Regenerative Skills

Click here to be matched with an expert consultant or mentor for your regenerative farm journey! Today I’m excited to announce a completely new thread to this podcast. I’ve teamed up with Climate Farmers, the company that I’ve been working with for over a year now, that is working to scale regenerative agriculture in Europe by assisting farmers in their transition toward regenerative management of their land and businesses.  At the beginning of this year our whole team invested a lot of time in reaching out to the people in our network all around Europe in order to learn about what their goals are, what they’re struggling with, and how we can co create solutions together. One of the primary things we found is that many of us are searching for specific connections in order to have dedicated support as challenges inevitably come up. As a result, we’ve begun building a consultant matching service for farmers who are looking for knowledgeable and experienced consultants, coaches, or experts. Luckily, we have a growing list of people around the continent who fit that description and are available to offer assistance.  Since we also know that it can be tough to choose between so many experts, we offer help in this area by selecting from the criteria and experience that's important to you and is relevant to your context.  In order to showcase the astounding knowledge and expertise of some of the people in our network, I’m starting off this first episode of this new thread on Climate Farming to highlight some of the best regenerative agriculture consultants from around the world in order to get a better understanding of the process of transitioning a farm to regenerative management. In the coming months we’ll explore the steps that our experts advise to guide growers through the essential journey of mindset change, observation, learning, experimentation, monitoring, and evolution of ideas in order for farmers to transform their relationship with the land.  Along the way, if you, or anyone you know, would like to reach out directly to the people that we interview, or are looking to be connected with a regenerative agriculture expert in your area, you can get in touch with us directly by clicking the link I’ve put up on the show notes for this episode on the Regenerative Skills website. The same goes if you’re a regenerative agriculture coach or consultant who would like to be featured on our roster of experts. You can find that easily at regenerativeskills.com or through our linktree on Instagram With all of that said, I wanted to get this series started off with a deep dive about what it means to be an effective assistant to farmers and land managers in transition. Whether you call yourself an educator, consultant, coach, mentor, or something else, everyone has a different approach and has a different process. That’s why I reached out to Nicole Masters, who’s now launching a program to train highly effective coaches and consultants called CREATE. Nicole is an agroecologist, educator and systems thinker with nearly 20 years’ of extensive practical and theoretical experience in regenerative land practices. She has been communicating these methods throughout Australasia since 2003 and North America since 2013; helping to inspire and guide producers into new and innovative ways to produce food. Nicole has a deep commitment to finding win-win solutions for both the wellbeing of landscapes and land managers. As a seasoned soils coach, she has a proven record in supporting producers in meeting their goals. With over 1.2 million acres under her programs, Nicole excels at identifying and solving challenges through proactive management. Her passion for fostering the growth of these farming practices calls upon diverse skills in facilitation, conflict resolution, an understanding of behavioral change and science communication. With soil as a major driver for ecosystem health,

Learn more and register for the Profitable Syntropic Agroforestry course today! Fill out this form to receive free trees and planting support as well as a consultation call with Oliver I’ve often wondered what in the world goes on in the thought process behind the planning and design of the newer towns that I’ve lived in. In the case of really old places, the layout and architecture always made more sense to me. Streets are laid out with orientations to sun patterns or for ease of access to important markets or buildings, and the homes reflect the integral relationship between extended family or workers, animals, and the processing of food and household goods, and the simple natural materials with which much of it is built is integrated with art, gardens, and water features which also serve important cultural functions In contrast, while modern civic planning is very utilitarian, the utility appears to ignore many essential human functions for the ease of machinery and transport. I knew neighbors who would drive to get their mail at the end of the street because there were no walkways, and who spent countless hours maintaining lawns that their children rarely walked on. There were few if any gathering spaces or community activity centers unless you count shopping malls or gyms.  When you grow up in those environments they seem pretty normal, but once I got to travel and see the contrast of places that were built before cars, concrete, and steel, I began to wonder why we ever abandoned that style of building.  I’ll put in a disclaimer here that I will stop short of over romanticizing the past. I’ve learned enough about history that I don’t envy the sanitary or living conditions of almost any previous century, nor do I want to gloss over the challenges that these old places are having in integrating with the modern world. There are many complex and contextual reasons why these places are both heralded for their picturesque tourist value while the younger generations flee to find work and opportunities in new developments.  And yet, I wanted to gain some insight about why modern towns abandoned some patterns that we know to be more conducive to connected living and what can be done to retrofit and redesign the infrastructure we have.  For this I spoke to Charles Marohn, professional engineer and a land use planner with decades of experience. Marohn is the author of both Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity, and Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town. He hosts the Strong Towns Podcast and is a primary writer for Strong Towns’ web content. He has presented Strong Towns concepts in hundreds of cities and towns across North America and Planetizen named him one of the 10 Most Influential Urbanists of all time. In this interview we explore the transformation of urban planning over the last few decades and Charles gives vivid examples from well known studies of major cities around the United States of both the dire consequences of poor planning and the potential of better design. We also look into the simple steps that anyone can take to begin to reverse the disconnection of their community and begin to create connections and deeper relationships that can set their community on a new trajectory.  Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.strongtowns.org/ https://twitter.com/clmarohn https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesmarohn/ https://www.facebook.com/marohn https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-mark-lakeman/ https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-city-repair/ https://regenerativeskills.com/david-holmrgren-on-the-hidden-regeneration-potential-of-the-suburbs/

Learn more and register for the Profitable Syntropic Agroforestry course today! Fill out this form to receive free trees and planting support as well as a consultation call with Oliver I’ve had the privilege of being able to travel to many places around the world to design and manage projects for organizations and clients, and the one constant that I find whether it’s getting a natural home off the ground, planning an agroforestry plantation, or even remotely consulting with someone on their dream project, is that the community element is the most often overlooked.  Time and time again I’ve seen projects stall or move backwards because they think they just don’t have the monetary or material resources to continue, when in fact it’s their social capital which is lacking. On the other side I’ve seen the power of collaboration overcome shortages of money and institutional support as neighbors and friends offer their creativity, expertise, or even just emotional support to get past the inevitable hurdles that come up.  Despite this, there are far fewer resources and courses in the regenerative fields on how to build social capital, involve and connect your community, or how to apply the patterns of nature to organize people and our institutions.  So today I want to kick off this series by going to the source of permaculture study by speaking to the co-originator of permaculture, David Holmgren.  Back In 1978, he and Bill Mollison published Permaculture One, starting the global permaculture movement. Since then, David has developed three properties, consulted and supervised on urban and rural projects, written eight more books, and presented lectures, workshops and courses in Australia and around the world. His writings over those three decades span a diversity of subjects and issues, whilst always illuminating aspects of permaculture thinking and living. While there are endless things I could ask David about, In this interview we focus on his newest book, RetroSuburbia: the downshifter’s guide to a resilient future, his 592-page manual showing how Australians can downshift and retrofit their homes, gardens and selves for resilience into an uncertain future. We talk about why he chose to focus on the suburbs when many people are now looking to abandon them and move to more rural areas.  We explore the potential that there is in retrofitting the infrastructure of peri urban environments that were poorly designed and the source of much wasteful energy and material use. This is a wide ranging conversation that explores the evolution of permaculture, various cohabitation arrangements, getting around strict regulations, and much more. Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://holmgren.com.au/ https://online.retrosuburbia.com/ https://www.youtube.com/user/MelliodoraHepburn/videos https://www.facebook.com/MelliodoraHepburnPermaculture https://www.facebook.com/groups/retrosuburbia/

Zach Weiss on the power of community collaboration to revive rivers and bring back the rain

Welcome back. Today we’re going to continue with this focus on the design process of regenerative projects at various different scales. We’ve already covered small and residential scale projects with Rob Avis, homesteading projects aiming for self sufficiency with Drew Grim, farm scale and production focused projects with Darren Doherty, and today we’re going to cap it all off with an intimate look at the most ambitious large scale projects that aim to transform whole ecosystems while creating a profit for the local community and investors alike.  Naturally for this scale of work I reached out to Neal Spackman. If you’re not already familiar with Neal from the two previous interviews I did with him on this show, I can tell you that Neal is best known for his work on the Al Baydah project in Saudi Arabia, and as the co-founder of the Regenerative Resources. With the Al Baydah project he’d been working for nearly a decade in one of the most arid regions of the world in a severely desertified region of Saudi Arabia to regenerate the landscape there through permaculture methods focusing on water harvesting techniques. As a former student of Geoff Lawton, Neal began work on the project with no prior experience with either permaculture or dryland restoration, but in a remarkably short time he and his team have completely transformed the way the land both sequesters water and builds topsoil, and has even reached the point where the trees no longer need any water from drip irrigation in a desert that receives only a few centimeters of rainfall a year. In this episode we’re going to take a look at the new projects that he and the team at Regenerative Resources are launching. Their ambitious goals of using some of the most degraded coastal land on the planet to restore mangrove ecosystems with the aim of establishing agroforestry systems and productive fisheries is now starting to take shape in a big way.  Neal and I start by talking about all the changes and challenges that he and the company have been going through as they’ve traversed the globe looking for project sites, connecting with communities, and researching the feasibility of their projects.  From there we talk about the key differences and considerations when designing projects at this massive scale and how they work to calculate the feasibility out into an uncertain future.  We also get into the inevitable finance aspect of large initiatives and the disconnect between the investors and companies that say they want to fund regenerative projects, and all of the projects that are struggling to find funding.  This conversation strays a lot more than the others in this series from mere design and ecological considerations, but is essential for anyone who has dreamed of creating a bigger impact with a regenerative land based project but can’t wrap their heads around the daunting task of finding the resources and support needed to get it off the ground.  Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://medium.com/@neal.spackman/the-valley-of-death-bc66c6812bb6 https://regenerativeresources.co/ https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-desert-regeneration-and-showcasing-examples-of-permaculture-success-with-neal-spackman-of-the-al-baydah-project-and-sustainable-design-masterclass-019/ https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-neal-spackman-2/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P1rPnVUME4

Learn more and register for the Profitable Syntropic Agroforestry course today! Fill out this form to receive free trees and planting support as well as a consultation call with Oliver As we continue through this series on regenerative design we’ve taken a look at small and residential scale projects with Rob Avis of Verge Permaculture, last week we explored the homestead scale with Drew Grim from The Schoolhouse Life, and this week we’re getting into the larger scale of properties and how regenerative design can be applied to farms.  For this subject, my go-to source for practical and professional farm design is always Darren Doherty.  Darren describes himself as a 5th generation Bendigo region land manager, developer, author & trainer who has been involved in the design & development of well over 3000, mostly broadacre projects across 6 continents in more than 50 countries, ranging from 1 million hectare cattle stations in Australia’s Kimberly region to 110,000 acre Estancia’s in Patagonia, EcoVillage developments in Tasmania to public:private R&D agroforestry & education projects in Viet Nam, novel AG Machinery development + family farms across the globe with a range of private, corporate, government & non-profit clients. Darren is the originator of the Regrarians Platform® process which outlines a strategic & logical process to the development of regenerative agricultural systems and is the program extensively outlined in the Regrarians Handbook which is now being released chapter by chapter as an eBook; along with the Regrarians Workplace which is the online content management and professional liaison platform for all client, associate, training and alumni relations. Though I’ve interviewed Darren a couple times before on this show, this session in particular was very timely for me as I’m currently working through the Online REX program for the design of my own property while guiding our Climate Farmers Pioneer group through the same process. With a more intimate understanding of Darren’s design system I was looking to gain insight to the lineage of his learning and experience as well as the mind behind the process.Darren has a unique way of teaching in that many of his answers to questions come in the form of stories and explain not only the answer you were looking for but the history and context around it so that you can develop your own answers in the future.This interview takes a much more philosophical bend than I had anticipated going into it, and as a result I learned a lot more than what I had expected since I’m now quite familiar with his teaching material. So get comfortable for this one and just let the stories unfold Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: http://www.regrarians.org/  http://www.regrarians.org/webinars-ron/  https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-darrendoherty/ https://regenerativeskills.com/abundantedge-darren-doherty-2/

Last week I started off this series on the regenerative design process, first focusing on small scale and residential properties, let’s take the next step up and look into homesteads.  Homesteading is something of a unique concept to colonial American culture and the term was coined during the homesteading acts of the 1860s. That said, there are plenty of similar concepts in other parts of the world. The ones that I’m most familiar with are small-holdings and crofts, from England and Scotland respectively.  In general though a homestead refers to a home and a plot of land where the residents work to provide a large portion of what they consume and it usually includes some small production or service enterprises such as growing and processing food for market, craft and artisan goods and services like repair and fabrication.  The distinction that is often made these days is that of whether or not the enterprises in the home and on the land are primarily for sale or for use and consumption by the residents.  In today’s session, I’ll be speaking with Drew Grim, a long time homesteader and educator, and the cofounder of The Schoolhouse Life with his wife Lacey. He has been formally trained in permaculture design, Regenerative Agriculture, and Holistic Management, and he uses those trainings along with years of experience to coach people in how to live a more connected life as a homesteader or farmer. A life where the everyday decisions look holistically at the land, livestock, and farmer, both physically and spiritually. In this interview, Drew and I talk about some of the common motivators for people moving to more remote areas and working to become more self-sufficient. Much of this is connected to fears and uncertainty in the wake of the pandemic, but a lot come from environmental, better health, and even personal interest goals as well.  We talk about the need for realistic expectations and easing into the lifestyle rather than jumping in the deep end without any experience.  From there Drew tells me about how he has learned to manage his time with all of the unending projects and tasks that their home and land require, and how he has learned to manage it all holistically.  We also spend a good bit of time talking about the community aspect of homesteading, which often seems antithetical to the idea of moving away from people and becoming self-sufficient, but from my own experience and Drew’s as well, we’ve found that building a strong community is as essential as a good food supply.  Drew and I have been through many of the same training and design programs and I loved hearing how he’s used permaculture design and holistic management principles among others to create the life that he and his wife have always wanted for their families.   Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.theschoolhouselife.com/   Permaculture Homesteading in Nepal: A Story of Community Connection, with Zac Barton of Almost Heaven Farms   https://regenerativeskills.com/essential-things-to-consider-when-making-the-shift-to-a-homesteading-lifestyle-with-natalie-bogwalker-of-wild-abundance/ Get the book "Homesteading for Every Home" for free!Receive the book directly in your inboxPlease enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Name *FirstLastEmail *EmailDownload

Check out New Society Publisher's sustainability practices for digital reading Welcome to the very first episode of Season 6 of this show. This podcast has undergone a lot of changes and evolutions since I began as the Abundant Edge podcast back in 2017 in Guatemala. Back then I was working mostly in natural building designing homes and managing construction sites for friends and clients around lake Atitlan, now it’s been two and a half years since I moved to Spain to be with my partner, and after years of searching and planning, we’re now preparing to move to a new property later this year in the Catalan mountains. Yet through all of these changes, my fascination for the knowledge and stories of folks around the world who are working to regenerate this planet and their communities has only grown.  This year and over the 48 weeks of this podcast season, I want to take you through a learning journey through some of the most important concepts, skills, and experiences that I’ve come to value in my professional work, as well as the path that I’ll be taking to move into our new property and design the place to accomplish the personal, financial, and community goals that my partner and I have set out for ourselves.  I’ve also been listening keenly to the valuable feedback and ideas that have been coming up from the Discord channel. Many of you there have voiced a clear interest in hearing more in-depth and long form interviews, and so that’s exactly what I’ll be working to provide.  So to start off this season, I’ll be doing a deep dive into the design process from some of the most renowned permaculture and regenerative project planners that I know.  Since all of you are coming from different contexts and resource bases, I’m approaching this topic from different angles.  In this first session I spoke with Rob Avis from Verge Permaculture. For 12 years now he and his wife Michelle along with a growing team of designers have been elevating professional permaculture design in Canada and have written and produced professional resources and educational content in order to make permaculture and environmental design learning accessible to as many people as possible.  Since launching Verge, he’s helped more than 5,000 students and a growing number of clients design and/or create integrated systems for shelter, energy, water, waste, and food, all while supporting local economies and regenerating the land.  In 2019, Rob moved to a 65-hectare [160-acre] wooded property in central Alberta, Canada, and now spends most of his free time building his own permaculture property. In this session we covered a lot of ground, but focused on the design process specifically for small and residential scale projects. We talk about the differences in the process at small scales and the advantages and disadvantages of the space limitation.  Rob shares a lot of his personal learning from being a designer and educator for over a decade and the aspects of the learning and observation process that he’s expanded or now breezes past. We also spend some focused time talking about the opportunities outside of just growing food that he sees in making a living and building business through the application of  permaculture training. Be sure to stick around all the way till the end where Rob gives a sneak peak at the new blockchain project he’s launching this year with the cofounders of the Ethereum cryptocurrency with the goal of regenerating the planet by 2049.  Rob brilliantly mixes a deep and philosophical understanding of earth care and environmental patterns with a practical and focused approach of a career engineer. You’ll want to take the time to hear this one all the way through.  Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: Vergepermacuture.ca https://www.youtube.com/c/VergePermaculture https://www.instagram.

If you have a restoration or reforestation project anywhere in Europe, click the link to fill out a short information form and see if you’re eligible to receive free trees and support in planting them. This can be a project of almost any size so don’t hesitate and check today to receive all the support you need to get your planting project off the ground and into the ground!If you're early in the process of starting an ecological restoraton project and you want to learn how to make your own your own ecosystem restoration design, consider the Gia Education online course which includes incredible teachers such as Alan Featherstone Watson, Neal Spackman, Precious Phiri, and a slew of accomplished and knowledgeable restoration professionals including myself to guide you through every step of the process and help ensure the success of your project. From grasslands to oceans, urban landscaped to old growth forests, nonprofits and business plans, this course has what you need regardless of where in the world you are. Click the link to sign up for the next round of classes.  Climate Farmers is working to build the infrastructure to scale regenerative agriculture in Europe. We offer the highest value carbon credits on the market to help in the financial transition and our developing academy, community of professional regenerative agriculture consultants and support for you in the transition process will help you restore the health and future of your farm landscape. Learn more at ClimateFarmers.org Learn more about the unique and pioneering work of New Society Publishers and check out their extensive catalog of books to build a better world. From natural building to, gardening, homesteading, and holistic parenting advice, you’ll find the best quality information on what you’re looking for at NewSociety.comLink to Documentary If you’re inspired to follow me and my partner on our journey to develop our property in the mountains of Catalunya and build a resilient community around us in the process you can follow us on our Youtube channel by searching Regenerative Skills, our Instagram account by the same name which has all the pictures from the descriptions of the new site, and for the more personal parts that I keep off the public forums as well as the opportunity to share your own journey and interact with the whole Regenerative Skills community, you can sign up for free to our Discord channel Want to take the next step in your own learning journey from this podcast? You can gain access to all of the unedited interviews and Skill exchange calls as well as resource packets from the episodes starting at just $5 a month on our Patreon. If direct guidance is what you’re looking for I have a couple spots open for personalized coaching calls in the new year as well, so sign up before they fill up.  Would you like to join me, Koen from the Investing in Regenerative Agriculture podcast, and Dimitri from The Regenerative Agroforestry Podcast for a community call to start 2022 off as the Year of Regeneration! You can join the three of us on an open Q&A where we’ll be talking about our own projects and what we’re most excited for and inspired by in the year to come. You can register for free here to join us together on January 10th at 7pm CET. sign up before spots fill up! Sign up through this link. Don’t hesitate, places are limited to 100. And as always, if there’s anything else you want to reach out to me about, you can get in touch directly at info@regenerativeskills.comThat’s it for this fifth season of the podcast. Thanks sincerely to all of you who’ve made it an unforgettable one. Thanks to you and your loyal listenership, this show is now in the top two percent of podcasts worldwide based on weekly downloads, which is just so much more than I ever could’ve hoped for, so thank you dearly for your support and encouragement to get this far. The launch of season 6 will be back like clockwork every Friday starting February four...

Let's start 2022 off as the YEAR OF REGENERATION! Join the community call with me, Koen from "Investing in Regenerative Agriculture," and Dimitri from "The Regenerative Agroforestry podcast" at 7pm CET on January 10th. Sign up through this link. Don't hesitate, places are limited to 100. The topic of fertilizers and inputs for farming is a contentious one. Most chemical options either use mined minerals or petroleum products through destructive industrial processes that may improve yields, but commonly pollute waterways, destroy soil life, and are extremely expensive. But what’s the alternative? If you have degraded or poor soil where little will grow, you have to improve it somehow right? Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could make your own fertilizers and soil amendments that didn’t contaminate the ground but rather enhanced biological activity? Luckily Nigel Palmer, lifelong gardener and the author of The Regenerative Grower’s Guide to Garden Amendments has been researching and developing just these types of solutions for decades. Not only has he been able to dramatically improve the health and composition of his soil over time, he’s been able to make his amendments easily and cheaply at home by harnessing the power of weeds and household products to create extracts, ferments, and inoculants. The result has been delicious and nutrient dense food that you simply can’t buy.  In this interview from an earlier skill exchange call with the farmers in the Climate Farmer network here in Europe, Nigel and I spoke about some of the most important steps and knowledge in creating your own amendments. Nigel first talks about how to assess the health of your plants to know which amendments to consider. From there we look at a few different homemade products, how they work, and when to use them. We explore how plants take up nutrients in different forms and how to intervene when they need it the most, as well as a lot of other useful advice and tactics that any gardener can use to care for their plants regardless of the context they’re in or the challenges they face. If you want to hear the full unedited interview from the skill exchange call with the Q&A session at the end as well as access the resource packet which includes amendment recipes from the book, just check out the subscription options on our Patreon page. This is really empowering information because the recipes are very approachable and have the power to help break any addiction to chemical fertilizers as you build towards healthy resilient soil.  Get the resource packet for this episode! Join the discord discussion channel to answer the weekly questions and learn new skills with the whole community Links: https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/the-regenerative-growers-guide-to-garden-amendments/ https://www.nigel-palmer.com/ Nigel Palmer's YouTube channel