EP 191: Robert Cervelli | Climate Change & Climate Resilience

Welcome to Radical Responsibility, the podcast dedicated to ridding the world of blame and shame, where we explore the issues you care about from a unique perspective. 100% ownership for each and every circumstance we face in life, day in and day out. Hi. Welcome to the Radical Responsibility podcast. This is your host, Fleet Mull. In today's episode, I have the pleasure of speaking with Robert Speaker Cerveli, executive director of the center for Local Prosperity and a passionate advocate for community building and climate residence. Robert's work spans innovative tools for economic resilience and climate readiness with a particular focus on food production. I don't think I've ever spoken to anyone who understands our food distribution food production system so well and can clearly see that the need to create alternative structures. I'm really excited to have this conversation with Robert Cervelli, who's been involved in creating climate resilience through really focusing on our food production and how to, at the local level, reestablish food security and food sovereignty. And I think that's fascinating and really important, so we're going to explore that together. First, I'd like to share a little bit of Robert's background for our viewers who haven't yet met Robert or learned about his work. So we'll do that and then we'll jump into the conversation. Sound good?

That sounds good.

Great. So for over 35 years, Robert Cervelli has worked passionately to build community at the local level. His particular focus is with innovative new tools for rebuilding, economic resilience and climate resilience. He is executive director of the center for Local Prosperity, a nonprofit organization working throughout Atlantic Canada. Robert is a co founder and chair of Transition Bay, St Margaret's Bay, one of the first transition initiatives in Eastern Canada. Robert has also been a life science tech startup entrepreneur for over 25 years, working with novel vaccines, brain health and botanically based consumer health products. He currently manages a teaching center and mini farm at his home. He has over 35 years experience in plant propagation, horticulture, and fruit crop production. All right, sounds like you should know something about food production.

I hope so, Fleet.

We'll see. Okay. I know you do. I'm really excited about this conversation. So.

Your work does focus on local.

Food security and food sovereignty. I wonder if to begin with, you could just explain those terms, what they actually mean for our audience and maybe how they're connected to climate resilience or even resilience altogether, our own individual and collective resilience.

I'd be glad to do that. Food security, food sovereignty, Their related, but they're distinctively different. Food security has more to do with accessibility, affordability of food and safe nutritious food. So for example, we hear about food deserts in urban centers, even in rural centers, that people don't have geographic access to food. Or if they do, it could be low quality food like only what's available in a dollar store or something like that, for example. So that can become a real issue. Affordability we' going to see increase, I think dramatically in the coming years. And that's hit home a lot with a lot of low income people even within our region at this time of year where they're caught between heating and eating. So for example, can you afford to fill the fuel tank versus going to the grocery store? So it becomes a real tug of war. And that's really, I think hits home with food security. Now food sovereignty is a bit of a bigger issue. It has to do more with how can people within a region, within a locality define their food systems for themselves, what's at the heart of their food system in terms of who produces it, who distributes it and so on, as opposed to being just exposed to global forces, multinational supply chains and so on, so that they have more.

Agency over their food system and where that comes from. So one example would be for example in Nova Scotia, Canada here where I'm located.

Back in the 1960s, we used to be somewhere between 60 and 70% self reliant on food. Now that's down to somewhere around 10 to 15%. So we're less resilient, less self sufficient. Now the province of Newfoundland further to the east, they're on an island. So food not only has to go on a truck, but has to go on a boat. And I've heard they are down to only about 5% of food self sufficiency. So obviously there's some significant vulnerability there. So I think resilience really comes down to how self sufficient both domestically and collectively an area is.

Yeah, and it's obviously the time is now because we're already seeing incredible disruptions in supply chains due to the pandemic. And from everything we hear that's just going to get worse with the disruptions of global warming and climate change. And there are a lot of people beginning to organize at local levels to put in place the networks and the relationships. So what would we do if we could no longer depend on the global supply chain and even this idea that we've created these global supply chains for food and embrace the idea I should just be able to eat Whatever I want from any place in the world at any time I want. And there are a lot of nutritionists, especially more alternative ones, ayurvedic philosophy and so forth that feel it's not really that good for you to eat things out of season and it's better to eat in season and local and these kind of things. So.

And then you hear things about, we've also seen during the pandemic how the forces of profit, and I'm not by nature an anti capitalist, I think incentive based economies have good things but they're way too unregulated. And when they just purely optimize for profit, no other considerations, you end up with these very fragile systems with no backup. And so we've seen real breakdowns in supply chain and huge shipping costs and we're going to see increasing food costs cost as you're talking about. So it seems like now is the time to relocalize for all kinds of reasons for personal and community sovereignty, for health reasons for. Oh, I know that. The point I was making about the global supply chain, I read somewhere where they, for example, fisheries will.

Catch fish off the coast of the United States, for example, off the coast of Oregon or Washington or California, ship it over to Asia to be processed and canned and then ship it back to the US for sale because they save a nickel a can in doing that of tuna or something. Right. And that's just crazy when you think about it.

And that increases the carbon footprint and so on. You know, I think what we've got to appreciate historically is that for the past three, four, five, six decades, as the big ag model started to grow and large multinational food companies, it's a perfect model for aggregating profits, maximizing inputs when you grow food so that the farmer has to spend the most possible, that maximizes and aggregates profits into a central office somewhere. And you know, I'm reminded of a historian, physics professor actually out of University Colorado, Albert Allen Bartlett. Famous quote, he said modern agriculture is the use of land to convert petroleum into food.

Wow.

Think about that. It's a petroleum based system.

And it's a large system now, you know, we're looking at increased energy costs. So that's going to directly affect food costs because it's such an energy intensive system. You're seeing that drama play out today in Europe, for example, right now with the whole dust up that's going on with Russia and Ukraine, that's starting to affect prices here in North America. So you know that model, you touched on it a little bit. I don't even think we need to get into the whole issues of food quality going down with that big ag, big food model. You know, what are the effects on health, what are the effects on wasted food with inefficient distribution systems? You know, it works great when it works. It fed a lot of the world, but it's fragile and it's inefficient. I think the last estrogen I read is something like 14% of greenhouse gas emissions come from the big ag model. And that's not counting deforestation like down in Brazil and other places.

Yeah, and there's so much collateral damage and destruction. I mean the food quality has gone way down. I mean most.

Health conscious.

People today realize that processed food basically isn't good for you. We need to eat whole foods and there's just so much collateral damage in terms of the carbon footprint of it and everything. And clearly we need our incentive based systems got to move from a single bottom line of just dollar profit to what sometimes they call the triple bottom line. But where you're taking consideration the well being of the planet, the well being of humanity, the well being of all of our, of our species. And you know, I think we can still have incentives if the incentives include more than just pure dollar profit. And that would I think create a lot of change. You know, the industrial revolution has been around for quite a long time and you know, we've moved from that area into what's called the information age and so forth. But the industrialization of our food supply has not been around that long. You know, even, even when I was growing up in the 1950s and 60s, agribusiness wasn't that big or that strong. It was still mostly family farms. And, and I was very fortunate. I, I grew up in the city, but my both grandparents had farms, one about an hour and a half away. I spent a lot of my weekends there growing up with my paternal grandfather and the other one maybe four hours. And I spent a lot of my summers there with my maternal grandparents. And so I spent a lot of time on the farm. I didn't have all the chores of like farm kids, so I had to kind of the best of both worlds. You know, I did a little work, but not like a real farm kid would have to do, you know, so but anyway I, you know, it was a world of family farms, you know, those 160 acre quarter section family farms and all that has really just dramatically changed in the last three or four decades. And so I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more about how that shift to agribusiness and industrial farming has not only reduced the quality of our food and our sovereignty over our own food supply, but it's also really been one of the contributing factors to human caused climate change and global warming.

Well, as I mentioned, it's.

Because of its energy intensity, it is putting out a lot of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. It's very efficient in terms of reducing human labor and animal labor, but at the same times become very dependent on high input fertilizers, pesticides, huge amounts of diesel fuel to move big machinery around, that sort of thing. And then also the long distance supply chains you know, you're getting. In my case, I go to the store here and I'm looking at 3,000 mile lettuce, for example. And then not only that, but it comes in a big plastic container. So the carbon footprint of the container is probably even worse than the lettuce when you add up all the diesel fuel that it took to get here and so on. So that's contrasted by a lot of parts of the world still where it's localized agriculture. It's embedded within the community, the skill sets are embedded in the culture. It's literally right outside their door in some cases. So it's fresher, more nutritious, almost no carbon footprint. And that's it's actually been shown to be more productive per square foot than the big ag model as well. So definitely easier on climate change.

Yeah, I feel very fortunate. My wife and I live in a small New England town. We're surrounded by farms. Actually we're on a street that kind of feels like a small village street, but all the homes have farms behind them on both sides. So we're surrounded by farms, we garden, we produce a lot of our food during our vegetables during the season. And there's a farm stand we can literally walk to and get a lot of our food. Right. So we're very fortunate in that regard. We don't live in a food desert like many do, sadly.

It's that visibility of having local farms and local production, I think that's extremely valuable for the culture and for the people to understand where the food comes from. You know, Interesting story. A good friend of mine grew up on one of those quarter section farms in Iowa and recently went back to see the farm and he couldn't find it.

Meaning that over the decades, all of those small farms were bought up, houses were knocked down, everything was plowed. And his farm, where he grew up was now part of some 2,000 acre cornfield, for example. All he could see was barely the driveway that used to go into the place.

Yeah, I witnessed that myself. I grew up in Missouri and the family farms I was connected with were north central Missouri and then in Kansas City, outside of Kansas City, Kansas. And I've seen that myself. I've literally seen how these, these farms, especially in the, in the places where you have really large scale agriculture, agribusiness around corn and soybeans and things like that, to see vast tracts and yeah, it's really sad to see what has happened there. It has so many different collateral. I mean, it's not, it's related to, you know, climate change and global warming. It's related to the quality of our food, but also impacts us culturally. I mean, there's been, there's been so much loss, right, that move movement away from the family farms into agribusiness and into urbanization. And so there's just so, so many, you know, linked domino effects there. I'm wondering if, I think it's really important to get a sense of the history of this because, you know, there, there's a lot of things that we deal with as modern human beings that have been, you know, developing over a long period of time and you know, the idea of turning back the clock is pretty difficult. But this, this, you know, industrialization of our food supply has not been around that long and, and it's really not that hard to imagine impact those people alive that experience something different. And so, yeah, I think that gives hope that we could do something different, we could turn around, we can turn the ship around. And I'm wondering if there are examples in the past where. And also, you know, with the urgency here that, you know, with ongoing climate change, we're going to see some real severe disruptions. I mean one, nobody wants that. But you know, all the science points that unless we can turn things around really quickly, and even if we can, we're still likely to see some severe disruptions and even potential economic, social collapse in some parts of the world, maybe even our own backyards. I mean, really, not everyone's vulnerable to this. And sadly, some of the most vulnerable parts of the world, most vulnerable people in the world are the most vulnerable. So I wonder if there are examples in the past where there has been such collapse and people have either rebounded or not in terms of reestablishing their food supply.

You know, I agree with you, Fleet. History is very important, very strong lessons there and particularly around food. And it's very Helpful to understand our current situation in a historical light because we've got a bit of an extreme situation currently. So I can cite a lot of different examples. Some of them are pretty dramatic. The Irish potato famine, for example.

Over decades, people became more and more reliant on a single potato strain as their year round staple food. It was one genetic strain. A blight pathogen came in and literally just walked right across Ireland. Wiped everything out some. The population fell by 25%. This was back in the 1850s, I think. Half of that was death and half of it was people just leaving the country. That was pretty dramatic. Something that pulled through a little bit better was be in Cuba in 1991. That was the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was called the special period in Cuba. So suddenly, almost overnight, there was no fuel, no agricultural chemicals, no food being imported from the Soviet Union. It said that the caloric intake of Cubans dropped by a third. The average Cuban lost 20 pounds, for example, and curiously losing 20 pounds, the rate of diabetes, heart issues, all of those types of health effects actually dropped because people lost weight as a side effect. But what happened was people immediately began to take up gardening. The city of Havana alone, some 1200 gardens, every arable piece of land was planted and they had to resort to permaculture and organic techniques because they didn't have agricultural chemicals. The government helped organize it and they pulled through quite well. You know, after that kind of shock, they were really able to pull through. And even today I'm told that the city of Havana actually exports food still, which is quite unusual because of that lesson. There's another case where in Eastern European countries there's a long standing tradition of people having a small plot of land in the countryside. These would be city dwellers that go out on the weekends other extended periods. In Russia, they were called dhakas. I think they still exist today. Could be as small as a quarter of an acre of land, but people would traditionally grow their vegetables there, have a small house or even just a tool shed. And that connection to the land, even with city dwellers, proved to be very important. When there was a lot of food shortages, particularly with some of the centrally planned agricultural programs back in the Soviet era, people could pull through because they had that redundancy, that resiliency and that close connection to the land.

I visit Poland every year. I've been going there for more than 20 years, and that's still a common practice there, that people who live in the cities have these small plots of land out in the country where they grow food.

And that's important to have that connection in Atlantic Canada. Here there's still that cultural memory. And somebody pointed out to me once along the way the word store. We like to think of it as a grocery store or some other kind of retail store. They said, no, that was where you stored your food. So there would be a shed down by the dock. That's where you had your salt cod and your pickled herring and maybe some sauerkraut. That was the store in the driest part of your house, you had all the dry goods. That was the store where you stored your food. And I think what we have to realize today, Fleet, is that a lot of people, because of the convenience of big box grocery stores, it's huge selection, it's always there that we've become, I think, fairly complacent about our food and where it comes from. The convenience has done that to us. And so we're very disconnected, I think, from food. The cultural memory of growing food and really the ability to do that. You know, you hear stories, little kids don't know where carrots come from or milk or something like that.

Yeah, yeah.

Again, I feel really privileged and blessed that live in a little, you know, New England town surrounded by farms. And we grow our own food, you know, in season and have, you know, several farm stands around us. We can walk to one where we have a farm share. And then out of season, we have a Natural Grocer about 10 minute drive away that focuses as much as possible on locally grown. Now in the middle of the winter, I'm sure they're getting some imported stuff, but a lot of people don't have that situation at all. And.

There are the major natural grocers. I know in Halifax, it used to be a family owned natural grocer there. I don't know what situation is that. But as we know in the US One of the big natural grocer companies was bought out by Amazon. And you know, it's a. But it's still, you know, they're good stores with a lot of really quality products, but it's expensive, a lot of people are too far away to get to. And so, you know, the affordability of good quality food is really an issue. And I would think that one of the really the answers to that is going to be growing our own food. Whether we, we can, you know, have a plot in our backyard or garden or up on our roof or community gardens. There are a lot of places where they have established community gardens where people in the neighborhood can all go Get a little plot and grow some of their own food. And again, you're not going to be able to do that all year round. And if you want to preserve your own food, you have to get into canning and all the rest of it. But still, there's a lot we can do to become more locally resilient, as you said, and that's going to give us access to better quality food than if we just go to whatever the nearest groceries. For a lot of people like you mentioned, in some of the less resourced rural areas and urban areas, those local grocery or quick shop sources, the quality is really low and it's mostly processed food.

Yeah, you know, I was growing your own. I was thinking through a list of benefits the other day. In addition to getting just the physical exercise, which is good for your health, you're out in nature, you're connecting with the natural cycles, the seasonal cycle, the weather cycles, because you have to pay attention to that type of stuff. When you're growing food, you're getting the highest quality, freshest, most nutritious food. You know, we refer to the gardens here as our backyard grocery store. And the food cost savings alone, you know, when we bring in two or three large baskets of harvest, I think about what would that cost, putting it through a checkout counter somewhere. You know, you're quickly into the hundreds of dollars worth of food on, on any kind of a daily or weekly basis. Then you're also learning valuable skills around gardening, all of the different aspects. And then a real big one is called garden therapy. The psychological benefits. And it's very well known that any population, kids, for example, prisoners, take your pick, you have them do gardening and everybody feels better because there's that some kind of a feeling of just getting your hands in the soil, seeing the fruition of what's coming out. So there's an enormous amount of benefits really getting out there in addition to just, you know, really good food.

Absolutely. It's just such a win, win, win on so many levels. And as you know, I'm very involved in the criminal justice system and prison work. And there have been some amazing programs in prisons where they brought organic gardening in and had engaged the prisoners in organic gardening. And it has been incredibly impactful and transformational.

I love it here. We bring out school field trips every once in a while and you'll get the first graders, you know, like the seven year olds, and they go into the greenhouse and there's all this spinach, you know, and so we just start picking a few leaves and say Here, pick some spinach and try it. And the parents are watching and the kid starts to eat the spinach and he goes, oh my God, I really like spinach. And you should see the look on the parents face when they say that.

Amazing.

Or pulling a carrot out of the ground for the first time. You know, they can't believe it.

Well, let's talk more about the solutions. So, you know, what can each of us do.

To create more food security for ourselves and our neighborhood, our community locally, to sort of re establish or reclaim sovereignty over our food supplies, especially in the light of the real risk of disruptions coming our way in the coming years and decades and maybe much sooner than we think. And.

I know that you decided to start gardening, I think a 2 acre plot, and you have a whole operation at your home, and you're building community around that, I believe you call it transition gardens. And so what are you learning in that process?

That this is something that all of us could do or engage in, that it doesn't, you know, I mean, we all think, well, there's, you know, there's people that specialize in that or they understand permaculture. And I don't know anything about that. But what are you learning in terms of how you've learned and then how you built community around that with your project there?

That's a great question. You know, we've got about two acres under cultivation, which is not huge. Some suburban lots are that size, for example.

And for me, starting 20 years ago, it was a personal experiment. I wanted to know in my bones, what does it take to grow at least 50% of the food for a family. And I started about that. And I started with one raised bed, added another raised bed, built a small greenhouse, put in some berry crops a little bit every year over that time frame. And slowly I started to learn. And it's not that onerous of a task to grow a significant amount of food in a small amount of land. So over the years now we've been adding more and more infrastructure, small bits of infrastructure. So we've got four small greenhouses, all unheated, put in a small vineyard, we've got some beehives, that sort of thing. And it's become a cooperative effort now. So we've got anywhere from three to eight people on a weekly basis that show up. They all help work the gardens. We all share the harvest at the end of each day. They love the learning ability, the just comparing notes with each other, talking about their own backyard gardens at their homes. So it's become quite a good.

Community building process as well. So we're slowly expanding the gardens with this kind of cooperative approach.

You mentioned unheated greenhouses, so I assume this is sort of passive solar heated greenhouses. Are you actually able to produce food year round with those?

Oh, yeah, once you learn cold, hardy crops and which ones can handle it. So for example, this weekend I'll probably be down in one of them picking spinach. A lot of spinach all winter long. This was planted back in September, got its feet in the ground, grew up. We started picking it in late November, December into January, it kind of hunkers down. The coldest part of the year, it's under row cover. But I've gone in there at 20 below Celsius and picked spinach. Hard as a rock, just snapping off the leaves. You bring it in, the kitchen, thaws out and it's beautiful. So this time of year now, the days are getting longer. Spinach can tell it's starting to wake up, it's starting to grow again. And in another month we're going to have tons of spinach and then all of that will come out in May. We'll put in the summer crops, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, all of that sort of thing. And then we'll cycle back into the cold crops as well. So spinach is a good one. Arugula, there's a lot of the Chinese greens, tatsoi and bok choy and others. Very cold, hardy kale, of course. So once you learn, you can really go four seasons.

And that's, that's amazing.

Oh yeah.

We have, we have three raised beds in our backyard and we're, we're able to eat from our garden really May through almost the end of October usually. And, but we're thinking of putting in a greenhouse. You're inspiring me to get a small, a small unheated passive solar greenhouse as part of our backyard. We're also wanting to next season put in a catchment system for rain and some things like that. So we got a very small lot here. I mean, we're surrounded by farms, but our own lots, quite small. But we're gonna have our own little, little mini farm in our tiny backyard. And unfortunately, my wife' Sophie has a real green thumb, Right. She just seems to take to it naturally. But it is, there is something so nurturing for me even just when I look out the back door and you know, and see our garden there, much less when I actually get out there, engage with it.

Right.

And, and it's like as You've been describing just, just a win, win, win on so many levels to get involved in our own food production.

And you know, I, I would like to encourage all the listeners that infrastructure is key. And start now, don't wait. Prices are the best, supply issues are working the best. So get that infrastructure in for this year. Could be starting with grow lights and some shelving indoors. Could be a small greenhouse, could be raised bed system, just about anything like that. Infrastructure is key and I've become a big proponent. Fleet of small greenhouses. Our biggest one is actually only 20 by 24ft and some of them are just a small dome that's maybe, I'm going to guess 12 foot in diameter, something like that. But you know, out of our 20 by 24 foot greenhouse, we can produce 250, 300 pounds of tomatoes, for example. So the productivity can really be huge. We did, we have a volunteer vegetable garden with Transition Bay. The food goes to the food bank. This is a separate four small raised beds and we actually almost hit two pounds of vegetables per square foot last summer, which is a huge amount of productivity.

And I assume this is all organic farming, permaculture practices and so forth.

That's right, that's right. And that's a whole art in itself. And having been a gardener for 30, 40 years, you know, I'm still learning. Every year is a little bit different. There's always new twists and turns and you just slowly refine and get better all the time.

Well, I'm sure that's just a really enriching experience ongoingly for you. And could you just say a little bit more about the community building process?

Because.

With all the disruptions that are already happening for us and how kind of divisive and polarized our culture and political landscape has become, there's all. I mean, I think one of the most critical priorities for humanity right now is just to begin to reweave our social connectedness. There's so much breakdown. And so that really seems to be one. And it's the easiest to do at the local level. Because, you know, even at the local, at the local level it's obvious in your own neighborhood, your own block, your own, that regardless of your politics, you have common interest. You have common interests even in sense of basic survival. So I think it's easier to come together and reweave this connectedness at the local level. And obviously we need to extrapolate that out regionally, but to begin locally so you could talk a little bit more about how that process and what it's really like, have you met new people? The people that are currently your network? Did you already know them? Have you made new friends?

Are you.

What is that sense of community? How have you seen it grow and evolve?

You know, food is about as common of a theme as you can get. I think of the two women that started a movement called Incredible Edibles out of England, and their motto for membership was, if you eat, you're in. You know, so that's what I mean. Everybody can relate and, and there's that commonality of people. Just whether it's agritourism. People love to be in an agricultural setting, one that's being worked properly. Just the feel, the vibe of the whole thing, the social connection of being able to talk about food, being able to cook food that comes right out of the garden, going into the kitchen, you know, you've got the best ingredients possible. So it's everything that we love about getting together with other people hinges around food. We know that. And so it's that ability to really kind of magnetize, I think, is a good word of everybody that's interested. And you'll get everybody from people that never put their hands in the soil and are a little nervous and afraid, not quite sure, but they want to all the way to a retired farmer, let's say, that, you know, can really kind of show them the lay of the land, so to speak, and so on. So we get a range of people, we bring in some interns. We had an interesting gentleman taking a year off from school, from Germany, was here for six weeks. We learned from him, he learned from us. We've got neighbors right down the road, pretty much all ages. We got a 15 year old that's decided this is important, this is something that he needs to know. And he's incredibly devoted to being here and really helping out. So that's a lot of what I tell people of all ages is gardening is a life skill and we're going to need to know how to grow a potato is kind of how I describe it. And I think a lot of people get it and a lot of people want to plug in and do it. So it's not that difficult, difficult to build a community.

So I mean, clearly this is something that by design needs to happen at the local level. And at the same time, are there ways that we can scale this resurgence of more natural food production? Are there ways that we can scale this regionally, nationally, or is there a role for policymakers or government leaders at the local, regional, national, even global level? To be involved in, in creating this shift from the rise of agribusiness back to more locally produced food.

I think the answer to all of that is yes, we can scale, we can develop appropriate policy. In fact, it is happening. As governments are starting to wake up to that fact, local organizations are starting to wake up to it domestically. I mean, the seed business has gone leaps and bounds. Even with the start of COVID for example, gardening companies, huge demand of people coming in, really wanting to get their supplies, start to learn more, expanding their gardens. That's just the domestic level. Now what you're starting to see is more planning around rebuilding local systems. So now you're into infrastructure on a regional scale. So for example, locally here in the province, there's two food hubs that have started up just in the past number of years which are aggregating local production into a central distribution point. They're able now to do food processing, packaging and getting into distribution out into local markets. So that's a key part of infrastructure. It could be meat processing, it could be just as simple as carrots that need to be cut up into carrot sticks, packed in £1 bags and sent to local schools or hospitals, for example. Something. There's a beautiful example of a food hub here that is now claiming cull potatoes. These are the ones that aren't going to make it to the grocery store because they're misshapen or they're too small or whatever. Normally that would be waste and get thrown out. They're processing it, making kind of high end gourmet mashed potatoes out of it, packaging it up, freezing it. And they've got a big contract with some of the hospitals, that type of food. So they're saving on the waste stream, creating a new product and it's all being done locally. So you're starting to see more and more of that policy. Wise municipal governments, state, provincial governments are starting to wake up. Just recently here, for example, in the province of Nova Scotia, the provincial government has put out a mandate that they'd like to see 20% of food coming locally within the province, within, I can't remember, a short number of years. So they're thinking about what kind of policy needs to be put in place, what kind of infrastructure can they support to that end, and so on.

Well, that's really encouraging and I think it does require us. It's up to all of us and it's up to us to get out there and prototype new ways of doing things and then if we can really make the case.

Proof of concept and really say this works, then you can get policymakers interested in scaling that and things can really change. And in the end, to get large scale change, you really do need shifts in policy policies to support a different direction of the flow of value and exchange of value and so forth. But it's really encouraging to hear what's happening there with those food hubs. How does the local production work in relation to farmer markets? I've been to Halifax, I know there was a big Saturday farmers market in Halifax. I know here in the U.S.

You know, we used to. Some farmers markets seem to have gotten a bit, I don't, for lack of a better term, a little bit yuppified. And you go there and they're similar to the prices at the big name, you know, Whole Foods Grocers and, and others remain more local. Where we used to live in Rhode Island a few years back and, and there was a farmer's market that was kind of that expensive place. But there was one just locally more in our neighborhood where it was the actual, you know, it was, it was very reasonable prices. And of course we have a right around here where we are. It's not so much we have farmers markets, but we have a lot of. Literally each farm has its own farm stand. Right. And so I'm wondering what you see there in Nova Scotia or Atlantic Canada in terms of individual farm stands or farmers markets as well as these kind of hubs that might create new distribution channels.

Yeah, I've been told that Nova Scotia has the highest per capita concentration of farmers markets in Canada, for whatever that's worth. But it is definitely a momentum that's increasing and you get the whole range of markets. You know, some of the big ones, particularly in Halifax, they're located in a prime tourist area. So a lot of tourists going, coming through. So you'll see more booths with giftwear and that sort of thing. But of course the people selling food are going to price it at a premium. You'll get high end, you know, cheese shops and butchers and that sort of thing in there. The whole other end of the spectrum, which you can still find, and I absolutely love it, is there's a farm at the end of the driveway by the road. There's a tiny little stand, nobody's around, you know, and they've got out whatever the daily produce is. And there's a can that you put.

Your money, the honor system. We have some of those right in our neighborhood here.

Yes, absolutely. Love it. So that's the other extreme.

That's great. You know, one of the, the biggest collateral forms of collateral damage from agribusiness has been topsoil erosion. And the mechanical methodologies of farming at that scale with all this huge machinery is really depleting our topsoil. I mean, there's predictions I can't remember, but not too distant future our topsoil could be gone. If we continue doing what we're doing. And at the same time, if we move to what are sometimes called regenerative agricultural practices, we can replenish that topsoil. And what's so important about this is the loss of topsoil is releasing huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. But replenishing our topsoil would trap huge amounts of carbon and is maybe one of the most leveraged things we can do to slow down and even reverse global warming. I saw a really.

Really encouraging film that I believe the actor Jeff Bridges was the narrator for around this Hole. And there are even some large scale ranches and farms that are shifting to regenerative farming and ranching practices at scale, improving that it's possible even at scale in large operations. Right. So I'm wondering if you could talk about that both how we could engage locally in regenerative agricultural practice that will replenish topsoil and preserve topsoil as well as if we could have a consciousness as consumers with our food choices and our buying choices. Whether we're participating in food supply chains that are regenerative or replacing topsoil, or whether we're participating in supply chains that are actually depleting the topsoil.

Let me speak to the regenerative piece first and then the consumer end after that. I think you're right. Sustainability is not enough. We're in an era now where we really have to regenerate the soils and it's going to take some work to repair, recover the soils, rebuild that soil ecosystem that's so important. Even just be able to grow organically. You need a very vibrant ecosystems of thousands of microorganisms in the soil that also increases plant health. When you've got that kind of an ecosystem, it takes time to do that. But when you have it's like capital in the bank, it's the most valuable thing you can have for food production. So for example, with the transition gardens here, we really started from scratch. This is glacial till, it's a drumlin. So it tends to be very sandy soils, a lot of rock, and for 15 years kept adding manures of different kinds, huge amount, a lot of other amendments, compost, rock, Phosphate, a lot of other things. Our organic matter content now is up around 12%. It's this beautiful friable, dark chocolate brown soil. That's compared to a lot of agricultural soils, Big Ag, where it might be down around 1 or 2% organic matter. So how do you rebuild that? And it can be done at small scale, as I mentioned, by just continually adding organic content. Compost is probably one of the big ones. Kitchen scraps, leaves, everything that is organic, get it broken down and get it into the soil. But with large agricultural tracts, it's going to be more difficult, it's going to take time. Probably have to go into that grazing model where you've got a good green cover, ideally leguminous plant that's going to be fixing nitrogen. And then you cycle through that area various types of grazing animals so that they can continually be donating their, their manure back into that soil. And then year after year, you're slowly starting to rebuild those soils.

Yeah, that film I mentioned, I wish I had the name of it, but we'll put a link up to it on, on the site. But it was narrated by Jeff Bridges and one of the operations they focused on Anthem was a very large scale ranch and farming operation. They were doing exactly where they were using cover crops, they were shifting grazing animals at different points around, they were rotating crops and they were in the process literally regenerating the soil at scale and actually increasing their production, the productivity and the quality of their yield and so forth. So it can be done. And I think when you see people doing that at scale, that's going to start to get the attention of policymakers.

The economics, even the economic system also wants to come in and optimize or leverage certain things for gain. But if you can demonstrate to that, here's a better way that actually has a better bottom line for everybody, increases more yield with greater quality and so forth. You can start to attract the energy of incentive and economic forces to something that works better. Right. So I think being very creative about that.

One of those incentives, as an example, a friend of mine has kicks the idea around quite a bit that I'd mentioned that the higher the organic matter content in the soil, the healthier the plants are going to be. They're going to be more disease resistant, be able to fend off insect pests more, they're going to withstand drought more. Because organic soils hold water better. All of the above. So one example as an incentive is farm insurance could be tied to the organic matter content of your soils. With understanding that the greater the organic matter, the less potential you're going to have for crop failure. And so you just basically tie the insurance to that. So there's a lot of ways to kind of tip the incentives to really get farmers, producers, even small scale gardeners really wanting to build their soils year after year. For us here, starting from scratch with that sandy soil, it takes probably five years before we really, you really got it. That kind of ecosystem really starting to cook.

Well, let's talk, if you would then, a bit about, as consumers, how we can make choices apart from choosing to start to grow some of our own food. But in terms of our buying decisions and where we're getting our food and the kind of food we're getting, can we access the information to know whether we're supporting supply chains that are regenerative or whether we're actually supporting supply chains that are depleted in soil. And I don't want to make anybody start to feel shame because it might take some time and some research and even you may or may not have the access. But over time at least we can think about how can I make choices that are so supporting the more regenerative food supply chains rather than participating in one that's actually depleting the topsoil.

Yeah, yeah. You know, it's. At some level, it's difficult. When you go into the big box stores, the whole distribution chain of where your food came from is pretty opaque. If you're buying peppers or garlic or whatever, you may not know where it comes from. You could look at the label and if it's a good grocer, they'll tell you where it's originates from, or it might say on the packaging, for example. But you still don't know what conditions was it grown under, how, what kind of pesticides were being used, all of that. And there's a lot of, I'd call it green washing or organic, organic washing in the industry, know what I mean? So they can put it in a nice vibrant green package, say something about organic. But it may or may not be. So it can be difficult. You can ask the produce manager, they probably may not know very much because they're just trying to keep the, you know, the shelf stocked. So it's a little bit difficult at that level. In an ideal world, in an ideal food system, you know, who grew your food, you have a personal relationship, you know, Mary down the road keeps chickens. I can get my eggs from her. You know, I know George has got a pretty good greenhouse, does great salad greens, you know, that's in an ideal setting. So trying to move as much as you can into that direction and even better grow some of it yourself. But you know what I would like to encourage listeners to do because of the day and age that we live in, with supply chain shortages, increasing fragility globally, that it's a good idea to deepen your larder, have a good store of food at home all the time, at least a few weeks worth and think about going even longer than that. It's what humanity used to do for its entire history up until the last 40, 50 years had stores of food. So I think it's important the age we live in now to, to really think about coming back to that.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and you know, I think some of the big bugs, some of the big natural food grocers are one big chain that I'm obviously referring to. But you know, you go into the local versions of that store, they often name the local farms they are dealing with and I think it's good, whatever store to go have a, go have a talk with a store manager or grocer manager and get to know them and say, you know, where are you getting your food from and do you have options? Could you get more food locally? And you know, it'll be as consumers creating that demand and creating those relationships is what will change things. Rather than just walking in and out in an impersonal way of a store where we don't know anybody, they don't know us, we just take what's available. I think it's about re engaging that we have to re engage and have these conversations. We really want things to shift.

Yeah. And it's important to ask questions and really even some level start to make demands that you really want to know more about where certain things come from. Yeah.

Well, this has been incredibly rich and incredibly helpful, Robert. And where can people find out more about your work and so forth?

Well, I can give you three websites. Transition Garden.

That'S a 13 episode TV series about the local gardens here. Another One would be TransitionBay CA. That's work with Transition Bay with the. We call it the Crossroads educational vegetable garden that I mentioned. Food that goes to the food bank. There's some video clips on there. And also we did a cooperative greenhouse project with 20 families growing transplants in a fairly small greenhouse, all cooperatively. So a lot of good content there. And Then also.

CenterForLocalProsperity CA. We do a lot of work building agency for the future at the local community level and center in centre for local prosperity. Of course is the Canadian spelling, so people know. And one of the things you'll notice on the website, we're just getting ready to launch it publicly. We're doing a regional food summit in November, looking principally at how do we rebuild a regional food system in Atlantic Canada. So that website is Food Summit Ca.

Thank you so much for the for the work you're doing and it's really encouraging and hopeful. Thank you.

Well, thank you. It's been an absolute pleasure and an honor to be able to speak with you today.

Be well.

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