182 Liz Carlisle – Regeneration is nothing new, let’s honour the indigenous history

A conversation with Liz Carlisle, writer of Healing Grounds, about the deep racism that exists in agriculture and food and in the regenerative agriculture movement as well. A deep dive in the real origin story of the Green Revolution, the black farming movement in the US, the deep roots of colonisation in agriculture and what we should learn from that.
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We stand on the shoulders of giants in the indigenous farming and land management space, but choose not to mention them. All practices we currently call regenerative are not new, but have been around for a long time and we choose to broadly not acknowledge that and look away when it comes to thorny topics like land ownership, access to land, access to finance, etc. So, let’s get real and discuss all these things.

More about this episode on https://investinginregenerativeagriculture.com/liz-carlisle-2.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Something we don't talk about enough, the deep racism in agriculture and food, and honestly, also in the regenerative agriculture movement. We stand on the shoulders of giants in the indigenous farming and land management space, but choose not to mention them. All practices we currently call regenerative are not new, but have been around for a long, long time. And we choose broadly not to acknowledge that and look away when it comes to thorny topics like land ownership, access to land, access to finance, access to conferences and access to podcasts like this. So let's get real and uncomfortable and discuss things like the real origin story of the green revolution, the black farming movement in the US and the deep roots of colonization in the agriculture space and what we can and have to learn from that. This is the Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast, Investing as if the planet mattered, where we talk to the pioneers in the regenerative food and agriculture space to learn more on how to put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems while making an appropriate and fair return. Why my focus on soil and regeneration? Because so many of the pressing issues we face today have their roots in how we treat our land and our sea, grow our food, what we eat, wear and consume. And it's that we as investors, big and small, and consumers start paying much more attention to the dirt slash soil underneath our feet. To make it easy for fans to support our work, we launched our membership community. And so many of you have joined us as a member. Thank you. If our work created value for you, and if you have the means, and only if you have the means, consider joining us. Find out more on gumroad.com slash investing in regen ag. That is gumroad.com slash investing in regen ag. Or find the link below. Today we have a very special episode where we have one of our first guests back on the podcast. She was a guest in the episode number 18, so that's almost four and a half years ago. Liz Carlisle has written a new book, actually has written a lot in the meantime, but we had her last time for the Lento Underground, which I would anybody strongly suggest to read it, but she's back now with Healing Grounds, which has been an amazing book. I really, really enjoyed it. And I'm very happy to have Liz back on the podcast. So welcome.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

I'm delighted to be here and to reconnect, touch base.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Yeah, a lot has happened in this space. We're going to get to that as well because you've been observing this space, quote unquote, let's say the regeneration space for a while as well. But first, let's start. What triggered you to write another book? I mean, it's always a massive undertaking. I think I've never done it. I've just seen it from outside and far away. Instead of articles or essays or papers, I mean, you didn't have to write this book. What made this book a book that had to be written and had to be written by you.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Yeah, that last question is a tough one. I don't know if I have the answer to that, you know, whether I'm the right author for this book, but I did feel a real sense of urgency about this book. And I think it's, you know, it's been a long journey for me trying to understand this idea of regeneration and regenerative agriculture and what is really required of us as people to regenerate, you know, soil carbon, which is sort of where I started this investigation 12 years ago as a researcher and writer. But I've just continually tried to understand the deeper layers of regeneration, and in many cases, the root causes of why we have an extractive agriculture in the first place that would take carbon out of soil and put it into the atmosphere. Why on earth did society get to a place where that somehow made sense? And so this book digs further back in history to understand this as a process that got started several hundred years ago. And I think also, you know, for me has a sense of urgency around the social change that's necessary for us to solve the climate problems in agriculture, which I now understand to be really, really deeply wedded to questions of social justice.

The original plan of the Rockefellers-sponsored Green Revolution was agroecology

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Yeah, it's been fascinating. I tumbled into the regen movement as well, about 12 years ago on the carbon side and on peeling the onion further and further you get to why would it make sense to unleash all that carbon which has such a crucial role in the soil and we know now how to and we have known before how to restore that and why don't we or haven't we done at scale yet and I think it's not about the techniques the techniques are there and we know how to do it let's say we know the scientific research and et cetera, et cetera, but the question is why haven't we? And you go back also to a very interesting, of course, I will put links to the book below, but one of the things that really struck me, apart from really reading about the history of the regeneration movement or the history of regeneration, which goes way further than we normally hear, let's say, but one moment was very, very fascinating on the green revolution, where that started. We've all known, like in Mexico, in that research institute, they started pushing on certain Yeah, I was fascinated

SPEAKER_00 5:38

by this story as well. Because, you know, when I first started getting into regenerative agriculture, or organic agriculture, which is what I was first introduced to, I pretty early on heard about this kind of boogie man, the bad guy on the other side, Norman Borlaug, who had won the Nobel Peace Prize in the early 70s for his work on hybrid grain. And I learned that Borlaug's approach was, you know, very, very high yielding monocultures of grain using high inputs of fossil fuel based chemicals, meaning fertilizers, herbicides, other kinds of pesticides, as well as intensive irrigation. And so, you know, for me, just getting into the organic farming movement and agroecology, I was interested in an approach that was much lower input accessible to people in all kinds of environments rather than this really high input. You know, the point is just to get high yielding corn or wheat under ideal conditions. So I had learned about Norman Borlaug. You know, I knew he was affiliated with the Rockefeller program. And this thing was called the Green Revolution. And it had undermined the livelihoods of smallholder farmers around the world who couldn't access these expensive fertilizers and herbicides and irrigation. And so the, you know, the market that they had counted on for what they produced fell out, you know, from under them as these high input producers kind of captured the global export market. So I had, I had heard about that story. And I understood this kind of struggle between two visions of agriculture, one that was very, you know, high input and sort of technology intensive and more accessible to people with more resources, and one that was sort of more democratic and low input and ecological, and in my view, consistent with what we need to do on climate and other ecological challenges. But I think the story I hadn't learned was that even within the Rockefeller Foundation, prior to Borlaug's ascent to power, there was a debate about what it meant to You know, pursue technical assistance for agricultural producers in Mexico in the early 20th century, not everybody believed in a high input approach. And even when Borlaug did ultimately win the day on pursuing, you know, a lot of chemicals rather than compost and cover crops and things we now talk about in regenerative agriculture circles, there was this massive resistance movement in Mexico led by indigenous people that not only has shaped Mexican history, in Latin American history, but actually led to the creation of the field of agroecology, my research field, and has also shaped history throughout the Americas and throughout the world. Because it was those smallholders and indigenous people in Mexico fighting Borlaug's vision, who articulated the alternative that now I think has so much relevance within climate discussions and discussions of a more ecological agriculture, which for them all It also was about having power over their own livelihoods and communities.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Yeah, that's fascinating to see. Of course, when it was, but also I think the original funding even was focused on that work to understand the agroecology or whatever it was called at that moment. And of course, the terminology is different, but the original funding or the original project was to understand that better and to research that. And then somehow it became, it took a right or a left turn, whatever you want to call it. It took a different turn by certain influences to go and high input, high output, but let's not forget many of these quote-unquote peasant farmers had an incredible high output with a very, very low input. Like the whole feeding the world discussion, let's not go there because that's irrelevant and in many cases nonsense. They were out-competing everything, but they were just simply pushed out of the way because of the input side, because of the hybrids, because of... But the original idea of the Rockefeller project seemed to be actually quite focused on agroecology and understanding why these peasants and smallholder farmers were so incredibly productive over time without losing fertility, without a lot of inputs. And then somehow they took another turn and got into the high input train. What can we learn there? What can we learn? Because it was a very small funding and it was a very small amount actually at the time and probably a bit more, but now even less, that sort of changed the course of history. What can we learn there from very good intentions, I think, if we look at the original plan was very agroecology focused, the rotations of composting, let's learn from some other farmers. And then 10 years later, or I don't know the timeframe, it went all the way to the other side and became this extreme colonization force that has cost us a lot.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Yeah, that's a great question. I think that's absolutely the right question, because I do think this tale of the Rockefeller Foundation's Mexican agricultural program is a cautionary tale for funders and investors in regenerative agriculture, because you're absolutely right at the beginning when this program was first getting started in the 30s. If you sort of think about the cast of characters involved, it wasn't too different from, you know, I'm in the United States, you know, sort of like Bernie Sanders type of supporters, you know, Elizabeth Warren type of supporters. It was a group of progressives who were connected within philanthropic circles and who are also pretty connected to the New Deal project and the idea of big social programs that were public in the 30s coming out of the Depression, who, by and large, really admired the Mexican Revolution and the land reform that happened in Mexico as Mexico transitioned from these big haciendas, these big estates where people were essentially all but enslaved. And these large tracts of land were owned by just, you know, a few people in the country to, you know, this land reform. where a lot of people got their own parcel to farm. And there was this more kind of, you know, food sovereignty type of vision for how agriculture and the economy would proceed in Mexico. The Mexican agricultural program of the Rockefeller Foundation was originally full of people who believed in that vision. They saw it as sort of consistent with Jeffersonian American democracy, this idea that a nation of small farmers is, you know, the basis of a democratic nation. And this is a good basis for the economy, to have people having access to their own ability to produce food for their own communities. And so that's where the Mexican agricultural program started, is how do we support these small farmers who've just gotten on their ejidos, these small tracts of land that people got as part of the land reform, with technical assistance that's appropriate to them. So knowing that these aren't people with the money to buy commercial fertilizers. A lot of these people don't have access to irrigation. They might be at high elevation. And so the original, you know, pursuit was, how do we support corn farmers, because that was a subsistence crop? And how do we support them with things like, yeah, composting, cover crops, all these things that we think of as regenerative or organic or sustainable. And what changed, you know, Norman Borlaug, when he first got there, he was kind of, by all accounts, a little bit arrogant. He was from Iowa, he'd seen the beginnings of industrial high yield And he really did believe that this sort of technologically driven approach to higher yields was a better way. And he had a lot of disdain for small farmers and for sort of biological strategies rather than chemical ones. But when he first showed up at the Mexican agricultural program as this young plant pathologist talking about how he'd rather work with, you know, larger landowners growing wheat than the small farmers growing corn, he was kind of marginalized. And in fact, he actually Yeah, and what happened was the Cold War. I mean, there's some complexity to it and some other factors. Certainly there were some important elements in politics in Mexico as well as the sort of folks who were originally involved in the land reform moved out of power and newer folks came into power who were more interested in closer ties with the U.S. economy, for example. But the biggest force of change was the Cold War. And so So this was a huge influence on the way the Rockefeller leadership thought about all their programs and all their investments. And so this Mexican agricultural program that had originally been directed to try to accomplish something within the context of Mexico itself and specifically support those local efforts, understanding that that might then have lessons for parts of the US that were also trying to recover from not dissimilar dynamics, honestly. of really stratified social class and wealth dynamics. But originally, the Mexican agricultural program, it was trying to solve a local problem. But in the context of the Cold War, all of a sudden, these sort of influential public intellectuals were talking to the leadership of the Rockefeller Foundation, saying, if we as the United States and the free world want to win the Cold War against the communists, we need to pay close attention to the quote unquote, third world, that is the countries that haven't yet aligned themselves with the free world, or the communists. And these are countries that struggle with poverty. And these are countries that struggle with food insecurity. And so there was this belief in the United States and much of Europe that the need was for food aid programs and also exportable technologies to ensure that these countries in the quote unquote, third world didn't become so food insecure, that their hunger left them vulnerable to communism. That was a really influential political theory in the 1950s. And because this political theory was so influential, all of a sudden, exactly, Rockefeller was like, Oh, we need to turn our program into, we need to create a model for how small farmers all over the world are all of a sudden going to produce these high yields so that we can win the Cold War. So forget about what we're trying to do locally in Mexico. That's not as important now. One of the most

SPEAKER_01 17:34

biodiverse regions, growing techniques that go back centuries. And you see the effects. It just completely wiped out the small departments. They couldn't afford it as soon as they were under any kind of depth bandwagon, high yield. I mean, you cannot get off anymore. I mean, we now know how difficult that is. You get addicted literally or get wiped out. And we've seen that happen time and time again. But it's very interesting that Yeah, an outside force, in this case, global politics, and we might live in a time where that happens again, is shaping a very well-intended program, but of course, run by intellectuals very far away. And then it just morphs into a completely opposite beast, basically, which is, yeah, fascinating to look at, but also quite scary.

What can we learn from that in the current regen ag movement?

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Yeah, and something that was, you know, at the beginning, much more contextual and nuanced and informed by people within Rockefeller who'd actually spent significant time in Mexico and were working on, you know, more of a collaborative basis, it got replaced by something that was not contextual, that was this sort of abstract idea that turned out to have a lot of holes in it. But that, you know, the whole sort of public intellectual class and funder class at that time in the 50s just got caught up in this model of the world that was much more abstract, and that was, you know, proposing this sort of global principle rather than these sort of nuanced contextual understandings of how to support agriculture in particular places.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

We run that same risk now as we are intellectualizing the REGEN Act, the farmer should do this, the farmer should do that from a comfortable office far away, let's say rural urban divide. And of course, the Rockefellers actually announced a huge program on food, a food program in the US, I think 105 million or something. And, and, and and a lot of other things. Is that, again, we would like the agriculture space to do something or the farmers to do something, but we mostly talk from a distance without understanding the local context? Do you see that as we are observing? Of course, it's easy. We're talking with our headphones on, observing the space, but what do you see there?

Why don’t we talk about land ownership?mk

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Yeah, I think there's a couple of reverberations forward to our time. One, I think for me, is the conversation about creating carbon markets. specifically in agriculture, which I think is envisioned as this kind of elegant and efficient global solution to creating an incentive within agriculture for farmers to use practices that sequester carbon. And I think this, you know, sort of like some of the ideas that started to get sway within Rockefeller almost 75 years ago now, is not as local and nuanced and contextual as I think regeneration requires of us. I think the project of regeneration is actually very complex and very place-based and also has a sort of social history. And so I think it's really important not to just imagine that the financial sector can solve this problem simply by generating a market for soil carbon credits. And just some kind of simple examples of where I see potential problems here. It's difficult to generate the sort of measurement approaches or metrics at the molecular level. The science around measuring the movement of carbon through soil is still emerging. It's really interesting. I think it's really important that we invest in it and learn more about how this works. And I think it's pretty dangerous to pin all of our hopes for regeneration on trying to measure something that we're still learning how to see at the molecular level. Whereas I think we have much more developed approaches for seeing functioning, whole, healthy ecosystems when we look at plants and animals and sort of ecological restoration. So I think we shouldn't give up on some of these indicators that seem older and sort of less sexy. But I think also a deeper issue with some of these molecular metrics is that the equipment used is expensive. And in some cases, the sort of systems for tabulating and reporting can be expensive. expensive or require staff or things like that. And so it can become a mechanism, not unlike the Green Revolution, for shutting out the very small holder farmers who are essential to a project of regeneration if we understand it holistically. So I think we should be careful around soil carbon credits. And then I think the other lesson from this, you know, Green Revolution story that's really relevant today is just the importance of being attentive to power and not imagining that just coming up with a really efficient technical approach is naturally going to accomplish regeneration if we don't think about how our intervention is shifting power and also how power dynamics are a part of the problem that we have in agriculture and that our solutions around regeneration also need to address power imbalances.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

One thing that comes up immediately, obviously, on power imbalances is access to land. You've written about that a lot in the book and through almost all the chapters, I think. And let's unpack that. I mean, that's way more for, not just for one podcast, but the land ownership and access to land. How much of that is really holding us back? And why are we not talking about it more? It seems like that elephant in the room that, or the bison or whatever, let's use a regenerative word. or the whale, but that really doesn't get talked about a lot. And there's an enormous wealth transfer happening now where farmers are retiring, et cetera. But if you look at just simply diversity in land ownership in the US, I think that's the place with the best data and the worst data at the same time, like the best accurate data. And it's really shocking to look at that. You sum it up in the book as well. Like the diversity is zero basically, or very, it's a running error. And Like, why is that so much easier to talk about no-till or plowing and agroforestry than it is to talk about who owns and why does somebody actually own a piece of land? And like, have you any idea about why is it so difficult to talk about that?

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Yes. So, you know, white people, myself included, in general, are fairly uncomfortable talking about race and facing up to, you know, in this country, the history And I think also very uncomfortable to talk about genocide of indigenous people, theft of indigenous land, and being being a settler colonist. That's an incredibly uncomfortable conversation. And I think a lot of white people in the United States haven't really known what to do about it, I think have felt a lot of shame. And I think a lot of white people in the United States haven't really known what to do about it. are uncomfortable talking about it and have no idea what to do to begin addressing these challenges. And so it's kind of easier to just ignore them and not talk about them because they seem, I think, to a lot of white people intractable. That said, I do think that the Black Lives Matter movement, the movement for black lives and the way in which that really reached the public consciousness in 2020 in the wake of George Floyd's murder, I think has started to move the needle on conversations about race in the United States, and I think around the world. And I'm seeing a lot more people in regenerative agriculture and in the food and agriculture sector in general, talking about it and acknowledging the history of slavery as a key piece of the history of agriculture in the US. Do you think enough

SPEAKER_01 25:47

people know about it? I mean, I read the book, obviously, as an outsider, or as the one that sent the colonists there. We're never an outsider, but enough of people know the details are just horrifying the details are like the amount of land or the way in which it's been institutionalized structuralized that it's really really horrifying for somebody that sort of knew but didn't really know like do you know enough do you think enough people i mean it's easy to look away but it's also easy to look away if you don't know you know it happened and no but farming and land has been a very very central point of the the discrimination and the race movement. It's been very, very important to take first on the indigenous side, and then also there were a lot of farmers of color, and now there are not so many. It's been a very focal point on the rights on holding land, et cetera, and all the programs have been designed not to help them, basically. Do we know enough about it? Or the answer is very simply, no, we don't know the dirty history there.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

I think there's still a lot of work to do, because I think your average person in the US does not know this history, they might know that, you know, slavery happened. Although, I mean, a third of the people in this country are willing to deny a lot of things about reality. But, you know, these are the statistics around agricultural land in the United States, and they're very stark. About 40% of the US population identifies as indigenous or people of color. And about 60% of the agricultural workers in the United States are people of color. And yet only 2% of agricultural land in the United States is owned by people of color. So that's the contemporary reverberation of the experience of indigenous land being stolen, and black people being stolen from their homelands and then forced to labor in this industrial food system in the US. And then, you know, as you said, even up against so many obstacles, Black people actually did purchase a lot of agricultural land by the early 20th century, but then were dispossessed of 98% of that through violence, lynching, people being run out of town who were landowners by violent white mobs, and then also this really insidious financial racism because in the wake of the Depression, the U.S. Department of Agriculture created loan programs in order to kind of get the agricultural sector back on its feet. And these loans were essential for many, many farmers of all backgrounds to sustain their farming operations through a few periods of recession and drought and things that were very hard on the sector. And those loan programs were so deeply discriminatory, that actually the largest class action lawsuit in US history, eventually, you know, was decided in favor of black farmers who were denied loans, but not before, you essentially, the vast majority of the black farming population lost their land. So 2% of agricultural land in the US owned by people of color, and it's not an accident. It's the result of hundreds of years of colonization, and then this sort of colonial dynamic that's never really been taken out of the agricultural economy and the way it functions and the way it's structured.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

And you said something seems to be changing or at least there's a different I wouldn't say different smell in the air or something is starting to shift since Black Lives Matter and maybe also since you've been starting to follow the sector 12 years ago. I don't think land ownership was any real discussion, let's say, beyond a few very niche circles. Now it seems to be slowly. I mean, soil health is a discussion that's already a surprise. But have you seen shifts? Let's say four and a half years ago when we last talked, we didn't talk about this topic. Have you seen shifts? um, happening and actual, and that's most important actual land being shifted because we can talk about it a lot, but if no land changes hands, um, nothing really happens. So have you seen things change there or has it been a lot of talk until now?

SPEAKER_00 30:16

I think, um, you know, the regeneration movement taking on board this issue of racial justice and land justice, I, I think that's kind of in its infancy. Um, I think there's a lot more discussion. I think, you know, at, uh, You know, regenerative agriculture events, virtual or in person, you hear a lot more conversation about the need for land justice, racial justice, reckoning with structural racism. You see a lot more speakers of color, leaders of color being centered in, you know, publications and journalism around regenerative agriculture. And at these events, I think there's more of an acknowledgement that, you know, regenerative agriculture is rooted in the ancestral tradition. of communities of color. And yet, I don't have a bunch of stories of land transfer in agriculture to share with you, unfortunately. You know, there's movement on the deeper land back movement in the United States. It's not all agricultural land, but a lot of it is connected to food systems. There's an indigenous woman now who's been appointed in the federal government as the head of the Department of the Interior and also an indigenous person heading up the national parks and we've recently had some high profile transfers of public lands back to native peoples and in many cases those are fisheries or lands that are grazed by animals that are perhaps hunted or um you know something i wrote about quite a bit in the book is the buffalo restoration effort that's happening um in the in the prairie um led by indigenous people in the united states but in terms of um you know agricultural land more broadly i think um There aren't a lot of stories about land transfer yet because I think it's going to require pretty ambitious public policy. And you mentioned that we have this whole generation of farmers retiring. What I would love to see is a public program that buys those farmers out and then redistributes that land cognizant of the inequity that we have now and what needs to be done to fix it.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

And how is it for you, obviously a white woman, I mean, you cannot see it on video, but to write this book, was it uncomfortable? Was it weird? I'm just asking, you visit these bison farms and... just quote unquote, it's not really your tribe. How was that to do that and dig there? You wrote a bit about it in the book. And you mentioned at the beginning of the conversation, I'm not sure if I'm the one that had to tell this story. You did. How was that process for you as an outsider, basically, to dive into that and write a book like that? And how has been the response as well? Two questions. Let's start with the first one.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Yeah. I struggled for years with whether I should write a book anything like this. You know, sort of increasingly seeing that regenerative agriculture has this really deep history in indigenous communities and communities of color, seeing that...

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Yeah, let's just be clear. All or most of the practices have been around forever and were just rediscovered by a white dude somewhere, put in a book or a podcast or a series or a course or something, and suddenly there's a great term for that, which I obviously forget, but I can imagine and how annoying it is for indigenous tribes to see, okay, welcome to the show. You're a few centuries late. We've been doing this forever. And now you put a term on it and it's like, anyway, so it's been around all of it or 99.9% of it. So let's not kid ourselves. We're standing on the shoulders of giants without knowing it or without wanting to say it. So getting that out of the way, how has that been for you? Sorry, you struggled for years, you said.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

Yeah, I did because, you know, I'm a narrative writer. And so I was constantly wanting to highlight some of these stories of incredible regenerative farmers, ranchers from indigenous communities and communities of color, seeing that oftentimes these individuals in these communities were underrepresented in the media around regenerative agriculture. And initially, my approach was, that's not the piece, you know, it's not for me to write, but I can, you know, how can I support people from those communities? in telling their own stories, which I think is the right sort of first step for white people in this space is not to think, how can I do this? But to think, oh, you know, people are probably already doing this in their own communities. What can I do to support? And I kind of thought that would be the way in which I thought about being an ally for the rest of my career as a writer and researcher. But increasingly, I saw that, you that maybe there was a role for me to just be honest about how I came to seeing this as so important that, you know, I, my background is that, you know, my grandmother, White, lost our family farm in the Dust Bowl. And I started this journey just very concerned about how, you know, not taking care of soil health, you know, ultimately destroys communities and, you know, You know, from that standpoint, as a white person, you know, completely embedded in this, you know, settler colonial history, I see the only hope for my community being in taking leadership from these indigenous communities and communities of color that have this really deep relationship with regeneration that's not just these kind of isolated individual practices, but is embedded in this whole larger philosophy and reciprocal relationship with land. So I eventually, you know, Yeah, absolutely. And this is where, you know, these techniques originated from. And, you know, within these communities, it's not just techniques, it is this deeper relationship with land. And then it was like, okay, how can I possibly do this in a way that, you know, doesn't produce more harm than good. And so, you know, from the beginning, I was really committed to not profiting at all from writing this book. We convened an advisory council of the major folks who are fielding this book. featured in it and made a decision about where to allocate any of the proceeds. So those are going to a BIPOC farmers land access convergence and then a really cool internship with the person featured in the book who works on bison restoration for a student from a tribal college. And then I have a page on my website to redirect speaking invitations. I think really carefully about stuff like what we're doing now, podcasts. And, you know, in any case where, you know, folks are available and interested, I redirect those as well to folks in the book or people connected to them, you know, just to make sure that I'm not getting in the way of someone else building their platform. But I'm, you know, trying to, in sort of a humble way and as gracefully as possible, to play this ally role. Because I do think ultimately, you know, everybody has to be part of this transition to a regenerative agriculture that's also equitable. And so, you know, I think as white people, we shouldn't center ourselves and imagine that we have to continue to be the leaders, you know, because obviously white people... It's kind

SPEAKER_01 38:30

of the issue, we center ourselves a bit too much.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

Yeah, yeah. I mean, 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

No, no, it's okay. Sorry, we don't have to center ourselves. It's a much broader movement You write about some fascinating stories in the book of not the usual suspects, not the usual ones that have been doing things that are way beyond, yeah, let's say, soil health, which has been very, very interesting. And then the book came out in March. We're now talking June, depending when you listen to this, obviously, 2022, by the way. How has been the response? Yeah, I never know. People can listen to this like years from now. So I always have to mention. What has been the response from... Let's say the traditional regen movement, the non-traditional movement, the folks you featured in the book or not. How has this book landed, let's say, in the space?

SPEAKER_00 39:42

Yeah. You know, I was actually kind of surprised that it's been really positive. You know, maybe just to start with, you know, the quote unquote traditional regen movement. I kind of thought I would at some point get a really angry email from somebody along the lines of, I don't think racial justice has anything to do with this. I haven't gotten that email. Maybe people have said that in each other's private conversations. Nobody's said that to my face. Nobody's sent me that email. It probably is because I'm white. I imagine if I were a person of color saying this, I would get some ugly emails. I've heard from colleagues that they have. I also think Black Lives Matter did a lot of work I started this book just a few months before George Floyd's murder not knowing that there would be a couple years of really public conversation about race happening in advance of this book coming out and I think those activists really kind of paved the way for this conversation to land and people not to be as shocked by it as they might have five years ago so I actually got a lot of emails that surprised me in the other direction of folks that I'm connected to who probably identify as rural conservatives. That's my sense. I've worked with a lot of rural conservatives in the course of my work. You know, I used to be a country singer. I'm from Montana, who wrote me things that were very thoughtful and very empathetic and ultimately very supportive. And I would have never, ever ventured to have a one on one conversation with some of these people. about race. who maybe wouldn't think are ready. So I'm going to have a policy going forward of never jumping to the assumption that people aren't ready for these conversations.

SPEAKER_01 42:10

And researching this book and spending so much time on the ground, literally, which reading the stories must have been amazing and painful at the same time. What has been the biggest surprise for you? Like where are those stories or maybe even a story that didn't make it to the book But like something that really, really surprised you could be on anything, could be on obviously could be on the ground, the plants, the social side. What would have been the biggest surprise while writing this book that got to you?

SPEAKER_00 42:43

Yeah, I mean, I think so when I started researching the book and when I got to the point where I was actually looking for specific people that were going to be kind of like the quote unquote main characters of the sections, I knew I was looking to feature people of color and communities of color because those communities had these long-standing pre-colonial traditions of regenerative agriculture. So things like, you know, bison grazing as the OG, regenerative grazing, you know, agroforestry within the Black diaspora, polyculture, all these mixtures of crops in Mesoamerica, deep, deep, deep history, you know, think about three sisters, and nutrient cycling practices in Asia, which actually, you know, You know, if you sort of trace back, where did the organic movement get its ideas? Like, oh, Sir Albert Howard in an agricultural testament. Went to India and came back. He went to India. Yeah. Franklin Hiram King, farmers of 40 centuries. He went to China, Japan and Korea. So I was thinking about these pre-colonial regenerative traditions. And what I think really surprised me and that I learned in the course of researching the book, and I have to give a lot of credit to Monica White's book, Freedom Farmers, for really directing my attention in this way is not only was regenerative agriculture important prior to colonization, but it's been important within all of these communities as a means of resistance to colonization. So if you think about colonization as being a kind of mode of extraction and agriculture, extractive agriculture being a part of that colonial logic, communities of color and indigenous communities have been continually reasserting these regenerative practices to resist that extraction, which they understand is harmful to their own bodies, their own communities, their own land. And so those stories were really incredible and surprising to me of, you know, black agroforestry in the face of enslavement and in the face of Jim Crow. This movement for buffalo restoration in the face of boarding schools and reservations, all these forms of confinement that were affecting both people and animals, buffalo restoration being this kind of move to reclaim this free and mobile relationship with land, which is ecologically necessary in an arid prairie, but of course is also, you know, part and parcel of indigenous territorial sovereignty. So that was really exciting for me in the book when I was like, ah, you know, this is about regeneration, and it's also about liberation. And those two projects have actually been really closely intertwined within communities of color for the past few hundred years.

What should smart investors, who want to invest in Reg ag and food look out for?

SPEAKER_01 45:27

And that might be an interesting more understatement, but interesting hook for the current say agriculture system where farmers, regardless of color, are stuck and are definitely not, although they inherited the land or leaving the land question aside for a second, but are stuck in a system where they're completely powerless and need a bit of liberation and need a lot of regeneration as well. And it is a discussion on power. Like, are you dependent on outside forces or do you have your own seeds? Are you dependent on outside fertility or do you have your own fertility? Are you dependent on outside labor or do you have year-round community on your farm or nearby that can, the hands you need to work and the hands you want to work on your farm, et cetera, et cetera. It is a discussion on power and liberation there. So that's a very interesting, most of the agriculture system is stuck because of that and not because they want to, obviously. And what would you like investors and the finance sector, we are all far away in our shiny office, I don't have that, but a shiny office and really not very in touch with agriculture, at least not, let's say, the real version of agriculture, what's really happening on the land. What would you like to, let's imagine we're doing this in a theater on stage and the room is full of, let's say, enlightened, smart investors and people working in finance. What would you like them to take away to do differently tomorrow or even tonight when they walk out of that theater and they talk to their neighbor and they're like, what would you like them to, the main message to take away from your research and also the book?

SPEAKER_00 47:12

Yeah. Well, maybe I'll start with, I think the primary concern that I hear when I talk to people in the impact investing community who are thinking about regenerative agriculture, I don't know where this fits on your sort of top 10 of questions from folks who are skeptical, but It's really high on mine. And people say, okay, you told me about some techniques that you can verify will put carbon into the soil, but you haven't told me whether it's going to stay there. How can you prove to me that it's going to stay? in the last hundred years. And they say, is this money just going to evaporate? Because maybe we did something good today, but somebody else is on the land in 10 years and that all is gone. Because, you know, here comes the plow. Or the carbon

SPEAKER_01 48:15

destruction machine. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00 48:17

exactly. That's a great question. I'm glad that investors are asking that question. I think that's a very savvy question. And so I would say if you want to make an impactful and effective investment that also has a long-term impact, I would say dig deeper and look at how to invest in projects that are rooted in Indigenous communities and communities of color that have really, really deep ties to land and for whom regenerative agriculture fits within a larger social and cultural framework rather than just as a financial activity or something where people are looking to sort of earn a profit or a livelihood within this generation. And I think obviously the other reason to do this is equity, is looking at that U.S. statistic that 2% of the land is owned, agricultural land is owned by communities of color and indigenous communities. But it's not just about equity. It is really about impact and effectiveness. And why wouldn't you invest in the communities that have the longest of having done these things successfully. I mean, you know, talk about proof of concept, like Buffalo Prairies did a really good job of storing carbon. And, you know, so if I'm

SPEAKER_01 49:40

buying it, yeah.

What would you do if you were in charge of a 1B investment portfolio tomorrow morning?

SPEAKER_00 49:41

Yeah, yeah. So, so that's what I would say to the community of investors and funders is, is do have that lens of looking at communities of color and indigenous communities. And I'll be the first to acknowledge that in many cases that requires extra homework. And, you know, I mean, if folks have already been under-resourced, they might not have the staff to have a splashy webpage or they might not have sort of configured their project to interface with the impact investing community as readily as a lot of projects that have been configured from the beginning to generate that kind of investment. But that's exactly what can make the investment meaningful is that you actually are moving capital somewhere where it's not already flowing based on prior dynamics. You are actually shifting something and you are actually making a change that's going to last beyond just those 10 years of the carbon in the soil.

SPEAKER_01 50:38

So additionality, the box has been ticked there. And so what would you do if you're in charge of, let's say a billion or even 10 billion? I have the feeling with inflation, I need to add zeros here, as an investment fund, which has the longest duration you want. It's not confined to 10 years or eight years or 20 years. Let's say nevergreen structure, where would you, not where literally, but how would you put it to work and what would you prioritize if you would be in charge of a significant research portfolio, basically, or a significant portfolio full of resources?

SPEAKER_00 51:14

So if you're listening to this podcast and you're actually in that situation, I have to say, I feel for you. That's a huge responsibility. That sounds terrifying. And so I think the most important thing is you don't have to figure this out all yourself. There are some incredible groups and coalitions. I mean, the fact that we're on a podcast here is a great example. But sort of specifically in this space of if you're looking to invest in indigenous communities and communities of color that have these deep histories of regenerative agriculture, you know, I would look to groups like the HEAL Food Alliance, Soul Fire Farm, the Black Farmer Fund, which I've written about a little bit in the book. for some guidance, you know, and some help kind of navigating this space, because I think it is really tricky, especially if, if you're white, or if your group is white led, you know, sort of adjudicating claims from different projects led by different people of color, different communities of color, it can get really uncomfortable really quickly. As you wonder, like, how do I, you know, sort of direct traffic or referee in this situation? I know, for myself, that often feels really inappropriate, even making decisions about who to feature in a narrative piece. And so you can lean on groups like Soul Fire Farm, which has a whole network, or the Black Farmer Fund, Northeast Farmers of Color. And a lot of these groups are connected to each other around the world as well. So if you're looking to invest in Europe or the UK or somewhere else, starting with any of these folks is going to connect you to sort of help you make these decisions and figure out where your niche Yeah,

If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing in the agriculture space, what would that be?

SPEAKER_01 52:58

because let's be clear, this is not a US problem or a North American problem only. This is colonization has happened everywhere, almost everywhere, has deep, deep traces. And of course, land ownership is an issue everywhere. Access is an issue everywhere. Let's say diversity on the land ownership side is an issue everywhere. And so, I mean, the nuances are slightly different in some places, but that should be clear. shouldn't just point that out that's the US so here we're fine or wherever here is this is something that is definitely an issue around the world or a huge issue and a huge lever as well for change unless we start talking about the colonization of our food and agriculture and land system and fisheries and we probably won't get very far and so what would you then unfortunately we take your fund away but you have a magic wand and and listeners of the podcast. No, this is usually one of the final questions, but you have a magic wand and you can change one thing in the food and egg space. And I'm realizing I might've asked it last time as well, but I didn't listen. Maybe in episode 18, we didn't have this question yet. And if we have, ping me because I didn't listen to it before. But if you could change one thing, because for sure it has changed over the last four and a half years that you've been extra active in this space, what would you change if you could only change one thing in this space?

SPEAKER_00 54:26

This is greedy. I'm going to give you two answers from two of my... Everybody does that

SPEAKER_01 54:30

always. They're like, yeah, I have one thing, but I'm going to do two things. And you're like, yeah, that's not the point. Anyway, okay, you get two.

SPEAKER_00 54:36

From two of my different personalities. So, you know, one side of me, I'm a poet. I'm a former musician. I write narrative books. Another side of me, you know, I worked for a U.S. senator and I'm a policy wonk. And I think in really precise ways about changing laws. So that side of me, the wonk The one thing I would change is I would change what happens to people's land when they retire as farmers. And there would be a federal program that offers to buy out those farmers so that they have a dignified retirement. And there is a pool of land that through public policy, you know, invested in the public interest, can make that land available to new entry farmers who may be indigenous, who may be farmers of color. Those folks would have certainly, you know, priority access to make sure that they can get access to that land who are interested in growing healthy food for their communities in a way that's consistent with ecological restoration. So that's what I would do on a policy basis. literally, you know, all those of us on this earth would see land as a relative, as a living, breathing relative. I

SPEAKER_01 56:08

think there's no better way to end this conversation. I want to thank you so much, Liz, to come back on the show for writing this book, for contributing to a lot of interesting articles. And I'm going to link them below and for the work you do. And thank you for coming on here to share and for taking the time.

SPEAKER_00 56:26

Thank you so much for an incredibly insightful conversation. It's always a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 56:35

Thanks again and see you next time.