try to control it,
to continue to try to order and manageand systematize the living world
in order for us to save the world,rather than letting certain
things die off or things die,let you just things die in general,
letting ourselves die,being okay with that, being okay with
and I know I'm not the type of personwho thinks that like humans are a virus
(10:44):
and that we just need to be exterminated.
Like,I don't I'm not an misanthropic at all,
but there is a level of thatwhere it's like
we have to be willing tojust be a part of life again.
And that requires that we're partof living systems,
and living systemsdie and are reborn and regenerate.
And it's just this processthat we all have to be a part of.
Mm hmm.
I was really taken by.
I think it was your first episode.
(11:06):
You both were reflecting on.
You were on a ranch,and they had just killed a bison.
And we're using every part of itas food and for resources
and you're both just reflectingon, you know, putting your money
where your mouth is interms of really having to see like
this is very realand it is very unpleasant
(11:27):
and it's emotional seeing deathon that visceral level.
I after high school, I took a gap yearand I was working on different
small farms,which is like this program. Have you guys
aware of it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's like small farms,usually organic farms that you get to stay
for room and board and work and Iwas on this farm in the Pacific Northwest
(11:50):
and they had a flock of sheep
and they brought these folks outsimilar to how the bison was killed.
Where were you guys? Were?
Where they killed the sheep in the field,where it's with its family
and it's very quick.
The sheep doesn't know it's comingand it's on the land that they grew up in.
And Katie and the woman who runsthe farm was either crying
(12:10):
when they were doing this.
And she was saying,if I ever find myself not breaking down
and fully feeling this when I'mtaking the life of one of these creatures
that I helped raise, then like,I don't want to do this anymore.
And, you know, compare that to factoryfarming.
It's just such a profoundly different wayto exist with it,
and it's also a profoundly different wayto exist with it.
(12:33):
Then how, you know, veganism andvegetarianism are usually thinks of it.
Not that those kinds of dietsand ways of life are
a problem by any means,but like you guys talk about it,
I thought was really profound in terms ofjust having to really accept
and get face to face with this realitythat we're all part of.
Yeah.
(12:54):
And that experiencewas the first time that we had seen death.
We've seen a lot.
And I actually killed a sheep in Sweden.
And, you know, interestingly,like every single one of the shepherds
that are our friends there,they were all former vegans.
And then they they realizedthat there was something missing
with their connectedness to lifethat they weren't achieving
(13:14):
through their vegan diet and,you know, for me, that was a really, like,
insane experience because the night beforeI was supposed to to kill a sheep,
I got the call from my momthat my grandma was dying
and I'm like 35 hours away and, you know,and so I was like,
okay, well, Marin, should you not do thisor do you want to do this?
And it was just this thing whereI was like, I have to I have to do this.
(13:35):
This is the right time.
This is the right thing to do.
It was a sheep who was eight years old.
You who her
teeth were going to start to fall out soonand she hadn't land in a while.
And when I did kill the sheep and,you know, surrounded by its flock
in this beautiful landscape that is just,like so nourished by these sheep, I mean,
the feel better is was likeone of the coolest places on earth.
(13:58):
I, I just had this profound sense.
I was like, the sheep's souljust spread through the flock.
And it was just like this feeling of,there's nothing wrong with this.
And finally, you're putting your moneywhere your mouth is, and finally
you understand what it coststo be alive on earth.
It was just this profound senseof growing up and then, you know, to
(14:19):
like lose my grandmother,who was my my everything as a child
that was trial by fire.
As far as you're growing upnow, this is your initiation into life.
And the main thing that I walked away withwas just this profound devastation in
that not every being dies
as mercifully and quickly as that you did,
(14:41):
knowing that all around the world,factory farms exist.
And it's really hard to know thatno matter how high quality your meat is,
they're not dying in that waymost of the time, in part
because of the way that our lawsare structured around this type of thing.
But it definitely motivated me to be like,okay, well, shit,
part of the reason why I'm here on earthis to make it so that when animals die,
(15:03):
they die like this.
Well, and if I can add on to this,when you when you begin to understand
and experiencethe death that's required for you to live,
whether that is from an animal foodor even a plant food, it changes the way
it makes you a lot more responsiblewhen you witness an animal die,
or if you go and see the landscapesupon which soy is grown.
(15:24):
There's death in both things, and it makesit really hard to see food differently.
Whether I'm eating some grainsor whether I'm eating a piece of meat,
I know what that looks like,and we're lucky enough to get meat
from really good sources.
But I have a really hard time eating meatfrom any other way because I know
it makes you more responsible.
(15:46):
It changes the way I behaveand my day to day life when I know
firsthand and I have a hard timewith a lot of like grains and plant foods
because I've seenthe eviscerated landscapes
so that I can have this grainor this plant food or this strawberry.
When you accept it and you encounterand get as close to that death
that's required for you to live,it makes you a lot more responsible.
(16:09):
And it makes the lines of which foodsor which behavior
patterns are good or bad for the planet,a lot more blurry.
And it makes you want to get closerand closer to the landscape,
and it makes you want to geta lot more responsible about
where your food comes frombecause you know what's its cost.
And watching Merrin killthat sheep and watching bison be killed
and watching cows be killed,it's like, wow,
(16:31):
I need to be way more responsiblefor my life
because every bite of foodI've ever had in my life,
there was a huge amount of sacrificefrom a landscape, from an animal,
from an ecosystem,so that I could live on both sides
of the spectrum of people who don't carewhere the food comes from or people
who think that their plant based diets arethe best thing to happen to the planet.
Quite often we find thatthere is that lack of awareness
(16:54):
and responsibilityfor where their lives come from.
And I mean, ironically,it's like you'd think that
eating food that's such a survival thing.
You'd think that that'skind of the bare necessity.
But in a sense, in our modern culture,that's the luxury to even think about that
the people that are really just surviving
will have to take foodwherever they can possibly get it.
(17:15):
It's an amazing thing for those of uswho are able to appreciate this,
this privilege that we have
to get to think about these thingsand then try to help change the system
so other people can have easier accessto it.
Just thinking about folkswho grow up in food deserts with meaning,
they only have access to fastfood, only access to processed foods.
And there's no way I oftenthink about this in the grocery store,
(17:39):
you know, when there's the apple that's $1and it's just called an apple,
and then there's an organic appleand it's $2 and say, wait a second,
I'm paying more.
So you don't put chemicalsand poison on example.
It's like it's like it feels like athug came up to me in an alleyway.
He's like,All right, dude, give me a dollar.
(18:00):
I'm going to poison on your food.
It's like, What the hellare you holding me hostage with this?
It's just wild that our system is set upwhere the basic level of food
that people are interacting with,the cheapest, most affordable food
that's most of theirill will is the least healthy
and based on the most destructivepractices.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
(18:21):
And I don't want to sound at alllike because you're absolutely right,
most people live we heard somebodydescribe it as also as a food apartheid.
That is the case for most people on earth.
And again, you know,this is why food is such a nexus of
it is the key to civilizationand it is the key and the foundation
of howthis destructive civilization is built.
(18:41):
And and I think that what you're
describing is we don't so many peopledon't have a choice, man.
I barely have a choice.
So many of the privileged barelyeven have a choice of the quality of food
because we've destroyed the planetto such a degree
and polluted it to such a degree.
And very few of ushave that privilege to begin to choose
how we interact with our food.
But our food is the most powerful wayto interact
(19:04):
with the living world, because that'sthe nexus of life and death for us.
That's how you interact. Yeah, yeah.
And that's that idea.
Like also presupposesthat food is like meant to be a product
that you can get profits off of.
And, you know, we've had a reallyinteresting look into the food system.
We have these food baronsthat are incredibly wealthy,
these massive conglomerationsthat build an outsized amount of power.
(19:26):
And one of the best ways
that we could get outside ofthat is to stop participating in it
and to to start participatingwith local farms.
The problem with local farmsis that in order for them to compete
with these big scale conglomeratesis they have to raise their prices.
And so there needs to be somesort of lever that balances things out
where it's actually more affordableto go to the small farm
(19:49):
that isn't even in your local community.
And actually what we found
is that it's kind of the truthwhere we go to the farmer's market,
the beef is the same amountas it is at the grocery store
from a conventional farm.
But a lot of people don't know that.
A lot of people do think thatthese are sort of like luxury beliefs.
And in a sense, they are.
For instance,if you live on the East Coast
and you're buying a $30 chickenfrom Polly Face Farms,
it's like I don't really knowwho that helps other people
(20:11):
wanting to also pat themselves on the backand say that they did a good job.
So there's a lot of complexity to itheading into these sorts of conversations.
Has this really shown us that?
And we really need to think about
how can we make this sort of thingaccessible to people?
And a lot of that is like people coming inand changing the farm bill
and changing legislation, making surethat these types of foods are subsidized
to potentially because they're not,and that's why they're unaffordable.
(20:35):
There's a lot of politics.
We spoke to a farmerand he was just like hunger is political.
That's just a fact.
And Daniel Quinn talks about this as well.
But yeah, so it's
really it's really hard to talk aboutbecause obviously we're outsiders,
but we see so much potential
in these different waysof doing agriculture.
And we see the way that the civilizationjust wants to like stamp it out
(20:58):
and make it not exist.
And then we also see the waysthat this type of agriculture
is acquiescing to the civilizational storyin order for them to survive.
And you can't blame them, but it justit just always comes back to this thing
for us.
Okay.
But then how do we actually move forward?
How do we actually make changesif we just constantly are deferring
(21:18):
to this baseline that we all know is toxicto the planet and toxic to ourselves?
And so it's really it'sreally complicated.
It's a really difficult position to be in.
(21:55):
So Jake and Marianne mentionedtheir first focus was on regenerative
agriculture, which is somethingI wanted to learn more about.
So I spoke with many McGill from Colorado.
Mandi is an educator, consultantand founder of the Earth
Regeneration Alliance.
Okay, here'san excerpt of my conversation with Mandi.
(22:19):
When Iwas a little kid, when I was two or three,
the first thing I wanted to be inthe world was a farmer.
I love the idea.
All my toys were of a bunch of differentanimals and I would get like little toy
barns and stuff,and my mom was really supportive of it.
So we would go to the local farmsand I get to help with the chores.
And then we found this farmin central Pennsylvania where you could do
(22:40):
these guest staysand we would stay for a weekend
and we would return to this farm yearafter year with this family.
They became really close to us and
and over the summersthat I would stay with them.
And I think what I was enjoyingwas it's a way to be in nature
and actually really engage with it.
And it feels like I'm hereto take care of it.
And then also getting older and seeingthat the reality of conventional modern
(23:05):
farming is actually oftenabout controlling nature and
manipulating nature for profit,and so less about taking
care of the animals on these big factoryfarms.
It's about just using themlike they're commodities.
But there's many culturesthat are able to farm in different ways
that are not at odds with thenatural world, but actually a part of it.
(23:26):
And my understanding is, is regenerativeagriculture is this term
that's essentially trying to namewhat that kind of farming is.
Daniel Cohen, in some of his laterbooks, uses the term
to specify the other form of farmingis totalitarian agriculture.
And that's the kind of agriculturethat, like we're saying, is as monoculture
(23:47):
with chemicals into the ground.
It's just trying to get
as much profit as possibleand is viewing nature as a commodity.
And so in contrast to that,how would you describe
what regenerative agriculture is?
Yeah, and I want to say it's it'sno one's fault that we're here.
I went through a phase where I was like,
why don't farmers and ranchersjust change how they're doing things?
(24:10):
And it's like, we are all stuck ina system that is keeping us on this path.
Whether you eat foodor whether you produce it or whatever.
And so I think that's an important thingto realize, like especially post World
War Two, that things got really funneledinto this very industrial way of being.
And it was the Secretary of Agriculture,Earl Buch, back in the seventies
(24:32):
or eighties.
The big approach backthen were get bigger, get out and plant,
grow to fence, grow.
So it was when you think about that,then you start to realize
why farmers and ranchers have to useantibiotics or sprayed pesticides
or synthetic fertilizers or whateverbecause we are actively going against
the way nature would do something.
We're going against biodiversityand all those things.
(24:53):
That is exactly how nature would function.
And so we we have to keep implementingthese things that mean that we can,
quote unquote, control it.
Another thing to point out as well,I got this from Pittsford Brown,
which is an amazing nonprofitin this whole space.
They talk about degenerative, sustainableand regenerative and degenerative.
And like currentagriculture is generating,
(25:15):
the soil is degenerating,the water supplies, all of the things.
Right.
And then went into this whole stageof like, oh, we need sustainable X, Y, Z.
Well, we've degenerated.
So much to the point now, but it's like,is that what we want to sustain?
So that's why regenerative
is such an important termbecause it starts to shift that mindset.
(25:36):
If you had to describe the philosophyof regenerative agriculture,
how would you tryto put it in towards, oh.
Gosh, I guess
maybe the simplest way would be,are you giving back more than you take?
I think it was for Third Plateby Dan Barber.
It was over in Spain.
And I want to say it was an olive grove.
And I remember him saying,yeah, about 50% get eaten by birds.
(26:00):
And he said, but that
that makes total sense to mebecause they're here too, you know.
So I think it's kind of this idea of likeit's it's not it's not ours.
We are part of something.
And so I thinkone of the most profound ways
we can think about that is, for example,when you see a deer crossing a road,
(26:21):
is the deer crossing a roador is the road crossing a forest?
And so when you hear and when you see itlike that, that that changes everything.
And I feel like especiallyI mean, right now the term regenerative
is getting a lot of traction and I feel atfirst I was annoyed about that.
It was like, wait,when we define it, we've now
(26:41):
completely gone against what it is,
because the whole idea is thatit is emergent and evolving
and has potential that we cannot defineand we cannot put limits on.
And yet the reason that I am okay
with this right nowis that we do need that we are
the majority of people are so disconnectedthat we actually need some prompts.
(27:02):
I'm calling them guardrails instead ofguardrails and calling them guide rails.
And, and I feel that we do need thatjust to even have the language around
what it is that we're even trying to feelregenerative is not new.
That is indigenous wisdom, that is nature,that is thinking of nature.
And one of the best waysI think, to explain regenerative is
(27:23):
the connection of ruminant animalscattle, elk, bison,
deer, goats,sheep, their connection with grasslands.
This is holistic prime grazing,
which is from Savory Institute,and it's Allan Savory.
It's an amazing organization.
They're based in Boulder,but they've got global hubs.
And so he went through a whole processthroughout his whole life
(27:45):
of trying to figure these things out,especially grasslands.
Because grasslands, if you thinkabout that in terms of ruminant animals,
North America is a great place to lookbecause we used to have millions of bison
running across the plainsand they would be very compacted
as far as word effect on the landand they would be continually moving.
They wouldn't stay in one placeand the predator prey relationship
(28:08):
would be wolvesthat were coming up on them
and they would be movingand trying to protect themselves.
So I think holistic plan grazingis a really great way to kind of tie
in to how nature co-evolvedbecause grasslands
specifically co-evolvedwith these animals,
because grasslands are not in humid areas,you know, the tropics
do not co-evolved with ruminant animals,the grassland area is dead.
(28:32):
So when you have perennial humidity,
then that area can regeneratewithout animal impact.
But when you're in a more arid areathat gets like
maybe monsoonal rains,that kind of thing, and you're dry.
A lot of the year,the moisture content and nutrient cycling
that the land needsis actually in the guts of those animals.
They're like walking rain forest,they're walking compost machine.
(28:55):
When I see a grassland
without animals on it, movingthe way nature would have them move.
It makes me sad because I know thatthat grassland actually needs them
and vice versa.
So when you have the kind of impactthat comes from
how nature would have these animalsmove, the way their homes break,
the soil crust allows water infiltration,but it's not deep tilling, right?
(29:17):
It's just breaking up.
It's like disturbance on the land.
Also just there, the urine and dung andall of that creates that fertilization.
And so it creates this really beautifulsymphony that happens in the soil
and it builds out soil, organic matter,the way their mouths tear.
The grasses actually spur growth.
And when they're not in one placefor too long,
(29:38):
they have a regenerating impact,which is how that co-evolution happened.
But when you have animalsthat are all over the land all the time
not being moved and kind of this predatorprey relationship kind of format,
then they can actually overgrazed plants,which begins to decertify that land.
And so you can either have no animalson a more arid area
(30:01):
like an arid grassland area,or you can have animals in a way
that they're not meant to be on that landand both of those deserted island.
So it's the waythe animals have been moved
and that disconnection from how
they would naturally move with that landthat has created desertification
and which means that you'rereally turning it into a desert.
(30:22):
So the Savory Institute Mandy mentionedis an organization that Jake and Marriner
involved with to and through the SavoryInstitute's website.
I've been learning a lot more
about holistic management grazing,which is a regenerative ranching practice
which helps move hoofed animalslike cattle, sheep, goats
through landscapes the way large herdsnaturally co-evolved grasslands.
(30:45):
It reflects how ecosystemsevolved to naturally regenerate over time.
Well, so, so many of us
now live in citiesso far away from food systems.
I'm one of those people.
Even though, you know,I wanted to be a farmer
ever since I was two,I feel very removed from the systems
that actually create the foodthat I'm taking in.
(31:07):
And I think that's the casefor lots of people. Yes.
You think about cities and concentratedanimal feeding operations of feedlots.
Technically, cities are also cages because
it's like we're we're exporting wasteand we're bringing in food.
Cities are factory farms.
Yeah, humans.
And look at how how sick everyone is.
So many people are dealing
with chronic health issues or allergiesor autoimmune diseases.
(31:31):
All of these things.
That's in there
I wanted to ask you about,because I think for lots of us in cities,
we can't change the way we're growing foodbecause we're not growing food.
But we can change thethe food that we're eating, if possible.
Some of us have the privilege to.
And so that usually shows upas vegetarianism or veganism.
Those are the waysthat we can interact with our food.
(31:53):
And what I've picked up on fromthe regenerative movement is that it sees
vegan organism,not necessarily as the end all, be all.
I'm curious on your thoughts on that.
How does veganism as a dietand a philosophy
fit in or clashwith the regenerative perspective?
Oh, it's definitely part of it,but it depends on how people understand
(32:17):
whether food is coming from
and if it's actually accomplishinglike how their food is being source.
Is that actually accomplishingwhat their intrinsic desire is?
Because is something like you know, beyondmeat or impossible burger or whatever.
Is that in relationship with the landthe way we are thinking
that we would want it to be basicallyindustrial veganism at this point,
it's like you're you're eating foodthat was industrially harvested.
(32:40):
And it doesn't matter to me what you eat.
Like, that's really not what matters.It matters where it comes from.
It matters how it was grown,how it was raised, how it went into death.
And that is somethingwe are so disconnected from.
People don't even knowabout these things anymore.
So whether or not you eata regenerative local meat burger
or you eat a regenerative, localveggie burger, both of those
(33:02):
are helping to draw downthat legacy load of carbon
in the atmosphere, which is also helpingto unburden the oceans.
But when you're in a city, yeah,how do you sort that way?
Because ultimately,if tomorrow everyone woke up and said,
I'm going to sourcelocally in regenerative we you can't
we don't have enough of it is very fewand far between.
Infrastructure's not there.
(33:24):
Yeah.
We're going to have to go through a largetransition because it is a transition.
This is not something that can happenovernight.
We cannot just stop using fossil fuelsor stop with the industrial food system
right away.
We've got to figure out how to transition.
We can be regenerative.
Humans are not by nature degenerative.
We just have become disconnected.Right. What? Yeah.
What, what you say?
Well, it's funny because probably like
(33:46):
20 years ago there was this comic stripin the newspaper.
Remember my parents side of the table?
And what's the name of that comicwith a penguin?
You know what I'm talking about.
Oh, Opie.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.Something like. That.
What? Opie Yeah.
I don't know what the heck is.
They would observepeople listening to this like idiot.
His name was Frank.
(34:07):
But there's.
I remember and I don't know whythis is stuck with me.
This penguin, this was very concernedwith his environmental impact.
And he was essentially living you know,he was in our society living among humans.
He wanted to go greenand he wanted to reduce, reuse, recycle.
All the big words
that were, you know, inthe 2000s were really becoming mainstream.
(34:27):
And he just kept noticing that like
everything he was doing washe didn't use the language,
but degenerating, you know,it was just taking from the environment.
It's like we can recycle, we can useless water, we can change the light bulbs.
But like, I'm still just taking it,just like I'm taking a little less.
And he really sincerely wanted to not justconstantly keep taking from the earth.
(34:51):
He didn't want have an impact.
And over the course of,you know, a few days,
the comic strips evolvingand you're seeing various ways
he's trying to implement thisuntil finally the finale is
he has himselftied up by the hands and arms
and he's like strung up in his roomso he won't even, like, touch the ground.
And the joke isthat I'm just going to not exist.
How do I because taking up spaceon this planet, if we care about it,
(35:15):
seems like it's just going to constantlytake away from everything.
And the idea that our presence
being here could actually helpactually be part of the ecosystem
and start to actually implement practices
that are regenerating what we've degraded
is pretty profound.
(35:39):
Thank you to Mandy McGillfor joining us today to learn more
about the work Mandy is doing in her homestate of Colorado,
as well as some educational resourceson regenerative agriculture.
Make sure to check out our show notes
and thank you to Jake and Marinfor joining us as well.
I highly recommendyou check out their podcast or Substack
Death in the Garden to hear more from them
(36:01):
and consider joining us on Patria.
There you'll find the full conversationswith Jake
Marin and Mandyand a bunch of other extras.
Your support makes this podcast possible.
As always, our theme music isCelestial Soda Pop by Ray Lynch.
You can find a link in our shownotes.
And before we go,I wanted to share one last thing
(36:23):
from the talk with Jacob Marin.
I'm curious with you guys, with Deathin the garden, in your work,
what do you see as the thing that you'retrying to most pass on?
I think that if there's anythingthat I'm trying to say is that
there's a reasonthat we're born at this time
(36:45):
and that we all have a purpose.
We all have a role to play in thisecosystem and that life does have meaning.
Because I think that's thethat's the thing that has permeated
my childhood the most, was the senseof meaninglessness of all of it.
I think that there's a lot of despairin our generations,
in the younger generations.
And so I think that that,more than anything is
(37:05):
it's like you have a role to play here inlife can be meaningful,
but you have to choose it, too.
You have to choose to be a part of life.
Talk with
you soon.
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