The Unsung Hero Tour!

What's up YouTube? So I wanted to just say I've just started to think about the 2020 Unsung Heroes tour. Now we've got a couple of dates at the farm. Johanna's going to be running the farm with an awesome crew. But I'm going to be back there for the Joel Salatin masterclass that's in the links below. As well as our new format for our world renowned farm scale permaculture design course, strictly focused on production, agriculture and systems design. We've started squashed that into a nine day format to allow people to have a week off work and it'll be featuring a bunch of live designs on people's properties. So that's also in the links below. But I'm just at the beginning of planning this trip and it's going to be an epic trip and I just wanted to tell you a little bit as well as invite your suggestions and contributions. But I'm going to be focusing visiting a lot of our past students who have gone on to set up awesome businesses. But I'm also open to visiting all of the people that are really pushing the field of regenerative agriculture. I want to cover all types of enterprises from market gardening to pasture poultry to grazing operations, agroforestry systems and people that are specifically doing regenerative agriculture to create a family income or income for multiple peoples. People who are passionate and can speak openly about their enterprises and in English language, I'm afraid, because that's going to be the format for the whole tour. But I really want to hear from you if you know of people that aren't on my list. I've just started plotting places that I'm going to be visiting and places that might want to host courses with me. Now there's at least 18 people that have asked for courses in very different countries and so I'm going to have to work out a route which I've. I've really just started thinking about now it looks something like this and then contact people to see when and where it might be that I'm passing by. Now obviously it's very logistical to run a trip like this working with dates and there's two dates that I need to be back at the farm. I'm thinking of treating Scandinavia as a loop that I'll do separately on the trip when I'm back at the farm in the middle of the season. So whilst I have a window in late April, May, most of the farms I want to visit around here are not going to be entering Full production. And I don't feel it does it justice to film those farms so early in the season. So I might start with Denmark and the south of Sweden, come back to the farm for the Joel Salatin masterclass and then, then go further into the UK etc, coming back for our course and then going round Scandinavia and then back down this loop here. I don't know yet, to be honest. There's so much to work out because it's got to be a route that makes sense, but the timings have to work for the people who've responded to our surveys, etc. And so we're just gonna have to see. It's quite a logistical task and I'm just slowly working my way through that now to start putting out a program. It's going to be, I mean, I've got 50 dates on here already and I expect there will be at least double that that come in in the time between now and when I leave. And so it's going to be quite an action packed series and I hope to be putting out several videos a week in long form format. So one thing I wanted to say to you viewers, especially those of you who are engaged with the scene and know about farms that I might not have heard of in Europe, is that you can influence the trip as well. So if you go on regenerativeagriculture.info it's in the links below, you'll see there's a space here where you can then suggest places that we should visit. And you can see very clearly we want to look at operational farms producing tangible amounts of food and revenue and inspired and passionate people who will share their knowledge, insights and are prepared to talk openly about challenges and finances, etc. And that's a really important point for me because I feel like so many of you reflect back to what us all the time that our channel has been so useful because we get into those nitty gritty things and we open about finances and challenges, etc. And so that's the spirit with which I want to do this tour. And naturally, I think doing a tour like this with the platforms we have, it really boosts the spotlight on people. So I feel like it's a good reciprocal exchange. I'm not just trying to promote people for the sake of it. I want people to step up and speak out openly and in return they get promoted for the work and hard, you know, effort that's gone into their place. But I think things like finances and data, they're the things missing in the scene they still are missing. Even just reflecting back on putting the book Regenerative Agriculture out, there's not anything been written like that in the farming literature. And I'm not saying that to blow my own trumpet. I'm saying that because it's these little details that make things work and it's what we hear so little about. We've heard so much about gross profit in the States and that's just not frankly, how a business works. And then lots of success stories that don't go into details and we need to see those details. So that's something I'm going to be pushing hard for. And that form on the website is there for you to fill in if you know people that you think fit the bill. If you're not sure, then just fill it in anyway and I'll filter it through. What you see we need is a day with you, maybe a few hours to film and possibly a place to park the vehicle overnight and charge up batteries so we can then head on to the next place. And we need the rights to publish the material. Obviously we're there to do it for your benefit too. So here's a form that you can fill in and I hope some of you get engaged. There's obviously way more farms out there than I'm aware of, although I have been following the scene very close closely for 20 years and so I'm aware of most of the good startups. But I really want to see diverse farms and I want to see people doing speciality things and I'm not just intending to go and visit lots of market gardens. I'm. I'm mainly interested in mixed farming and I want to see people doing livestock and processing value, adding how people are working with family and business and community and how people are pushing the boundaries in different ways. So do get in touch with. Super excited for it. I'm expecting to put the first videos out late April and the tour will really get going in mid May, June and we'll be pumping out videos all next year. So I'm super excited for everyone and for. For the tour itself and to meet so many inspiring people. So be in touch and we'll see you in the video soon. Bye for now.