October 11, 2023 • 38 mins
Get ready to broaden your horizon with our in-depth chat with Dr. David White, a soil biologist making waves in the world of environmental and social change! With his background in biological sciences, he marries his love for gardening and permaculture design with his research on soil health, creating a fascinating perspective on the path to sustainability.
In our conversation, we delve into topics like regenerative agriculture as a climate solution and the detrimental effects of industrial agriculture on soil organic matter. We talk about how we partner together with the Compost Tea Party, inspiring children in the Rio School District to care for their environment.
We leave no stone unturned, from soil health and composting to regenerative concepts for the future generation. Prepare to be inspired and learn how the power of your soil can help create a sustainable world for the next generation.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome.
I'm glad you're here.
Together, we will turn ourshared concern about the state
of our environment into a forcefor change.
It will require you toreimagine the role of your home
kitchen as more than a warehouseof food or a room where we cook
and gather to eat.
The time has come to enter yourkitchen with eyes open to the
(00:24):
transformative power itharnesses for the planet and you
.
The home kitchen has alwaysbeen ground zero for positive
environmental and social change.
Waiting for you to take yourposition as a kitchen activist
Now that you arrived, you willchange the world with what you
(00:45):
eat.
Welcome to the kitchenactivists.
(01:10):
I am so glad you're here, andtoday I'm joined with Dr David
White, but I'm going to justcall you David from this point
forward, is that okay?
Thanks, that's how I know you.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yes, that'd be lovely .
Speaker 1 (01:26):
But not to minimize all the work that went in to get
the doctor in front of yourname.
David has a BS in biologicalsciences and a PhD in medicine
from the University of Edinburghin Scotland.
A PhD in medicine.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
How about that?
Yeah, really it was a lot ofcell biology that I did.
I looked at a lot of cellsunder the microscope and I'm not
sure how deeply you want to getinto that, but I was doing it
through the Department ofobstetrics and gynecology.
So I ended up with a PhD inmedicine, but it's a research
(02:04):
qualification and mainly what Iwas doing was cell biology.
Just happened to be withgametes.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I know that I'm already learning some things
about you.
So, david and I, we know eachother because of well, because
he's a soil biologist, anincredible human, and just you
know when I'm looking at yourbio and all of the different
projects that you brought forthinto the world is pretty
(02:33):
outstanding.
So, for example, keep thisSBWild Center for Regenerative
Agriculture, food for Thought,ohi Captain Planet Foundation,
ohi Valley Green Coalition,tauber Fest, which is one of the
initiatives that I know you'reworking on this month.
But you are an individual whois passionate and matches that
(02:58):
passion with action.
So you think about how can I beof service this is what I've
witnessed with you and how can Ianswer that call with my skill
set and the talents and just whoI am in the world.
So it's just beautiful to watchDavid it really is and it's such
(03:19):
a wonderful experience for meto join forces with you with the
Compost Tea Party.
So that's where our paths havecrossed is with the Compost Tea
Party.
So for the last five years,david and I have worked together
to bring these events to theRio School District, which is a
district on the Oxnard plain.
(03:40):
He brews the Compost Teas inhis home in OHI Valley and loads
it up on his truck.
And how many gallons of CompostTea do you bring to us?
That's 170 gallons, I think 170gallons and then, with the help
of about 7 to 800 young peoplekids we water their playground
(04:04):
with Compost Tea.
You might be asking well, whywould you do that?
But before we get there, I justwant to back up a little bit
about what brought you to thinkabout soil and soil health and
to get a PhD and just doing sucha deep dive on soil for so long
(04:25):
.
What brought you there?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Well, it's a little separate from the PhD was an
opportunity that came my wayvery easily after doing my
bachelor's, my undergraduate,which was in biological sciences
, and it really was a.
It gave me the ability to studycells under the microscope.
So that's a nice connectionwhen you want to find out about
(04:51):
soil biology, because I know howto use a microscope, which is
not very hard.
I've always been interested ingardening and growing food.
My dad's family are farmers andwe always had a big garden with
strawberries and potatoes andparsley.
I remember those pretty clearlyin turnips.
(05:12):
This is in North East ofScotland when I came over to
California and OHI was the firstplace I visited in California
in 1985.
Thank you.
I connected with the backcountry here and the SESPE Creek
in particular, and I alsoconnected with friends who were
(05:32):
farming, doing small-scalefarming and food growing, and
also learned about the nativeplants around here.
And really what brought all ofthose things together for me was
doing a permaculture designcourse in 1997.
And I was at that time teachingat an independent school in the
Upper Ohio High called HappyValley, which is now called
(05:53):
Besson Hills, and my first yearthere they were hosting a
permaculture design course andBill Molyson, who is the father
of permaculture, was giving thecourse and I actually wasn't
given any choice, I just had todo it.
So I was like, okay, that soundsgood because I'd seen the book
(06:15):
and I knew a little bit about it.
But that really broughttogether a lot of things.
I didn't really realize thatworking in curbside recycling
before it became mandated at thestate level and working to
protect free flowing rivers andworking in organic agriculture
(06:35):
was all connected andpermaculture design really
outlined that for me, and reallyat the core of any design is
soil health.
Creating and supporting soilhealth is key to growing things,
and so that the permaculturecourse was important and through
(06:56):
the kind of permaculturenetwork I was exposed to a
researcher, Dr Elaine Ingham,and Dr Ingham was up in Oregon
at Oregon State and she did alot of work to promote the
importance of the soil food weband she's a microscopist, and so
(07:19):
I oh, that's a new word for me.
Somebody who uses the microscope.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
So I met her.
I went to a presentation by herat a permaculture conference
and I was very impressed and Ithought to invite her to do
workshops in Ojai, and so atthat time I was the executive
director for the Center forRegenerative Agriculture.
So in 2002, we formed thisnonprofit that was to promote
(07:50):
regenerative agriculture and,again, key to the techniques of
regenerative agriculture is soilcare.
The big picture stuff about itis that healthy soils have a lot
of organic carbon in them andthey get that from the
atmosphere by the function ofplants, which take carbon
dioxide out of the atmosphereand pump it into the ground as
(08:12):
well as fixing it in theirbodies, and those carbohydrates
that come out of the roots feedthe soil biology.
So it just seemed reallyimportant to me to use my skills
to understand how to generatehealthy soils.
And from an ecologicalperspective, nature has been
successful because it's cyclical, and so composting is the thing
(08:34):
that completes the cycle in thecycle of life.
It's powered by the sun andplants grow and then they feed
animals and then animals eateach other and everything dies
and soil biology turns it backinto fertile soil for the next
generation, and that's workedfor millennia, for millions of
years Making that cyclicalconnection through soil health
(08:57):
and through composting, becamevery clear to me that this was
an important thing.
The animals enjoyed the compostaspect of gardening and I ran
school garden programs for yearsand composting was something
that happened there and we getthe children to sieve compost
and it was a fantastic lessonfor them to do because you
(09:19):
didn't need to give it muchattention, they just were
fascinated with the biologythat's in the soil.
You didn't have to say, well,children, the soil is alive.
They could see it as alivebecause it's teeming with the
animals which they would catchand trade and so that the
vibrancy of soil was really animportant thing to connect kids
(09:39):
to nature at that level and youknow, core to what I do is about
connecting kids to nature.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
So you've taken us through a lot there.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
There's a lot of stuff there.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Of all the things, from you coming from a farming
family to then going to schooland then making those
connections, it sounds like,especially when you came to
California and started workingas a teacher at the high school
right at Besant High or BesantSchool.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
It was happy valley school.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Which has its own interesting past right.
I mean, it was started byAldous Huxley and who else.
Who else were the founders ofthe school?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Huxley is the famous one, but Annie Besant was the
one who bought the land in 1928.
And there's 650 acres that theHappy Valley Foundation owns,
and on that land is the BessonHill School, and there is also
used to be the Ohai Foundation.
It's now called the TopaInstitute, and so there's a
(10:46):
couple of differentorganizations that are based
there, as well as the BeatriceWood Center for the Arts.
That's there too.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Who was a potter?
Only recognized potter.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
It's an interesting area and there's some endangered
habitat there.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
But the whole piece behind the mission of the school
and the retreat center that'sconnected to it.
My understanding was that inorder for us to make change, we
need to begin with ourselves.
That was my understanding ofthe idea behind that place and
to connect people with nature.
(11:20):
Right, how can you change whatwe see in the environment if you
don't even have a connectionyourself to nature and to our
environment?
That was a beautiful missionand they still continue to do
that work.
The other thing that was reallyinteresting listening to your
history of the work that you'vedone which is you truly are at
(11:44):
way ahead of other people inthinking.
For example, the Center forRegenerative Agriculture if I
understood it correctly, youstarted that in 2002.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, we were really at it.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah, to think about regenerative agriculture in 2002
, when it's really just a wordthat is coming, not even in the
mainstream yet.
It's just like a word thatyou're beginning to hear, that
people are starting tounderstand what that means, I
mean.
And then food for thought.
Oh hi, I know that wassomething that you started what
(12:21):
has already been 20 years about.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
I wasn't involved in starting that one, but I
certainly supported it from thebeginning and worked for them
for quite a long time.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
But this idea farmed a table, which was revolutionary
, and it's just barely takingoff in public schools.
I know that was also in thepublic schools in Ohio.
I want to thank you for thework you do because there has to
be people who are in thebeginning of certain movements.
And even I get this with waterconservation and talking about
(12:54):
virtual water footprint,thinking about how we're eating,
and it just feels like you'rethe salmon going upstream, but
somebody's got to start doingthat work.
For somebody who's listening tothis and you have an idea of
something that may not feel likeit's popular or you feel like
it's going to be hard, just knowthat all of us have different
(13:17):
talents and so for you, David,it really is your talent to be
up in the front of the pack andleading and having to knock down
walls and barriers in order forthe water to flow through.
So, anyway, I want to justrecognize that and recognize the
work because, over and overagain, you are one of those
(13:40):
first the beginning voices.
That just blows me away 2002 forthe Center for.
Regenerative Agriculture.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
There's actually a researcher in Australia, darren
Doherty, who created a documentthat showed the use of the word
regenerative associated withagriculture, and he only went
back to 2006, which he figuredwas the first time that it had
really been used, and he didn'tknow that we'd established CRA
(14:09):
in 2002.
So we really were ahead of thecurve there.
But it was Rodale that had comeup with the idea and the
co-founder for CRA was SteveSprinkle, and he came up with
the name and I ran theorganization.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
How do you define regenerative?
And my definition ofregenerative simply is and it
could be, whether it's inagriculture, in economics is
that it gives back more than ittakes.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
That's nice.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
How do you define regenerative agriculture?
Speaker 2 (14:45):
It's all about carbon in the soil, and so it's about
increasing the soil carboncontent, and that increases soil
health and it's also anature-based climate solution.
So if you're taking carbon outof the atmosphere, then you're
reducing the greenhouse effectand the double whammy is that's
(15:05):
increasing soil health.
So a clear and concisedefinition of regenerative
agriculture would be practiceswhich increase soil carbon
content, and one of the mainthings that we've lost since the
advent of industrialagriculture is accumulated soil
organic matter, which is carbon,and, interestingly, we've
(15:30):
become so new to hearing aboutNPK, but it doesn't mention
anything about carbon, and asignificant portion of the
carbon in soils is alive.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
So I want to stop you there with NPK, because some
people may not understand that,because I know for sure I did
not understand that when I firstheard it, when I was doing
research for the book, and arice farmer in Louisiana is the
one who turned me on to thatterm because that is what
conventional agriculture withfertilizers are interested in,
(16:05):
right, nitrogen, potassium andwhat's the K?
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Phosphorus and potassium.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
This particular farmer who is one of many who
are within the regenerative,organic agriculture space, who
are looking well beyond the NPKbut looking at the microbiology
and what it takes to have thepresence of organic matter in
soil.
And so for me, I came to soilthrough water because my
(16:35):
question when I was writing thebook was what, what kinds of
foods can we eat to save water?
And can I, one person, make adifference on water systems
around the world with my foodchoices?
And then that took me out tofarms.
And then every farm it reallycame down to soil, like what is
the soil health?
And there was this particularfarm in Paso Robles, a dry
(16:58):
farmer, a biodynamic farmer,which meant that he didn't use
any irrigation on his land,which blew my mind because I
didn't know that that waspossible.
And asking the question how areyou not using irrigation?
And it gets hot there in PasoRobles, actually, they get the
same level of rain as Phoenix,arizona.
(17:18):
And he's like it's all aboutthe soil, it's all about these
root systems.
And he goes down to the groundand scoops up soil in his hand
and he's like it's all here,this is how I do it.
And his farming practicesrevolves around how does he keep
that organic matter thriving soit can hold water which, I
(17:41):
learned, up to 10,000 times morethan soil that's been treated
with chemicals, which thendiminishes the microbiology.
So that's how I got intothinking about soil and thinking
about soil when I buy food andsupport regenerative agriculture
, in other words, farmers whoare building that soil health so
(18:05):
that they're using less waterand they're drawing down carbon
and they're producing morenutritious food.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Well, you know that organic certification is a
recommendation to pay attentionto.
If you're trying to shop for tobenefit the planet, then I
think the simplest thing to dois to buy more things that are
organic, that are certifiedorganic.
If you're buying things in astore, if you're buying them
(18:34):
directly from the farmer, thenwhich is ideal if you can look
your farmer in the eye, then youcan ask that farmer about their
practices.
And, interestingly, beingcertified organic is somewhat
onerous.
There's paperwork involved,there's costs involved and many
small farmers that I knowactually don't go through
(18:54):
organic certification now orthey let it lapse, because their
base, their customers, knowthat their practices are organic
and that they care for theplanet and they're not using
synthetic pesticides orfertilizers.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
So yeah, and that's.
I'm glad you brought that upbecause the certification
matters, to have the third partycertification.
When you're not standing infront of a farmer to ask.
When the food ends up in theshelf of a grocery store, then
it matters and I want to knowwhat were the practices involved
(19:36):
in growing that food, because Ican't ask somebody there.
But at a farmers market itbecomes less important and
oftentimes I know this is your,this is also your experience
these small scale farmers aretruly doing practices well
beyond these big organicoperations that we encounter at
(20:00):
the grocery store.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
But I still think that is.
It is an important thing to payattention to is organic
certification and acknowledgingthat small farmers may not do it
, but if you're shopping in thesupermarket, then that's a thing
that you can do.
That, I think, increases thechance of your money going to
support something that is notdestroying soil health.
(20:24):
We still see it.
I just was driving throughOxnord, actually coming back
from a field trip with kids on aschool bus which is kind of fun
because you're up high and Iwasn't driving so I got to look
out the window and it was awindy day and I was watching the
fields that were tilled and hadno crops in them blowing away.
(20:45):
I was watching the topsoil blowaway and we had that with the
dust bowl.
We should be learning rightfrom the dust bowl, and one of
the kind of tenants ofregenerative agriculture is no
bare soil, don't leave your soiluncovered.
No tilling is another thing,and so when you see the
techniques of industrialagriculture, which involve
(21:09):
repeated tillage and also thesoil being laid bare when it is
exposed to the elements, thenit's no surprise that we're
losing accumulated soil, organicmatter, and that we're losing
our topsoils at an alarming rate.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
So tell us, why does it matter if we lose our topsoil
, and also if you can explainwhat is tillage.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Why does it matter?
If we lose our topsoil, then ifyou have erosion and you lose
your topsoil, then you're losingyour healthy component of the
landscape that can support plantgrowth.
And again, going back to thedust bowl and seeing what
happened when there was justincredible tillage, which is
turning of the soil withmechanical means, pulling a plow
(21:55):
behind a tractor is tilling thesoil, it's turning over the
soil and that destroys therelationship that fungi in
particular have in holdingtogether soil structure.
And you were talking earlierabout healthy soils being able
to accommodate more water.
And that's because healthysoils will allow water to
(22:19):
infiltrate, because there's airspaces in there and the
structure of the soil is heldapart.
If you buy fungal hyphae by thethreads of the body of fungi and
if you till it, then you breakup all those threads and you get
soil compaction.
It's a thing that folks oftenget confused about, because
immediately after you wrote atill, a bed, it seems like, oh,
(22:42):
the soil is all nice and fluffy,but what happens is it then
compacts when you add water andit reduces the ability of water
to infiltrate.
And so a good test for healthysoil is how can I push a piece
of rebar or a stick into thesoil and if I can push that in
six inches or a foot, thenthere's a good chance that that
(23:03):
soil is fairly healthy.
And then if I pour water on itand it disappears very quickly,
then the chances are you've gotvery healthy soil there.
If you can't put a stick intosoil and you pour water and it
just sits on the surface, thenyou've got compacted soil and
that soil is not going to be,doesn't have air spaces, it's
not going to allow water toinfiltrate.
(23:24):
Water is going to run over thesurface, it's going to cause
erosion.
You're going to lose yourtopsoil or tilling and then it
blows away.
We don't want to lose ourtopsoil because that's what
supports the plants anduncovering the soil means that
it's prone to being washed orblown away.
So we want to avoid thosethings.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Yeah, I liked the way you were describing it.
It was what was coming to mindas a sponge, just like the
sponges that we use in thekitchen, and how, when you look
at that, especially if you lookat it from the side, and you see
those little nooks and crannies, those spaces and that is
essentially what we want in soiland that you're saying happens
(24:04):
because of the fungi in soil.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
They're a primary component of healthy soils that
will maintain a structure, andthey call it soil pads, which
are like little particles ofsoil and there's air spaces in
between those and that structureis destroyed by tilling.
I remember a story in Davisabout.
(24:31):
They built this thing up thereDavis Village Homes, which was a
really farsighted communitydevelopment, and the houses
drained the water into a commonarea where they planted almonds,
almonds and they measured waterinfiltration and in the first
(24:51):
year it was something like afoot.
They had their normal rain andwater was able to infiltrate a
foot, and then the next year itinfiltrated three feet, and then
the next year it was like sevenfeet and then the next year it
was 28 feet, and so thetransition to using organic
practices does take time, so youcan't really expect things to
(25:13):
happen immediately and a threeto four year period.
If you're going from hard bakedsoil to really rich earthy loam
that allows water infiltration,that could take three to four
years.
And that was the experience ofapricot lane farms, who most
people know by the film BiggestLittle Farms, and so I talked to
(25:39):
John Chester about it and hesaid that the biggest thing for
them was trying to get covercrops to grow in what was a
chemically managed citrus ranch,and the ground was rock hard
and there wasn't much in the wayof topsoil, because they used
chemical fertilizers andpesticides to kill off plant
(26:02):
life and to chemically feed theplants.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
But you're a consultant for that farm I
consulted with those plants?
Speaker 2 (26:08):
yeah, for sure, and I have a lot of respect for what
they're doing, because theyreally were instrumental in
popularizing the techniques ofregenerative agriculture as a
means to give hope to people, asa way that they could act
individually that was actuallymaking a positive difference to
our climate emergency.
(26:29):
They took three to four yearsto be able to transition, to get
cover crops established, andthose cover crops are taking
nitrogen out of the atmosphereand putting it into the ground.
Instead of relying on chemicalfertilizers, they're using
natural fertility of the peas,beans and vetch that you can use
to inject nitrogen into yoursoil, but it's the carbon
(26:52):
content that's key, the organiccontent, and over a period of
three to four years they managedto make their soils healthy.
It doesn't happen instantly.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
For me.
I like to think about itbecause, as a non soil biologist
, as dirt versus soil, yes,that's good to do with that, so
dirt Living soil.
Yes, there's no microbiology indirt and it's like standing on
concrete.
So when we're spraying oncropland, we're essentially
(27:23):
creating these kind of proxypavements, because when it does
rain and we're getting biggerrain events when it does rain
that the soil no longer has thecapacity to draw the water
downward and instead it spreadsout on top and runs off.
And then runs off with whateveris in that soil, which
(27:45):
oftentimes are nitrogen andwhatever was in the fertilizer
and also in the chemicalpesticides, and that goes
somewhere.
It just doesn't disappear.
So it runs off into streams andthen into oceans.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
That's one of the main detrimental effects of
chemical agriculture is theeffect on our oceans, because
there's an oversupply ofnitrogen fertilizers which run
off from the land becausethey're not able to bind into
the soils and they go off alongwith soil into the waterways and
then they go out to the oceansand then you have this large
(28:22):
amount of nitrogen that's in ourwaterways and in our oceans and
that causes algal blooms thatthen use up all the available
oxygen and then you have whatthey call eutrophication and it
kills rivers.
Riverside ecocide it's ecocideis what's happening there in all
, because short-term profitdoesn't care about the river,
(28:44):
because it's an externality andit's not related to my business
and my short-term profit isimportant.
So it's a whole disconnect.
And one of the nice things thatabout an ecology is that it
aligns very clearly withindigenous knowledge, in that
everything is connected.
In ecology everything'sconnected.
Digenous knowledge,everything's connected.
(29:04):
So if you pollute the river,you're hurting yourself and
that's something that indigenouspeople all over the world know.
But we have to learn that.
We have to remember that.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Yeah, yes, and irregardless of how far you live
from the ocean, it will make itto the ocean, the water always
will make it to the ocean.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
It'll affect your creeks and waterways.
The way that we treat waterwaysso that they become concrete
channels devoid of life that arewaste channels.
It's very sad and there'scertainly movements like the LA
(29:51):
River.
There's people who are reallytrying to revitalize areas of
the LA River and we're fortunateto have in Ohio to have
free-flowing rivers in the backcountry and in the front country
, but still we have wherethere's development too close to
creeks.
Then the creeks become concretepathways because creeks meander
(30:12):
and rivers move around and theyflood and that's problematic if
you've got a house built in theflood plain.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Right, they swell and they contract.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah, it's natural to move around and then we want to
stick them in a concretechannel, and then that kills
them.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
But then they're no longer able to feed underground
waterways.
Our groundwater supplies areshrinking as a result of this
concrete and moving water out asfast as we can.
Yeah, so gosh.
I've really, really enjoyedthis conversation with you.
I've learned so much more aboutyou and just the work that
(30:51):
you've done and continue to do,and what a pleasure it is to
have this conversation and tohelp us to connect the dots
between soil health and what wecan do as action steps.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
The other thing is to compost, because that's
completing the cycle and insteadof it being a linear process
where you buy something, you useit and you throw it away
because there isn't any away, wehave to connect the circle, and
so composting is something,again, that I encourage
everybody to participate in.
If you can't compost at home,then connect with a community
(31:29):
garden that supports it.
We have our local trash hauleris doing it because it's a state
mandate SB 1383,.
You have to reduce organicwaste going to the landfill by
75% by 2025.
Think about your waste stream,think about your waste.
If you want to be an effectiveregenerator, then you have to
(31:53):
make things cyclical.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
And as a kitchen activist, it's first to reduce
the waste.
To begin with, exactly Like notto have as much food waste,
though, to your planning outyour meals and shopping your
kitchen first, so that, at theend of the day, you have less to
throw away.
Yeah, yeah, and I like that.
There is no away.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
There is no way.
That's right.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
So we need to think, we need to cyclical, cyclical
approaches to design and thenshop organic.
Those would be compost and shoporganic.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Those are great tips for us today.
Thank you so much, and before Ileave, I just do want to say
something about the compost teaparty.
Our next compost tea party ison November 8th and it has, in
addition to a compost tea, whereDavid brews tea for what?
(32:47):
12 hours or so it's not todrink overnight.
And it is to boost the carbon inthe playground at these schools
in Rio school district, butalso just as a way for us to
open up the conversation and tobuild vocabulary and language
(33:08):
around these concepts and bringthem to a school campus that
whole day and it just, and itkeeps going.
The momentum is built so muchso on at the Rio school district
that they've purchased just 10acres of land that they are
cultivating to be an organic,regenerative farm.
(33:30):
And that language comes from us.
It came from David and I doingthat work and building that
vocabulary for this schooldistrict.
Whatever your talents are, asyou're listening to this, we
need all of us.
We need all of us to takeaction steps, all of us to dream
(33:52):
and take that passion for abetter world and put it into
action at your home and in yourcommunity.
So I think you give us a greatroadmap and inspiration on how
to do that and how to take yourpassion.
I didn't ask you a question.
I like to ask this question ofpeople who I have on it's what
(34:14):
is your heart's desire?
What is your heart's desire forthis work?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Well, it's all about the next generation, and so I
mean, I had one student came outthat that was a very good
example.
He was a sixth grader.
He came out and he planted anoak tree and he was a bright boy
.
But he was bullied in the classand he came out and he said
(34:40):
this is the best day, right, andhe was planting something that
was a gift to the future.
He was giving something backand he got it and we got it.
I had a I can't remember if Itook the picture or his teacher
took the picture, but we havethis picture of him holding his
and as a classic portrait thatwas painted of Charles Darwin
(35:02):
when he was eight, and he'sholding a plant and it's quite
remarkable how similar this boyis with his tree and Charles
Darwin.
And the thought that I couldhave given a little sort of
movement to this boy'sdevelopment, this child's
development, that would make himinterested and passionate about
(35:25):
planting trees, that was thatwas pretty huge for me.
And so connecting with kids andhaving an influence on the next
generation that's what teachersdo and that's what I'm really
passionate about is inspiringour youth to connect with nature
and to understand and learn andbe around nature, and that's
(35:49):
really my life's work, I think.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Yeah, and you have quite a legacy of work that you
that's right is behind you andin front of you.
I feel privileged to walk partof that journey with you.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Yeah, Well, thanks for for teaming up.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yeah, we make a good team.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
It's a good thing.
Thanks, Florence.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
So thank you so much.
Thank you for listening and forthe work that you're doing at
home.
Please, if you want to connectwith me, you feel free to email
me at info at eatlesswatercom,and if you want to connect with
David, how can someone reach outto you?
Speaker 2 (36:27):
It's a long URL, but once upon a watershed is the
name of the program that I run,and I'm David at
onceuponawatershedorg and ourwebsite is onceuponawatershedorg
.
So, yeah, check it out.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Thank you, and thank you for listening, and we'll see
you here again next Wednesday.
Let's stay connected.
Sign up for my newsletter andreceive more tips in your inbox
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Shop.
You can also find me on yourfavorite social media space at
(37:08):
Eatless Water.
Please remember to hitsubscribe and leave a review,
even if it's only the starrating, because every one of
them will increase the chancesof other like-minded folks to
find us.
Thank you for joining me onthis journey to Eatless Water.
Together, we will write thestory of well-being for this
(37:31):
planet we have the privilege tocall home.
Meet you back here everyWednesday.
There is power in thecollective.
Welcome.
I'm glad you're here.
Together, we will turn ourshared concern about the state
of our environment into a forcefor change.
It will require you toreimagine the role of your home
kitchen as more than a warehouseof food or a room where we cook
and gather to eat.
The time has come to enter yourkitchen with eyes open to the
(00:24):
transformative power itharnesses for the planet and you
.
The home kitchen has alwaysbeen ground zero for positive
environmental and social change.
Waiting for you to take yourposition as a kitchen activist
Now that you arrived, you willchange the world with what you
(00:45):
eat.
Welcome to the kitchenactivists.
(01:10):
I am so glad you're here, andtoday I'm joined with Dr David
White, but I'm going to justcall you David from this point
forward, is that okay?
Thanks, that's how I know you.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Yes, that'd be lovely .
Speaker 1 (01:26):
But not to minimize all the work that went in to get
the doctor in front of yourname.
David has a BS in biologicalsciences and a PhD in medicine
from the University of Edinburghin Scotland.
A PhD in medicine.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
How about that?
Yeah, really it was a lot ofcell biology that I did.
I looked at a lot of cellsunder the microscope and I'm not
sure how deeply you want to getinto that, but I was doing it
through the Department ofobstetrics and gynecology.
So I ended up with a PhD inmedicine, but it's a research
(02:04):
qualification and mainly what Iwas doing was cell biology.
Just happened to be withgametes.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I know that I'm already learning some things
about you.
So, david and I, we know eachother because of well, because
he's a soil biologist, anincredible human, and just you
know when I'm looking at yourbio and all of the different
projects that you brought forthinto the world is pretty
(02:33):
outstanding.
So, for example, keep thisSBWild Center for Regenerative
Agriculture, food for Thought,ohi Captain Planet Foundation,
ohi Valley Green Coalition,tauber Fest, which is one of the
initiatives that I know you'reworking on this month.
But you are an individual whois passionate and matches that
(02:58):
passion with action.
So you think about how can I beof service this is what I've
witnessed with you and how can Ianswer that call with my skill
set and the talents and just whoI am in the world.
So it's just beautiful to watchDavid it really is and it's such
(03:19):
a wonderful experience for meto join forces with you with the
Compost Tea Party.
So that's where our paths havecrossed is with the Compost Tea
Party.
So for the last five years,david and I have worked together
to bring these events to theRio School District, which is a
district on the Oxnard plain.
(03:40):
He brews the Compost Teas inhis home in OHI Valley and loads
it up on his truck.
And how many gallons of CompostTea do you bring to us?
That's 170 gallons, I think 170gallons and then, with the help
of about 7 to 800 young peoplekids we water their playground
(04:04):
with Compost Tea.
You might be asking well, whywould you do that?
But before we get there, I justwant to back up a little bit
about what brought you to thinkabout soil and soil health and
to get a PhD and just doing sucha deep dive on soil for so long
(04:25):
.
What brought you there?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Well, it's a little separate from the PhD was an
opportunity that came my wayvery easily after doing my
bachelor's, my undergraduate,which was in biological sciences
, and it really was a.
It gave me the ability to studycells under the microscope.
So that's a nice connectionwhen you want to find out about
(04:51):
soil biology, because I know howto use a microscope, which is
not very hard.
I've always been interested ingardening and growing food.
My dad's family are farmers andwe always had a big garden with
strawberries and potatoes andparsley.
I remember those pretty clearlyin turnips.
(05:12):
This is in North East ofScotland when I came over to
California and OHI was the firstplace I visited in California
in 1985.
Thank you.
I connected with the backcountry here and the SESPE Creek
in particular, and I alsoconnected with friends who were
(05:32):
farming, doing small-scalefarming and food growing, and
also learned about the nativeplants around here.
And really what brought all ofthose things together for me was
doing a permaculture designcourse in 1997.
And I was at that time teachingat an independent school in the
Upper Ohio High called HappyValley, which is now called
(05:53):
Besson Hills, and my first yearthere they were hosting a
permaculture design course andBill Molyson, who is the father
of permaculture, was giving thecourse and I actually wasn't
given any choice, I just had todo it.
So I was like, okay, that soundsgood because I'd seen the book
(06:15):
and I knew a little bit about it.
But that really broughttogether a lot of things.
I didn't really realize thatworking in curbside recycling
before it became mandated at thestate level and working to
protect free flowing rivers andworking in organic agriculture
(06:35):
was all connected andpermaculture design really
outlined that for me, and reallyat the core of any design is
soil health.
Creating and supporting soilhealth is key to growing things,
and so that the permaculturecourse was important and through
(06:56):
the kind of permaculturenetwork I was exposed to a
researcher, Dr Elaine Ingham,and Dr Ingham was up in Oregon
at Oregon State and she did alot of work to promote the
importance of the soil food weband she's a microscopist, and so
(07:19):
I oh, that's a new word for me.
Somebody who uses the microscope.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
So I met her.
I went to a presentation by herat a permaculture conference
and I was very impressed and Ithought to invite her to do
workshops in Ojai, and so atthat time I was the executive
director for the Center forRegenerative Agriculture.
So in 2002, we formed thisnonprofit that was to promote
(07:50):
regenerative agriculture and,again, key to the techniques of
regenerative agriculture is soilcare.
The big picture stuff about itis that healthy soils have a lot
of organic carbon in them andthey get that from the
atmosphere by the function ofplants, which take carbon
dioxide out of the atmosphereand pump it into the ground as
(08:12):
well as fixing it in theirbodies, and those carbohydrates
that come out of the roots feedthe soil biology.
So it just seemed reallyimportant to me to use my skills
to understand how to generatehealthy soils.
And from an ecologicalperspective, nature has been
successful because it's cyclical, and so composting is the thing
(08:34):
that completes the cycle in thecycle of life.
It's powered by the sun andplants grow and then they feed
animals and then animals eateach other and everything dies
and soil biology turns it backinto fertile soil for the next
generation, and that's workedfor millennia, for millions of
years Making that cyclicalconnection through soil health
(08:57):
and through composting, becamevery clear to me that this was
an important thing.
The animals enjoyed the compostaspect of gardening and I ran
school garden programs for yearsand composting was something
that happened there and we getthe children to sieve compost
and it was a fantastic lessonfor them to do because you
(09:19):
didn't need to give it muchattention, they just were
fascinated with the biologythat's in the soil.
You didn't have to say, well,children, the soil is alive.
They could see it as alivebecause it's teeming with the
animals which they would catchand trade and so that the
vibrancy of soil was really animportant thing to connect kids
(09:39):
to nature at that level and youknow, core to what I do is about
connecting kids to nature.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
So you've taken us through a lot there.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
There's a lot of stuff there.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Of all the things, from you coming from a farming
family to then going to schooland then making those
connections, it sounds like,especially when you came to
California and started workingas a teacher at the high school
right at Besant High or BesantSchool.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
It was happy valley school.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Which has its own interesting past right.
I mean, it was started byAldous Huxley and who else.
Who else were the founders ofthe school?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Huxley is the famous one, but Annie Besant was the
one who bought the land in 1928.
And there's 650 acres that theHappy Valley Foundation owns,
and on that land is the BessonHill School, and there is also
used to be the Ohai Foundation.
It's now called the TopaInstitute, and so there's a
(10:46):
couple of differentorganizations that are based
there, as well as the BeatriceWood Center for the Arts.
That's there too.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Who was a potter?
Only recognized potter.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
It's an interesting area and there's some endangered
habitat there.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
But the whole piece behind the mission of the school
and the retreat center that'sconnected to it.
My understanding was that inorder for us to make change, we
need to begin with ourselves.
That was my understanding ofthe idea behind that place and
to connect people with nature.
(11:20):
Right, how can you change whatwe see in the environment if you
don't even have a connectionyourself to nature and to our
environment?
That was a beautiful missionand they still continue to do
that work.
The other thing that was reallyinteresting listening to your
history of the work that you'vedone which is you truly are at
(11:44):
way ahead of other people inthinking.
For example, the Center forRegenerative Agriculture if I
understood it correctly, youstarted that in 2002.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, we were really at it.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah, to think about regenerative agriculture in 2002
, when it's really just a wordthat is coming, not even in the
mainstream yet.
It's just like a word thatyou're beginning to hear, that
people are starting tounderstand what that means, I
mean.
And then food for thought.
Oh hi, I know that wassomething that you started what
(12:21):
has already been 20 years about.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
I wasn't involved in starting that one, but I
certainly supported it from thebeginning and worked for them
for quite a long time.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
But this idea farmed a table, which was revolutionary
, and it's just barely takingoff in public schools.
I know that was also in thepublic schools in Ohio.
I want to thank you for thework you do because there has to
be people who are in thebeginning of certain movements.
And even I get this with waterconservation and talking about
(12:54):
virtual water footprint,thinking about how we're eating,
and it just feels like you'rethe salmon going upstream, but
somebody's got to start doingthat work.
For somebody who's listening tothis and you have an idea of
something that may not feel likeit's popular or you feel like
it's going to be hard, just knowthat all of us have different
(13:17):
talents and so for you, David,it really is your talent to be
up in the front of the pack andleading and having to knock down
walls and barriers in order forthe water to flow through.
So, anyway, I want to justrecognize that and recognize the
work because, over and overagain, you are one of those
(13:40):
first the beginning voices.
That just blows me away 2002 forthe Center for.
Regenerative Agriculture.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
There's actually a researcher in Australia, darren
Doherty, who created a documentthat showed the use of the word
regenerative associated withagriculture, and he only went
back to 2006, which he figuredwas the first time that it had
really been used, and he didn'tknow that we'd established CRA
(14:09):
in 2002.
So we really were ahead of thecurve there.
But it was Rodale that had comeup with the idea and the
co-founder for CRA was SteveSprinkle, and he came up with
the name and I ran theorganization.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
How do you define regenerative?
And my definition ofregenerative simply is and it
could be, whether it's inagriculture, in economics is
that it gives back more than ittakes.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
That's nice.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
How do you define regenerative agriculture?
Speaker 2 (14:45):
It's all about carbon in the soil, and so it's about
increasing the soil carboncontent, and that increases soil
health and it's also anature-based climate solution.
So if you're taking carbon outof the atmosphere, then you're
reducing the greenhouse effectand the double whammy is that's
(15:05):
increasing soil health.
So a clear and concisedefinition of regenerative
agriculture would be practiceswhich increase soil carbon
content, and one of the mainthings that we've lost since the
advent of industrialagriculture is accumulated soil
organic matter, which is carbon,and, interestingly, we've
(15:30):
become so new to hearing aboutNPK, but it doesn't mention
anything about carbon, and asignificant portion of the
carbon in soils is alive.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
So I want to stop you there with NPK, because some
people may not understand that,because I know for sure I did
not understand that when I firstheard it, when I was doing
research for the book, and arice farmer in Louisiana is the
one who turned me on to thatterm because that is what
conventional agriculture withfertilizers are interested in,
(16:05):
right, nitrogen, potassium andwhat's the K?
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Phosphorus and potassium.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
This particular farmer who is one of many who
are within the regenerative,organic agriculture space, who
are looking well beyond the NPKbut looking at the microbiology
and what it takes to have thepresence of organic matter in
soil.
And so for me, I came to soilthrough water because my
(16:35):
question when I was writing thebook was what, what kinds of
foods can we eat to save water?
And can I, one person, make adifference on water systems
around the world with my foodchoices?
And then that took me out tofarms.
And then every farm it reallycame down to soil, like what is
the soil health?
And there was this particularfarm in Paso Robles, a dry
(16:58):
farmer, a biodynamic farmer,which meant that he didn't use
any irrigation on his land,which blew my mind because I
didn't know that that waspossible.
And asking the question how areyou not using irrigation?
And it gets hot there in PasoRobles, actually, they get the
same level of rain as Phoenix,arizona.
(17:18):
And he's like it's all aboutthe soil, it's all about these
root systems.
And he goes down to the groundand scoops up soil in his hand
and he's like it's all here,this is how I do it.
And his farming practicesrevolves around how does he keep
that organic matter thriving soit can hold water which, I
(17:41):
learned, up to 10,000 times morethan soil that's been treated
with chemicals, which thendiminishes the microbiology.
So that's how I got intothinking about soil and thinking
about soil when I buy food andsupport regenerative agriculture
, in other words, farmers whoare building that soil health so
(18:05):
that they're using less waterand they're drawing down carbon
and they're producing morenutritious food.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Well, you know that organic certification is a
recommendation to pay attentionto.
If you're trying to shop for tobenefit the planet, then I
think the simplest thing to dois to buy more things that are
organic, that are certifiedorganic.
If you're buying things in astore, if you're buying them
(18:34):
directly from the farmer, thenwhich is ideal if you can look
your farmer in the eye, then youcan ask that farmer about their
practices.
And, interestingly, beingcertified organic is somewhat
onerous.
There's paperwork involved,there's costs involved and many
small farmers that I knowactually don't go through
(18:54):
organic certification now orthey let it lapse, because their
base, their customers, knowthat their practices are organic
and that they care for theplanet and they're not using
synthetic pesticides orfertilizers.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
So yeah, and that's.
I'm glad you brought that upbecause the certification
matters, to have the third partycertification.
When you're not standing infront of a farmer to ask.
When the food ends up in theshelf of a grocery store, then
it matters and I want to knowwhat were the practices involved
(19:36):
in growing that food, because Ican't ask somebody there.
But at a farmers market itbecomes less important and
oftentimes I know this is your,this is also your experience
these small scale farmers aretruly doing practices well
beyond these big organicoperations that we encounter at
(20:00):
the grocery store.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
But I still think that is.
It is an important thing to payattention to is organic
certification and acknowledgingthat small farmers may not do it
, but if you're shopping in thesupermarket, then that's a thing
that you can do.
That, I think, increases thechance of your money going to
support something that is notdestroying soil health.
(20:24):
We still see it.
I just was driving throughOxnord, actually coming back
from a field trip with kids on aschool bus which is kind of fun
because you're up high and Iwasn't driving so I got to look
out the window and it was awindy day and I was watching the
fields that were tilled and hadno crops in them blowing away.
(20:45):
I was watching the topsoil blowaway and we had that with the
dust bowl.
We should be learning rightfrom the dust bowl, and one of
the kind of tenants ofregenerative agriculture is no
bare soil, don't leave your soiluncovered.
No tilling is another thing,and so when you see the
techniques of industrialagriculture, which involve
(21:09):
repeated tillage and also thesoil being laid bare when it is
exposed to the elements, thenit's no surprise that we're
losing accumulated soil, organicmatter, and that we're losing
our topsoils at an alarming rate.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
So tell us, why does it matter if we lose our topsoil
, and also if you can explainwhat is tillage.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Why does it matter?
If we lose our topsoil, then ifyou have erosion and you lose
your topsoil, then you're losingyour healthy component of the
landscape that can support plantgrowth.
And again, going back to thedust bowl and seeing what
happened when there was justincredible tillage, which is
turning of the soil withmechanical means, pulling a plow
(21:55):
behind a tractor is tilling thesoil, it's turning over the
soil and that destroys therelationship that fungi in
particular have in holdingtogether soil structure.
And you were talking earlierabout healthy soils being able
to accommodate more water.
And that's because healthysoils will allow water to
(22:19):
infiltrate, because there's airspaces in there and the
structure of the soil is heldapart.
If you buy fungal hyphae by thethreads of the body of fungi and
if you till it, then you breakup all those threads and you get
soil compaction.
It's a thing that folks oftenget confused about, because
immediately after you wrote atill, a bed, it seems like, oh,
(22:42):
the soil is all nice and fluffy,but what happens is it then
compacts when you add water andit reduces the ability of water
to infiltrate.
And so a good test for healthysoil is how can I push a piece
of rebar or a stick into thesoil and if I can push that in
six inches or a foot, thenthere's a good chance that that
(23:03):
soil is fairly healthy.
And then if I pour water on itand it disappears very quickly,
then the chances are you've gotvery healthy soil there.
If you can't put a stick intosoil and you pour water and it
just sits on the surface, thenyou've got compacted soil and
that soil is not going to be,doesn't have air spaces, it's
not going to allow water toinfiltrate.
(23:24):
Water is going to run over thesurface, it's going to cause
erosion.
You're going to lose yourtopsoil or tilling and then it
blows away.
We don't want to lose ourtopsoil because that's what
supports the plants anduncovering the soil means that
it's prone to being washed orblown away.
So we want to avoid thosethings.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Yeah, I liked the way you were describing it.
It was what was coming to mindas a sponge, just like the
sponges that we use in thekitchen, and how, when you look
at that, especially if you lookat it from the side, and you see
those little nooks and crannies, those spaces and that is
essentially what we want in soiland that you're saying happens
(24:04):
because of the fungi in soil.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
They're a primary component of healthy soils that
will maintain a structure, andthey call it soil pads, which
are like little particles ofsoil and there's air spaces in
between those and that structureis destroyed by tilling.
I remember a story in Davisabout.
(24:31):
They built this thing up thereDavis Village Homes, which was a
really farsighted communitydevelopment, and the houses
drained the water into a commonarea where they planted almonds,
almonds and they measured waterinfiltration and in the first
(24:51):
year it was something like afoot.
They had their normal rain andwater was able to infiltrate a
foot, and then the next year itinfiltrated three feet, and then
the next year it was like sevenfeet and then the next year it
was 28 feet, and so thetransition to using organic
practices does take time, so youcan't really expect things to
(25:13):
happen immediately and a threeto four year period.
If you're going from hard bakedsoil to really rich earthy loam
that allows water infiltration,that could take three to four
years.
And that was the experience ofapricot lane farms, who most
people know by the film BiggestLittle Farms, and so I talked to
(25:39):
John Chester about it and hesaid that the biggest thing for
them was trying to get covercrops to grow in what was a
chemically managed citrus ranch,and the ground was rock hard
and there wasn't much in the wayof topsoil, because they used
chemical fertilizers andpesticides to kill off plant
(26:02):
life and to chemically feed theplants.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
But you're a consultant for that farm I
consulted with those plants?
Speaker 2 (26:08):
yeah, for sure, and I have a lot of respect for what
they're doing, because theyreally were instrumental in
popularizing the techniques ofregenerative agriculture as a
means to give hope to people, asa way that they could act
individually that was actuallymaking a positive difference to
our climate emergency.
(26:29):
They took three to four yearsto be able to transition, to get
cover crops established, andthose cover crops are taking
nitrogen out of the atmosphereand putting it into the ground.
Instead of relying on chemicalfertilizers, they're using
natural fertility of the peas,beans and vetch that you can use
to inject nitrogen into yoursoil, but it's the carbon
(26:52):
content that's key, the organiccontent, and over a period of
three to four years they managedto make their soils healthy.
It doesn't happen instantly.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
For me.
I like to think about itbecause, as a non soil biologist
, as dirt versus soil, yes,that's good to do with that, so
dirt Living soil.
Yes, there's no microbiology indirt and it's like standing on
concrete.
So when we're spraying oncropland, we're essentially
(27:23):
creating these kind of proxypavements, because when it does
rain and we're getting biggerrain events when it does rain
that the soil no longer has thecapacity to draw the water
downward and instead it spreadsout on top and runs off.
And then runs off with whateveris in that soil, which
(27:45):
oftentimes are nitrogen andwhatever was in the fertilizer
and also in the chemicalpesticides, and that goes
somewhere.
It just doesn't disappear.
So it runs off into streams andthen into oceans.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
That's one of the main detrimental effects of
chemical agriculture is theeffect on our oceans, because
there's an oversupply ofnitrogen fertilizers which run
off from the land becausethey're not able to bind into
the soils and they go off alongwith soil into the waterways and
then they go out to the oceansand then you have this large
(28:22):
amount of nitrogen that's in ourwaterways and in our oceans and
that causes algal blooms thatthen use up all the available
oxygen and then you have whatthey call eutrophication and it
kills rivers.
Riverside ecocide it's ecocideis what's happening there in all
, because short-term profitdoesn't care about the river,
(28:44):
because it's an externality andit's not related to my business
and my short-term profit isimportant.
So it's a whole disconnect.
And one of the nice things thatabout an ecology is that it
aligns very clearly withindigenous knowledge, in that
everything is connected.
In ecology everything'sconnected.
Digenous knowledge,everything's connected.
(29:04):
So if you pollute the river,you're hurting yourself and
that's something that indigenouspeople all over the world know.
But we have to learn that.
We have to remember that.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Yeah, yes, and irregardless of how far you live
from the ocean, it will make itto the ocean, the water always
will make it to the ocean.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
It'll affect your creeks and waterways.
The way that we treat waterwaysso that they become concrete
channels devoid of life that arewaste channels.
It's very sad and there'scertainly movements like the LA
(29:51):
River.
There's people who are reallytrying to revitalize areas of
the LA River and we're fortunateto have in Ohio to have
free-flowing rivers in the backcountry and in the front country
, but still we have wherethere's development too close to
creeks.
Then the creeks become concretepathways because creeks meander
(30:12):
and rivers move around and theyflood and that's problematic if
you've got a house built in theflood plain.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Right, they swell and they contract.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah, it's natural to move around and then we want to
stick them in a concretechannel, and then that kills
them.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
But then they're no longer able to feed underground
waterways.
Our groundwater supplies areshrinking as a result of this
concrete and moving water out asfast as we can.
Yeah, so gosh.
I've really, really enjoyedthis conversation with you.
I've learned so much more aboutyou and just the work that
(30:51):
you've done and continue to do,and what a pleasure it is to
have this conversation and tohelp us to connect the dots
between soil health and what wecan do as action steps.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
The other thing is to compost, because that's
completing the cycle and insteadof it being a linear process
where you buy something, you useit and you throw it away
because there isn't any away, wehave to connect the circle, and
so composting is something,again, that I encourage
everybody to participate in.
If you can't compost at home,then connect with a community
(31:29):
garden that supports it.
We have our local trash hauleris doing it because it's a state
mandate SB 1383,.
You have to reduce organicwaste going to the landfill by
75% by 2025.
Think about your waste stream,think about your waste.
If you want to be an effectiveregenerator, then you have to
(31:53):
make things cyclical.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
And as a kitchen activist, it's first to reduce
the waste.
To begin with, exactly Like notto have as much food waste,
though, to your planning outyour meals and shopping your
kitchen first, so that, at theend of the day, you have less to
throw away.
Yeah, yeah, and I like that.
There is no away.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
There is no way.
That's right.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
So we need to think, we need to cyclical, cyclical
approaches to design and thenshop organic.
Those would be compost and shoporganic.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Those are great tips for us today.
Thank you so much, and before Ileave, I just do want to say
something about the compost teaparty.
Our next compost tea party ison November 8th and it has, in
addition to a compost tea, whereDavid brews tea for what?
(32:47):
12 hours or so it's not todrink overnight.
And it is to boost the carbon inthe playground at these schools
in Rio school district, butalso just as a way for us to
open up the conversation and tobuild vocabulary and language
(33:08):
around these concepts and bringthem to a school campus that
whole day and it just, and itkeeps going.
The momentum is built so muchso on at the Rio school district
that they've purchased just 10acres of land that they are
cultivating to be an organic,regenerative farm.
(33:30):
And that language comes from us.
It came from David and I doingthat work and building that
vocabulary for this schooldistrict.
Whatever your talents are, asyou're listening to this, we
need all of us.
We need all of us to takeaction steps, all of us to dream
(33:52):
and take that passion for abetter world and put it into
action at your home and in yourcommunity.
So I think you give us a greatroadmap and inspiration on how
to do that and how to take yourpassion.
I didn't ask you a question.
I like to ask this question ofpeople who I have on it's what
(34:14):
is your heart's desire?
What is your heart's desire forthis work?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Well, it's all about the next generation, and so I
mean, I had one student came outthat that was a very good
example.
He was a sixth grader.
He came out and he planted anoak tree and he was a bright boy
.
But he was bullied in the classand he came out and he said
(34:40):
this is the best day, right, andhe was planting something that
was a gift to the future.
He was giving something backand he got it and we got it.
I had a I can't remember if Itook the picture or his teacher
took the picture, but we havethis picture of him holding his
and as a classic portrait thatwas painted of Charles Darwin
(35:02):
when he was eight, and he'sholding a plant and it's quite
remarkable how similar this boyis with his tree and Charles
Darwin.
And the thought that I couldhave given a little sort of
movement to this boy'sdevelopment, this child's
development, that would make himinterested and passionate about
(35:25):
planting trees, that was thatwas pretty huge for me.
And so connecting with kids andhaving an influence on the next
generation that's what teachersdo and that's what I'm really
passionate about is inspiringour youth to connect with nature
and to understand and learn andbe around nature, and that's
(35:49):
really my life's work, I think.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Yeah, and you have quite a legacy of work that you
that's right is behind you andin front of you.
I feel privileged to walk partof that journey with you.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Yeah, Well, thanks for for teaming up.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yeah, we make a good team.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
It's a good thing.
Thanks, Florence.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
So thank you so much.
Thank you for listening and forthe work that you're doing at
home.
Please, if you want to connectwith me, you feel free to email
me at info at eatlesswatercom,and if you want to connect with
David, how can someone reach outto you?
Speaker 2 (36:27):
It's a long URL, but once upon a watershed is the
name of the program that I run,and I'm David at
onceuponawatershedorg and ourwebsite is onceuponawatershedorg
.
So, yeah, check it out.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Thank you, and thank you for listening, and we'll see
you here again next Wednesday.
Let's stay connected.
Sign up for my newsletter andreceive more tips in your inbox
weekly and 15% off your firstpurchase at the Eatless Water
Shop.
You can also find me on yourfavorite social media space at
(37:08):
Eatless Water.
Please remember to hitsubscribe and leave a review,
even if it's only the starrating, because every one of
them will increase the chancesof other like-minded folks to
find us.
Thank you for joining me onthis journey to Eatless Water.
Together, we will write thestory of well-being for this
(37:31):
planet we have the privilege tocall home.
Meet you back here everyWednesday.
There is power in thecollective.
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