SYNOPSIS:

We’re going to kick off our first season by getting our feet down in the soil to talk about agriculture! Our two guests are Lyla June Johnston and Michael Ableman. Together, they present a compelling vision of how agricultural systems offer humans a deeper purpose that goes beyond the basic provisioning of food.

This is because farmers and producers often spend their days immersed in the lifeworlds of the land — in the delicate stalks of green, the humming of pollinators, the pungent smells of cardamom, vanilla, and criole maiz, the beating of bird feather and the crunch of parched soil underfoot. They need to pay very close attention, as their survival depends on them seeing and interpreting the world through all these other eyes, and by doing this a whole other human psychology unfolds.

Lyla June Johnston is an Indigenous public speaker, artist, poet, scholar and community organizer of Diné, Tsétsêhéstâhese and European lineages. Lyla studied human ecology at Stanford and is writing her PhD on Indigenous Food Systems Revitalization. She describes millennia-old methods of agriculture that were ingeniously designed to harness nature’s flows, ranging from expansive clam gardens in the Pacific Northwest to the American grasslands. You’ll hear about the governance systems and worldviews that are required to cultivate these hyper-abundant landscapes, and how we can restore our relationship to farming and to food.

Michael Ableman has been an organic farmer for over 50 years and is considered one of the pioneers of the organic farming and urban agriculture movements. He founded North America’s largest urban farm located in Vancouver, that employs people who have been impacted by long term addiction and mental illness. This experience has proven to Michael how farming can support profound healing, and with us he shares his intimate approach to farming, dropping hints as to how you can also listen to the land.

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QUOTES:

Lyla June

• In indigenous language, the word “food” is verb based. Food is a really complex, gorgeous, sacred process by which certain life forms give their life so that another being may live. And that is amazing. Every day they give themselves to us.

• It dawned on me that actually what's more important than the physical outward appearance of these food systems is the invisible world of the human heart that drives them.

• Imagine a watershed that soaks the field, cups the earth, floods and soaks the soil, creating mini aquifers in middle of the desert... This is how they managed to grow those massive corn fields.

Michael

• One thing I realized early on was the incredible importance of observation. It is probably the most important agricultural skill. It’s amazing what you learn to see.

• Two or three times a week I walk through my farm with a notebook. And while I don't hear voices, the plants, the animals and the soil do in fact tell me what they need. And I mean that very directly. From those walks results a very clear list of the projects and needs of the week.

• When you enter the world of the farm and the farming community, you have to accept that it’s unlike the dominant industrial model of agriculture where the farmer is like a general standing in the field fighting off invading forces. At some point, if you're going to do it well, you have to find your way into the slipstream of biological activity of the natural world and see yourself as only one piece of this system.

• Our intention for (Sole Food Street Farms) was merely to give people a reason to get out of bed each day, a sense of purpose and belonging, with fertile soil to put their hands, and a sense of producing for the local community. Something real and tangible. We have people working with us to this day who've been with us for 13 years, who never previously held a job for even four or five months.

LINKS:

FOOD SYSTEMS AND AGRICULTURE

Photo Credit (seed pod): Rob Kesseler

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