Unbroken Ground | A New Old Way to Grow Food

you in the food business there's tremendous amount of misinformation I mean if you want to feed your family healthy food you got to ask a lot of questions well we seem to feel free to regard wilderness as sacred and agricultural land as profane and that is a disconnect because what we're doing is we're taking the nutrients from this soil we're shipping it far away and it's not going to come back you know one of the downsides of the faster cheaper model is that oftentimes you just can't afford to do everything as right as you should there is a shift I look at it as a buta kind of reinvent food I've always believed that we need a revolution in society revolutions start from the bottom they never start from the top the bottom are these little small farmers and fishermen and they're committed to the same things we are which is doing something different people who are willing to break the paradigm I always thought of you know my company Patagonia clothing company is an experiment making decisions based on quality and responsibility and I can tell you that it's not an experiment anymore I've proven to myself it works now applying that to food is another story this is another experiment but I think it's the most important experiment we've ever tried grains represent some 70% of our calories grown on about 70% of our acreage worldwide our crops that we currently grow for grain are all annual plants annual plants when you have to plant it every single year in that process involves disturbing the ground creating a space for that seed that plant comes up you harvest it it dies and then there has to be a period of resetting the stage preparing the plant again recently have aggradation of soil happening as a rule when we start growing annually grain crops every time you grow cotton or corn or whatever you're losing topsoil and you can't do that forever regenerative agriculture actually builds topsoil wes is doing the most important thing in agriculture in 10,000 years soil is more important than oil and as much of a non-renewable resources oil the rate of soil development is the sort of thing it's a very slow process I can tell you that the soil of the Midwest took thousands of years to develop I was hired at the line astute in 2001 primarily to work on we called burning a wheat this was program where we're crossing wheat with a perennial grass we have perennial plants that we eat that are apples pears nuts but when it comes to them something that is the staple of the human diet on large scales we don't have any options so we're trying to bring the Parenti allottee of the freezer grasp with the features of wheat that we like big seed stuff we get many throw it out of good yield we're trying to bring those two two things together from different species that's a very complicated challenging task we're still working on that we have a lot of different experiments here with the intermediate wheatgrass or turns as we call it but this is like the heart of the breeding program where we put out huge numbers of plants so plant breeding is sort of like looking for a needle in a haystack you're looking for that thing that combines the traits that you really want I think every one of us working here believes that we're in this project to make a real change by having a large massive root system that goes very deep into so for bringing carbon out of the atmosphere through photosynthesis pumped down into the root system if you have perennial mixes out there staying in the ground that carbon that gets captured can then stay there it's a way to wreak Arbonne eyes the soils Kern's ax is sort of the first one out and there's still a lot of work to do on when I first published on this I said it's going to take fifty two hundred years well you know we're ahead of schedule you now I came out to the Great Plains as a small boy and fell in love and have found myself here on the Sheyenne River western South Dakota I bought my first cattle in the 70s sometime I had them for probably 20 years there and I thought you know this isn't quite right because I was bringing them food constantly in the winter time in the summertime I was trying to find shelter for him from the Sun it seemed like we were really being run by industry by the chemical industry by the feed industry and so I just thought something's guy there's got to be a better way than this about that time it dawned on me that what really needs to be out on these Great Plains is the indigenous animals and so it didn't take me long to figure out that I needed to go to Buffalo on the Great Plains with the vast harshness you need something that's a little bit more sturdy that doesn't require all of that maintenance well you need something that evolved here starting the the buffalo on grass finishing the buffalo on grass harvesting the buffalo on the Prairie we we don't have then the feedlot concentrations and the waste products from those feed Lots there's just so many sources of contamination and sources of greenhouse gases in the food supply chain that we eliminate by doing things the way the O'Briens are doing is here cattle tend to eat the grass right down to the ground where you're not going to see that with Buffalo and so they kind of maintain their own pasture the Bison are awesome but it really starts with Al and it's managing it in an appropriate way that keeps the soil and the grass is healthy so that's critical we're really grasped farmers and bison are one of the the tools that help manage it and of course the meat is just a byproduct of that well this is the boss one nation we bless the Buffalo that's given to us the jobs that are given to us by the Buffalo makes a golf ball nation bless our knives bless our safety with good thoughts your thoughts honor the Buffalo the scientists that have been here this week is to me an affirmation of corny as it may seem what I felt in my heart for a long time I've always thought that that it's too bad that soil is sometimes thought of as synonymous with dirt because it's not it's really more like gold the fact that this stuff is pumping you know carbon from where it's doing bad stuff to where it does good stuff we're here actually doing the sampling of the soil and measured for its carbon level to understand statistically whether there's differences in the different pastures that have been grazed by Buffalo so we've succeeded in doing quadrat number one of you know uno one hundred and forty nine more to go what we're hoping is that we can develop bison ranchers on reservations who have that spiritual and cultural connection to the Buffalo so that we're raising them in a manner that is appropriate for our relationship with the Buffalo we have to take a lesson as a human civilization and begin recognizing with humility that these plants are far better than anything we've ever conceived of they sequester they build organic matter they create soil help when the grasslands can be improved greatly by putting bison back on the landscape the thing that I try to keep in mind is it that in some ways every specie is of equal value they all have their place you know the chemistry the ecology of the landscape and the relationship with people can be reinvigorated so what a spectacular opportunity the nature loves diversity humans are always trying to centralize we will automatic I everything and it's wrong you have to break that paradigm there's 60 million acres of weed in this country basically it's all the same it's been defined by a commodity system what if you go out of that and pull in what could be there what could be there flavors and nutritional value colors textures functionality all of that's there just for the taking but you have to go you have to go in and get it most of the grain that's going into the bread you eat the beer you drink is grown on huge acreages most likely that's only one variety the more corporate that plant breeding becomes the less varieties we have available to us in the less genetic diversity and that's really scary because we're going to rely more and more heavily on pesticides so this is WSU Mount Vernon it's a small version of Washington State University it's nice just to come in early each day and watch the whole whole thing unfold the Sun the weather the plants were kind of in an eternal spring here the students are going to do crosses here basically you just take pollen from one parent and put it on another we don't call this genetically modifying we're just making a hybrid the way that's been done for thousands or tens of thousands of years in nature we can have these specific goals that were never the goals of breeders in the past because it's always been driven by conventional farming practices and large milling industry and large bacon industry we have never specifically bred for organic farmers so we've never bred for farmers who instead of using chemical fertilizer are using organic fertilizer using compost we've never done that before the beauty I think of what we do is is trying to figure out what you can get or what you can produce or what could be there so one of our main jobs is offering options and alternatives you can have buckwheat that works in a system like this and has incredible flavors and then then in a way you get pissed because you see how restrictive everything was in terms of our food we call this the magic Skagit magic Skagit Valley and it truly is a remarkable place there are over 80 crops of commercial significance grown here on about seventy-five thousand acres due to the maritime climate and the wonderful soil that we have here just having PhD students and and all of this activity the station is just a very healthy thing it keeps us all on our toes frankly it's a real privilege to farm here but it is also a big responsibility because you don't want to be the generation that let it go our main goal is to first make what we do work for the farmer as plant breeders and don't do GMO or genetically modified anything make a crop that can yield a little more for the farmer and have the right functionality and flavors and nutritional value well in June we planted about four acres of buckwheat the variety is called Cotto and it's a bit of an experiment this is a much more viable crop than growing feed barley it's going for a for a human food crop as opposed to a feed crop which typically is very low value would be easier if the whole valley was one crop you know we just went and did that crop and sold it on contract but I I think it's healthier for the farmer to have this diversity it's healthier for the soil it's healthier for the community buckwheat we use this sort of a symbol of attempting to keep value where it's produce it's really a nice model of this it's a Reedy centralization of what we do this is organic full pint barley just harvested the yesterday we run it through a cleaning mill and then it will go some of it will go to malting and some of them go to an organic distiller you know people are making a statement they're saying we appreciate the way your farm and we're willing to help you a long way to do it and the bottom line is you know if if if a hundred years from now there are viable family farms on this valley floor and salmon in our rivers like there are now and ducks and waterfowl and shorebirds and everything that we have here if a hundred years from now all that still exists everybody wins agriculture revolution is not going to come through technology it's going to come through in a lot of cases the old ways of doing things the miracle of salmon where to begin the salmon are amazing creatures indicators of the environment as close to medicine as food gets under wonderful resource there are identity in the North West they are our Buffalo the Native Americans in the northwest survived on Sam the ocean on an annual basis will pump like it like heart and it will push this life nutrient fish up in through our rivers they fertilize the riparian areas the trees they feed the rolls bears Eagles each fish that goes into each River is a physical and genetic reflection of the habitats that have evolved in for the last ten thousand years and they all are unique I started this fishery in 1992 when I moved to the island although I've fished commercially all my life since 1973 and it wasn't until 92 when I bought this gear that I really started to experience something different about fishing in the past all Fisheries were relatively robust and so you could use gears that caught all species now we have some Fisheries that aren't doing well and others that are doing really well and we need to have gears so that a fisherman can catch the targeted fish without hurting the non targeted fish and release those fish unharmed if we're going to have salmon in the future we need to look for new tools but in this case the solution is not a new tool it's an ancient tool Oh out here on Lummi Island we're looking at what's called reef net fishery and actually this fishery in slightly different form but the same similar technique has been used for thousands of years out here by First Nations it encourages the fish by the observation of what they think may be a reef which is actually developed by ropes with small pieces of plastic hanging down from low in the water the fish comes up thinks that's hitting a reef and it gets closer to the surface and closer to the surface individuals you'll see on these towers will be standing on top of the tower actually just looking into the water well the whole job starts with spotting the fish if we don't see them we can't catch them typically I'm in the head stand and I'm looking out over the water trying to spot a school a lot of the times it's real obvious you can see the fish plainest a swimming through other times it's just a very light color change or even just a feeling we spot him there's a big commotion go go go the classic Hall is give her hell instead of many fisheries where they're caught by their gills they're just trapped in a purse and they slide them off into a live trap we call the fish in generally roll them in a pocket into our live well immediately sort any non-targeted or protected species right back into the water to swim and then the fish we do keep one by one will individually handle bleed and immediately put onto slush ice it is truly selective it's a passive gear that will allow the fisherman to catch the fish that it knows it's sustainable and release those that are not this fishery is the most selective fishery that I know of and we've I've been doing this for 26 years I don't know of another fishery that has a smaller footprint than we do the whole process being able to target species so tightly and to basically have novi catch no other fishery can do that without reef netting a lot of these people would not be here it's not just a job people are passionate about our fishery and what we do here it matters how we do things the way we individually handle fish one by one the respect that we catch salmon with I think that learning from what we've done in the past has really helped us to like figure out that we really do need to be taking care of the salmon and making sure that we are helping them to continue and to grow we're all doing our part then to raise the level the value and end spiritual value to of the salmon we're providing a model we're showing that this can work and every year we'll get a little tighter we'll get will grow a little bit more and you know one foot in front of the other if you go through life not embracing that complexity then than to me you're not really trying to bit lazy right so just accept what's handed to us and there's no better example than food I know LaVon he's been out seeing these fisheries for his whole life and he knows there needs to be a change you we have all have a responsibility to leave this land better than we found it I mean I feel the earth move in here a little bit and I'm so glad to be part of it these people these farmers that were working with these fishermen their eyes are wide open putting a small group together all believing in the same thing all going in one direction you can't believe what we could accomplish with that help me be brave help me be brave on stone seems he'll need be brave I am Aiki take take he lied he knows be nice Heena me heart of good

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Views: 711,341

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Id: 3Ezkp7Cteys

Length: 25min 55sec (1555 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 04 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/wyldlyt]

This is great, thanks for sharing!

[u/asobu1]

Love to see these sorts of projects getting traction and it is reflected in my local grocery store and butcher shop. Grateful for these folks undertaking these sort of tasks!