Episodes
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Satu and Sami Kumpulainen are siblings from Sievi in Ostrobothnia, Finland, who have dedicated their lives to sheep and wool. Together, they run the Isokummun farm and wool mill, which produces high quality yarn from the heritage breeds, Finnsheep and Kainuugrey. There are very few sheep farms focused on wool production in Finland simply because it is very hard to run this type of business—despite domestic wool being in high demand. Finland’s entry to the EU in 1995, and the lack of policies that would support domestic wool production, have left the country with a lack of infrastructure and know-how about the wool care for domestic sheep breeds. Due to this, most wool from sheep farms in Finland is considered a waste product and the indigenous Finnish breeds with high quality wool are in danger of going extinct. This is something that Satu and Sami want to change. Through the farm and mill operations at Isokummun, the Kumpulainen siblings aim to revitalize domestic wool production from heritage breeds in an ethically sound and environmentally friendly way. The Kumpulainens’ ethos is about fostering a respect for the indigenous Finnish sheep breeds and the incredible quality wool that these sheep can give us—if we care for them properly. In our conversation, we talk about what's so special about Finnish sheep breeds, the challenges sheep farmers have in Finland, and the rocky road taken by wool and yarn before it arrives to the shops.
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Ulf Ullring från Østlandet i Norge är ursprungligen biolog till utbildningen men har också jobbat som jordbrukare, och med att sköta norska kulturlandskap, vilket också fört honom in på forskning kring betesdrift på betesmarker. Ull Ullring är en av pionjärerna i Europa inom den regenerativa rörelsen. Han var den första i norden som kom i kontakt med Allan Savorys läror om holistic management och det som han kallar målinriktat betesbruk. I den här diskussionen reder vi ut hur holistic management och regenerativt lantbruk har fått fotfäste i Europa och Norden samt skillnaden mellan dessa två begrepp. Ulf menar att det är en stor skillnad mellan hur man ser på brukad mark och vild natur inom utbildningsväsendet, och fram till nyligen höll alla sig till sitt eget “område”. Som biolog skulle man inte forska på betesmark på 80-talet men idag har forskare börjat bedriva mer multidisciplinär forskning där man drar nytta av insikter från båda ämnena. Vi diskuterar och hur den regenerativa certifieringssystemet EOV (eller ecological outcome verification som den heter på engelska) uppkommit och hur den skiljer sig från ekologiska certifieringsprocesser.
Intervju: Maria Ehrnström-Fuentes
Editering: Magdalena Lindroos
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Åsa Vilhemsson och Anders Assis bor på Haskens i Sillerbo, i Hälsingland. Här driver de en gård enligt regenerativa principer. Utöver den egna gården jobbar Åsa som folkhögskolelärare och Anders förvaltar ett lokalmuseum i trakten. Deras resa in i det regenerativa har gått genom deras gemensamma intresse för historia och arkeologi. Berättelser om hur bondgårdar fungerade förr i tiden är något som alltid fascinerat dem och fått dem att själva bli intresserade av lantbruk. Men det var först när de kom i kontakt med Allan Savorys läror om holistic management som de började förstå hur allting hänger ihop. Det var som att ett svartvitt fotografi plötsligt fylldes med färger och gav en djupare mening till vad de håller på med.
Den erfarenhet som de fått via sin egen verksamhet och den kunskap som de skapat tillsammans med andra regenerativa bönder fick Åsa och Anders att vilja utbilda och inspirera andra om dessa metoder. Därför har de nu startat en ett-årig utbildning i regenerativt lantbruk på Bäckedals folkhögskola i Sveg i Härjedalen. Kursen drivs av regenerativa pionjärer i Norden, och syftet är att tillsammans med andra lära sig förstå den komplexitet som finns i landskapet och den självorganiserande helhet som vi människor är en del av. I det här poddavsnitten diskuterar vi hur Åsas och Anders syn på lantbruk förändrats under åren men också om hur samspelet mellan människan, djuren, och jorden kommit att forma deras syn på sig själva och det landskap de är en del av.
Intervju: Maria Ehrnström-Fuentes
Editering: Magdalena Lindroos
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David Jonstad är journalisten som gjorde en u-sväng i livet och valde att flytta ut från Stockholm till en liten gård i Dalarna. Längtan till landet vaknade i David efter att han insåg att det inte finns några teknologidrivna innovationer som kan lösa den djupa ekologiska kris som mänskligheten och planeten befinner sig i. Under åren som gått har han hunnit skriva flera böcker där han reflekterar över klimatkrisen och den industriella civilisationens baksida. I den senaste boken Meningen med landet som kom ut hösten 2021 skriver David om sin egen resa ut från stan till landet och vad som på riktigt skänker livet mening när man vågar ta sig ur tillväxtekonomins och konsumtionssamhällets grepp. I det här poddavsnitten diskuterar vi den gradvisa förändring som David upplevt då ha börjat rota sig i en ny verklighet på landet, och hur hans egen identitet förändrats då han kommit närmare den natur han ser sig vara en del av. Vi talar också om hur svårt det kan vara att göra en sådan här omvälvande förändring utan att bränna ut sig på köpet.
Intervju: Maria Ehrnström-Fuentes
Foto Maria Hansson
Editering Magdalena Lindroos -
Daniel Christian Wahl is originally from Germany but currently lives on the island of Mallorca in Spain. Daniel’s book, Designing Regenerative Cultures, has been a source of inspiration for many who want to learn more about what it means to engage in regenerative approaches in different areas of life. In this conversation we speak about Daniel’s own journey into topics related to regeneration and how he sees the changes that needs to take place to alter the destructive path most cultures are on today. Daniel says that sustainability or regeneration is a process of journeying into the future, rather than some sort of master plan blueprint that you can design, implement and then live happily ever after. Instead of getting caught up in thoughts about a collapsing ecology, Daniel thinks that the human dimension needs to be brought back into conversation in order to deal with the multitude of crises that the planet is facing. He says that to make a change happen and shift the discourse we need to look within ourselves and ask ourselves who are we, where do we come from, and where are we going?
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Precious Phiri is a training and development specialist in regenerative agricultural practices and community organizing in Zimbabwe. Her main interest lies in working with rural communities to fight and reverse poverty, desertification, loss of wildlife, and climate change and its effects. She has recently founded an organization called EarthWisdom with the knowledge of her 9 year career as a Senior Facilitator at the Africa Centre for Holistic Management (ACHM) in Zimbabwe. In this conversation we talk about how regenerative management is not only healing land but also communities in areas that are marked by the legacy of colonialism. Precious knows how to work with communities and get them to unite on the common goal of healing land, and she also talks about the importance of tackling historic backgrounds and myths mindsets that may prohibit communities from engaging in transformative actions that can change the trajectory of the lives of the people and their lands.
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Kristen Krash has set up a small farm called Sueño de Vida in Pedro Vicente Maldonado in Ecuador. She has a university degree in history, which shines through in her reflections and observations on what happens on the land. After working for a long time as a yoga teacher and practicing inner transformation, Kristen felt a call to be of greater service, by doing something on a larger scale. This calling prompted her and her partner to move from the United States to start a small agroforestry farm in the cloud forests of Ecuador. Kristen’s vision is to set an example of how to do regenerative farming in tropical ecosystems by reconnecting to the ancient, Indigenous ways, of living off the land and re-introducing methods that were “stolen” from the people during the green revolution in the 60s and 70s. She says that to do this you have to be able to create a sense of economic and environmental security for the people living off the land. Drawing on her insights about the history of collapsed civilizations, what Kristen means is that how we produce nutrient dense crops that can feed people is central if we do not want to repeat the mistakes of the past. She wants to make clear that farming based on grazing animals is not always the best regenerative solution for the land, rather what kind of regenerative systems that should be put in place are highly dependent on where in the world the system is located. In her location, she believes that a system built on syntropic agroforestry practices, where you combine heavy tree pruning practices with other locally adapted agroecological systems will bring remarkable regenerative results.
Editing: Magdalena Lindroos
Picture: Hanna Park
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Joshua Finch is originally from Florida in the United States. Today he lives in Finland with his Finnish wife and daughter. Five years ago, Joshua set up an urban permaculture-inspired farm in Espoo, nearby Helsinki, where he has been experimenting with agroecology and vegetable production sold directly to urban consumers. In this conversation, we talk about how he found his way to permaculture, holistic management, and agroecology. In addition, we reflect on his experience of setting up a market garden farm and what he has learned over the last five years about our current food system. Joshua also reflects on the limitations in the current food system, and his thoughts on how they are a result of modern farming and food production practices built up under thousands of years.
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Det här avsnittet är en inspelning av paneldiskussionen hölls under Vetenskapskarnevalen i Vasa den 19 november 2021. I panelen medverkade Kaj Löfvik och Maria Österåker, båda från Veikars i Korsholm och Magdalena Lindroos från Övermark i Närpes. Alla tre personer har gått igenom en personlig omställningsprocess där de börjat bygga upp en mer hållbar livsform på den plats där de bor. Diskussionen baserade sig på forskningen som gjorts kring de första intervjuerna i podd-serien Världar i omställning, och fokuserade på vad en ekologisk ekonomi egentligen är och hur en sådan ekonomi kan uppstå genom personliga omställningsprocesser.
Läs mer om evenmanget här: Hankenforskaren Maria Ehrnström-Fuentes: Det krävs mod att hoppa av tillväxttåget
Editering: Magdalena Lindroos
Bild: Lisbeth Kjellin -
Gail Fuller is a pioneering regenerative farmer at the Fuller Farm near Emporia, Kansas, an area often dominated by conventionally tilled fields. Experiencing the problems of land erosion first hand is what initially drove Gail to experiment with no-till practices in the mid-1980s. After a few years of experimentations and failures, Gail realized that the key to success was asking the right questions about what the farm and the land needed. He started using cover crops and brought many different animals back to the farm. This led to a rapid recovery of the land, which also served to repair the water cycle, rehydrated the soil, and improved the soil fertility. In this conversation, we discuss the benefits and the vulnerabilities that can be involved when doing things differently in a traditional farming community, and the urgent need for a regional food system to support the conversion from monoculture landscapes—with their heavily tilled and degraded soils—to a diversified system that regenerates communities both above and below the ground.
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Gundula Rhoades owns a veterinary practice in Inverell, New South Wales, Australia. Her recently published book, The Food Solution: Eating Today to Save Tomorrow, explains that by eating food that comes from regenerative farms we can help to reverse the degradation of human, animal, and soil health while also combatting climate change. In our conversation, we speak about how Gundula, or Gundi as she prefers to be called, came to realize the connection between soil health, animal health, and human health, and how her training in veterinary sciences did not prepare her to take a holistic approach to healing. We also talk about the changes that she sees currently happening in Australia; as more and more people are realizing the benefits of switching away from chemical-driven food production to more regenerative approaches of healing the land. In addition, we explore the effects of this shift she has noticed in the people and the animals visiting her veterinary clinic.
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Tor Lennart Tuorda är same och fotograf som bor i Randijaur fyra mil väster om Jokkmokk, i närheten av Gallók i Norrbotten i Sverige. Han har länge dokumenterat den naturförödelse som det svenska skogsbruket för med sig i hans hemtrakter. När det brittiska mineralprospekteringsbolaget Beowolf Mining gavs undersökningstillstånd nära hans hemby var han först att reagera. I över tio år har han nu varit med och lett motståndet mot ett järnmalmsgruva på områden där samerna bedriver renskötsel. Han har också dokumenterat händelserna och med hjälp av dokumetärer och bildamterial försökt upplysa allmänheten om de negativa konsekvenserna som den nya gruvboomen och andra investeringar som klassas som 'hållbara' för med sig för naturen och lokalbefolkningen i norra Sverige. Tor säger att den västerländska kulturen tar ingen hänsyn till naturvärden, utan att det som pågår just nu är ny skepnad av kolonialismen där naturen ska konverteras till pengar. Det är en kolonialism där tanken om en grön omställning driver naturförstörelsen, och är ett hot mot samernas renskötsel och annan samisk kultur.
Den som vill lära sig mer om samernas historia (framförallt skogssamernas historia) kan kolla in den nyutgivna boken 'När vi var samer' av serietecknaren Mats Jonsson, utgiven av Ordfront Förlag: ordfrontforlag.se/ordfront_bok/nar-vi-var-samer/
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Pablo Borrelli from the province of Chubut in Patagonia, southern Argentina has spent most of his career as a researcher and consultant trying to help farmers deal with desertification. For more than 30 years he thought that the problem was overgrazing and that farmers needed to reduce the number of animals on the land. However, this advice did not seem to help farmers, as their lands only continued to deteriorate and left them exposed to an ever-decreasing income from farming. In 2007, Pablo came across the work of some pioneering farmers that followed the principles of holistic management and planned grazing to heal their land and he started to look into what it was all about. He says that this turn to holistic management is what has saved his career. Since he began helping farmers to plan the movement of large herds of sheep and cattle on grasslands, Pablo has seen countless examples of land coming back to life. He has also helped to develop a worldwide certification system called EOV, or Ecological Outcome Verification, which works both as a label for the final products, such as wool, leather and meat, and as a tool for farmers to monitor and observe how their regenerative work helps to improved biodiversity, water infiltration, and carbon sequestration in the soil. In this conversation, we also discuss the lack of governmental support, and the role of market forces and large corporations to support farmers when switching towards regeneration. For Pablo, getting more farmers on board is what matters the most if massive amounts of land are to be saved from turning into deserts. There is absolutely no time to lose.
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Donna and James Winter-Irving from Nagambie in Victoria, Australia, have transitioned from conventional to regenerative agriculture. Initially, it was Donna’s interest in permaculture that convinced her there must be another way to do farming in the dry landscapes of Australia. After attending a course on holistic management, the couple started to apply what they had learned in their own field. During this conversation we speak about the remarkable results they have seen related to both the profitability of the farm and how the land has responded as they have changed how they tend the land. We also speak about how important a community of support is for those making this kind of transition, and how holistic management, as a land practice, differs from permaculture, which is widely known in Australia where this land-based philosophy and teaching was originally invented.
Editing: Magdalena Lindroos
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Brian Wehlburg once grew tobacco in Zimbabwe, but in his search for how to preserve biodiversity and restore the health of degraded farmland he became an early adopter of Allan Savory’s teachings on holistic management and regenerative agriculture. Today Brian lives in Australia where he teaches others what he has learned over the past three decades. He also manages his own farm with grass-fed beef, pork, and chickens. Brian says that “it doesn’t matter where in the world you are, you can help the earth regenerate itself by improving the water cycle, the mineral cycle, and capturing as much sunlight as possible in the plants and on the land. This is what holistic management is all about and by improving these things life can get better for not just yourself, but for everybody.” Through his work, Brian has realized how important it is to have a healthy vision about what kind of life you want to live. It is through this type of vision that we can start seeing the world differently and thereby start doing things differently. In this conversation, we also talk about how the Covid-pandemic and the bush fires in Australia have affected the visions of how people think about their own future. There are more people interested in regenerative agriculture than ever before.
The podcast was recorded in January 2021.
Editing: Magdalena Lindroos
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*This is a guest podcast made by Carolyn Tourunen, Linda Grönfors and Heidi Koivisto, Hanken School of Economy students in Sustainable Organizing in Times of Crises course.*
Welcome to a trip to Omavaraopisto, the School of Self-sufficiency, located in Rumo, North Karelia. In Omavaraopisto you will learn how to be self-sufficient by doing and experiencing the lifestyle in first hand. Omavaraopisto’s founders Maria Dorff and Lasse Nordlund will tell us more about the School and their experiences on self-sufficiency. Come and join us to the trip to the beautiful Finnish wilderness!
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Elizabeth Barkla grew up on an organic dairy farm in New Zealand. While watching the cows on her childhood farm, she always had a feeling that there was something that was not right in the way that agriculture affected the natural environment. Yet, it was only when visiting a regenerative farm following holistic management principles on the island of Tierra del Fuego in Chile, when she understood what she calls ‘guilt free farming’ actually looks like in practice. Today, Elizabeth lives on her own farm in Aysén, where she together with her veterinary husband and herds of sheep, cows, horses and hens help regenerate the landscape. Through this work, Elizabeth has witnessed hands on the changes that happen in the soil, the plants, and the animals when nature is given a chance to regenerate on its own terms. In this conversation, we talk about how switching to regenerative practices means that the farmer can quite using chemicals, tractors, ploughs and seeding on the land, while increasing the profitability of the farm.
Editing: Magdalena Lindroos
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Didi Pershouse, from Thetford Center, Vermont, teaches courses in regenerative approaches at the Land and Leadership initiative. Her books Understanding Soil Health and Watershed Function and Ecology of Care: Medicine, Agriculture, Money, and the Quiet Power of Human and Microbial Communities connect the dots between the health of people and the health of soils, watersheds, and other living systems. In this conversation, we talk about her path from being a practitioner of ecological, or sustainable medicine to traveling across North America doing water infiltration tests, hanging out with cows, and meeting ranchers that have shifted from conventional ways of doing agriculture to holistic regenerative approaches. We also discuss Didi's observation that many farmers and ranchers who shift to regenerative management for practical reasons, end up having a response that Didi calls “falling in love with the world”.
Photo: Abigail Feldman
Editing: Magdalena Lindroos -
Misty West Gay and her husband Jonathan Gay have a background in software business from the time when Internet was still young. In 2003, inspired by their grandparents work as farmers, Misty and Jon left their office jobs to become ranchers themselves. Today they tend the land of the Free Stone Ranch in Sonoma County, just north of the San Francisco Bay Area. In this conversation, Misty explores her own paths into to ranching. She refers to herself as a writer and a poet who has a special interest in bringing the landscape into the equation of food production. She reflects on her grandparents’ roots in the land and her parents’ desire to get away from the painful intersections between care for the land and economic citizenship. She and her husband had hoped to bring city resources to the land, but they discovered that it is all quite complicated. Their main concern has always been to care for all the living plants, microbes, fungi and animals on the land in order to regenerate the soil and the wider landscape. Inspired by system theory thinking and particularly the pioneering work of feminist scholar Donna Haraway, Misty speaks of the need to de-center the human privilege in food production. She says this is important if we are to understand how caring for animals and land includes a deeper sense of interspecies connections that goes far beyond what we comprehend by forcing such relations into the material world of goods and services.
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Rebecca Hosking used to travel the world as a wildlife filmmaker for the BBC. During her travels she constantly encountered the destruction that agriculture caused to the precious wildlife that she was there to document. This led her on a path back to her family’s farm in Devon in the southwest of England.. Today she runs part of the farm herself which allows her to experiment with what she calls agriwilding, a combination of agriculture and wildlife that is both climate-friendly and helps to boost biodiversity in the landscape. In this conversation, we speak about the deep connection Rebecca has with the animals on her farm, and what it feels like to be a woman doing agriculture differently in a field where most of the peers are men. We also talk about how the beauty of the stories on her farm helps to feed the local wool economy in the United Kingdom.
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