Healing our land & our bodies

A lot of people today like the idea of organic food but believe it’s a luxury we can’t really afford to have. Good news! That’s not true. It just requires different methods of farming than we’ve been practicing for a while.

“The closer we get to the source of our food, the better it is for our bodies and our planet” — Alice Waters, Master Chef

Regenerative agriculture methods can be MORE productive

Regenerative agriculture asks: How do we meet human needs while building ecosystem health?

Permaculture, biodynamic or biointensive farming, and food forests or agroforestry, and holistic grazing management are all ways we are recovering and refining ancient agricultural practices that are not only sustainable but can actually turn even deserts into fertile soils. And it’s doesn’t have to take a ton of land or people to do it. Using permaculture, David Blume has been able to organically produce eight times what the Department of Agriculture says is possible per foot. He ran a CSA (community supported agriculture) in California for as many as 450 people on two acres of rented land, half of which was on a 35 degree slope. And over the nine years he farmed the land, he built the soil “from cement-hard adobe clay to its impressive state from scratch.”

Blume reports, “I was only producing at a fraction of what would have been possible if I had owned the land and could have justified the investment into an overstory of integrated tree, berry, flower and nut crops along with the various vegetable and fruit crops. The farm produced so much income that I was routinely in the top 15% of organic farms in California (which has over 2000 organic farms) in most years on a fraction of the land that my colleagues were using.”

According to Blume, “People need to eat about two pounds of mixed food a day if active, or around 750 pounds a year. In a good but somewhat sloppy design, you need about 500 square feet per person MAXIMUM. In a very good design, 200 square feet will do the job. If your diet is heavy on grain you'll need more space but not an astronomical amount. Utilize a greenhouse to extend seasons and exchange air rich in carbon dioxide from chicken houses or human houses, which otherwise would go to waste, and yields ratchet up even more. Take a little more space and include ducks and aquaculture into the mix and the yields become quite diverse and substantial. This sort of system is typical in Vietnam now and there is no longer any measurable hunger there.” He reminds us, “in the 1850's, prior to refrigerated transport, New York City supplied all its food for a population of over a million from within 7 miles of the borders of the city.”

Documentaries & talks to get you oriented

The Biggest Little Farm is a beautifully shot and told story of a couple who exit the city to start a farm using more traditional and integrative methods of farming.
2 min. trailer, full feature film