Regenerative Skills

Welcome back everyone and welcome back to the monthly panel sessions. In this session that I hosted with Climate Farmers, we dive into the lives of three passionate farmers, Julia, Anne, and Mateo, who are not only dedicated to regenerative agriculture but also deeply invested in their communities. Each farmer shares their unique journey, challenges, and successes, from establishing cooperative farms to activities that bring people...

You may remember a handful of weeks back when I interviewed Kristina Villa about the work of the Farmer’s Land Trust, and how they’re helping to make farmland affordable as well as giving new options to retiring farmers to preserve the legacy of their farms. Today will be a continuation of that discussion but with a practical example. I’m joined today by both Ian McSweeny, the co-founder and co-director of the Farmer’s Land Trust ...

Thiong'o Gachie is a permaculture trainer in Kenya, focused on inspiring smallholder farmers on how to apply permaculture principles, such as crop diversity, to strengthen their yields and build greater community.

Alex sat down to talk to Thiong’o about his own process about setting up a small 1 acre farm, developing community, and understanding the larger agriculture-sector wide changes happening in Kenya, such as seed sovereign...

Though there are only a handful of bugs and invertebrates that humans consider edible, productive, or beautiful, they are an essential element in any healthy ecosystem. All too often the ones that we don’t derive beauty from or direct use from are considered an annoyance at best or actively destroyed and eradicated in all too many cases. It’s long overdue that I highlight just how valuable insects are to out world and our own wellb...

I’ve been so happy to see how popular the concept of growing one’s own food has become in recent years. Especially since the pandemic, a lot of us have connected deeply with the need to build food resilience by cultivating our own gardens, and quite a few have even gone further and started to grow at a market scale. 

It’s a beautiful thing to be able to eat fresh healthy produce from your own land, but I’ve often wondered as well, ...

This past month we took a look at the timely topic of agritourism and the potential for farms to serve as community and educational centers. This summer we saw a lot of protests against mass tourism and the effects that it's having on tourist centers like Barcelona near where I live. The antidote to this is something that we debate in past episodes I've done on the developing series on regenerative tourism and in this panel session...

have you ever wondered what the difference between a garden and an edible ecosystem is? Do you want to know how you can create one in you own yard? In this episode with author Zach Loeks from the Ecosystem Solutions Institute, you learn all that and more.

We’ll walk you through how to choose your site, even if all you have is a 5ft by 5ft patch of earth. From there we’ll look into orienting the garden spot, improving the soil, and ...

Building on the series with my friend Alex in Urugay on the challenges and opportunities of regeneration in areas of the world that are more economically and resource limited, Alex was able to connect with our mutual friend through the Regenerative Skills Discord server, Bobby Dimitrov.  Bobby not only has a unique perspective because of living in Bulgaria, one of the lowest income regions of Europe, but also because he's had a lot...

Welcome back to another panel session. This month our topic of focus was the role of livestock in regenerative farms. This is a contentious issue for many people either strongly entrenched in the idea that animals should be removed from our farming systems from a range of reasons due to prevailing animal cruelty, the massive environmental resources and contamination that is pervasive in conventional livestock operations, and even...

For a long time now, our food system has been a primary indicator for so many markers of health in our society, from the way that our food is produced, what kinds of food we eat, how we cook, how it affects our health and even our ethics as consumers. For the next four weeks I’ll be taking a look our food system from a variety of different view-points and analysis in order to shed light on some of the lesser know factors that influ...

A lot of my work these days revolves around communicating with farmers around Europe who are at various stages of a transition towards regenerative management. For many different reasons farmers are looking for solutions outside of the conventional industry of chemical and technological manipulations and are rediscovering the potential of partnering with natural cycles and processes. Though there are a handful of examples of grower...

I’ve had the pleasure over the last few months to interview quite a few people that I admire, who’ve told me about their fascination with beekeeping. Over and over again I’ve heard about the incredible insights into overall ecological health and the amazing reflections of ecosystem function that can be observed through managing bee hives. 

I got a window into the world of natural beekeeping back in May of 2022 when I co-hosted a Cl...

I had the pleasure of speaking to Meredith Leigh, the author of “The Ethical Meat Handbook.” Meredith has worked as a farmer, butcher, chef, teacher, non-profit executive director, consultant, and writer for the past 17 years, all in the pursuit of sustainable food

The industrial meat industry, in my opinion, is the epitome of what is broken in our food system and is a glaring example of the disconnect between humans and healthy na...

At this point I’ve covered a wide array of practices and management styles that fall under the broad umbrella of regenerative agriculture. Some could be considered traditional while others are more modern and innovative and they span continents, climates, biomes and industries. Nonetheless I’ve noticed a pretty big gap that I’ve yet to cover in detail that I hope to begin to fill in today. 

Dairy farming has been under sharp critic...

Since I’ve been working in the regenerative agriculture and ecosystem restoration sector for about a decade now, there are a number of subjects and questions that keep coming up again and again. Everything from How to finance a regenerative transition, What initial steps to take to accelerate ecosystem restoration, and the big one, How can I get access to land. Anyone who has been in this space for any time knows that land access ...

I’ve explored the topic of seed saving and breeding a number of times in previous episodes and it’s become such a passion of mine that it’s the primary focus of my early work here on my own farm as I begin to get the main patterns and infrastructure developed. A new angle of this subject however is the more direct and professional operation of producing seed to sell. This requires even more planning and coordination as each plant h...

There often seems to be an unfortunate disconnect between farmers in the field and the researchers and academics involved with agronomic study. I often hear in the discussions in the climate farmers community about how academic studies don’t reflect the reality in the field, or that the ivory tower of academia is out of touch with the farms and situations they study. As I've made more connections in universities and research progr...

Join Oliver on Regenerative Skills as he interviews Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills, exploring the revival of heritage cultivars like Carolina Gold Rice. Discover how deep-rooted, sustainable agricultural practices and community engagement are transforming the modern food system. Learn about the importance of landrace genetics, polyculture, and the potential of crops to adapt to climate change. Glenn shares his journey, the influence ...

As I continue to advance the tree and perennial food nursery here at my farm, I’m always on the lookout for new resources on anything about growing and breeding perennial food sources, the history of their cultivation, and the cultures that were and are connected to these woodland and orchard based staple foods.  For that reason I was super excited to see the new title “Feed us with Trees” from my friends at New Society Publishers,...