Webinar – Natural History on the Big Screen: Kiss the Ground Film Discussion on Regenerative Agriculture
April 21, 2022
Angela Roberts:
Well, hello, I'm Angela Roberts, an exhibit writer and editor at the National Museum Of Natural History. And it is my great pleasure to welcome you to tonight's panel discussion for the screening of the film, "Kiss The Ground", and a happy early earth day to you all. We try to celebrate mother earth every day here at Natural History, but this week is special. And so we are thrilled to be celebrating with you all and with our panelists. But before we get started, just a few housekeeping notes to mention. First, this discussion does offer closed captioning, which can be found on the Zoom tool bar by clicking the arrow next to the CC button. Also on the Zoom tool bar, you'll find the Q&A box. Please submit your questions for our panelists in that box at any time throughout the program. And we'll compile them throughout the hour and then ask our panelists during the audience Q&A portion of the event. The Q&A goes by so fast.
So please feel free to submit your questions as you have them. And if they are for someone specific, please let us know when you submit that question. The Q&A box is also where we'll be sharing information with you. So keep an eye out there. Finally, if you haven't had a chance to see the film, "Kiss The Ground" yet, you can either check it out on Netflix or by following the link in the email. And thanks to our friends at "Kiss the Ground," you have access to watch the film tonight and tomorrow by using that exclusive link and password. A big thank you to "Kiss The Ground" for making that possible.
"Kiss The Ground" is an inspiring film that shows us the power of soil and the possibilities of regenerative agriculture to restore food systems, sequester carbon, and increase biodiversity. The film and the organization behind it, share the Smithsonian's optimism in solutions by presenting the research, practice and hope to inspire action. So in case you haven't seen the film yet, or you just need a refresher, we're going to run the trailer for you before I begin to introduce our panel. So enjoy.
(film trailer video plays)
Woody Harrelson:
There's so much bad news about our planet. It's so warm. Truth is, I've given up. This is the story of a simple solution, a way to heal our planet. The solution is right under our feet, and it's as old as dirt.
Speaker 3:
All of our soils that are under chemical, conventional agriculture are almost completely devoid of microorganisms.
Speaker 4:
Modern agriculture was not designed for the betterment of the soil.
Speaker 5:
Fossil fuels are by no means the only thing that is causing climate change. When we damage soils, carbon goes back to the atmosphere.
Woody Harrelson:
But when we destroy soil, it releases carbon dioxide.
Speaker 6:
Biosequestration is using plants, trees, and techniques of grazing and farming to capture carbon and store it in the soil.
Speaker 4:
We can fix a lot of our climate issues, to we bring the CO2 down into a living plant and put it back into the soil where it belongs.
Speaker 7:
Plants working with soil microorganisms. It seems too simple.
Speaker 4:
Healthy soils lead to a healthy plant. Healthy plant, healthy human, healthy climate.
Speaker 9:
There could be a way to eat food that heals the planet.
Speaker 7:
The problem isn't the animal. The problem is where the animals are at.
Speaker 10:
How do we take waste and repurpose and reuse it because it's really not waste.
Speaker 3:
The poop has stay in the loop.
Woody Harrelson:
Compost is just one of a suite of soil based carbon capture solutions.
Speaker 6:
We know how to do it. And if we continue to scale over 30 years, we can reverse global warming.
Speaker 8:
We can get the earth back to the Garden of Eden, that it once was by regeneration.
Speaker 18:
To see biodiversity return to a place that was completely devastated. That gives me hope.
Speaker 11:
Our health and the health of our planet are connected.
Speaker 7:
If you look over here, my neighbor's land that has been chemical fallowed, then you look over at our paddocks. You have a diversity of different plant species. Which model do you want your food to be produced from? The answer is pretty simple to me.
Woody Harrelson:
I'll make you a deal I won't give up and neither should you.
(film trailer video ends)
Angela Roberts:
And with that, it is my pleasure to welcome tonight's panelists, Karen Rodriguez, Michael Kotutwa Johnson and Carrie Vaughn. Karen Rodriguez is a Guatemala woman raised in Venice Beach, California, and the vice president of program operations at "Kiss The Ground". Her first exposure to restorative agriculture came from managing and cooking at great LA and New York City restaurants from chefs and farmers. Today she combines her years in children's education and culinary environments with her passion and connection to regenerative teaching and programming. Dr. Michael Kotutwa Johnson is a member of the Hopi tribe in Northern Arizona. Dr. Johnson holds a PhD in Natural Resources from the University Of Arizona, a Master of Public Policy from Pepperdine University and a BS in Agriculture from Cornell University. Dr. Johnson has recently accepted an offer from the University Of Arizona for a faculty position within the School Of Natural Resources And The Environment. His newest initiative is the call for the restoration of the American Indian food system. Based on the stewardship principles of indigenous conservation. Most importantly, he continues to practice Hopi dry farming, a practice of his people for millennia.
And next we have Carrie Vaughn. She's the farm director for Building Bridges Across The River, which provides world class cultural, educational and health services to people living east of the Anacostia River in Washington, DC. They create gardens for people living under food apartheid, where there's only one full service grocery store for 80,000 residents. Before this work, Carrie was an organic vegetable farmer for 23 years in Maryland. She's grown over a million pounds of vegetables for people in need. Thank you to our panelists for joining tonight. And so let's just jump right in on it. Karen, this first question's going to be for you. As one of the founding members of the "Kiss The Ground" organization, since not everyone may have seen the film yet, or perhaps as a reminder for some, can you start by just briefly telling us what regenerative agriculture is, and then tell us about the backstory of how "Kiss The Ground" started?
Karen Rodriguez:
Absolutely. So to put it as simply as possible, the reason there's not a definition out there yet is because regenerative agriculture answers so many questions that we have about our climate and our ecosystems. So to put it as simply as possible, regenerative agriculture is a holistic land management practice that simply improves and grows soil. Now, that being said for "Kiss The Ground", there are three pillars that would make regenerative agriculture advanced or more successful. And there are three integral pillars, and they're indigenous knowledge, holistic management and cutting edge science.
So we are saying today, the reason this is told as a new old story is because it's a very ancient story, but we as a society have been far disconnected from that story. And so it's a remembrance and it's a coming back to, so that ought to be said that I don't want to oversimplify or diminish the fact that this type of agriculture or way of tending land can also draw down carbon, improve water cycles, create biodiversity. It can increase water retention in the soil. There's many, many a plethora of things that it can do. So simply put it's a way of farming that grows soil, but it is a lot more complicated than that and intricate.
Angela Roberts:
And, as you mentioned, Karen, none of these issues, none of these techniques are really brand new. They're really quite old. And I wanted to turn to Michael whose people have been practicing some of these techniques forever. Can you tell us a little bit about what you do and how you see traditional agriculture being modernized? Oh, Michael you're muted.
Michael Kotutwa Johnson:
Yeah. At Hopi something that someone doesn't really talk about faith too much or our value system of regenerative agriculture. That's probably the biggest thing that's missing as far as I'm concerned, because you know, when you have a holistic management approach at like, heck we do at Hopi, there's no separation between our religious belief systems and our ceremonies and our agricultural systems. They're all tied in one. I mean, for an example, we call corn, Our Mother, because she nurtures us from the very get go. And so that's important to really understand. I almost would call it faith based agriculture out here at Hopi and a lot of indigenous people still practice that. And so that's why I always say that 80% of global biodiversity is confined to 25% of the land now, with only 5% of the population, which happen to be indigenous.
And we have to figure out why that is. What are they doing right? What are people like myself doing right that other people aren't doing? And so, when we talk about land management schemes, we also have to understand that with our cropping systems that they're very place based. I mean, for example, I'm able to grow things out here, grow corn out here, for example, with only six to 10 inches of annual rainfall a year. Planted depths of anywhere from six to 18 inches deep and have that corn due really well. And so that's because I know my system. My system's over 3,000 years old and that's what makes it regenerative. So the word regeneration is applied for that all the way across the board. So I hope I kind of answered that question in brief on that one. Thanks a lot, Angela.
Angela Roberts:
Thank you, Michael. Carrie, let's switch over to you. You operate an urban farm in Southeast DC. Tell us a little bit about your farm, what it's like to be farming in an urban area and the importance of involving the community in growing their food and addressing climate change.
Carrie Vaughn:
Yeah. Thanks Angela. So I would say we should not assume that our very large volume of high calorie crops are going to come out of urban farms and gardens, your backyard. You could grow enough potatoes for yourself for a year, but you won't grow anything else in your backyard. So let's think about all of the things that urban farms can provide for us, other than that one big issue, which we need to be relying on, large scale farms for, or at least farms in more rural areas. Right? So a lot of the things that an urban garden is great for is things that have a lot of flavor. So if you think about something that tastes best when it's dead ripe and super fresh, something like cherry tomatoes, or like a fresh basil, or let's see strawberries. Like a really ripe strawberry. Some of these things are just magical when you taste them, right off the plant and they just kind of die when they sit on a shelf or they've been shipped from some other country.
So there's a huge population of people that don't have that experience, of this is what a vegetable or fruit is supposed to taste like. So many people will say like, "Well, I don't even like strawberries. They taste like cardboard." Well, okay. It just means that you really haven't had a good strawberry, and it's kind of horrifying to think that there are so many people that don't recognize what their food is really supposed to taste like. And that flavor is also an indicator of nutritional value. So if it really packs a great taste, that's because your taste buds were evolved to respond to the very enzymes and minerals and things that are the things that really nourish your body. So your taste buds are telling you "This is good. This is what I'm supposed to be tasting."
And we've kind of fooled ourselves all these years with these petroleum based products and fake chemical versions of things. And so we really need these urban spaces, these urban gardens and urban farms in order to help us recognize, "Oh, this is where this comes from. This is what it's supposed to taste like. This is what a plant looks like when it's growing. These are the things that I can really relish and are really good for my body." And I will also say to the point that this movie brings up, we really need a living canopy over every square inch of ground on this planet. We need gardens on our roofs. We need trees, overhanging our driveways and our streets.
We need all kinds of living plants covering everything that's not ocean. So, and the ocean has its own version of living plants. This is really critical to the survival of the planet. That everybody needs to go out right now, and if you have a little patch of ground, and even if it's concrete right now, you need to put some planters in there and start growing some plants. And if it's lawn, you need to rip out the grass and grow something more interesting because there's just a lot of biodiversity that we need. And we can do that in cities. We don't have to leave it to the farmers to do all those things.
Angela Roberts:
Thank you, Carrie. It's very passionate there. And I think this is a topic that you can get really passionate about. I just love it. I want to turn back to Karen and ask you, what are some of the biggest challenges facing us in moving towards utilizing regenerative agriculture on a larger scale? Like really when I was watching the film, I just wanted to ask, why aren't more farmers utilizing these practices?
Karen Rodriguez:
Well, let's start with something that I think is really valuable and important. Farmers in this country are the backbone of our system. They feed us, they take care of us. And I don't want for anyone to walk away, we're, villainizing anyone in this space. They grow our food and they're doing a lot to just put food on their own table. And to be within a system in a country that has done things quite the same for a long time. However, the population has changed. The country as a whole has changed. So ultimately that's one of the challenges we're facing is that is decision making and what I call dosing. Because we like to dose things and we say, "Oh, if you just do this, it'll work this way." And context like Michael was saying, is everything.
Context is one of the principles of regenerative ag, is it start where you are, on the land that you are on, build a relationship with that land and then build a relationship with the piece of land, the home, the people in the home, the community, and then outward that way. So that's one of the problems we're facing. Second problem we're facing is, the way that government grants work for farmers, and commodity crops are subsidized and taking care of a certain way. And corn and soy is what's grown the most in this country. And that's what's the most supported. And therefore it's hard for people to get out of the systems that they're in. Third is education. I think a lot of people just have done however they were taught for their lifetime and they are disconnected from a different way of doing things.
And so it's education. And then access. Obviously there's a lot of people in communities that are... There's a lot of barriers to getting to do what you need to do. Even with urban farming, there's zoning, there's laws, ordinances, it's quite complicated. So there's a lot that we're really up against.
Also education in schools for children really. A lot of kids don't know what kind of name all the vegetables. And so we're up against quite a big challenge. However, the natural design is made to have us have a cool planet. And so when we heard about this for the first time, "Kiss The Ground". That is what moved us to go, okay, well, I was 30 years old. I had been in food for a long time and was like, "How did I not know that this is how it works and where in my life did it get disconnected this much?" And so that's why we chose to give our lives to this. And then got lucky enough to meet Josh and Rebecca and do the film in partnership with them.
Angela Roberts:
Great. Thank you. I think one of the things that I'm really struck by in the film was that the philosophy behind regenerative agriculture is this idea that we create agricultural systems that resembled naturally occurring ecosystems, with multiple biotic and abiotic components that more or less keep each other in balance. And Michael, I wanted to ask you, if you could talk about, really the importance of looking to nature to find the solutions to address soil degradation, food security and climate change.
Michael Kotutwa Johnson:
Well, I think we ought to remember that once we damage nature, it's three, four times hard to get it back to where its original state is. One of the things I'm proud of is that, I know that Hopi's is one place that we grow corn to fit the environment and not manipulate the environment to fit the corn. And I think because that's very important, I think, it's hard to, they call it biomimicry, to try to imitate nature when it's lost. But I think if things were to go fallow and let them go for a while, I think things would go back to their natural state. You know, there's examples of that throughout the world where things have just been left alone and things grow back.
Right. But it takes a tremendous amount of time. And unfortunately I think here in America, we just don't have that much patience to do that. And so that's part of the problem. But Carrie was touching on something very important nature in itself. If we don't actually see things grow, if we don't actually watch things grow, then how can we really feel what nature's supposed to be about? And that starts at a very small age, and urban populations are a very good way to bring that about. Because it's hard enough to learn anything in school, but for me, when you give a child a plant to grow, and that he has that responsibility, or she has that responsibility, it's a beautiful thing to watch.
It's like taking a bunch of people from the city and taking them out to an apple orchard and having them pick their own apples. So unless they really experience that, they just don't quite get it. And so, I applaud Carrie's initiative with urbans and Karen's "Kiss The Ground" film, because it starts to touch on that in different ways. I think one of the things that struck me the most was just the fact that by using all these different types of chemicals on the ground, that you don't have soil anymore. You just have dirt. That's like dust, and I don't like dusting things. And so that's part of the problem, but it's just that simple. When you remove nature, it goes to dirt.
And I think we need to try to find ways to invent that. But I did want to touch on one more thing, if I could about Karen's comment about what is really missing in big ag in this country. And what's keeping them so dependent. And one of the main things is that there's just no funding mechanism to allow big commodity agriculturalists to go back to regenerative, because there's about a three to five year window. And the banks aren't really lending to that because they're afraid they want their money back too. So that's also one of the big problems that's out there. And so we need to find ways. The other big problem is that our USD market system is geared towards quantity and efficiency. And if you have those two ingredients at the top of your market niche, that's when you're going to bring in all those other chemicals and those other things that make it dirt.
We need to get away from that. We need to focus on what Carrie's talking about. The quality. And unfortunately right now it's really the small farmers and urban centers that she's talking about is producing the quality of stuff you want to eat. You can actually taste it, right? I mean, my God, when I cook corn and Hopi, when I harvest my corn out there, it smells like rain when it boils, and it's just absolutely a totally different taste. And so those are the type of things we should try to focus on, and that's going to take a change in the market system, but it's also going to change, as your audience members will know, on what products you choose to buy.
We need to buy those products because you're the ones who make the big decision on what you want to buy. In the supply chain folks, you have a lot of power to what you purchase and where you purchase it from. So remember that. You guys are the ones who can buy what you want to buy, because buying is the one. If I don't want to buy some Cheerios, Cheerios is going to change their product. Right? And so it kind of that simple, but that's just my take on that. But thanks for asking that question.
Angela Roberts:
Thank you. Well, you just touched on kind of the topic for the next question I was going to ask, which I want to throw this open to any of our speakers. As consumers, communities members and activists, what can we do that can be the most impactful in encouraging things to shift more to this regenerative agriculture?
Karen Rodriguez:
I can answer if no one else has a thought. But I think being alive is something that hopefully we're engaged in, right? We're present, we're connected to something, everything we do. So if we just start by basic, like getting to know the farmer that grows your food, understanding the food shed where your food comes from, understanding what is local to you that has maybe a community garden. Where your compost might be able to go. Are you growing anything at your house? Do you even know how? Would you give it a try? And then you expand that out into, "Hey, who makes decisions about soil in my neighborhood? Who makes decision about soil in my city? Who makes decisions about soil in my state?" And onward. There is a plethora of knowledge now in our hands, on our phone, where think about where you spend your time looking at things or reading things or studying things.
What if you put your attention on your food or learning how to grow something. So sometimes it's as basic as engagement. And then second to that. Now, if you want to get advanced level, now you want to get the email of the person who makes decisions about soil in your country and let them know what you think, as well as get the seeds, get the soil going. Practice. It's all trial and error. If you think about your body, your human body, it's like, if you try a vitamin and you see that it's improving things for you, then you want to keep taking it. If you see, it's not, you want to try something else. It's all trial and error.
But engagement is the most important part of it. A lot of us walk around, like we're just expecting things to fall in our laps, and that's not being engaged in the relationship with our food. Understanding that it's a cycle. That it all connects together. And so are your links of your connection far, because your food's being shipped from another country or did you grow the tomato that you're eating? So I would say engagement and just starting somewhere.
Angela Roberts:
I want to touch base with Carrie, because we've been talking a lot about food and the relationships. I'm just going to just ramble for a second until I get my pace back. Forgive me. Carrie. I want you to talk a little bit about the relationship between regenerative agriculture, nutrition and food security. Because I know you work with a lot of people. You mentioned the food apartheid in that area.
Carrie Vaughn:
Yeah. Well I think, one of the things that we want to remind people is that one of the ways that we can ensure that there are people willing to do cheap labor for us, is if we force them to live in places where they can't grow their own food. So, we have a whole cast of people that has to live in places that have very little access to green space. And that means that they are at the will of whatever sort of market forces are happening or pandemics or the environment. And I think one of the ways that we can create a more equitable society is if we give everybody access to growing some amount of food and it really, it doesn't have to be that you grow all of the food that you eat for the whole year.
It can be on a much smaller scale than that, but it can be so meaningful. So I think that food security, it's not just do I have the Cheerios that I want to buy at the store when I want to buy it. It's do I know which foods are most nutritious for me? Are those foods even available at the store? If they're not at the store, can I create a co-op of people around me who want to get together and buy that food? Can I create a garden where you know, where we get together and we grow this food and learn how to do it? I mean, just like what Karen was saying. The thing that we owe to one another, is the capacity to nourish ourselves and to have not just the ability, but also even knowing that it's important.
Right. And having that connection is so critical. And this is just something that we have been doing throughout the history of human life is, trying to rob people of the, not intentionally. It's not like every people wake up and they're like, "Oh, I'm a wealthy capitalist. I want to steal people's access to vegetables." I mean, that's not really what I'm saying. But I think we kind of know it subconsciously, that the more wealth we have, the more land we want to take over. Maybe we need to be in a situation where we're sharing our land in a way that allows people to grow some food and to have that experience. And we need to be better stewards of the land that we do have control over. It's almost as if the more land you have, the more callous you are about each square foot, right?
So if I go to a big estate, they might have just acres of green lawn, which is not really serving our soil. It's not really serving the planet. If you go to these giant farms, they don't have the labor there because there's nobody living there anymore. Right? So they have to use these huge equipment to grow commodity crops, which can be stored and saved for a really long period of time. If you allow people to have a little bit more space to work with, then they can be stewards of their own small space. And if I have 200 square feet in my yard, I can handle that. That's the amount of space that I can do in my spare time. That doesn't have to be a full-time job. I don't need a farmer to take care of that. And I can grow a huge amount of food in that amount of space.
Angela Roberts:
Well, thank you, Carrie. I have one last question for you all before we open it up to ask questions from the audience. And I want to thank those of you who have already submitted your questions. And if you haven't, please go ahead and put them in the Q and A box in your Zoom toolbar. So I want to have my last question go to Michael. And I guess one of the things that is fascinating to me about is what we can learn about nature. What we can learn about the ecosystems we live in and how that impacts what we grow there. And you've touched on that in some other comments you made earlier, but I just was wondering if you could kind of expand on that, what we can learn about our natural ecosystems and how that would look like to implement that in our agricultural systems.
Michael Kotutwa Johnson:
You know, I was down in Scottsdale recently and I got to see the old, the architect, his name was Soleri, and I got to look at his original that he built down there and this is going to get to agriculture, believe it or not. And so he had this idea of building these houses, like halfway under the ground, in this desert environment. And he was taking full advantage of what nature was giving him and just by his observations. And so those houses were off the charts. Energy efficient, nice and cool in the and 120 degree weather. That's kind of what it is. And so I don't know the man generally since passed away, but our way of doing things right now is to just go out and sit there and observe about what's going on.
I mean, that sounds kind of crazy, but before I even put something on the field or start open something up, I kind of sit there and see what it gives me. For example, I'm able to tell if we're going to have a drought or not just by looking at the types of fauna that's on the ground in the springtime. That tells me exactly how deep I got a plant. How much moisture I have in my soil. I don't need modern technology to do that. I mean, modern technology is great if it's used properly. I'm a full fan of all that stuff, but when it comes to nature, nature is its own modern technology. And so these ecosystems that we're a part of just take a little while for us to see what they have to offer us.
It gets a little harder when you've got a concrete street sitting on there or a big house and stuff like that. But even in your backyard or even in the urban spaces that Carrie's talking about, they're there. They've may have changed a little bit. The roof garden thing is a cool thing to do too. At home at Hopi, we have about eight or 10 inches of our traditional homes, eight or 10 inches of sod or clay on top. And so they actually grow weeds up there during the time. And so it's kind of neat to see that. But I think to really look at that, you might want to just see what's out there.
There's a film out there called "Inhabitants", which I'm part of, and I think that's an excellent film to look at as far as how to work with nature, because it's five tribes and how they deal with the different facts of climate change. But that being that said, I just think you need to just take the time to observe, look around. Because not only will you see things growing, I think if you remember to breathe, I think you'll also see yourself growing too, believe that or not. It's kind all tied up into that philosophy. But yeah, that's how I looked at it. But thanks for asking that question.
Angela Roberts:
So I've got a one more question for Karen. I'm sorry. Before we open it up to this audience questions. About the film, what didn't make the cut? What stories are missing that you really wish had been in there?
Karen Rodriguez:
There's so much. There's so much. That you can only say so much in 90 minutes. Unfortunately. I remember one of the first times I sat down to hear someone talk about soil. He spoke for six hours without stopping. And it was incredible because I was like, wow, how can he retain all this information? It's complicated to tell this story in one sitting. And so a lot didn't make it definitely. We did film indigenous people. I remember we filmed Charging Eagle of the Lakota tribe. There are things that just didn't make it into the film, unfortunately, though that piece is in the educational cut. We did get to get it into the school cut. Obviously the indigenous wisdom piece. This is the root of what a lot of this work comes from. The varieties of communities that do farming.
It's not only large conventional ag, there's small farmers. And then you can get into the justice around farming, like farmer rights, farmer health, farmer wellbeing. The food webs that happen in our world, not just in this country. Other countries, obviously. So there's way too many things that didn't make the film and it's because you can only fit so much in 90 minutes. And even then we fit a lot of threads. But yes, a lot was missing. And there's so much more to the story. This is not anything that I can tell you that, and we've been doing this for nine years personally, and with our team and we're just scratching the surface of what's there for us as humans.
And that's what it really comes down to too, is to be the type of people we need to be to farm this way, we have to really tap into our magic. Our inner magic. And we walk around using very little of that right now. And as Michael said, it's the observation part too that's such a big part of being engaged. If you watch movies like Gather or Biggest Little Farm, you'll see that there's a lot in that relationship about staring at your land and then learning so much from it. And that's when you start using your inner wisdom. And it's pretty incredible if we could get there.
Angela Roberts:
Yeah. I knew asking that question was going to be a loaded one. It's a lot like writing an exhibition. There's just so much content and you can only put in so much and it's one of those struggles. One of those good struggles.
Karen Rodriguez:
And the film took almost seven years to make. So, idea to becoming. So much of the world changed in that time. So much of the movement changed in that time. So you can only do what you can do.
Angela Roberts:
Yeah. I want to turn to our audience questions now. We have two related questions and I'm going to ask them both to Carrie, to start off with. And one is from Peg. She says that "Many communities can't afford the high prices of produce. And can you provide some advice on that?" And then Linda asks a related question. I'm going to kind of ask them together. How do we change the system where it's cheaper to buy junk food than healthy fruit and vegetables and fresh meat, where people would cook healthy meals rather than prepared meals and junk food. That's a lot there, but...
Carrie Vaughn:
Yeah.
Well, I know that the movie really touches on this issue of how the government subsidizes food like corn. Like the commodity crops, the crops that in other words, you can store for a very long period of time and sell by the ton, as opposed to something that needs to be sold fresh, by the bushel. So those commodity crops are all subsidized by the government, the corn, the soybeans, the wheat, things like that. And it means that a lot of the food we eat, they're cheaper if we make it out of commodity crops and then we can store it for a really long period of time, and package it in a cardboard box and put it on a shelf. It doesn't have to be refrigerated. So there's all these reasons why it's cheaper to buy processed food that's not as nourishing.
And only one of those factors, the government subsidies, is one that you can change, right? The fact that it's a storage crop is a little trickier to effect. But there's all kinds of ways that we can make produce cheaper for ourselves and our community. So for example, if you pay attention to what is available in the moment, what's seasonally available, it's actually pretty cheap. So for example, in the wintertime, if I try to buy asparagus, it's really expensive. But if I go to the store right now, asparagus is one of the cheapest things I can buy on the shelf. So, let's think about what is delicious and available in the moment. Don't try to have the same recipe that you make all year long. Figure out what's available and then choose a recipe that matches it.
The closer you can get to buying directly from a farmer, usually the cheaper it is. So if you can have a co-op with your neighbors and buy by the case from a farmer, especially if you're not real picky about how the vegetables look. If it doesn't have to be a perfect tomato, if it can have some little like scratches and bruises and things like that, those things make the vegetables a lot cheaper. If you're willing to take the time to do a little bit of the picking, that makes it cheaper. If you grow your own, that can make it cheaper. Although it can depend a little bit on how you grow it. I mean, I know there was a comment there about how growing her own tomatoes cost three times more than buying in the store. And I can totally sympathize with that, but I will say that once you get the hang of it, you can get better.
And then also trying to preserve the produce when it's in season so that you have it when it's out of season. So for example, I have a dehydrator. I dehydrate all kinds of vegetables, but especially things like tomatoes. And they just really brighten up my stews in the wintertime and they're super cheap. And you don't even have to freeze it. You just store it in a jar. So anyway, there's those little tricks. Once you get the hang of it, you can actually make food that's fresh, even cheaper than if you're buying processed food in boxes in the grocery store.
Angela Roberts:
Thank you, Michael. I want to ask a question for you from Linda. She says, I have a friend who is a corn and soybean farmer, and he wasn't sure that this method would be able to provide enough food to feed everyone. How would you address this concern?
Michael Kotutwa Johnson:
Well, my method is, like I said, it's place based. It's not meant to provide food to any and to everyone. It's meant to provide food to my community. I think that's one of the fallacies that everybody thinks about because I always get the question of, Well, you can't feed a billion people with that system. You know, I could have the sarcastic answer and say where the way we're going, I won't have to fill the billion people, but I'm, but I'm not like that. But you know, at the same time, I look at our community and I say, "Well, this system fits perfect here." Not only is it a cropping system, it's a distribution system, it's a faith based system. It has everything you need to make human wellbeing go right off the charts.
And so we really have to look at, what's the question, do we want to answer? Do we want to, for me anyways, do I want to preserve my culture or do I want to preserve economics? That's the main thing behind everything that we do here in the market system. It's Economics. And so, my heart goes out to the person that asked that question, because my answer is just simple. This is just for my community. If you were to incorporate some of my values, maybe you might see little things a little differently. But that's how I was brought up to see our type of agriculture, subsistence, community based and faith driven. And so that's about as best as I can answer that question, but thanks for asking that.
Angela Roberts:
Thanks for Michael. Karen. I don't know if you wanted to touch on the scalability of regenerative agriculture and some of the risks, I think that farmers feel they would be taking.
Karen Rodriguez:
Yeah, absolutely. I think change for any anybody is difficult. I think we live in a society and culture that actually thrives on making copies of copies, of copies. It's not very creative, to be honest. It's quite a lot of the same. However, we're really unique. And so if we were able to be a little braver that way. I think there's a misconception that not enough food can be grown. I think yes. In the beginning it takes a while to create a regenerative system. Yes, there's an investment of a little bit of time. However, again, a great example as Biggest Little Farm is such a great film, but if you just watch the film, you see the process of what it takes to really start. It starts to generate in its own system. So that's what regeneration is, right?
It's like more, more, more, more, more. So there's a misconception about how much food can be grown. There's a misconception around food waste. A lot of food we have is wasted. So if we could actually pay attention to that a little bit more, we actually don't need to grow as much as we think that we need to grow. I would say, it's similar to the question of, is it cheaper to eat chips and things that cost a few cents? Is it really cheaper because you have to pay for the doctor or you have to pay for pharmaceuticals after that.
So it's the same question. If you're like, "Oh, if I take out my inputs, is it going to cost more?" Well actually it cost you more in inputs because you're trying to keep up a system that isn't strong enough to be kept up. So I think that it's our thinking that really it's our thinking that really needs to regenerate. In order for us to be brave enough, to understand that we think that the way that we do things is just, it's okay, but we're not willing to get in there and be brave and try new things and really make new systems, truly. We haven't been that brave in a very, very long time.
Angela Roberts:
I want to pitch this next question from Priya. I'm going to ask Carrie to start us off with this. She said, Priya says, "I'm a teacher. What can we do at a small scale to introduce this to school-aged children?"
Carrie Vaughn:
Well, I mean, there's so many different things to think about. Like, I don't know, here in Washington, D.C., most of the schools around here have gardens. So that would be one way to start. And they're not big gardens. It's a four by eight wooden box with some compost in it and growing some food. So that's an easy way to start, or even like a planter in the window in the classroom. Just that experience of getting seeds to germinate and watching them grow and having the kids participate, having them pull the radish out of the ground. That's a way to start. And then maybe for older kids you might think about, "Okay, what does our campus look like? What can we do to increase the root mass in the soil? So can we grow some more trees? Can we have more forest? Can we have a food forest? Maybe we don't need quite as much space for the baseball field and the soccer field and the whatever else we're doing out there. Maybe we also want a little space for growing something."
Maybe you could take the time to think with the kids about, a lot of times we don't pay attention to what's growing under the soil. And this film does such a great job of paying attention to that. So when you look at a tree, you see how big the tree is above the ground. Well, it is exactly that big below ground as well. And then in addition to the roots that the tree has created underground, it also has relationships with mycorrhizal fungi and all kinds of other things that are creating more carbon channels in the ground to connect trees to one another and to get the tree to access more minerals and water and things like that.
So as we learn about that, then the kids can think about, "Okay, well, so if I can look around at what's above ground, let's imagine how much carbon is being stored below ground. And can we increase that?" Because if our goal here is to increase percentage of organic matter in the soil from, let's say 1% to 4%, which is what we need to do in order to save our climate chaos, then gosh, there's so many simple things that we can do even in our own schoolyard. And that can include like, okay, "Well, instead of cutting down that tree, why don't we plant more?" You know, something like that.
Karen Rodriguez:
Is it okay if I add.
Angela Roberts:
Yes, please do.
Karen Rodriguez:
You know, "Kiss The Ground" did have a children's education leg at one point. And what I learned in doing that was that, wow, this could become its own nonprofit all on its own because there's so much missing the children in our education system in public school. Learn about this in one grade, in one lesson and that's in the 12 years. So it's quite impressionable how, what a lack of miseducation there is in this regard. And so "Kiss The Ground" does have, if you go on our site, we do have children's education. We made curriculums. A couple of different ways to introduce it into the schools. And then we list national, garden school programs, compost school programs and programs that work with schools. But it does start with obviously the governance of the school will have a lot to say about it. So it is also a work of advocating parents, teachers, everybody needs to advocate that this is important, otherwise they won't put it in.
Michael Kotutwa Johnson:
You know, this is kind of a nice little side here, but when a Hopi child is born, two to three weeks after that child is born, his paternal aunts give him or her, their Hopi name. And when she raises that child to the sun and brings him back down, she places a small little piece of sweetcorn pudding in their mouth as a way to lock them into our society. And so that's how intimate this is for a Hopi, And that's what I'm talking about faith-based agriculture and the value systems behind this. That's what makes it so important. But my big dream would be before a kid can enter school, that he have a cup with a seed in it and make sure watch it grow.
But before he comes to school. Before he even enters his Head Start. And I'm not going to talk about the type of seeds right now, but I'm just going to talk about, come with a plant. You know, how we take a can of food to the store to help people. We should come with a cup of a little plant to help people. I mean, Jiminy Crickets, if we did that. We would take care of emissions pretty quickly, I think. But anyways, that's just my kind of like little side, but yeah.
Angela Roberts:
Yes. Thank you. I think there's a lot of things that we can do. And I think children are just always so curious and they're ready and willing to embrace new ways of looking at things. We've got a question here from Ron. He says, my family owns a lot of land in Western Nebraska and have had trouble finding people to grow something other than corn or soy. Are there networks of people who want to grow regenerative crops that we can tap? And I'm seeing Karen and Michael both nodding their heads. So I'll just open it up to both of you all.
Karen Rodriguez:
I mean, there's lots of people who just dream of having land and they do this in their, all waking hours, but they don't have a piece of land. I think personally, if you want to send me an email at Kiss The Ground, I can get you a list, or I can point you in the right direction. I couldn't tell you right this second, but there are people out there who really would love to use the land and grow different things.
Michael Kotutwa Johnson:
You know, land access is always a big problem wherever we grow. But I'm trying to figure out ways that upscale traditional agriculture or indigenous agriculture. And so some of the tribes just don't have the land available either, but when I'm going to upscale, I would like to make sure that they do have a place to grow. There has already been partnerships going around between Indians and non Indians. I think the biggest problem that we have here is that we don't talk to each other enough. We see a reservation we're afraid to go on the reservation. It doesn't make any sense to me, but we need to form those partnerships because you know, the federal government cannot take care of all of our needs as Indian people. We need to partner more philanthropic organizations, and non-profits and things like that. So that's just how I see it. You know? I mean, you're lucky you have the land and grow what you can on there and just take good care of that stuff. Because that stuff doesn't come back that easily. And so, I appreciate you bringing that comment up. Thank you.
Carrie Vaughn:
We don't know the specifics of Ron's situation, but I will say that when I speak with people in this region who have land available, a lot of times somebody in their family is living in the house and they want someone else to manage the land. And I think this can be kind of tricky. So whether this is Ron's problem or not, there's probably somebody out there listening to this who is dealing with this problem. And that is that like, just remember that whoever is farming that space really needs to live near it. In order to grow well on a piece of land, you need to be able to fence the deer out. You need to be able to install irrigation. You need to be able to spend some money on things like greenhouses and tractors or whatever.
I mean the tractors are mobile, but a lot of that stuff is really place based and a farmer gets better and better the longer they spend in a single place. Which is why Michael's community is so incredibly great at farming because they have been in one place for a really long time and they've paid so much attention. So just think about that when you're trying to get this situation where like, "Oh, I want to own the land and maybe I'll live in the house or not. And then somebody else is going to do this fantastic job of stewarding that property." Well, try to make this situation as good as possible for the people who are going to be stewards of the land. Do they have a home? Do they have a way of investing in the place so that they can reap the rewards of all of that labor and attention they've given to that land.
Angela Roberts:
Thank you. Well, we have time for one last question and this one comes from Lydia and I'm going to start with Karen. She says, Karen, I love your saying that we haven't been that brave. And she asks, who is brave and how do we become brave? And what does it take to be brave and to make the shifts that you talked about?
Karen Rodriguez:
I can get really deep in this conversation. If we look at our world right now and we look at where there's wellbeing and health and where there's joy and where there's abundance and thriving right in the earth. We're connected to something. Where there's degradation, inequity, chaos, there's a lot of disconnection. So it's brave to ask questions like, why isn't this working? Why isn't this available to all? Why are these people silenced? Why are these people taken care of? It's as simple as starting to ask the questions and then being brave enough to hold the answer. We are in a time of a lot of grief and a lot of loss and a lot of pain and we need to build capacity to hold all of it right now. It's paradox, right?
So, I don't do this work because I think life is terrible. I do this work because life is incredible and I respect it and I revere it. And in order to do that on a daily basis, I better be brave. And I better be brave to say, "No, that's not working." Or "No, Hey, let's try something else." And I think that we are in systems where we get educated a certain way and I'm not saying education is not good. I'm saying "Question the education. Question, what you're being told. Question why we're living, the things that we're living" and then be brave enough to hold the answer because they're not always answers you want to hear. They are about greed. They are about money. They are about that kind of thing. And so then we have to use our creative energy.
We have to be brave enough to use our creative energy and use that energy to create new things we've never done before and not be so much in the like, "Oh, but if I leave this job, I'm not going to have money. Or if I leave this community, I'm not going to have friends. If I leave this governmental body or structure, everyone's going to hate me. If I believe this." We stay a lot in situations because we're afraid of upset or messiness, but hey, this is messy. This is messy. So I think we have an opportunity right now. We have a big opportunity and it takes bravery. Otherwise, we just keep doing what we've been doing and that's not going really well.
Angela Roberts:
Well, thank you, unfortunately, that is all the time that we have tonight. I would like for everyone to join me in thanking tonight's speakers, Karen, Michael, and Carrie, as well as all of our friends at "Kiss The ground". A special thanks to our donors, our volunteers, and to you for making tonight's program possible, as well as our partners who help us reach, educate, and empower people all over the world. If you want to keep up with us and our programs, make sure to sign up for our weekly e-newsletter and check out our upcoming events on our webpage. Links for both of those are in the Q&A. You'll also see a link to a survey in the Q&A, and we hope that you'll take a moment to respond. We read every response and we really appreciate your feedback. That's how we learn and grow. Again, thank you to our participants and to you, the audience and happy Earth Day.
