Doomer Optimism Episode 67 - Brendan Barnard w/ Ashley Colby and Peter Allen
Episode 67 is all about regenerative ag, with Ashley Colby (@RizomaSchool) and Peter Allen (@pclarkallen) teaming up to talk to Brendan Barnard (@IntractableLion)of Posterity Ciderworks about his cider-making philosophy, and his interest in low intervention agriculture.
About Brendan Barnard
Passionate about stewardship, long term thinking, and the intersections of nature, art, and science, cider captured Brendan’s attention in 2016 and he hasn’t shaken it. When he’s not grafting, planting, pruning, picking, pressing, or sampling cider you’ll find him cooking for his family.
About Peter Allen
Peter Allen spent a decade in Madison where Peter was researching and teaching ecology, economics, and complexity science, and his wife Maureen was studied biology, taught team building seminars at the University, and helped develop a non-profit urban farm for kids. They moved to the Driftless in 2012 to build a homestead and start a regenerative farm nestled in the hills of the Kickapoo River Valley in the heart of Wisconsin’s Driftless region.
They are inspired by the oak savanna ecosystems that once blanketed our hills and valleys. Groves of fruit and nuts trees combined with prairie grasslands to create the most diverse, productive, and functional ecosystems in the history of our continent. It's no wonder why these savanna gardens were cultivated by Indigenous Americans for millennia and manicured by mastodons for tens of millions of years. Now they’re the keystone species - planting fruit and nut trees by the thousands, thinning out overgrown woodlands, and practicing multi-species rotational grazing with cattle, sheep, goats, hogs, and poultry to manage vegetation, build soil, boost biodiversity, and produce meats and medicines at peak power and potency.
About Ashley Colby
Ashley is an Environmental Sociologist who studied at Washington State University, the department that founded the subdiscipline. She's interested in and passionate about the myriad creative ways in which people are forming new social worlds in resistance to the failures of late capitalism and resultant climate disasters. I am a qualitative researcher so I tend to focus on the informal spaces of innovation. She's the founder of Rizoma Field School and Rizoma Foundation.