Thank you so much for watching the first episode of The Huw Richards Show which will be initially running on a bi-weekly basis, with a goal of weekly. Available also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts🌱
Brilliant interview/conversation. I’m almost 70. The destruction of the natural ecosystem has been apparent to me over these many years. And over these years I’ve seen too many people my age already having many serious illnesses compared to those in my parents’ lifetime. Learning how to healthily grow our foods without leaning on chemicals for higher yield production yet death to the natural ecosystem is imperative for all living beings.
I am so glad I stumbled upon this episode, and I am really looking forward to the next one. This was a fascinating watch/listen, densely packed with some novel concepts. First time I've heard of syntropy, and it makes complete sense. I'll have to listen to this one more than once to catch all the pearls of wisdom. Well done!!
My brain is exploding! Sooo many important views shared here for such an amazing really zoomed out perspective on how to steward land and everything that lives there. I will listen to this several times I’m sure!! Thank you for both of your expertise, morals and commitment to growing food in the best way possible.🌱🙏🌱
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This is one of the most accurate descriptions of syntropic agriculture (I am a personal friend of Ernst Gotsch).Ernst chose this term as "Syntropy" nothing to do with tropics. In Syntropy you are gaining energy , from the simple to the complex, (Increase in life) as contrasted to entropy, from the conplex (Ecosystems) to the simple (monocultures). Agrobusiness, in Ernst´s s view, is literally "the agriculture of death", as it leads to fewer life forms. Another important aspect of Syntropic is that it is an agricultural system which evolves over time. It is not static. Joshua explains this very well. Many people have not yet understood this dynamic aspect.
That is really cool to know! Particularly the tropic missunderstanding - I really appreciate that! Joshua indeed understands syntropics, and it really shows when you visit Birch Farm. Out of interest, do you think Ernst would be interested in being interviewed for this podcast?
Syntropy uses the devil eucalyptus from Austrália. Why not tge native trees of each country? Such a nonsense to plant the tree that the australians call "gasoline tree" and that drinks all the undergrond water. Besides being a bacterecide and a fungicide. And to think you can control that tree is hubris. Use local solutions, not exotic invasives. And to call it natural when you are just pruning all the time, it's even funny
Good to point out that calling Syntropics a ''Competition System'' is a hang up from the paradigm of destruction. Ernsts main point is that the system works from Cooperation and Unconditional love. Thats the shift in perspective and relationship... Cultural change driving landscape change
Best video I’ve ever experienced on UA-cam. Seriously. You matched my farming style exactly. Beatle farmer . . . perfect! This was a joy for me to watch, two farmers who love what they do and how they do it. Awesome.
This is your very best Huw . I enjoy watching UA-cam to inform myself about alternative agricultural methods . This such a fresh , frank intelligent conversation. Bravo and thank you Both
What an amazingly informative discussion / interview. I too believe in your methods of natural farming, by way of perennial crops with syntropic agriculture( farming ), will be the way of the future :)
Yes at 77 I'm feeling less guilty wandering around my allotment chopping and dropping rather than digging in the muck. My allotment is in the East of the country and we did get a summer this year that was hot and dry for a couple of months. And at the moment we are lucky and our wood chip is still free - I have had three loads put on the end of my plot this summer - I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it all yet. Perennial vegetables? I must get some. Loads of great content in your talk with so many topics covered that will each make a video in their own right - keep up the good work. Love it!
Old hay and straw is a great way to do this too. Please look at reading Ruth Stout's books on growing food. She was elderly and became famous for using spoiled hay and anything else that would rot down as mulch. She never dug anything.
@patrick_laslet_allotment I can recommend frog leafed cress, of high nutrition and vitality, grows best in winter, in slightly damp and lightly shaded spot. 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽 🌳🕊💚
absolutely amazing, I wanna go spend a month in the fields with both of these guys. Good interview choice Huw. You can't change the way the wind blows, but we can adjust our sails. Seeing that thought applied to a resilient garden/farm is spot on. What else can we do but grow and adjust ourselves.
So informative and unique! Adds to my knowledge of permaculture and food forestry. I live off grid in NCentral Saskatchewan.. Zone 2b (or not 2b, lol) I too am growing for the future. This year I added walnuts and hazelberts ( from prairie cultivars ) to my permaculture orchard. And i too will learn from the little fly/root magots who decimated our brassicas. Love your work!!
So much very nifty info within ! Thanks to you both ! On cutting the grass, remember, one can use a scythe, or herbivores as well although I take it that the latter won't be desired if you're intention is for the biomass to all be left behind in it's as-is state. On the other hand, I think regenerative and holistically-planned grazers have demonstrated the extreme benefits to the soil and entire ecosystem, of grazing herbivores in these ways. Greg Judy has show how, on his farm in MO, USA , that ground-nesting birds co-habitate just fine with his moving of the cattle through the landscape. While occasionally he does fence around something needing protection, he doesn't have to with most things like this. I would think maybe a super-excited herd who's been penned up awhile and/or hasn't has fresh vegetation in awhile, may be less likely to step around things like nests in the grass, so, know cattle b4 counting on it ! ( I'm from a dairy farm). My BFF's OG dairy farm seems to have plenty of foxes... . I agree that the beetle and etc. activity seems a lot less than when I was a kid, too, ( I'm 44). I would say that there's actually MORE completely un-disturbed land in parts of west-central WI - old, small, hilly pastures are now just a sea of golden rod ... abandoned old farmhouses are left in a tangle of overgrowth, but the animal activity doesn't seem to be abounding in these places, either, (tho there's some). I don't thing their ecosystems benefit with NO human/livestock interaction, compared to a healthy one. What the biggest problem likely is though (besides things like chemtrails possibly, and some towns spraying insecticides against mosquitos etc. in their neighborhoods), is the loss of smaller farms & farmers, AND field sizes. As diary farmers retired with no-one taking it over ( and BTW many greatly discouraged their kid's from pursuing farming, and others were very difficult to get along with, so, it's not only due to lack of interest by the kids), they transitioned to beef and cash crops, then as they aged more, just crops. Finally, land getting sold or rented to the nearest big farm wanting more crop land. In those final stages, the land changed dramatically ! As fences became dilapidated OR the farm's new machinery wouldn't fit, fence-rows came out, along with all the trees, bushes and etc. which nearly always is part of them here. Other edges but without fences... same thing. Neighboring farms all ran by one outfit now, using big equipment and the old farm boundary can just get outta the way. The now-grown-up farm kids running it, usually have has little to no exposure to why anything would be unwise with that choice ( & btw I don't care the technical size of a farm or if their business is set up as a corp. . Makes no difference to their farming practices, & it's super annoying that ppl don't realize that. I know small, family farms who are a "corporation" . I know ones who aren't, and who's animal welfare sucks. I know of giant farm businesses doing things "right" and awesomely.). Much of my home county and surrounding area of "west-central" WI is now a disgusting sea of "wall to wall" corn and beans. Narry a treeline to break up the monotony. Nothing against corn or beans but when you know they're GMO, how they're grown, and that this is ALL annual cropping, and either tillage or herbicide based (or both).... it looks like a dustbowl in the making, on steroids ( with addtl., side problems ). I get further north and excepting, again, the amount of abandoned homesteads and lack of pastures happening, I breathe SO much easier... relax a little... feel less far from home.
I don't have land of any size yet (I'm 28) but I'm thankful to be learning the things to do when I have space and the things to avoid in order to have a successful farm
This is a wonderful and inspiring interview - Joshua is so enthusiastic and knowledgeable....I loved the story regarding the Sawfly and how the Goldfinches appeared and resolved the situation. I hope more farmers can follow his example - as it sounds so great for improving biodiversity and providing a wealth of different micronutrient-rich and exciting food choices in our changing climate.😊
Absolutely fascinating. Such a valuable conversation. I will be listening multiple times! I thought what Joshua was saying towards the end about finding somewhere that will let you grow in these ways was really interesting for us hobby gardeners - some allotments will not even allow no dig, let alone more advanced natural growing techniques.
outstanding! i enjoyed and learned so much from this conversation. i was especially interested in hearing about the beetles. i had already noticed a huge increase in our ground beetle population since we have implemented some of these regenerative practices. i was also excited to hear about the white mulberry, tilia and goji leaves for salad alternatives. this episode is exactly the kind of content we need to learn more about.
Ahh thanks Michael really pleased you found it interesting! And I agree, I am going to do whatever I can to have these kinds of conversations with these incredible individuals.
The syntropic name refers to syntropy defined as: The tendency toward increased organization, cooperation, and order. It suggests that certain processes or systems evolve toward unity, balance, or complexity. While not universally recognized in physics, it’s commonly used in ecology, systems theory, and psychology to describe self-organizing systems. Great interview and inspirational for temperate climate syntropic systems
"More about cultivating the person that the crop", that goes to the heart of the turning point we've reached in feeding ourselves and more broadly our way of life. Farming and the rest, is under attack by a death cult, but the other side of this is that we have an amazing opportunity to take food growing into a new paradigm based on wholistic design. The sad part is to see our beleaguered farmers flailing around for survival, with the threat of not passing their farms onto the next generation and young people fleeing to the cities for work. This discussion gives a vision of how that could all be turned around and how to excite youngsters into being part of this new growing movement. I would like to hear more about integrating livestock into natural farming systems, high quality pasture is very productive and animal foodstuffs provide the highest quality nutrients. In getting major parts of our nutrition from plants, we need to be aware of the so called anti nutrient qualities and know how to process them to get the goodness without the problems. It occurs to me that one way to aid the transition of farming to new, wholstic, ways that incorporates trees and wildlife, is to take government grants on offer to "re-wild", this may go some way to make things more viable. It's not only the farming side of things, it's developing direct to consumer and local markets, cutting out the corporates, that requires a major adaptation of the business models. It's a big step and probably one that is more likely to taken by younger farmers with drive and vision. Great discussion. Thank you!
Absolutely loved the conversation! Informative, entertaining and hope inducing. Joshua is a wealth of knowledge and has his heart in the right place. Looking forward to more of the like! Greetings from Berlin :)
Great conversation, I found it inspiring and will be looking to adapt some of these concepts in my allotment. I enjoyed the uncut nature of this video, very human and relatable - keep it up!
This interview is pure gold. Definitely a must-listen like you said. Going full natural or syntropic farming is such a massive mental exercise in observation, patience and other things. Shared experiences like this one are quite enriching and encouraging. Thank you!
I had to laugh at the American vs. Brit approach to trying new things. I am definitely on team "let's do it and figure it out later!" but have also had plenty of failures using that approach. That didn't stop me from immediately whacking in a few more willow and red alder as soon as I heard something along the lines of "your support plants are going to be willows and poplar." I had already started using willow for ramial wood chips and was thinking about dialing it up and this convinced me to wade in a bit deeper in figuring out how to make that work. (There is something to be said for the more measured approach, too....)
So interesting, I have a lot of terms to go look up now 😂Great conversation between the two of you, so much to think about 🙏might have to listen twice!
Nice! I have been growing weird and unusual perennial and otherwise super resilient crops for a couple of decades. Some the chefs are super into -- but they usually want super small quantities, and others are more homesteader type crops
You guys are awesome. You're creating the world I want to live in. Thanks for renewing my hope. There's a lot of farm to table organic, regenerative, artisanal food cropping up in the Pacific Northwest U.S. as well. Can't wait to visit the Farmers Arms and woolsery collective. The food looks fabulous.
It was a bit unclear to me which species he used instead of lettuce. White Mulberry and Tilia/Lime/Linden? Do you know which species he was referring to?
@@kamielvreugdenhil7370 I would think Tilia x europaea (i have a stooled one on my allotment), you'd be extremely lucky to have a small- or large- leaved linden tree, though i'd say those may be even more nutritious/vital than the hybrid European Tilia... 🌳🕊💚
@@regenmediaofficial well worth a visit. His journey from conventional farming, to what he has now created is pretty special, on ‘land that can’t grow anything!’
Nice interview. For anyone wanting to dive deeper into syntropic agriculture, l recommend Byron grows and Scott Hall, Byron just released a video ”how to become a beter food forest garden designer” where he explains syntropy realy well.. Happy growing everyone.
On "no dig" , I also keep in mind that for many, the true meaning of the term is in reference to the old gardening directive to "double dig" your garden beds, even every year (!). Not necessarily to tillage, esp. shallow tillage.
Wonderful conversation and sooo much food for thought. I just want to share that syntropic/syntropy is actually coming from greek and points to the process of succession, the process of going from simple to complex - it has nothing to do with the tropics per definition of the word:)
Fantastic chat with Josh 👍 as said elsewhere, mind exploding/expanding 😁 Never thought of using lime leaves as salad leaves, which is bloody annoying as we had a street of the damn trees lol. I just remember how sticky everywhere got from them grrr. I'd also never heard of turnip sawfly, wee buggers, they're bad enough on my goosegogs, live n learn 😁
Thank you so much…This is what I am starting to do on my 29 acres in the forest, zone 3 to 4 in Ontario Canada. It is so hard when you are alone. Would love to get help !!! I really appreciate your input…very uplifting and give me hope. I have to say: it is a lot of fun to do this method.
Permaculture has been working along these lines for many years now. Geoff Lawton is amazing. Robert Hart and Forest Gardening also. All these amazing techniques of working with and not against nature.
This was extremely interesting to listen to. Thank you for both sharing so much knowledge. Eucalyptus was mentioned as a plant to cause biomass. However I have heard that Eucalyptus has numerous downfall so I am interested to hear more about how you find them? Issues I have heard about are high transpiration rates, declining soil fertility, incompatibility with the preservation of biodiversity, and allopathic impacts that impede undergrowth regeneration.
Thank you for this episode. So interesting about the beetles! I have a ton of them and slugs do seem under control but what about snails? Snails are much more prevalent here. And they ravage everything!! Can anyone suggest anything aside from poison, copper, beer or yeast traps?
Fabulous interview and information - will definitely be revisiting. Wanted to book onto his Agroforesty course next year but booked up already, and no wonder. Soo want to visit the farm. Am curious as to how he deals with the weeds before sowing vegetables, especially if their roots are long, or does he just leave them in, like in the salad beds. I let the weeds grow intentionally amongst the vegetables at my allotment ahead of the heatwave we had in Ireland two summers ago during which I was away for a month so couldn't water - yet I got good veg harvests because the weeds helped keep water in the ground via shade, plus, I guess, because of their associations with the micorrhizal fungi underground. If Joshua's style of growing resonates with anyone in Ireland who'd be keen to do something similar, I'd be delighted to hear from you.
Took me a few days to make time to listen to it all in one go. Well worth it. I'd say that you can probably close down the podcast now, as everything that needed to be said was said here. It'll be downhill from now on! I'd hate to be the next guest, trying to live up to that. I'd class myself as a "systems thinker", and it's great to see someone else going so deep in thought as to the consequences of their actions. Everything is extrapolated back the way to source, with no shortcuts or exclusions from the calculations. Ive seen so many claims of "regenerative" farming, from grass fed beef to barely adapted monocultures, that claim to be regenerating soil. Yet they ignore swathes of non-regenerative land used to grow their external inputs, which are conveniently missed from the calculations. A bit like reducing your carbon emissions by importing all your industrial goods. There doesn't appear to be any accounting anomaly in Joshua's setup, because it's built around a belief and moral framework which is exceptional. I hope that you can hold future guests to this standard, pushing back on anything that claims to be something it isn't. In an inspiring manner, of course, I'm not suggesting you slaughter them!
@ricos1497 As you mention CO2, so important to know that CO2 is a gas of life and essential for plant growth, as it is to our own breathing (no CO2 means no oxygen exchange...). 🙏🏽 🌳🕊💚
@@ricos1497 my apologies, twasn't meant to imply that you or anyone else aren't aware of this, or indeed are morons, but i still meet folks, even some who are into "alternative" gardening, who are unaware of the CO2 thing. These folks might also read comments, and my one might be useful to thEm... 💛
@@ricos1497 I'm obviously not wording my comments right; didn't think i said anything about actively restricting CO2 to plants... No, folks who are still on the zero carbon track. Takes all sorts, right? - and we were all beginners at some point 🙂
definately building more bug hotels after watching this i want all the beetles in my garden i managed to increase the lady birds and i would love to see the lacewings more too
The use of 'weeds' as cover crops is the way forward....I have been much more accomodating of 'weeds' - they only really need to be controlled when they are interfering with your crops too much.
It would be helpful to understand more about Joshua's comment about choosing not to use a polytunnel. It seems from the farm's website that Joshua is making use of at least one glasshouse, so no wonder he doesn't need a polytunnel.
"You can't eat trees!" Clearly they have never heard of Moringa (yes I know that Moringa really isn't a tree that is suited for the UK's various climates but, actually, you can grow it in certain parts of the UK through a specific system of coppicing and covering during winter).
Any clue what is said @ 1:00:28 regarding horse manure and "amuno pids ?" (from the transcript). My N.A ear struggles..... I compost a LOT of horse manure.....
These are persistent weed killing chemicals used commonly on horse pasture. They take YEARS to break down and lose their toxicity. These have ruined production in many a garden.
Sepp Holtzer says to plant vegetables and soft plants that are more palatable than trees so they eat that while your trees grow big and strong.. and if they leave some you get to eat as well..
The human population is dying back, it’s called a demographic correction which could actually fit well with your dream. As the corporate world of supermarkets becomes unprofitable the pressures to feed ourselves should push us towards your envisioned agricultural system. Alternatively [because there is so much profit to be had ] all nutrition may come from precision fermentation and cellular agriculture. Hopefully natural farming by the people will flourish. Good luck fellows.
Syntropy is the opposite of entropy - accumulation of energy and resources vs depletion in conventional agriculture. Think “trophic levels”… actually, “THE tropics” as a geographic area probably take their name from this, as the high light intensity and long growing seasons lend themselves to rapid accumulation of biomass? Great video, similar to what I’m doing but I’m not such a good businessman!
So much of this discussion is about how to garden, replicating systems as perfected over millennia by nature. Why? To drive profits. If we would allow the systems of nature, the earth's ecosystems to work, rather then destroying them in the name of development and agricultural progress we would not be facing a future of having to rebuild soils, river deltas, prairies, forests, water and atmosphere. We've made endless war and industries out of the destruction of life-giving natural systems, while creating endless work- attempting to rebuild lands, and repair our relationships with indigenous cultures around the planet. May I suggest a moratorium on this war on nature, for at least long enough to stop destroying earth systems we have yet to fully understand or appreciate? As long as our intentions are exclusively focused on profit, at the expense of all other species on earth we are diseased and doomed. As humans we can make a conscious choice to respond to the gift of life we have been granted.
"Why?" Because even if you have land (not everyone does), it doesn't automatically produce enough food nor in enough frequency for you and your family to survive. Maybe absolutely virgin land does (if you also inherit all the knowledge about which plants are edible and how), but not any land that can be bought nowadays. Learning how to create harmonious agroecosystems fast is very much needed. And there's always going to be some kind of tradeoff you have to accept for the greater good.
There are eight billion people on this planet. If they had to all start producing their own food, they would absolutely decimate nature. There is nothing unethical about experimenting with the best way to produce enough of a surplus to feed everyone.
![Chris Langan - The Interview THEY Didn't Want You To See - CTMU [Full Version; Timestamps]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9miVG2xT5jY/mqdefault.jpg)
Thank you so much for watching the first episode of The Huw Richards Show which will be initially running on a bi-weekly basis, with a goal of weekly. Available also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts🌱
Well done, Huw. From Montana, USA.
I'm following now on Podbean, my go-to podcast provider. No censoring 😊
Check out, David the good, in the USA and his grocery row garden. It's very much on the same lines.
Check out, David the good, in the USA and his grocery row garden. It's very much on the same lines.
Brilliant interview/conversation. I’m almost 70. The destruction of the natural ecosystem has been apparent to me over these many years. And over these years I’ve seen too many people my age already having many serious illnesses compared to those in my parents’ lifetime. Learning how to healthily grow our foods without leaning on chemicals for higher yield production yet death to the natural ecosystem is imperative for all living beings.
Yes! 😁😇🍀 #Gaia
I am so glad I stumbled upon this episode, and I am really looking forward to the next one. This was a fascinating watch/listen, densely packed with some novel concepts. First time I've heard of syntropy, and it makes complete sense. I'll have to listen to this one more than once to catch all the pearls of wisdom. Well done!!
My brain is exploding!
Sooo many important views shared here for such an amazing really zoomed out perspective on how to steward land and everything that lives there. I will listen to this several times I’m sure!!
Thank you for both of your expertise, morals and commitment to growing food in the best way possible.🌱🙏🌱
This is one of the most accurate descriptions of syntropic agriculture (I am a personal friend of Ernst Gotsch).Ernst chose this term as "Syntropy" nothing to do with tropics. In Syntropy you are gaining energy , from the simple to the complex, (Increase in life) as contrasted to entropy, from the conplex (Ecosystems) to the simple (monocultures). Agrobusiness, in Ernst´s s view, is literally "the agriculture of death", as it leads to fewer life forms. Another important aspect of Syntropic is that it is an agricultural system which evolves over time. It is not static. Joshua explains this very well. Many people have not yet understood this dynamic aspect.
That is really cool to know! Particularly the tropic missunderstanding - I really appreciate that! Joshua indeed understands syntropics, and it really shows when you visit Birch Farm. Out of interest, do you think Ernst would be interested in being interviewed for this podcast?
Syntropy uses the devil eucalyptus from Austrália. Why not tge native trees of each country? Such a nonsense to plant the tree that the australians call "gasoline tree" and that drinks all the undergrond water. Besides being a bacterecide and a fungicide. And to think you can control that tree is hubris. Use local solutions, not exotic invasives.
And to call it natural when you are just pruning all the time, it's even funny
@@regenmediaofficial Super cool, wasn't aware of that aspect of it either.
Good to point out that calling Syntropics a ''Competition System'' is a hang up from the paradigm of destruction. Ernsts main point is that the system works from Cooperation and Unconditional love. Thats the shift in perspective and relationship... Cultural change driving landscape change
@@regenmediaofficial You'd have to visit him at his farm in Bahia. There's a new doc featuring him called Food Unfolded
Best video I’ve ever experienced on UA-cam. Seriously. You matched my farming style exactly. Beatle farmer . . . perfect! This was a joy for me to watch, two farmers who love what they do and how they do it. Awesome.
Wow, thank you! Quite the comment!
@Syntropicfarmer
Always lovely to hear from others who are on the case!
Heck of a battle where you are, i hear...
🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽 🌳🕊💚
This is your very best Huw . I enjoy watching UA-cam to inform myself about alternative agricultural methods . This such a fresh , frank intelligent conversation. Bravo and thank you Both
What an amazingly informative discussion / interview. I too believe in your methods of natural farming, by way of perennial crops with syntropic agriculture( farming ), will be the way of the future :)
Thank you Shawn!
This is fantastic. What an inspiring talk. Please, is there anywhere posted where we can see his garden?
Yes at 77 I'm feeling less guilty wandering around my allotment chopping and dropping rather than digging in the muck. My allotment is in the East of the country and we did get a summer this year that was hot and dry for a couple of months. And at the moment we are lucky and our wood chip is still free - I have had three loads put on the end of my plot this summer - I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it all yet.
Perennial vegetables? I must get some.
Loads of great content in your talk with so many topics covered that will each make a video in their own right - keep up the good work.
Love it!
Old hay and straw is a great way to do this too. Please look at reading Ruth Stout's books on growing food. She was elderly and became famous for using spoiled hay and anything else that would rot down as mulch. She never dug anything.
@patrick_laslet_allotment
I can recommend frog leafed cress, of high nutrition and vitality, grows best in winter, in slightly damp and lightly shaded spot.
🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽 🌳🕊💚
absolutely amazing, I wanna go spend a month in the fields with both of these guys. Good interview choice Huw. You can't change the way the wind blows, but we can adjust our sails. Seeing that thought applied to a resilient garden/farm is spot on. What else can we do but grow and adjust ourselves.
So informative and unique! Adds to my knowledge of permaculture and food forestry. I live off grid in NCentral Saskatchewan.. Zone 2b (or not 2b, lol)
I too am growing for the future. This year I added walnuts and hazelberts ( from prairie cultivars ) to my permaculture orchard. And i too will learn from the little fly/root magots who decimated our brassicas. Love your work!!
So much very nifty info within ! Thanks to you both ! On cutting the grass, remember, one can use a scythe, or herbivores as well although I take it that the latter won't be desired if you're intention is for the biomass to all be left behind in it's as-is state. On the other hand, I think regenerative and holistically-planned grazers have demonstrated the extreme benefits to the soil and entire ecosystem, of grazing herbivores in these ways. Greg Judy has show how, on his farm in MO, USA , that ground-nesting birds co-habitate just fine with his moving of the cattle through the landscape. While occasionally he does fence around something needing protection, he doesn't have to with most things like this. I would think maybe a super-excited herd who's been penned up awhile and/or hasn't has fresh vegetation in awhile, may be less likely to step around things like nests in the grass, so, know cattle b4 counting on it ! ( I'm from a dairy farm). My BFF's OG dairy farm seems to have plenty of foxes... . I agree that the beetle and etc. activity seems a lot less than when I was a kid, too, ( I'm 44). I would say that there's actually MORE completely un-disturbed land in parts of west-central WI - old, small, hilly pastures are now just a sea of golden rod ... abandoned old farmhouses are left in a tangle of overgrowth, but the animal activity doesn't seem to be abounding in these places, either, (tho there's some). I don't thing their ecosystems benefit with NO human/livestock interaction, compared to a healthy one. What the biggest problem likely is though (besides things like chemtrails possibly, and some towns spraying insecticides against mosquitos etc. in their neighborhoods), is the loss of smaller farms & farmers, AND field sizes. As diary farmers retired with no-one taking it over ( and BTW many greatly discouraged their kid's from pursuing farming, and others were very difficult to get along with, so, it's not only due to lack of interest by the kids), they transitioned to beef and cash crops, then as they aged more, just crops. Finally, land getting sold or rented to the nearest big farm wanting more crop land. In those final stages, the land changed dramatically ! As fences became dilapidated OR the farm's new machinery wouldn't fit, fence-rows came out, along with all the trees, bushes and etc. which nearly always is part of them here. Other edges but without fences... same thing. Neighboring farms all ran by one outfit now, using big equipment and the old farm boundary can just get outta the way. The now-grown-up farm kids running it, usually have has little to no exposure to why anything would be unwise with that choice ( & btw I don't care the technical size of a farm or if their business is set up as a corp. . Makes no difference to their farming practices, & it's super annoying that ppl don't realize that. I know small, family farms who are a "corporation" . I know ones who aren't, and who's animal welfare sucks. I know of giant farm businesses doing things "right" and awesomely.). Much of my home county and surrounding area of "west-central" WI is now a disgusting sea of "wall to wall" corn and beans. Narry a treeline to break up the monotony. Nothing against corn or beans but when you know they're GMO, how they're grown, and that this is ALL annual cropping, and either tillage or herbicide based (or both).... it looks like a dustbowl in the making, on steroids ( with addtl., side problems ). I get further north and excepting, again, the amount of abandoned homesteads and lack of pastures happening, I breathe SO much easier... relax a little... feel less far from home.
I don't have land of any size yet (I'm 28) but I'm thankful to be learning the things to do when I have space and the things to avoid in order to have a successful farm
Thank you. An amazing interview which chimed with what my thoughts have been and what I aspire to do in my own back garden.
Really pleased you enjoy this! Thank you so much
I am from Slovakia, trying to set out the movement in this system. Thank you for the conversation and much needed informations 🌲💚
@enyasppermaculture
🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽 🌳🕊💚
Whereabouts are you?
This is a wonderful and inspiring interview - Joshua is so enthusiastic and knowledgeable....I loved the story regarding the Sawfly and how the Goldfinches appeared and resolved the situation. I hope more farmers can follow his example - as it sounds so great for improving biodiversity and providing a wealth of different micronutrient-rich and exciting food choices in our changing climate.😊
Absolutely fascinating. Such a valuable conversation. I will be listening multiple times! I thought what Joshua was saying towards the end about finding somewhere that will let you grow in these ways was really interesting for us hobby gardeners - some allotments will not even allow no dig, let alone more advanced natural growing techniques.
15:27 thats the most beautiful and honest motivation I heard in a long time!
VERY inspiring video😊 I would love to see more of this kind of stuff! Keep up the good work!
More to come!
outstanding! i enjoyed and learned so much from this conversation. i was especially interested in hearing about the beetles. i had already noticed a huge increase in our ground beetle population since we have implemented some of these regenerative practices. i was also excited to hear about the white mulberry, tilia and goji leaves for salad alternatives. this episode is exactly the kind of content we need to learn more about.
Ahh thanks Michael really pleased you found it interesting! And I agree, I am going to do whatever I can to have these kinds of conversations with these incredible individuals.
The syntropic name refers to syntropy defined as: The tendency toward increased organization, cooperation, and order. It suggests that certain processes or systems evolve toward unity, balance, or complexity. While not universally recognized in physics, it’s commonly used in ecology, systems theory, and psychology to describe self-organizing systems. Great interview and inspirational for temperate climate syntropic systems
"More about cultivating the person that the crop", that goes to the heart of the turning point we've reached in feeding ourselves and more broadly our way of life. Farming and the rest, is under attack by a death cult, but the other side of this is that we have an amazing opportunity to take food growing into a new paradigm based on wholistic design. The sad part is to see our beleaguered farmers flailing around for survival, with the threat of not passing their farms onto the next generation and young people fleeing to the cities for work. This discussion gives a vision of how that could all be turned around and how to excite youngsters into being part of this new growing movement. I would like to hear more about integrating livestock into natural farming systems, high quality pasture is very productive and animal foodstuffs provide the highest quality nutrients. In getting major parts of our nutrition from plants, we need to be aware of the so called anti nutrient qualities and know how to process them to get the goodness without the problems.
It occurs to me that one way to aid the transition of farming to new, wholstic, ways that incorporates trees and wildlife, is to take government grants on offer to "re-wild", this may go some way to make things more viable. It's not only the farming side of things, it's developing direct to consumer and local markets, cutting out the corporates, that requires a major adaptation of the business models. It's a big step and probably one that is more likely to taken by younger farmers with drive and vision. Great discussion. Thank you!
Absolutely loved the conversation! Informative, entertaining and hope inducing.
Joshua is a wealth of knowledge and has his heart in the right place.
Looking forward to more of the like!
Greetings from Berlin :)
Wow methods discussed here, combined with the 'back to eden' method i have a feeling is going to be🔥
Absolutely amazing conversation, I enjoyed it so much, learned a lot and gained new perspectives! Thank you!
Great conversation, I found it inspiring and will be looking to adapt some of these concepts in my allotment.
I enjoyed the uncut nature of this video, very human and relatable - keep it up!
This is the future. I'm a huge follower of masanoba fukuoka and " one straw revolution ". Thank you for this dialog.
Excellent interview. Thank you, Huw. Montana, USA
This interview is pure gold. Definitely a must-listen like you said. Going full natural or syntropic farming is such a massive mental exercise in observation, patience and other things. Shared experiences like this one are quite enriching and encouraging. Thank you!
You are most welcome!!
I had to laugh at the American vs. Brit approach to trying new things. I am definitely on team "let's do it and figure it out later!" but have also had plenty of failures using that approach. That didn't stop me from immediately whacking in a few more willow and red alder as soon as I heard something along the lines of "your support plants are going to be willows and poplar." I had already started using willow for ramial wood chips and was thinking about dialing it up and this convinced me to wade in a bit deeper in figuring out how to make that work. (There is something to be said for the more measured approach, too....)
So interesting, I have a lot of terms to go look up now 😂Great conversation between the two of you, so much to think about 🙏might have to listen twice!
Glad you enjoyed it! We indeed covered a lot in this!
Brilliant, wonderful conversation!
Thank you!
Nice! I have been growing weird and unusual perennial and otherwise super resilient crops for a couple of decades. Some the chefs are super into -- but they usually want super small quantities, and others are more homesteader type crops
Very interesting conversation!
BRAVO! Excellent interview and overview of syntropic natural farming! This is exactly the direction my food systems are heading. Thank you!
You guys are awesome. You're creating the world I want to live in. Thanks for renewing my hope. There's a lot of farm to table organic, regenerative, artisanal food cropping up in the Pacific Northwest U.S. as well. Can't wait to visit the Farmers Arms and woolsery collective. The food looks fabulous.
That is so kind of you, thank you!
Awesome video! Thanks
Yes to limes over lettuce! Great work you are both doing to spread the future systems of food and nature restoration
It was a bit unclear to me which species he used instead of lettuce. White Mulberry and Tilia/Lime/Linden? Do you know which species he was referring to?
@@kamielvreugdenhil7370
I would think Tilia x europaea (i have a stooled one on my allotment), you'd be extremely lucky to have a small- or large- leaved linden tree, though i'd say those may be even more nutritious/vital than the hybrid European Tilia...
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Martin and Sara are trail blazers! They grow delicious food and their farm is FULL of wildlife. They are the nicest people too!!
Will absolutely be visiting!
@@regenmediaofficial well worth a visit. His journey from conventional farming, to what he has now created is pretty special, on ‘land that can’t grow anything!’
This is GREAT!
Thank you =)
Nice interview.
For anyone wanting to dive deeper into syntropic agriculture, l recommend Byron grows and Scott Hall, Byron just released a video ”how to become a beter food forest garden designer” where he explains syntropy realy well..
Happy growing everyone.
On "no dig" , I also keep in mind that for many, the true meaning of the term is in reference to the old gardening directive to "double dig" your garden beds, even every year (!). Not necessarily to tillage, esp. shallow tillage.
Wonderful conversation and sooo much food for thought. I just want to share that syntropic/syntropy is actually coming from greek and points to the process of succession, the process of going from simple to complex - it has nothing to do with the tropics per definition of the word:)
three cheers for this: helps me feel some hope ...
Fantastic chat with Josh 👍 as said elsewhere, mind exploding/expanding 😁
Never thought of using lime leaves as salad leaves, which is bloody annoying as we had a street of the damn trees lol. I just remember how sticky everywhere got from them grrr. I'd also never heard of turnip sawfly, wee buggers, they're bad enough on my goosegogs, live n learn 😁
Thank you so much…This is what I am starting to do on my 29 acres in the forest, zone 3 to 4 in Ontario Canada. It is so hard when you are alone. Would love to get help !!! I really appreciate your input…very uplifting and give me hope. I have to say: it is a lot of fun to do this method.
Which perennial foods are you growing? I’m just north of Brighton.
What a gift.
Permaculture has been working along these lines for many years now. Geoff Lawton is amazing. Robert Hart and Forest Gardening also. All these amazing techniques of working with and not against nature.
This was extremely interesting to listen to. Thank you for both sharing so much knowledge. Eucalyptus was mentioned as a plant to cause biomass. However I have heard that Eucalyptus has numerous downfall so I am interested to hear more about how you find them? Issues I have heard about are high transpiration rates, declining soil fertility, incompatibility with the preservation of biodiversity, and allopathic impacts that impede undergrowth regeneration.
Thank you for this episode. So interesting about the beetles! I have a ton of them and slugs do seem under control but what about snails? Snails are much more prevalent here. And they ravage everything!! Can anyone suggest anything aside from poison, copper, beer or yeast traps?
Fabulous interview and information - will definitely be revisiting. Wanted to book onto his Agroforesty course next year but booked up already, and no wonder. Soo want to visit the farm. Am curious as to how he deals with the weeds before sowing vegetables, especially if their roots are long, or does he just leave them in, like in the salad beds. I let the weeds grow intentionally amongst the vegetables at my allotment ahead of the heatwave we had in Ireland two summers ago during which I was away for a month so couldn't water - yet I got good veg harvests because the weeds helped keep water in the ground via shade, plus, I guess, because of their associations with the micorrhizal fungi underground. If Joshua's style of growing resonates with anyone in Ireland who'd be keen to do something similar, I'd be delighted to hear from you.
fascinating interview ❤!
It would be nice to 'see' some of the developing rows, and the soil.
Especially weeds as a crop, around the hour mark.
Regenerative agriculture is win-win!
Thanks so much. I want to ask, are you mulching all the cut and drop or leaving the bigger wood to rot down?
Took me a few days to make time to listen to it all in one go. Well worth it. I'd say that you can probably close down the podcast now, as everything that needed to be said was said here. It'll be downhill from now on! I'd hate to be the next guest, trying to live up to that.
I'd class myself as a "systems thinker", and it's great to see someone else going so deep in thought as to the consequences of their actions. Everything is extrapolated back the way to source, with no shortcuts or exclusions from the calculations. Ive seen so many claims of "regenerative" farming, from grass fed beef to barely adapted monocultures, that claim to be regenerating soil. Yet they ignore swathes of non-regenerative land used to grow their external inputs, which are conveniently missed from the calculations. A bit like reducing your carbon emissions by importing all your industrial goods. There doesn't appear to be any accounting anomaly in Joshua's setup, because it's built around a belief and moral framework which is exceptional.
I hope that you can hold future guests to this standard, pushing back on anything that claims to be something it isn't. In an inspiring manner, of course, I'm not suggesting you slaughter them!
@ricos1497
As you mention CO2, so important to know that CO2 is a gas of life and essential for plant growth, as it is to our own breathing (no CO2 means no oxygen exchange...).
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@@billiverschoore2466 I'm not a moron. Neither, I expect, are the majority watching this channel.
@@ricos1497
my apologies, twasn't meant to imply that you or anyone else aren't aware of this, or indeed are morons, but i still meet folks, even some who are into "alternative" gardening, who are unaware of the CO2 thing. These folks might also read comments, and my one might be useful to thEm...
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@@billiverschoore2466 you've met people who are into alternative gardening, that are actively restricting CO2 to their plants? By what mechanism?
@@ricos1497
I'm obviously not wording my comments right; didn't think i said anything about actively restricting CO2 to plants... No, folks who are still on the zero carbon track. Takes all sorts, right? - and we were all beginners at some point 🙂
Any good videos on how to make acorn flour and tips on using it?
finally a farmer, who thinks radical like me. It is hard to swim against the currents, but it is rewarding.
definately building more bug hotels after watching this i want all the beetles in my garden i managed to increase the lady birds and i would love to see the lacewings more too
Josh needs to write a book so that I can buy it!
Love it.
The use of 'weeds' as cover crops is the way forward....I have been much more accomodating of 'weeds' - they only really need to be controlled when they are interfering with your crops too much.
It would be helpful to understand more about Joshua's comment about choosing not to use a polytunnel. It seems from the farm's website that Joshua is making use of at least one glasshouse, so no wonder he doesn't need a polytunnel.
What were the cashcrops planted in the beginning?
"You can't eat trees!"
Clearly they have never heard of Moringa (yes I know that Moringa really isn't a tree that is suited for the UK's various climates but, actually, you can grow it in certain parts of the UK through a specific system of coppicing and covering during winter).
Omg i love this
I believe acacia were used heavily in the past for flour.
Any clue what is said @ 1:00:28 regarding horse manure and "amuno pids
?" (from the transcript).
My N.A ear struggles..... I compost a LOT of horse manure.....
Yes, aminopyralid!
These are persistent weed killing chemicals used commonly on horse pasture. They take YEARS to break down and lose their toxicity. These have ruined production in many a garden.
Do you ever have problems with deer on your land, if so how do you combat them when trying to grow your trees?
Fencing - only way we discovered but would be very interested is someone has a cheaper way
Sepp Holtzer says to plant vegetables and soft plants that are more palatable than trees so they eat that while your trees grow big and strong.. and if they leave some you get to eat as well..
what is the fifth leaf that grows well?
is there online footage of his farm?
Slugs are the joker 😂❤ oh my . I hate them this year they ate all my plants.
Maybe more steward of the soil than shepherd, maintaining the balance needed for nature to do what nature does.
Sterile = Dead. I've been annoying Ag teachers since I was a child with this question. Teaming with life is the answer.
Chickens cured my slug problem, gave me eggs.
Now I have no garden cause they also cured my vegetable garden 😂😂 bless em.
Lucky you, my chickens back in the day had a look at a slug and left it.. ducks on the other hand 🤟
@pietsnot7002 Ha ha, that would be soul destroying.
The human population is dying back, it’s called a demographic correction which could actually fit well with your dream. As the corporate world of supermarkets becomes unprofitable the pressures to feed ourselves should push us towards your envisioned agricultural system. Alternatively [because there is so much profit to be had ] all nutrition may come from precision fermentation and cellular agriculture. Hopefully natural farming by the people will flourish. Good luck fellows.
what beetles are you talking about?
Ground beetles
Sorry, forgot to write his name: Stephen Barstow
I was surprised not to hear the word "livestock" once.... was that forbidden in the conversation?
Crush on...
Sooo, it's a food forest/permiculture.
Syntropy is the opposite of entropy - accumulation of energy and resources vs depletion in conventional agriculture. Think “trophic levels”… actually, “THE tropics” as a geographic area probably take their name from this, as the high light intensity and long growing seasons lend themselves to rapid accumulation of biomass? Great video, similar to what I’m doing but I’m not such a good businessman!
So much of this discussion is about how to garden, replicating systems as perfected over millennia by nature. Why? To drive profits. If we would allow the systems of nature, the earth's ecosystems to work, rather then destroying them in the name of development and agricultural progress we would not be facing a future of having to rebuild soils, river deltas, prairies, forests, water and atmosphere. We've made endless war and industries out of the destruction of life-giving natural systems, while creating endless work- attempting to rebuild lands, and repair our relationships with indigenous cultures around the planet.
May I suggest a moratorium on this war on nature, for at least long enough to stop destroying earth systems we have yet to fully understand or appreciate? As long as our intentions are exclusively focused on profit, at the expense of all other species on earth we are diseased and doomed. As humans we can make a conscious choice to respond to the gift of life we have been granted.
"Why?"
Because even if you have land (not everyone does), it doesn't automatically produce enough food nor in enough frequency for you and your family to survive. Maybe absolutely virgin land does (if you also inherit all the knowledge about which plants are edible and how), but not any land that can be bought nowadays.
Learning how to create harmonious agroecosystems fast is very much needed. And there's always going to be some kind of tradeoff you have to accept for the greater good.
There are eight billion people on this planet. If they had to all start producing their own food, they would absolutely decimate nature. There is nothing unethical about experimenting with the best way to produce enough of a surplus to feed everyone.
Why are adult frogs so stupid and get under your feet instead of getting out of harm's way ?
Can anyone help me with an IMBALANCE of spiders? Thank you.
I've been listening to him talk about "centropic" for a solid 20 minutes and still haven't a clue what he's talking about
He is talking about syntropic agriculture by Ernst Götsch