WEBVTT

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(upbeat instrumental music)

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(plane engine running)

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- In the years following World War Two,

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a vast change came over agriculture,

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and nowhere more so than in California.

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The state became the
vanguard of agribusiness.

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The use of chemical
pesticides and herbicides

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sterilized the soil
and eliminated insects.

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Synthetic fertilizers made
plants grow bigger faster.

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Industrial agriculture produced

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enormous quantities of cheap food,

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but it\'s no accident that California

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also gives birth to its opposite --

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organic agriculture.

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♫ Come hear Uncle John\'s Band

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♫ By the riverside

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♫ Got some things to talk about

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♫ Here beside the rising tide

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♫ Come hear Uncle John\'s Band

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♫ Playing to the tide

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- Going back to the land

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was part of the counter
culture of the \'60s.

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Most of the hippies had no
experience with farming,

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but they knew they were
seeking an alternative,

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a better way to grow and eat food.

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They gave birth to an
organic agriculture movement.

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- We had a lot of people
who were striking out

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on their own in a new way,

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and that made it really exciting.

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I mean, what was really fun about it

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was that incredible sense of,
hey, we can discover this.

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What is this thing?

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Let\'s do this.

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- For me it was an outgrowth
of the hippie era, you know?

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I mean we were communal,
and we lived together,

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and at the beginning of this,

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we really had no idea
where this was headed.

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It certainly wasn\'t
anything we were gonna call,

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oh, it\'s gonna be an industry.

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No, it felt good to do the right thing.

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We were gonna grow good food.

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We were gonna feed our
friends and our families,

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and we were gonna do
the best thing we could

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for the environment.

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- So the early years, the
\'70s, were just great.

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We were pretty much self taught,

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and we\'re teaching each other.

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We knew about organic practices.

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We read, you know, I\'ve
been reading Rodale forever,

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and we knew about the Soils Association

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from Britain and Lady Balfour

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and the whole start of
the organic movement.

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So we were aware of it.

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- The knowledge was in the
books and in the old people.

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You know, the agriculture
had already shifted

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to a much more intensive
chemical approach.

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- The seminal book was
Silent Spring, Rachel Carson.

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Her expose of the damages being done

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by chemicals in agriculture,

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that was the seminal thing for us.

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So we thought, well,
we\'ve got to figure out

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how to grow without those chemicals.

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- We rushed into this modern era

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of ignoring the basics of soil biology

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and organic matter

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and substituted that with fertilizers,

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but it didn\'t address
all the basic soil needs.

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All it did was address the nutrient needs,

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and the soil deteriorated as a result.

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- Today there is no obedience

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and reverence of nature

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whatever in anybody.

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They couldn\'t care less
about the law of God

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- A more metaphysical aspect emerges

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when Alan Chadwick,
eccentric master gardener,

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appears at U.C. Santa Cruz

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just as students are starting a garden.

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He teaches a generation

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Rudolf Steiner\'s Biodynamic philosophy.

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- He was just like radiating energy,

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and he came to me, and
he looked me in the eye,

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and he says, \"How are you?\"

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And of course I wasn\'t very happy

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with what I was seeing
going on in the world.

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I was actually quite disturbed

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and looking for something that I could do

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in my life that would
bring health and healing.

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He got a kind of a crinkle in his eyes,

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bright blue eyes, and a kind
of a under-his-breath chuckle,

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and he says, \"Well, perhaps
you\'d like to do something.\"

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And it was like, yes, this is what I want.

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I want to be able to work with my hands

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into the physical world,

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but also work with my heart and soul,

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and Alan introduced me to that existence.

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- Chadwick introduced the ideas

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of Rudolf Steiner,

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whose Biodynamic philosophy
unites spirit and matter,

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seeing the farm as a
whole living organism.

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- The work that fell
to me was to find a way

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to hold on to that spiritual basis

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and create that farm
that could also be viable

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in the economic and material world.

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- So there was a lot of philosophy
and a lot of heady stuff,

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but at the base of it was

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these really practical things

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of how to dig a bed and why

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and what texture and how deep

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and how to fertilize it and compost it,

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so that you could produce a quantity

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of delicious vegetables and flowers,

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and it was like that was
the real nitty gritty

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of what I learned from him.

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The truth was right there in the garden,

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and that\'s like fine
food and birds singing,

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and the reality was really in the moment.

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Get into a meditative
state with gardening.

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Gardening puts you into
the present moment,

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and the bee hums by and
lands on the flower,

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and (buzzing), and you know,

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it\'s like time is just
this pulsating moment.

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- And you would think that
we would glide and smile

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and just very calmly walk through here

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and put a lettuce plant.

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No, we tore the place apart with horses.

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With all of our activist heart and mind,

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our dedication, our fierce Zen practice,

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we opened the ground and began

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to plant all kinds of crops,

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looking at the connection

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between growing organic
food and eating it,

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enjoying food.

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So, eating as an agricultural act.

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- Another impetus toward
organic is home-grown,

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sons and daughters of conventional farmers

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who reject modern chemical farming.

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- This movement arose organically,

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and it happened in many different parts

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of the country at the same time.

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There were people beginning
to have the same realization

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that we need to re-adjust
and redesign agriculture.

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How do we farm and produce abundance

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and great healthy crops

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without subjecting the
environment to poisons

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that may have an unintended consequence?

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How do we farm in a way

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where we\'re actually
regenerating the soil\'s capacity

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to produce while we\'re producing,

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while we\'re making good crops?

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Not condemning the
agriculture that existed,

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because in many ways it worked,

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and it was brilliant.

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It produced tremendous yields.

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The tools made sense,

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but the paradigm was a bad paradigm.

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- I had been born on a
walnut farm in Walnut Creek

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and had seen that agriculture was one

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of the most important land use activities

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in the state of California.

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So I went off to Davis.

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While I was there I began
to realize that the school,

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though one of the top
Ag schools in the world,

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did not teach anybody how to farm,

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and that they were curiously
uninterested in lots of things

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I thought they should
have been interested in,

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particularly the issue of
social justice in agriculture --

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environmental and social justice.

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So we started this research,

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and that\'s when we started to find out

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that they had been developing the machines

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which were really taking jobs
away from a willing workforce,

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and they had been breeding the plants

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so that the plants could be harvested

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by these machines and not fall apart.

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So the famous thing that was developed

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at Davis was called the square tomato,

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the hard tomato.

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You know, the machine could grab the plant

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and shake off those tomatoes,

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and they didn\'t just burst into jelly

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when they hit the conveyor belt.

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♫ And it\'s one, two, three

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♫ What are we fighting for?

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♫ Don\'t ask me

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♫ I don\'t give a damn

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♫ Next stop is Vietnam

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♫ And it\'s five, six, seven

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♫ Open up the pearly gates

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♫ Well, there ain\'t no time...

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- It was the same time
that people coming back

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from Vietnam had seen the
incredible destruction

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that was happening from herbicide use,

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and those farmers came back

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and said, \"We\'re not using
those materials anymore.

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They\'re not safe.\"

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And so the farm labor movement,

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the students\' back-to-the-land movement

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and the Vietnam vets really saying,

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\"We\'re ready to change how we farm,\"

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that kind of all came
together in the late 1970s,

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and it\'s sort of in that soil really

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that the organic farming industry grew up.

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- Organic is not just farmers.

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It\'s about alternative systems

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of distribution and consumption.

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Veritable Vegetable starts
as a radical collective

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in the People\'s Food System.

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- You couldn\'t even get
brown rice in a Safeway.

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In those days you had to have a storefront

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or a co-op or a buying club

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in order to obtain food

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without synthetic
chemicals and pesticides.

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And we wanted clean food,

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and so we had to work in
harmony with one another.

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We had to build community.

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- The market wasn\'t very established yet,

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you\'ve got to remember.

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It was just so nascent.

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I mean, get stuff in boxes onto the shelf,

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that made people start
to have more confidence

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on the consuming end.

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- We\'ve had farmers
literally put cherry tomatoes

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in a burlap gunny sack

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and bring them 50 pounds in a bag.

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- How do you get it to market

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so it isn\'t this beautiful
chard that ends up

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at the market completely limp?

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There\'s a story of a whole
truck load of carrots and apples

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coming down together co-mingled.

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- All the carrots were inedible.

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- So early on there were
a lot of stumbling around

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and all of us trying to figure out,

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okay, yeah, that didn\'t work.

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Oh, lost all those.

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- What I always tell
people about the beginnings

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was there wasn\'t really
any supply, you know?

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I mean, on the fruit side especially.

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We went driving by orchards

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seeing if they were abandoned,

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seeing if there was
weeds growing everywhere.

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If there was, then we\'d go
knock on the door and say,

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do you mind if we pick
those abandoned apricots

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you got growing out there?

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And then we\'d slap on some kind of label,

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\"Unsprayed Plums,\" and away we went.

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There was very few
conscious organic growers.

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It was so funny

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because the quality was so bad.

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So in many cases we had overripe...

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by the time we got them to the stores

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the fruit flies were buzzing,

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and that was almost like a badge of honor.

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The amazing thing is that
this industry grew at all

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from those points

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because why would anybody
want to buy this stuff?

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And in many cases it was more expensive.

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So the fact that it grew at all,

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that\'s a testament to
how dedicated people were

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to eliminating those
chemicals out of their diet.

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- Sibella Kraus was cooking

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at the culinary hotbed Chez Panisse

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when she developed an
interest in foraging.

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- I started meeting these farmers

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who were growing eight kinds
of heirloom Japanese eggplant

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and were avid seed savers

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and deeply involved in
being back to the land

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and not being in the kind

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of conventional agricultural scene.

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And so I had that in one ear,

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and then in the other ear

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I was listening to Alice

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and other restaurateurs saying,

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\"Man, there\'s just not enough
flavorful food around.\"

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I remember being in France,

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and there were delicious beans.

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How come these things taste so flat?

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So I had the good fortune to be there

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at the time of really putting
these two pieces together.

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- The two biggest pioneers

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were the Paviches, growing grapes

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in the south Central Valley,

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and the Lundbergs,
growing rice in the north.

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Both adopted organic practices

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before it was a common term.

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- I graduated from Fresno State.

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They taught me that
chemicals would lead me

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into nirvana of growing the
best table grapes anywhere.

00:11:46.751 --> 00:11:49.334
That was my premise in the beginning,

00:11:49.334 --> 00:11:52.375
and it only took about half a season

00:11:52.375 --> 00:11:55.542
to realize that it was an utter failure

00:11:55.542 --> 00:11:57.918
\'cause all we were doing
was putting more chemicals

00:11:57.918 --> 00:12:01.959
on top of a chemically
wasted system to begin with.

00:12:01.959 --> 00:12:05.584
That\'s when I got down
on my knees and prayed.

00:12:05.584 --> 00:12:09.709
And I was underneath
about the third vine in,

00:12:09.876 --> 00:12:12.334
just like it was yesterday,

00:12:12.334 --> 00:12:14.667
and I sat there and I said...

00:12:16.209 --> 00:12:17.584
Just put my hands up in the air

00:12:17.584 --> 00:12:21.709
and I said, OK, so if
there is a outer-force,

00:12:23.042 --> 00:12:27.209
supreme being, hey, would
you please just help me out?

00:12:28.167 --> 00:12:30.584
\'Cause I really love farming.

00:12:31.542 --> 00:12:34.918
From the first day that I
started farming organic,

00:12:34.918 --> 00:12:37.792
microbes were like, boom, like that.

00:12:37.792 --> 00:12:39.542
And you would turn that soil over,

00:12:39.542 --> 00:12:42.375
and you\'d smell that soil,

00:12:42.375 --> 00:12:44.876
and it smelled like the earth.

00:12:46.167 --> 00:12:50.334
It smelled like the earth
was supposed to smell like.

00:12:50.834 --> 00:12:55.000
We grow a summer cover
crop for many reasons.

00:12:55.250 --> 00:12:56.959
We never till in here.

00:12:56.959 --> 00:12:59.334
And as you can see in this layer here

00:12:59.334 --> 00:13:02.459
that there is a tremendous
amount of organic matter

00:13:02.459 --> 00:13:05.751
and also a seedbed for beneficial insects.

00:13:05.751 --> 00:13:07.459
- Tonya was a farmer\'s daughter

00:13:07.459 --> 00:13:10.042
who married Steve\'s brother Tom,

00:13:10.042 --> 00:13:12.918
and they both joined
the Pavich family farm.

00:13:12.918 --> 00:13:14.667
- My family were conventional farmers.

00:13:14.667 --> 00:13:17.167
So whenever I\'d stop by
to visit my own family,

00:13:17.167 --> 00:13:19.167
it\'s like, \"What is your
brother-in-law doing?\"

00:13:19.167 --> 00:13:22.375
And I said, he\'s gonna
change the way America eats,

00:13:22.375 --> 00:13:23.584
and it\'s a pretty cool thing

00:13:23.584 --> 00:13:24.792
and you guys ought to learn about it.

00:13:24.792 --> 00:13:26.083
He goes, \"Oh, there\'s a bunch of weeds.

00:13:26.083 --> 00:13:28.501
It\'s not precision.\"

00:13:28.501 --> 00:13:30.292
It\'s like, that\'s not what it\'s all about.

00:13:30.292 --> 00:13:31.709
It\'s all about the soil

00:13:31.709 --> 00:13:34.542
and making sure there\'s
beneficial insects.

00:13:34.542 --> 00:13:37.542
It\'s a whole life going on there.

00:13:37.542 --> 00:13:39.834
Conventional farmers could not get it.

00:13:39.834 --> 00:13:41.626
You know, my dad was from the Navy.

00:13:41.626 --> 00:13:42.918
If it moved, you sprayed it.

00:13:42.918 --> 00:13:44.751
If not, you painted it. (laughing)

00:13:44.751 --> 00:13:47.584
So it was like, yes, sir.

00:13:47.584 --> 00:13:48.751
- The Lundbergs\' father

00:13:48.751 --> 00:13:50.751
was a Dust Bowl refugee who swore

00:13:50.751 --> 00:13:53.000
to take better care of the soil.

00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:54.375
In the \'60s, their brown rice

00:13:54.375 --> 00:13:57.125
became a staple of the counter-culture.

00:13:57.125 --> 00:13:58.751
Around them gathered young growers

00:13:58.751 --> 00:14:01.417
like Brian Leahy and Allen Garcia.

00:14:01.417 --> 00:14:03.959
- We called them Lundberg\'s
tailgate seminars

00:14:03.959 --> 00:14:05.375
because we\'d sit on the tailgates

00:14:05.375 --> 00:14:08.584
of our pickups out in each others\' fields,

00:14:08.584 --> 00:14:10.542
and we would all... someone
would have something new

00:14:10.542 --> 00:14:13.709
and innovative that he\'d want
to share with the whole group.

00:14:13.709 --> 00:14:17.292
And so it was that sharing of technology.

00:14:17.292 --> 00:14:18.626
And then we started having people come

00:14:18.626 --> 00:14:19.751
from all over the world.

00:14:19.751 --> 00:14:22.417
- I learned to farm from my father-in-law,

00:14:22.417 --> 00:14:26.042
Richard Harter, who\'d come
back from World War Two,

00:14:26.042 --> 00:14:29.375
and they were just
introducing all the chemistry,

00:14:29.375 --> 00:14:31.250
so the pesticides and the fertilizers.

00:14:31.250 --> 00:14:32.459
That was new.

00:14:32.459 --> 00:14:33.709
And he tried that,

00:14:33.709 --> 00:14:35.792
and he said, \"You know,
it killed the frogs,

00:14:35.792 --> 00:14:37.167
and it killed the fish.\"

00:14:37.167 --> 00:14:38.292
He said, \"I just spent four years killing.

00:14:38.292 --> 00:14:39.334
I\'m not gonna go there.\"

00:14:39.334 --> 00:14:41.584
A lot of what motivated him was wildlife.

00:14:41.584 --> 00:14:45.042
So he really became a
wildlife-friendly farmer.

00:14:45.042 --> 00:14:49.209
- I kind of like to think
that I\'m making the world

00:14:49.334 --> 00:14:50.626
a better place.

00:14:50.626 --> 00:14:54.667
And I know I\'ve done enough
conventional farming,

00:14:54.667 --> 00:14:57.417
and I just don\'t have
that feeling about it.

00:14:57.417 --> 00:14:59.501
It\'s just something that...

00:15:01.334 --> 00:15:05.209
I see the environment deteriorate,

00:15:05.250 --> 00:15:07.626
and I see the wild creatures deteriorate,

00:15:07.626 --> 00:15:11.792
and I just can\'t have
the same feeling about it

00:15:12.125 --> 00:15:16.167
like I do this organic farming.

00:15:16.792 --> 00:15:19.626
(machine running)

00:15:21.125 --> 00:15:23.667
- I went to China in 1983,

00:15:23.667 --> 00:15:27.334
looked out over something
that blew my mind,

00:15:27.334 --> 00:15:29.125
that changed my life.

00:15:29.125 --> 00:15:30.375
For as far as I could see

00:15:30.375 --> 00:15:32.876
was this unbelievable vast network

00:15:32.876 --> 00:15:34.626
of little fields of vegetables

00:15:34.626 --> 00:15:36.792
surrounded by waterways and pathways,

00:15:36.792 --> 00:15:39.334
all being worked by parents,

00:15:39.334 --> 00:15:42.250
grandparents, great
grandparents, children.

00:15:42.250 --> 00:15:44.667
Fields that had been farmed the same way

00:15:44.667 --> 00:15:48.375
for 4,000 years but were
still fertile and productive.

00:15:48.375 --> 00:15:51.667
I was trying to understand
the deeper roots

00:15:51.667 --> 00:15:54.250
of the movement that I was a part of.

00:15:54.250 --> 00:15:55.876
It was humbling because, first of all,

00:15:55.876 --> 00:15:59.334
I realized once again the tiny fragment

00:15:59.334 --> 00:16:03.125
that we represented in
that broader lineage.

00:16:03.125 --> 00:16:07.250
It was amazing to discover that here

00:16:08.209 --> 00:16:11.083
was the root technology
of what we were doing.

00:16:11.083 --> 00:16:13.667
Here were all the
techniques were represented.

00:16:13.667 --> 00:16:16.042
Things that we thought we
somehow had discovered,

00:16:16.042 --> 00:16:18.375
we had only rediscovered.

00:16:18.375 --> 00:16:20.209
When people say to me,

00:16:20.209 --> 00:16:22.751
\"Whose shoulders are
you really standing on?\"

00:16:22.751 --> 00:16:24.334
I have to go way back.

00:16:24.334 --> 00:16:26.292
This is a long lineage,

00:16:26.292 --> 00:16:28.542
and it\'s people who are nameless.

00:16:28.542 --> 00:16:30.709
It\'s people who are faceless.

00:16:30.709 --> 00:16:32.375
It\'s \"peasants,\" okay?

00:16:33.501 --> 00:16:35.209
This is where we come from.

00:16:35.209 --> 00:16:38.042
This is why we\'re doing what we\'re doing

00:16:39.417 --> 00:16:40.584
- By the end of the \'70s,

00:16:40.584 --> 00:16:44.542
there were 60 to 80 organic
farms around California.

00:16:44.542 --> 00:16:46.250
Most were five acres or less,

00:16:46.250 --> 00:16:47.918
tucked into coastal valleys,

00:16:47.918 --> 00:16:50.250
away from the agricultural mainstream.

00:16:50.250 --> 00:16:54.000
(Music - Dave Mallett, \"The Garden Song\")

00:16:54.667 --> 00:16:57.459
Santa Cruz was an early
center for organic,

00:16:57.459 --> 00:17:00.375
along with Sonoma and Marin Counties.

00:17:00.375 --> 00:17:04.042
Capay Valley attracted
students from UC Davis.

00:17:04.042 --> 00:17:07.459
Alan Chadwick set up a garden in Covelo.

00:17:07.459 --> 00:17:11.250
Orchards and vineyards grew in
the Sierra Nevada foothills.

00:17:11.250 --> 00:17:15.125
From Ojai to Oregon, an
organic movement took shape.

00:17:15.125 --> 00:17:18.709
♫ Plant your rows straight and long

00:17:18.709 --> 00:17:22.083
♫ Temper them with prayer and song

00:17:22.083 --> 00:17:24.834
♫ Mother Earth will make you strong

00:17:24.834 --> 00:17:28.876
♫ If you give her love and care

00:17:28.876 --> 00:17:32.417
♫ An old crow watching hungrily

00:17:32.459 --> 00:17:35.959
♫ From his perch in yonder tree

00:17:35.959 --> 00:17:39.209
♫ And in my garden I\'m as free

00:17:39.209 --> 00:17:43.375
♫ As that feathered thief up there

00:17:48.751 --> 00:17:50.459
♫ And inch by inch

00:17:50.459 --> 00:17:53.042
♫ Row by row

00:17:53.042 --> 00:17:56.209
♫ I\'m gonna make this garden grow

00:17:56.209 --> 00:17:59.209
♫ All it takes is a rake and a hoe

00:17:59.209 --> 00:18:02.918
♫ And a piece of fertile ground

00:18:02.918 --> 00:18:07.042
♫ And inch by inch, row by row

00:18:07.042 --> 00:18:10.751
♫ Someone bless these seeds I sow

00:18:10.751 --> 00:18:13.542
♫ Someone warm them from below

00:18:13.542 --> 00:18:16.918
♫ \'Til the rains come tumbling down

00:18:21.209 --> 00:18:23.417
- This little piece of ground here,

00:18:23.417 --> 00:18:25.792
when you feel it, it feels, you know,

00:18:25.792 --> 00:18:26.834
there\'s a certain feel

00:18:26.834 --> 00:18:29.334
that it has to it that is just so nice.

00:18:29.334 --> 00:18:31.918
This ground is just like a fine wine

00:18:31.918 --> 00:18:35.834
when it has the microbes
living and enjoying,

00:18:35.834 --> 00:18:38.751
really enjoying themselves
being in this environment

00:18:38.751 --> 00:18:42.334
because there\'s no hostile enemies

00:18:42.334 --> 00:18:46.501
ready to go ahead and blow them up. OK?

00:18:47.250 --> 00:18:50.459
The hostile enemies being
chemical fertilizers,

00:18:50.459 --> 00:18:53.417
herbicides, and insecticides.

00:18:54.125 --> 00:18:55.667
So there\'s no hostile enemies

00:18:55.667 --> 00:18:57.584
for these beautiful little microbes,

00:18:57.584 --> 00:18:59.375
living in that little...

00:18:59.375 --> 00:19:01.083
ahhh, just happy enjoying themselves.

00:19:01.083 --> 00:19:05.250
And actually, you know,
thanking me now psychically.

00:19:06.876 --> 00:19:11.000
- Yeah, I could smell this and use it

00:19:12.584 --> 00:19:14.417
to go to sleep with every night

00:19:14.417 --> 00:19:18.167
and wake up with it in the morning.

00:19:18.417 --> 00:19:19.834
- There was the big default rule,

00:19:19.834 --> 00:19:22.083
which was do not use

00:19:22.083 --> 00:19:26.250
synthetically compounded
chemicals, wherever.

00:19:26.542 --> 00:19:28.209
So okay, so what do we do then?

00:19:28.209 --> 00:19:30.792
Then we have to figure
out, how do we fertilize?

00:19:30.792 --> 00:19:32.959
Well, you know you have cover crops.

00:19:32.959 --> 00:19:34.918
You know you have animal waste.

00:19:34.918 --> 00:19:36.667
You know you have green waste.

00:19:36.667 --> 00:19:39.125
So you know you can build the soil.

00:19:39.125 --> 00:19:41.626
Feed the soil, not the plant.

00:19:44.334 --> 00:19:45.542
- Compost was at the heart

00:19:45.542 --> 00:19:47.292
of organic technique.

00:19:48.292 --> 00:19:51.167
Making your own was a rite of passage.

00:19:51.167 --> 00:19:55.250
Young farmers learned about
carbon-nitrogen ratios,

00:19:55.250 --> 00:19:58.083
inoculating the pile with microbes,

00:19:58.083 --> 00:20:00.209
heating and turning it again and again

00:20:00.209 --> 00:20:02.375
until it turned into humus.

00:20:02.918 --> 00:20:04.667
Life in the soil.

00:20:06.209 --> 00:20:08.626
- This is a good-looking compost pile.

00:20:08.626 --> 00:20:11.125
So what layer are you
guys putting on right now?

00:20:11.125 --> 00:20:12.042
- We\'re putting on nitrogen.

00:20:12.042 --> 00:20:12.876
- Nitrogen.

00:20:12.876 --> 00:20:13.918
- You\'re putting on some nitrogen?

00:20:13.918 --> 00:20:15.792
And some quick burning carbon?

00:20:15.792 --> 00:20:17.000
- Yeah, that\'s right.

00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:20.709
- Yeah, so our method of
compost building is layer cake,

00:20:20.709 --> 00:20:21.542
you could say.

00:20:21.542 --> 00:20:25.709
And we\'re layering in
active and passive carbon,

00:20:26.125 --> 00:20:27.459
different kinds of carbon that break down

00:20:27.459 --> 00:20:28.292
at different rates

00:20:28.292 --> 00:20:31.417
so that we have a really well
structured and balanced soil.

00:20:31.417 --> 00:20:32.792
But when compost piles are finished,

00:20:32.792 --> 00:20:36.501
and they\'re nice and steamy, 140 degrees,

00:20:36.501 --> 00:20:37.959
and you just stick your arm in there,

00:20:37.959 --> 00:20:41.292
and it\'s like perfect, well aggregated,

00:20:41.292 --> 00:20:44.792
structured, balanced,
sweet-smelling soil --

00:20:46.167 --> 00:20:49.584
it\'s like the miracle of carbon.

00:20:49.959 --> 00:20:50.792
It\'s carbon.

00:20:50.792 --> 00:20:51.959
- It\'s alchemy.

00:20:51.959 --> 00:20:53.501
- It\'s alchemy.

00:20:53.501 --> 00:20:56.167
- Then there\'s growing your own fertilizer

00:20:56.167 --> 00:20:59.083
instead of applying chemicals.

00:20:59.083 --> 00:21:00.709
- We plant almost 80% of our acreage

00:21:00.709 --> 00:21:04.667
on this home ranch to an
overwintering cover crop,

00:21:04.667 --> 00:21:07.459
and it\'s a mix of legumes.

00:21:07.459 --> 00:21:10.709
There\'s vetch, which is
the fine-leafed plant.

00:21:10.709 --> 00:21:13.792
There are peas, which are right here.

00:21:15.417 --> 00:21:19.167
Bell beans, which is a variety
of fava bean, and oats,

00:21:19.167 --> 00:21:21.667
and they all kind of have critical roles

00:21:21.667 --> 00:21:23.292
in the cover crop mix.

00:21:23.292 --> 00:21:24.792
The oats provide scaffolding

00:21:24.792 --> 00:21:27.709
for the other legumes to climb up on,

00:21:27.709 --> 00:21:30.167
and the other ones all fix nitrogen,

00:21:30.167 --> 00:21:31.334
which is really critical

00:21:31.334 --> 00:21:33.501
for our fertility program.

00:21:34.417 --> 00:21:37.459
But you can see all of
the white nodes on there,

00:21:37.459 --> 00:21:41.334
those are rhyzobial bacteria

00:21:41.334 --> 00:21:45.501
that colonizes the roots and
fixes atmospheric nitrogen.

00:21:47.083 --> 00:21:48.709
- So those are the actual little

00:21:48.709 --> 00:21:50.459
nitrogen-processing factories?

00:21:50.459 --> 00:21:51.709
- Exactly.

00:21:52.250 --> 00:21:56.000
(gentle instrumental music)

00:21:56.000 --> 00:21:57.209
- Natural pest control

00:21:57.209 --> 00:21:59.083
used various techniques.

00:21:59.083 --> 00:22:01.709
One was beneficial insects.

00:22:01.709 --> 00:22:04.000
The pioneer of biological controls

00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:05.834
was Robert van den Bosch,

00:22:05.834 --> 00:22:08.667
who discovered in Iran a parasitoid wasp

00:22:08.667 --> 00:22:11.501
that inseminated aphids
and ate their larvae

00:22:11.501 --> 00:22:13.834
from the inside out.

00:22:13.834 --> 00:22:15.417
- Robert van den Bosch released them

00:22:15.417 --> 00:22:17.167
in our orchard and other orchards

00:22:17.167 --> 00:22:18.876
that were not sprayed,

00:22:18.876 --> 00:22:20.083
and there has been no spraying

00:22:20.083 --> 00:22:22.542
for walnut aphids since the mid-1970s --

00:22:22.542 --> 00:22:24.751
completely eliminated
the need for spraying,

00:22:24.751 --> 00:22:27.250
completely eliminated the
need for any pesticides,

00:22:27.250 --> 00:22:28.626
for $5,000.

00:22:29.292 --> 00:22:31.792
What you need to learn to control pests

00:22:31.792 --> 00:22:34.042
is to understand their full biology.

00:22:34.042 --> 00:22:35.334
Once you understand its life cycle,

00:22:35.334 --> 00:22:39.125
then what can I do to
enhance its predators,

00:22:39.125 --> 00:22:41.709
its parasites, its pathogens?

00:22:41.709 --> 00:22:44.876
And that\'s a function of
understanding biology better,

00:22:44.876 --> 00:22:46.626
which is getting you closer to nature.

00:22:46.626 --> 00:22:48.209
And some of it\'s in the soil,

00:22:48.209 --> 00:22:49.167
some of it\'s above ground,

00:22:49.167 --> 00:22:50.459
some of it\'s in the plants,

00:22:50.459 --> 00:22:51.918
some of it\'s in the birds.

00:22:52.542 --> 00:22:54.918
- The ladybugs will be in our fields

00:22:54.918 --> 00:22:57.083
because at certain times
they need pollen and nectar,

00:22:57.083 --> 00:23:00.459
and at certain times they
need aphids to survive,

00:23:00.459 --> 00:23:01.334
but they are foraging.

00:23:01.334 --> 00:23:02.751
If we can keep them here,

00:23:02.751 --> 00:23:04.834
they\'ll be out in our
field doing service to us,

00:23:04.834 --> 00:23:07.209
and being part of our
pest control strategy --

00:23:07.209 --> 00:23:08.542
lacewings, big-eye bugs,

00:23:08.542 --> 00:23:12.209
other things are insects
that will work for us

00:23:12.209 --> 00:23:14.042
if we provide them a place.

00:23:14.042 --> 00:23:16.876
It\'s a much bigger thought
about what a farm can be.

00:23:16.876 --> 00:23:20.501
Organic farming early
on I think recognized --

00:23:20.501 --> 00:23:22.667
and organic consumers recognize --

00:23:22.667 --> 00:23:24.334
that they want to support a system

00:23:24.334 --> 00:23:26.459
that\'s taking care of a bigger whole.

00:23:26.959 --> 00:23:28.459
(wood thudding)

00:23:28.459 --> 00:23:30.000
- Biodynamic techniques

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.167
involve preparations
prescribed by Rudolf Steiner.

00:23:36.209 --> 00:23:40.125
On the fall equinox, manure
is put into cows\' horns

00:23:40.125 --> 00:23:42.292
and buried for six months.

00:23:43.459 --> 00:23:46.209
Other preparations
involve stuffing chamomile

00:23:46.209 --> 00:23:48.626
into a cow\'s small intestine,

00:23:51.542 --> 00:23:54.876
wrapping dandelion in a cow\'s mesentery,

00:23:57.501 --> 00:24:00.834
and filling a cow\'s skull with oak bark.

00:24:06.125 --> 00:24:10.167
- So that\'s the horn
manure after it comes out

00:24:10.167 --> 00:24:14.292
of the horn after being in
the earth for six months.

00:24:14.501 --> 00:24:18.334
When we are using those preparations,

00:24:18.334 --> 00:24:21.209
enabling the earth in a way to begin

00:24:21.209 --> 00:24:24.209
to heal and balance itself,

00:24:24.209 --> 00:24:26.083
but it is only the human being

00:24:26.083 --> 00:24:27.501
that would have the consciousness

00:24:27.501 --> 00:24:30.709
to bring those materials
together in that way

00:24:30.709 --> 00:24:34.792
and immerse them in the earth in relation

00:24:34.792 --> 00:24:36.751
to the cosmic streams,

00:24:36.751 --> 00:24:39.709
and then bring them back out as a gift

00:24:39.709 --> 00:24:41.876
towards healing in nature.

00:24:42.709 --> 00:24:44.584
- But the most basic organic technique

00:24:44.584 --> 00:24:45.834
is observation.

00:24:51.751 --> 00:24:53.125
- The art of observation,

00:24:53.125 --> 00:24:57.292
that when I got into agriculture
that particular skill

00:24:57.542 --> 00:25:01.626
has proven to be probably
the most essential.

00:25:01.626 --> 00:25:03.667
My farming is real simple.

00:25:03.667 --> 00:25:06.918
It\'s based on walks that I
take two or three times a week

00:25:06.918 --> 00:25:08.959
and lists that I make from those walks.

00:25:08.959 --> 00:25:10.375
I don\'t hear voices,

00:25:10.375 --> 00:25:12.584
but the plants do tell me what to do,

00:25:12.584 --> 00:25:14.000
no question about it.

00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:17.459
- Plants talk to you, and really...

00:25:17.459 --> 00:25:19.501
and animals, like your goats.

00:25:19.501 --> 00:25:21.167
And they all talk to you on the farm.

00:25:21.167 --> 00:25:23.584
If you care for them, they need you.

00:25:23.584 --> 00:25:25.667
You\'re taking care of them.

00:25:25.667 --> 00:25:26.876
So sometimes when I come out

00:25:26.876 --> 00:25:29.209
of the house it\'s pretty noisy.

00:25:29.209 --> 00:25:32.209
There\'s a lot of plants that say,

00:25:32.209 --> 00:25:33.459
\"Weed me.

00:25:33.459 --> 00:25:34.501
Feed me.

00:25:34.501 --> 00:25:36.167
Water me.\"

00:25:36.167 --> 00:25:37.834
- When you\'re listening to kinship

00:25:37.834 --> 00:25:39.876
in the plant kin-dom,

00:25:39.876 --> 00:25:42.751
then there\'s an opening

00:25:42.751 --> 00:25:45.250
that is really interspecies, I think,

00:25:45.250 --> 00:25:47.292
without it being, \"Ohhh, interspecies.\"

00:25:47.292 --> 00:25:48.125
It\'s not that.

00:25:48.125 --> 00:25:50.042
It\'s just there\'s some connection

00:25:50.042 --> 00:25:52.751
and kinship between the plants.

00:25:52.751 --> 00:25:54.751
When you handle these
plants and listen to them

00:25:54.751 --> 00:25:58.209
and then investigate and try to grow them

00:25:58.209 --> 00:25:59.876
and try to listen more fully

00:25:59.876 --> 00:26:01.334
to what they\'re telling you,

00:26:01.334 --> 00:26:04.250
you can go... you\'re in a different world.

00:26:05.167 --> 00:26:07.584
- Izzy Martin spent 20 years battling

00:26:07.584 --> 00:26:11.000
for alternatives to pesticides.

00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:14.292
She trained farm workers
in pesticide safety.

00:26:14.667 --> 00:26:16.000
- And at one of those labor camps,

00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:17.209
people came over to us

00:26:17.209 --> 00:26:20.000
and they said, \"One of
our people was killed.\"

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:22.083
His name was Santiago Quesada.

00:26:22.083 --> 00:26:23.709
He was passed out in the field,

00:26:23.709 --> 00:26:25.334
and Santiago had not been drinking.

00:26:25.334 --> 00:26:27.417
Santiago was an irrigator,

00:26:27.417 --> 00:26:28.918
which people didn\'t realize was a way

00:26:28.918 --> 00:26:30.292
of applying pesticides.

00:26:30.292 --> 00:26:33.292
You\'d put the pesticides
into the irrigation system,

00:26:33.292 --> 00:26:35.167
and in that way it\'d go
out across the field.

00:26:35.167 --> 00:26:37.792
And Santiago had been very
cold the night before,

00:26:37.792 --> 00:26:39.375
and he had taken the bags

00:26:39.375 --> 00:26:40.959
that the pesticides had come in,

00:26:40.959 --> 00:26:44.167
and he had set them on
fire to build a fire

00:26:44.167 --> 00:26:45.876
to keep himself warm.

00:26:45.876 --> 00:26:49.959
And he had become terribly, terribly sick,

00:26:49.959 --> 00:26:52.209
and had collapsed,

00:26:52.209 --> 00:26:54.125
and while he was collapsed in the field

00:26:54.125 --> 00:26:57.042
a tractor disced him.

00:26:57.459 --> 00:26:59.417
On this trip, I\'m gonna be going down

00:26:59.417 --> 00:27:01.042
and meeting with that family in Fowler...

00:27:01.042 --> 00:27:02.375
- It\'s what really makes you mad.

00:27:02.375 --> 00:27:04.667
- I was called by a family who had learned

00:27:04.667 --> 00:27:06.626
that their children had been being exposed

00:27:06.626 --> 00:27:09.709
to pesticides in the drinking water.

00:27:09.709 --> 00:27:13.876
- My son in 1980 was
tested for low testosterone

00:27:13.876 --> 00:27:15.918
because he had stopped growing.

00:27:16.125 --> 00:27:17.834
- Nothing you can do
now can erase the fact

00:27:17.834 --> 00:27:20.250
that you\'ve exposed my kid to cancer.

00:27:20.250 --> 00:27:21.417
- So over and over again,

00:27:21.417 --> 00:27:22.709
people would contact me

00:27:22.709 --> 00:27:24.751
when they really didn\'t
know what else to do.

00:27:24.751 --> 00:27:27.250
It seemed to me that I
needed to be traveling

00:27:27.250 --> 00:27:29.918
with a lawyer and a priest and a doctor

00:27:29.918 --> 00:27:33.250
to help me bring
resources to these people.

00:27:33.250 --> 00:27:35.167
I don\'t see any possible future

00:27:35.167 --> 00:27:38.626
where we\'re not gonna move
towards reducing pesticide use.

00:27:38.626 --> 00:27:40.417
The question is, how long is it

00:27:40.417 --> 00:27:41.876
gonna take us to do it?

00:27:41.876 --> 00:27:43.959
How many people are gonna
have to be poisoned?

00:27:43.959 --> 00:27:46.042
How expensive is it gonna have to get

00:27:46.042 --> 00:27:47.792
before we decide that it\'s a priority

00:27:47.792 --> 00:27:51.083
to put taxpayer money
and entrepreneurial money

00:27:51.083 --> 00:27:53.834
into developing
alternatives to pesticides?

00:27:53.834 --> 00:27:57.876
When a terrible pesticide
poisoning incident occurred,

00:27:57.876 --> 00:28:00.584
there was really a two-response strategy.

00:28:00.584 --> 00:28:02.334
One was to name it.

00:28:02.334 --> 00:28:03.292
This thing has happened,

00:28:03.292 --> 00:28:04.167
and it\'s pesticides,

00:28:04.167 --> 00:28:05.584
and it\'s causing a problem.

00:28:05.584 --> 00:28:07.501
And then to point at a real alternative --

00:28:07.501 --> 00:28:08.918
and we don\'t even need to do that,

00:28:08.918 --> 00:28:11.083
we can use organic agriculture.

00:28:12.501 --> 00:28:14.375
- All the parts of an organic movement

00:28:14.375 --> 00:28:18.000
were building through the
late \'70s and early \'80s.

00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:21.000
Warren Weber, a pioneer of organic,

00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:23.584
started Star Route Farm.

00:28:23.584 --> 00:28:27.167
- We started growing
potatoes, \'74, \'75, \'76.

00:28:27.167 --> 00:28:29.250
We\'d bring them into
the natural food stores

00:28:29.250 --> 00:28:31.959
in the area where we were
selling to at the time,

00:28:31.959 --> 00:28:33.626
and people would love them.

00:28:33.626 --> 00:28:36.918
And they were gnarly,
terrible looking things,

00:28:36.918 --> 00:28:37.751
but people would love them.

00:28:37.751 --> 00:28:39.334
They loved them because they\'re organic.

00:28:39.334 --> 00:28:41.042
They say, \"Oh, this must be organic,\"

00:28:41.042 --> 00:28:44.876
because conventional potatoes
were, you know, smooth skin,

00:28:44.876 --> 00:28:46.876
and ours were these gnarly things.

00:28:46.876 --> 00:28:49.709
And people would knock us
over to get to them, you know?

00:28:49.709 --> 00:28:52.167
- That was still a discovery phase.

00:28:53.250 --> 00:28:54.250
We were trying to understand,

00:28:54.250 --> 00:28:55.792
what does this word really mean

00:28:55.792 --> 00:28:58.667
in all of its ramifications?

00:28:58.667 --> 00:29:00.792
We were still learning technique.

00:29:00.792 --> 00:29:02.792
We were still learning new crops.

00:29:02.792 --> 00:29:06.584
We were still explaining
ourselves at the marketplace.

00:29:06.584 --> 00:29:08.459
\"You said what?

00:29:08.459 --> 00:29:09.292
\"Or- what?

00:29:10.918 --> 00:29:13.584
\"Isn\'t everything organic?\" (laughing)

00:29:13.584 --> 00:29:16.375
- Peaceful Valley Farm
Supply came out of a need.

00:29:16.375 --> 00:29:17.334
I had a need.

00:29:17.334 --> 00:29:20.167
I needed rock phosphate for our farm,

00:29:20.167 --> 00:29:22.459
and it turned out my
neighbors needed it as well,

00:29:22.459 --> 00:29:23.876
and I could only buy...

00:29:23.876 --> 00:29:24.959
I couldn\'t buy a bag.

00:29:24.959 --> 00:29:26.918
I had to buy 40 tons.

00:29:26.918 --> 00:29:28.375
That was the only way I could get it.

00:29:28.375 --> 00:29:30.751
That was right before
cover crop planting season

00:29:30.751 --> 00:29:32.792
when I started looking
around much more strongly

00:29:32.792 --> 00:29:34.959
for cover crops and found --

00:29:34.959 --> 00:29:37.209
at that point we had about 20 or 25 --

00:29:37.209 --> 00:29:39.334
so I just decided to create a resource,

00:29:39.334 --> 00:29:42.000
literally started in the back of the barn

00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:44.542
and tried to get people
aware of biological control

00:29:44.542 --> 00:29:46.125
and cover crops and composting

00:29:46.125 --> 00:29:50.042
and habitat management
and all of the soil issues

00:29:50.042 --> 00:29:51.709
and how to read a soil test.

00:29:51.709 --> 00:29:53.083
No one had ever done that.

00:29:53.083 --> 00:29:55.417
I had to learn how to read one.

00:29:55.417 --> 00:29:56.876
- We were asking the land to show us,

00:29:56.876 --> 00:29:58.334
how do we work with you?

00:29:58.334 --> 00:30:01.083
Reverence for each clod of manure,

00:30:01.083 --> 00:30:03.417
that each object was animated,

00:30:03.417 --> 00:30:06.250
alive, and full of potential and force.

00:30:06.250 --> 00:30:07.918
So really feeling that, very dynamic.

00:30:07.918 --> 00:30:11.417
\"Total dynamic working,\" said
one of our first teachers.

00:30:11.417 --> 00:30:15.334
And my son, he heard
\"total dynamic walking.\"

00:30:15.334 --> 00:30:18.667
So Jesse did a picture of this creature

00:30:18.667 --> 00:30:19.751
moving across the fields,

00:30:19.751 --> 00:30:22.834
and underneath it he wrote
\"total dynamic walking.\"

00:30:22.834 --> 00:30:26.334
And there was a creature that
was walking across the field,

00:30:26.334 --> 00:30:29.375
and it had little rotors
on its front feet,

00:30:29.375 --> 00:30:31.250
and in the end its tail was up in the air,

00:30:31.250 --> 00:30:32.792
and it was manuring the furrow.

00:30:32.792 --> 00:30:35.125
And it was his impression of what it was

00:30:35.125 --> 00:30:36.501
to grow up at Zen Center.

00:30:36.501 --> 00:30:38.834
So even our children were ruined by us.

00:30:38.834 --> 00:30:40.209
We were fanatics.

00:30:40.709 --> 00:30:42.209
- One of the things that happened early

00:30:42.209 --> 00:30:46.375
in the evolution of organics
was its vulnerability

00:30:48.125 --> 00:30:52.250
to being dismissed as
a bunch of children --

00:30:54.042 --> 00:30:57.792
no efficacy, no scientific basis for it,

00:30:57.792 --> 00:31:00.834
and that it was vulnerable also to fraud.

00:31:00.834 --> 00:31:03.876
And the organic community
took on verification

00:31:03.876 --> 00:31:05.751
and certification, and developed

00:31:05.751 --> 00:31:07.542
its own regulatory standards

00:31:07.542 --> 00:31:10.459
because we couldn\'t trust
the government to do it.

00:31:10.459 --> 00:31:12.292
- CCOF had a voluntary definition

00:31:12.292 --> 00:31:14.292
which we created in \'73,

00:31:15.626 --> 00:31:17.667
but you voluntarily joined it.

00:31:17.667 --> 00:31:20.667
You didn\'t have to, and
nobody was enforcing it,

00:31:20.667 --> 00:31:22.375
and so in \'79 we said, no,

00:31:22.375 --> 00:31:23.459
I think we\'d better write something

00:31:23.459 --> 00:31:24.709
that actually enforces it

00:31:24.709 --> 00:31:27.125
\'cause we saw a lot of fraud going on.

00:31:27.125 --> 00:31:28.834
So a group of us took that on

00:31:28.834 --> 00:31:32.751
and wrote the most rudimentary of laws --

00:31:32.751 --> 00:31:33.667
eight pages.

00:31:33.667 --> 00:31:35.959
- The local newspaper
actually wrote an editorial,

00:31:35.959 --> 00:31:38.417
said it was a communist conspiracy

00:31:38.417 --> 00:31:40.042
to overthrow the American food chain,

00:31:40.042 --> 00:31:42.834
to question farm chemistry.

00:31:42.834 --> 00:31:43.876
The University of California

00:31:43.876 --> 00:31:46.250
said you can\'t grow food like that,

00:31:46.250 --> 00:31:48.209
and USDA was hostile.

00:31:48.209 --> 00:31:50.542
- You know, the public
is the final partner

00:31:50.542 --> 00:31:52.792
in the whole system of organic farming.

00:31:52.792 --> 00:31:55.250
And it\'s like they finally realized

00:31:55.250 --> 00:31:57.667
that the dollar is important,

00:31:57.667 --> 00:32:01.125
and that the way they
spend their food dollars,

00:32:01.125 --> 00:32:04.292
the cash register becomes a voting box.

00:32:04.292 --> 00:32:08.125
It\'s a ballot box for the
food system that people want.

00:32:08.125 --> 00:32:09.501
- And what we had going for us

00:32:09.501 --> 00:32:12.042
in the organic farming movement was,

00:32:12.042 --> 00:32:16.209
taste this tomato, and this
will change your world.

00:32:16.959 --> 00:32:21.125
That pleasure, pleasure
was a far greater motivator

00:32:21.417 --> 00:32:23.626
than guilt would ever be.

00:32:23.626 --> 00:32:25.501
And I realized at a certain point

00:32:25.501 --> 00:32:28.542
that I could beat people over the head

00:32:28.542 --> 00:32:30.709
with why they should eat organic food

00:32:30.709 --> 00:32:32.959
and all the right messages,

00:32:33.834 --> 00:32:34.918
and here\'s how we\'re doing it,

00:32:34.918 --> 00:32:36.626
and here\'s how we shouldn\'t be doing it.

00:32:36.626 --> 00:32:38.542
In the end what I
realized was I just needed

00:32:38.542 --> 00:32:41.250
to learn how to grow the best tomato.

00:32:41.250 --> 00:32:44.167
- The first boom was baby lettuce greens.

00:32:45.375 --> 00:32:47.292
- There was this huge transition

00:32:47.292 --> 00:32:50.209
from this old guard
organic to this movement

00:32:50.209 --> 00:32:52.250
where you first see it in restaurants,

00:32:52.250 --> 00:32:54.834
and that\'s what caught my imagination.

00:32:54.834 --> 00:32:58.501
It really went from being
a kind of a rebellion

00:32:58.501 --> 00:33:01.000
to kind of a new kind of foodie-ism.

00:33:01.000 --> 00:33:03.125
I mean the emergence of
the foodie revolution

00:33:03.125 --> 00:33:04.626
started with organics, really.

00:33:04.626 --> 00:33:07.584
- This sort of lettuce story,

00:33:07.584 --> 00:33:11.751
it really does stand as a kind
of a symbol, in some ways,

00:33:12.334 --> 00:33:15.751
and kind of a mark of a
certain kind of evolution.

00:33:16.709 --> 00:33:18.959
In the early \'80s there
was a number of chefs

00:33:18.959 --> 00:33:20.584
like Jean Pierre Moulle --

00:33:20.584 --> 00:33:22.292
who was cooking for Chez Panisse,

00:33:22.292 --> 00:33:25.167
who spent part of his years in France --

00:33:25.167 --> 00:33:28.125
where this idea of
\"mesclun\" was a common idea.

00:33:28.125 --> 00:33:32.292
So \"mesclun\" basically
means a mix of lettuces

00:33:32.501 --> 00:33:34.584
that you would cut and come again.

00:33:34.584 --> 00:33:36.918
There was that sort of
sense of, \"Great idea!

00:33:36.918 --> 00:33:39.209
Let\'s all do it!\" (laughing)

00:33:39.209 --> 00:33:43.292
- It began for us when
Sibella Kraus came out here

00:33:43.292 --> 00:33:45.250
on behalf of Chez Panisse.

00:33:45.250 --> 00:33:47.501
She says she wants small lettuces,

00:33:47.501 --> 00:33:49.542
and I said -- I pointed at one field,

00:33:49.542 --> 00:33:53.042
and they were, you know, they were tiny --

00:33:53.042 --> 00:33:54.167
and I said, that\'s not gonna be ready

00:33:54.167 --> 00:33:57.667
for well over probably six weeks.

00:33:57.667 --> 00:33:59.626
And she says, \"That\'s what we want.\"

00:33:59.626 --> 00:34:00.709
I said, no, you don\'t.

00:34:00.709 --> 00:34:01.751
You don\'t want that.

00:34:01.751 --> 00:34:02.584
What do you mean?

00:34:02.584 --> 00:34:03.417
That\'s not lettuce.

00:34:03.417 --> 00:34:04.334
That\'s not a head.

00:34:04.334 --> 00:34:06.000
That\'s not leaf lettuce yet.

00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:07.334
She said, \"No, that\'s what I want.\"

00:34:07.334 --> 00:34:09.542
And she said, \"Can we cut some?\"

00:34:09.542 --> 00:34:11.876
And I thought, you\'re not gonna cut this.

00:34:11.876 --> 00:34:13.375
I planted this.

00:34:13.375 --> 00:34:16.375
You\'re not gonna cut this. (laughing)

00:34:16.375 --> 00:34:18.167
It\'s not ready to be cut.

00:34:18.167 --> 00:34:21.209
And I can remember, I
said, okay, I\'ll do it.

00:34:21.209 --> 00:34:23.834
So I remember having a knife and doing it

00:34:23.834 --> 00:34:25.125
and looking over my shoulder,

00:34:25.125 --> 00:34:27.626
hoping no one else was
looking at me doing this,

00:34:27.626 --> 00:34:31.459
because it was such a
ridiculous thing to be doing.

00:34:32.250 --> 00:34:34.250
- Baby lettuce, or spring mix

00:34:34.250 --> 00:34:37.834
as it became known, transformed organic.

00:34:37.834 --> 00:34:42.000
Chefs embraced it, and
farmers turned it into an art.

00:34:42.209 --> 00:34:46.167
They came together at the
Tasting of Summer Produce events.

00:34:46.167 --> 00:34:48.501
These gave rise to a Farm-to-Fork movement

00:34:48.501 --> 00:34:51.792
which was built on quality
food from local growers.

00:34:51.792 --> 00:34:55.459
(gentle instrumental music)

00:35:08.375 --> 00:35:10.501
However, nobody had built organic

00:35:10.501 --> 00:35:12.501
to commercial scale yet.

00:35:14.125 --> 00:35:18.292
- I remember my mom called
me up in the end of 1983,

00:35:18.834 --> 00:35:21.792
and she said, \"You\'re not
going anywhere with this.

00:35:21.792 --> 00:35:23.876
Why don\'t you get a real job?\"

00:35:23.876 --> 00:35:27.250
- We sold 5% of it as legitimate organic

00:35:27.250 --> 00:35:30.000
and 95% conventional.

00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:32.751
That\'s why we tried
every kind of crazy idea

00:35:32.751 --> 00:35:36.709
we could come up with to
convince the chain store buyers

00:35:36.709 --> 00:35:40.542
to put a sign up --
\"Organically Grown Grapes.\"

00:35:40.542 --> 00:35:43.834
Please. Anything. Please!

00:35:44.667 --> 00:35:48.834
And they just said, \"Oh,
you\'re crazy organic.

00:35:48.918 --> 00:35:52.834
We don\'t give a
you-know-what about organic.\"

00:35:52.834 --> 00:35:57.000
And I must have heard that
at least a thousand times.

00:35:57.083 --> 00:35:59.083
- You know, I heard \"No, no, no, no,\"

00:35:59.083 --> 00:36:02.083
and I just was of the
personality of, well,

00:36:02.083 --> 00:36:03.959
it\'s \"no\" for now.

00:36:03.959 --> 00:36:04.876
Here\'s my card.

00:36:04.876 --> 00:36:06.417
When you\'re ready, I\'ll be back.

00:36:06.417 --> 00:36:07.250
I look back now,

00:36:07.250 --> 00:36:08.792
and one of the best things
I ever did was cheerlead

00:36:08.792 --> 00:36:10.876
in high school because, seriously,

00:36:10.876 --> 00:36:12.250
except for the pom-poms missing,

00:36:12.250 --> 00:36:14.626
that\'s what I was doing for the industry.

00:36:14.626 --> 00:36:18.334
- 1984 was this year that

00:36:19.167 --> 00:36:21.709
I think the clouds kind of parted.

00:36:21.709 --> 00:36:24.209
All of a sudden there was
just all this optimism.

00:36:24.209 --> 00:36:26.167
The optimism was well-founded,

00:36:26.167 --> 00:36:30.292
because from 1984 to 1994 --

00:36:30.918 --> 00:36:32.042
the next 10 years --

00:36:32.751 --> 00:36:36.083
we grew an average of 50% per year,

00:36:36.083 --> 00:36:38.834
which is doubling every other year.

00:36:38.834 --> 00:36:41.250
And we were connected on our values,

00:36:41.250 --> 00:36:44.584
and we were connected
on what our vision was,

00:36:44.584 --> 00:36:47.083
to try and promote this organic.

00:36:47.083 --> 00:36:50.501
And the satisfaction of that period,

00:36:51.292 --> 00:36:53.626
I\'ve never had anything,
you know, like it.

00:36:53.626 --> 00:36:55.667
- The very first mass market supermarket

00:36:55.667 --> 00:36:57.918
to buy organics was through me,

00:36:57.918 --> 00:36:59.792
and it was Stop & Shop supermarkets

00:36:59.792 --> 00:37:01.834
in Boston, Massachusetts.

00:37:01.834 --> 00:37:03.250
It was the late \'80s,

00:37:03.250 --> 00:37:06.792
and it was finally the
reason I was looking for.

00:37:07.375 --> 00:37:10.918
\"Tonya, this is Harold
Alston from Stop & Shop.

00:37:10.918 --> 00:37:13.292
I think I\'m losing my customers

00:37:13.292 --> 00:37:15.375
to this store called Bread & Circus.

00:37:15.375 --> 00:37:16.459
Have you heard of them?\"

00:37:16.459 --> 00:37:19.501
Uh, yes Harold, I sell them every day.

00:37:19.501 --> 00:37:21.250
\"Well, I want you to come and talk to me

00:37:21.250 --> 00:37:23.083
about organics, because I think

00:37:23.083 --> 00:37:25.209
I\'m losing some of my shoppers.\"

00:37:25.584 --> 00:37:26.584
Here we go.

00:37:27.918 --> 00:37:30.292
♫ So I got into organic

00:37:30.292 --> 00:37:32.792
♫ Taking good care of the land

00:37:32.792 --> 00:37:35.167
♫ And now I work the farm responsibly

00:37:35.167 --> 00:37:37.375
♫ Giving nature a helping hand

00:37:37.375 --> 00:37:39.292
♫ It\'s all about clean living

00:37:39.292 --> 00:37:42.375
♫ Always giving, that\'s the way to be

00:37:42.375 --> 00:37:45.042
♫ We\'re Organic Meadow farmers

00:37:45.042 --> 00:37:47.292
♫ An organic family

00:37:47.292 --> 00:37:49.584
♫ From the soil to the table

00:37:49.584 --> 00:37:52.334
♫ And every step along the way

00:37:52.334 --> 00:37:54.792
♫ We\'re working for tomorrow

00:37:54.792 --> 00:37:57.250
♫ In everything we do today

00:37:58.209 --> 00:38:01.125
♫ Dirt, you made my lunch

00:38:01.125 --> 00:38:04.334
♫ Dirt made my lunch.

00:38:04.334 --> 00:38:05.959
♫ Thank you, dirt

00:38:05.959 --> 00:38:07.292
♫ Thanks a bunch

00:38:07.292 --> 00:38:08.709
♫ For my salad, my sandwich

00:38:08.709 --> 00:38:10.334
♫ My milk and my munch

00:38:10.334 --> 00:38:13.000
♫ \'Cause, dirt, you made my lunch

00:38:13.501 --> 00:38:15.501
♫ Now you\'re feeling kind of hungry

00:38:15.501 --> 00:38:17.125
♫ There\'s no reason to panic

00:38:17.125 --> 00:38:19.792
♫ \'Cause Mother Nature\'s got a brand

00:38:19.792 --> 00:38:21.083
♫ It\'s called organic

00:38:21.083 --> 00:38:22.834
♫ That\'s organic

00:38:22.834 --> 00:38:24.626
♫ That\'s organic

00:38:24.626 --> 00:38:26.334
♫ That\'s organic

00:38:26.334 --> 00:38:28.250
♫ Now that\'s organic

00:38:31.501 --> 00:38:33.375
- Daminozide, which has
been sprayed on apples

00:38:33.375 --> 00:38:34.751
for more than 20 years,

00:38:34.751 --> 00:38:37.709
breaks down into another
chemical called UDMH.

00:38:38.375 --> 00:38:40.334
A lot of these chemicals got on the market

00:38:40.334 --> 00:38:42.792
when we didn\'t know that they
were cancer-causing agents.

00:38:42.792 --> 00:38:44.375
And they\'re on the market now,

00:38:44.375 --> 00:38:45.667
and we know that they do cause cancer.

00:38:45.667 --> 00:38:46.626
- You\'re correct.

00:38:46.626 --> 00:38:47.584
- But you\'re saying,
\"We can\'t take them off

00:38:47.584 --> 00:38:48.876
because they\'re already on the market,

00:38:48.876 --> 00:38:49.709
and they went on the market,

00:38:49.709 --> 00:38:51.292
and we didn\'t know they cause cancer.\"

00:38:51.292 --> 00:38:53.751
- That\'s the paradox of the statute.

00:38:55.125 --> 00:38:56.292
- That\'s crazy.

00:38:57.584 --> 00:38:59.042
- The broccoli.

00:38:59.042 --> 00:39:01.626
Did you know the government
says we should wash

00:39:01.626 --> 00:39:04.167
all our fruits and vegetables
two to three minutes,

00:39:04.167 --> 00:39:07.292
with detergent, and then rinse them.

00:39:07.292 --> 00:39:08.876
Why?

00:39:08.876 --> 00:39:10.876
What\'s on the food?

00:39:10.876 --> 00:39:13.459
And why are children particularly at risk?

00:39:14.459 --> 00:39:16.125
- The nation\'s largest school district

00:39:16.125 --> 00:39:19.083
and hundreds of others banned
apples from cafeterias,

00:39:19.083 --> 00:39:21.584
following a report from an
environmental organization

00:39:21.584 --> 00:39:24.459
that Alar sprayed on
apples to make them firmer

00:39:24.459 --> 00:39:26.876
increased the risk of cancer for children.

00:39:26.876 --> 00:39:29.125
- Most consumers really
don\'t want any Alar

00:39:29.125 --> 00:39:30.125
in their apple juice,

00:39:30.125 --> 00:39:31.584
and they have a right to want that.

00:39:31.584 --> 00:39:33.709
And we believe the EPA should ban Alar

00:39:33.709 --> 00:39:35.459
and do it sooner, not later.

00:39:35.459 --> 00:39:37.876
- From now on I\'m gonna shop organic.

00:39:37.876 --> 00:39:38.834
I\'m gonna try.

00:39:38.834 --> 00:39:39.709
- Yes, it costs more.

00:39:39.709 --> 00:39:42.542
We\'re willing to pay
the price at this point,

00:39:42.542 --> 00:39:44.751
instead of consuming carcinogens.

00:39:44.751 --> 00:39:48.042
- It just flipped
overnight into the demand

00:39:48.042 --> 00:39:51.209
because the timing was right.

00:39:52.209 --> 00:39:54.626
You know, all this talk for 10, 15 years.

00:39:54.626 --> 00:39:55.959
\"Organic is better.\"

00:39:55.959 --> 00:39:57.501
\"Pesticides are bad.\"

00:39:57.501 --> 00:39:58.918
\"You\'re poisoning everybody.\"

00:39:58.918 --> 00:39:59.751
\"It\'s not good.\"

00:39:59.751 --> 00:40:02.751
\"Ah, that\'s all a bunch of
baloney, baloney, baloney.\"

00:40:02.751 --> 00:40:06.083
And finally it came to
the point where, boom,

00:40:06.083 --> 00:40:07.709
Alar\'s right in front of them.

00:40:07.709 --> 00:40:11.125
Perfect storm, everybody bought in.

00:40:11.125 --> 00:40:13.751
- My handle became Organic 911

00:40:13.751 --> 00:40:16.584
because it was such an urgency.

00:40:16.584 --> 00:40:19.501
From a production standpoint,
we had enough organics now

00:40:19.501 --> 00:40:20.918
that we could convert

00:40:20.918 --> 00:40:23.083
mass market supermarket
people into organic.

00:40:23.083 --> 00:40:25.667
So there was an urgency to
sell more into the pipeline.

00:40:25.667 --> 00:40:28.375
At the same time, we
started adding other crops

00:40:28.375 --> 00:40:32.542
because we were looked at as
the go-to company for organics.

00:40:32.667 --> 00:40:34.918
We were the hottest thing in the market.

00:40:34.918 --> 00:40:38.125
Everything about it was just
so exciting at the time,

00:40:38.125 --> 00:40:40.375
and we did a lot of high-fiving.

00:40:41.375 --> 00:40:42.667
- After the Alar crisis,

00:40:42.667 --> 00:40:46.042
demand for safe and
healthy food skyrocketed.

00:40:46.042 --> 00:40:47.501
Organic took off,

00:40:47.501 --> 00:40:50.542
growing 20% annually for two decades --

00:40:50.542 --> 00:40:53.542
which meant it doubled
in size every few years.

00:40:53.542 --> 00:40:56.626
Acreage quadrupled in two years.

00:40:56.626 --> 00:40:59.501
A wave of conventional farmers converted.

00:40:59.501 --> 00:41:01.751
Some were drawn by the price premium,

00:41:01.751 --> 00:41:03.751
others for deeper reasons.

00:41:04.250 --> 00:41:05.792
- 1980s, people might remember

00:41:05.792 --> 00:41:07.709
there was this thing
called the \"farm crisis,\"

00:41:07.709 --> 00:41:09.834
where farmers were losing everything.

00:41:09.834 --> 00:41:11.250
Farmers were realizing

00:41:11.250 --> 00:41:12.876
that their children were being born ill,

00:41:12.876 --> 00:41:15.375
or that their dad had died
too young of brain cancer,

00:41:15.375 --> 00:41:18.292
or these exposures where
people were constantly

00:41:18.292 --> 00:41:20.584
finding themselves dizzy
and sick and realizing,

00:41:20.584 --> 00:41:22.334
\"Oh, this is a pesticide exposure.\"

00:41:22.334 --> 00:41:26.501
So a whole new bunch of
really conventional farmers

00:41:26.918 --> 00:41:29.125
began to switch over into organic.

00:41:29.125 --> 00:41:31.751
And many of them did it
very slowly and cautiously,

00:41:31.751 --> 00:41:34.417
many of them didn\'t tell
anybody they were doing it.

00:41:34.417 --> 00:41:36.292
We began to find them
when they would come out

00:41:36.292 --> 00:41:40.209
into the market, saying,
\"This is organic.\"

00:41:40.209 --> 00:41:43.083
- One of the first to
convert was Danny Duncan,

00:41:43.083 --> 00:41:44.709
when the price of conventional broccoli

00:41:44.709 --> 00:41:48.042
dropped so low it wasn\'t
even worth growing.

00:41:48.042 --> 00:41:50.167
- Danny called me one day and said,

00:41:50.167 --> 00:41:53.542
\"If I grew organic broccoli,
could you sell it?\"

00:41:53.542 --> 00:41:54.584
And I was so excited.

00:41:54.584 --> 00:41:56.918
I went down to visit Danny in Bakersfield

00:41:57.834 --> 00:42:02.000
and I think my eyes popped out
of my head, I was so excited.

00:42:02.000 --> 00:42:03.292
- One season to the next, boom,

00:42:03.292 --> 00:42:06.459
Cal-O was on the map by virtue of that.

00:42:06.459 --> 00:42:08.167
Broccoli that could ship,

00:42:08.167 --> 00:42:10.417
that was bunched, that
was beautiful in that way.

00:42:10.417 --> 00:42:12.876
- Yup, so professional
farmers that converted

00:42:12.876 --> 00:42:16.918
to organic really, really
changed the game totally.

00:42:16.918 --> 00:42:19.083
- Organic really started to take off.

00:42:19.083 --> 00:42:22.292
Some of the largest farmers
in the Monterey area,

00:42:22.292 --> 00:42:23.542
they got into organic.

00:42:23.542 --> 00:42:27.209
I remember one of the brothers
in his late seventies saying,

00:42:27.209 --> 00:42:29.292
\"This is making farming fun again.\"

00:42:29.292 --> 00:42:30.834
Because we looked at chemistry,

00:42:30.834 --> 00:42:32.667
and we said we can do without,

00:42:32.667 --> 00:42:33.959
and so they started to say,

00:42:33.959 --> 00:42:35.834
\"Well, we can do with less.\"

00:42:35.834 --> 00:42:37.083
And they changed the chemistry,

00:42:37.083 --> 00:42:39.250
so it\'s much more benign.

00:42:39.250 --> 00:42:41.042
- As organic scaled up,

00:42:41.042 --> 00:42:45.209
it began to divide into an
industry and a movement.

00:42:47.042 --> 00:42:48.876
- As more and more growers

00:42:48.876 --> 00:42:50.542
from conventional agriculture started

00:42:50.542 --> 00:42:52.209
to become interested in organics,

00:42:52.209 --> 00:42:55.751
they brought along many of the patterns

00:42:55.751 --> 00:42:58.334
and practices that they
had been employing.

00:42:58.334 --> 00:42:59.959
But the other thing that started to happen

00:42:59.959 --> 00:43:02.042
is what I\'ve called bifurcation,

00:43:02.042 --> 00:43:04.918
where some organics became much more

00:43:04.918 --> 00:43:06.542
like conventional agriculture,

00:43:06.542 --> 00:43:09.459
and some retained more of its kind of

00:43:09.459 --> 00:43:12.292
dedication to agro-ecological technique

00:43:12.292 --> 00:43:14.459
and more small farms.

00:43:14.459 --> 00:43:17.292
- There was a lot of this tension,

00:43:18.709 --> 00:43:20.709
and it was good.

00:43:20.709 --> 00:43:21.918
It was good.

00:43:21.918 --> 00:43:23.417
It was fine.

00:43:23.417 --> 00:43:24.959
We needed to do that.

00:43:24.959 --> 00:43:26.918
We had to disagree with each other.

00:43:26.918 --> 00:43:28.667
We had to split up.

00:43:28.667 --> 00:43:31.042
We had to get mad at each other, you know,

00:43:31.042 --> 00:43:34.334
in order to find our way forward.

00:43:34.334 --> 00:43:35.959
You could call it division.

00:43:35.959 --> 00:43:39.876
I would say maybe it
wasn\'t division, right?

00:43:39.876 --> 00:43:42.751
I think it was a form of
strengthening of the movement.

00:43:42.751 --> 00:43:44.834
We had to be as diverse

00:43:44.834 --> 00:43:46.876
as the soils that we were working with.

00:43:46.876 --> 00:43:48.709
We had to be diverse in our approaches,

00:43:48.709 --> 00:43:50.542
diverse in our marketing systems,

00:43:50.542 --> 00:43:51.959
diverse in our scale,

00:43:51.959 --> 00:43:53.709
and that every single player

00:43:53.709 --> 00:43:57.834
in that broad fabric of
organic was important.

00:43:57.834 --> 00:44:00.584
- We can\'t have just
all little hippie farms.

00:44:00.584 --> 00:44:01.501
We need the big ones.

00:44:01.501 --> 00:44:03.209
There\'s still only about 1% of the land

00:44:03.209 --> 00:44:05.375
in the United States farmed organically.

00:44:05.375 --> 00:44:09.042
So that\'s just a spit in the ocean really.

00:44:09.042 --> 00:44:10.959
So if we\'re gonna really
have major change,

00:44:10.959 --> 00:44:13.709
we need these large scale
conventional farmers

00:44:13.709 --> 00:44:15.125
to see the light,

00:44:15.125 --> 00:44:18.792
to succeed, and to push the envelope.

00:44:18.792 --> 00:44:21.792
(upbeat instrumental music)

00:44:21.792 --> 00:44:25.959
- In 1982 there was 35 co-op
warehouses, just alone.

00:44:27.459 --> 00:44:30.334
15 years later there was two of them left.

00:44:30.334 --> 00:44:33.125
So it tells you about how rapidly

00:44:33.125 --> 00:44:34.876
that consolidation happened.

00:44:34.876 --> 00:44:37.250
I think as the scale ticked up,

00:44:37.250 --> 00:44:39.542
as the demand ticked up,

00:44:39.542 --> 00:44:41.918
it was a race to see who could create

00:44:41.918 --> 00:44:43.792
the most efficiencies,

00:44:43.792 --> 00:44:46.751
and who could build the scale.

00:44:46.751 --> 00:44:49.167
I saw as the \'90s came along,

00:44:49.167 --> 00:44:53.083
I felt like this business
is gonna be much bigger

00:44:53.083 --> 00:44:55.125
than I think we realize,

00:44:55.125 --> 00:44:58.918
and there\'s got to be
a national distributor

00:44:58.918 --> 00:45:01.751
that\'s got tremendous infrastructure,

00:45:01.751 --> 00:45:05.042
that can carry every product they want.

00:45:05.042 --> 00:45:06.459
And whoever can do that,

00:45:06.459 --> 00:45:09.834
and do it well, is gonna
be able to take advantage

00:45:09.834 --> 00:45:11.417
of all this growth.

00:45:11.417 --> 00:45:14.792
And so that\'s when I started looking at

00:45:14.792 --> 00:45:17.792
who can I partner with on the East Coast?

00:45:19.542 --> 00:45:22.375
- Facing the industrialization of organic,

00:45:22.375 --> 00:45:24.876
smaller growers moved to the margins.

00:45:24.876 --> 00:45:27.876
There they found niches and thrived.

00:45:27.876 --> 00:45:31.918
- With the conventionalization of organics

00:45:31.918 --> 00:45:36.083
there was an initial loss
for small organic farmers.

00:45:36.334 --> 00:45:39.626
But a lot of these guys
just started producing

00:45:39.626 --> 00:45:41.125
to their own niche,

00:45:41.125 --> 00:45:43.417
and so they didn\'t actually
get wiped out at all.

00:45:43.417 --> 00:45:45.751
They got quite strong.

00:45:45.751 --> 00:45:49.918
- We\'ve tried to take care
of the whole community

00:45:50.459 --> 00:45:52.459
of life as a bottom line.

00:45:52.459 --> 00:45:56.626
So we don\'t market our food
through a market system.

00:45:57.584 --> 00:46:00.834
We are entirely a community-based farm,

00:46:02.292 --> 00:46:05.083
and we work with about 200 households

00:46:05.083 --> 00:46:08.501
who support the operating
budget for the farm

00:46:08.501 --> 00:46:11.667
so that we can create food

00:46:11.667 --> 00:46:15.000
to a much higher level of sustainability.

00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:17.042
- The way I started to
do organic dairy was,

00:46:17.042 --> 00:46:18.751
someone approached me in 1990

00:46:18.751 --> 00:46:21.501
about doing organic milk for ice cream,

00:46:21.501 --> 00:46:25.125
and ice cream is something
that I have a weakness for.

00:46:25.125 --> 00:46:26.542
- Everyone say, \"Yum.\"

00:46:26.542 --> 00:46:28.876
Okay, we may make delicious yogurt,

00:46:28.876 --> 00:46:30.334
butter, and milk,

00:46:30.334 --> 00:46:32.918
but the real reason that
Albert started this creamery...

00:46:32.918 --> 00:46:35.792
- I love ice cream, so. (laughing)

00:46:35.792 --> 00:46:38.167
I love making good ice cream.

00:46:38.167 --> 00:46:40.542
We were the first ones in
the western United States --

00:46:40.542 --> 00:46:42.792
the first dairy in the
western United States

00:46:42.792 --> 00:46:44.209
and creamery in the
western United States --

00:46:44.209 --> 00:46:45.834
that were certified organic.

00:46:45.834 --> 00:46:47.918
My neighbors here thought I was all crazy.

00:46:47.918 --> 00:46:49.959
Either they\'re converted to organic now,

00:46:49.959 --> 00:46:51.584
or they\'re not in business.

00:46:51.584 --> 00:46:54.125
80% of the dairies in
Marin, Sonoma County,

00:46:54.125 --> 00:46:55.501
are now certified organic.

00:46:55.501 --> 00:46:58.918
So it\'s no longer a
niche, as I like to say.

00:46:58.918 --> 00:47:00.709
It is the mainstream.

00:47:01.459 --> 00:47:04.417
- One thing the big guys
can\'t ever do is be small.

00:47:04.417 --> 00:47:06.167
So consumers, I think, by beginning

00:47:06.167 --> 00:47:09.250
to look at local food and
support local growers,

00:47:09.250 --> 00:47:12.083
realized that they\'re
supporting a local economy.

00:47:12.083 --> 00:47:14.417
I think the local food
movement may be a bit

00:47:14.417 --> 00:47:17.417
of the antidote to the
scaling up of organic.

00:47:17.417 --> 00:47:19.459
- I knew I never wanted to be a farmer

00:47:19.459 --> 00:47:22.918
with 4,000 acres of vegetables.

00:47:23.584 --> 00:47:25.626
I just knew I didn\'t want to do that.

00:47:25.626 --> 00:47:28.959
And yet I didn\'t want to not be part

00:47:28.959 --> 00:47:31.292
of the action. (laughing)

00:47:31.292 --> 00:47:33.459
So I kept putting money in

00:47:33.459 --> 00:47:35.125
and went down to the desert, and expanded,

00:47:35.125 --> 00:47:36.959
and then we had 100 acres down there,

00:47:36.959 --> 00:47:39.709
and then I thought, well, okay,

00:47:39.709 --> 00:47:42.042
this is working out pretty well.

00:47:42.709 --> 00:47:43.918
And then in the late \'90s

00:47:43.918 --> 00:47:47.125
it just collapsed, when
the big grower-shippers,

00:47:47.125 --> 00:47:48.876
the conventional growers,

00:47:48.876 --> 00:47:52.292
decided to get into the industry.

00:47:52.292 --> 00:47:54.709
And they came in, bingo, overnight,

00:47:54.709 --> 00:47:56.876
just... just crash.

00:47:56.876 --> 00:48:00.125
And within really a few weeks

00:48:01.125 --> 00:48:04.918
the price of mesclun mix, spring mix,

00:48:04.918 --> 00:48:09.042
dropped from $11 a box to $5 a box.

00:48:10.918 --> 00:48:14.125
Our costs were about $9.

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:16.209
So we were out of business.

00:48:16.209 --> 00:48:18.375
- Well, sometimes life
throws you a curve ball.

00:48:18.375 --> 00:48:22.542
(laughing) So we\'re at the
pinnacle of our careers.

00:48:23.459 --> 00:48:24.876
Things are going great.

00:48:24.876 --> 00:48:26.083
Customers love us.

00:48:26.083 --> 00:48:27.584
I was really proud of what we were doing,

00:48:27.584 --> 00:48:29.501
we had come a long way.

00:48:29.501 --> 00:48:31.501
But what we lost along the way is,

00:48:31.501 --> 00:48:34.834
when you\'re building a family business

00:48:34.834 --> 00:48:36.792
in spite of the family.

00:48:36.792 --> 00:48:39.417
And unfortunately our family fell apart,

00:48:39.417 --> 00:48:42.375
and my husband decided he didn\'t want

00:48:42.375 --> 00:48:43.334
to be married anymore,

00:48:43.334 --> 00:48:45.125
but he wanted me to keep my day job.

00:48:45.125 --> 00:48:47.459
How do you like that one? (laughing)

00:48:48.042 --> 00:48:48.876
Sorry.

00:48:48.876 --> 00:48:50.125
(thunder rumbling)

00:48:50.125 --> 00:48:53.792
(gentle instrumental music)

00:48:55.584 --> 00:48:56.459
- It was an El Nino year.

00:48:56.459 --> 00:48:58.918
Actually it started in \'98.

00:48:58.918 --> 00:49:03.083
All the way from the desert
to Delano was rained on.

00:49:07.000 --> 00:49:08.918
The year of our demise,

00:49:11.417 --> 00:49:13.709
the year that we went out of business.

00:49:14.125 --> 00:49:18.292
And it\'s the year that we had to look back

00:49:18.292 --> 00:49:21.667
at how could this have possibly happened?

00:49:22.209 --> 00:49:25.334
And you thinking that we
had all these successes,

00:49:25.334 --> 00:49:27.292
and everything\'s running.

00:49:27.292 --> 00:49:29.876
Basically had it your
way going into the \'90s,

00:49:29.876 --> 00:49:33.876
in the late \'90s you were
running the organic thing

00:49:33.876 --> 00:49:35.250
on a large scale,

00:49:35.250 --> 00:49:36.959
and for us it just became...

00:49:36.959 --> 00:49:39.417
the timing of everything was wrong.

00:49:39.417 --> 00:49:43.584
You know, we decided to
do our greatest expansion

00:49:43.667 --> 00:49:46.167
of the history of our farm that year.

00:49:46.167 --> 00:49:49.709
The worst case scenario
times five occurred.

00:49:49.709 --> 00:49:51.792
- In the farming business
you\'re gonna have a bad year.

00:49:51.792 --> 00:49:53.959
That\'s understood.

00:49:53.959 --> 00:49:57.125
And you\'re also probably gonna have

00:49:57.125 --> 00:49:59.501
a second bad year
occasionally back-to-back.

00:49:59.501 --> 00:50:00.709
That does happen,

00:50:00.709 --> 00:50:04.000
whether it\'s Mother Nature,
markets, or whatever.

00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:05.209
And on a rare occasion

00:50:05.209 --> 00:50:07.375
you might even have three lousy years.

00:50:07.375 --> 00:50:08.834
You\'re in a rut.

00:50:08.834 --> 00:50:11.334
So I said, we need a balance sheet

00:50:11.334 --> 00:50:15.250
that can withstand three
bad years in a row.

00:50:15.250 --> 00:50:17.709
Well, we had a fourth year. (laughing)

00:50:17.709 --> 00:50:19.667
- I called who I thought

00:50:19.667 --> 00:50:22.667
was the best company besides Pavich,

00:50:22.667 --> 00:50:24.083
and that was Earthbound Farm.

00:50:24.083 --> 00:50:25.209
I called Myra Goodman,

00:50:25.209 --> 00:50:26.083
and I said, what do you think?

00:50:26.083 --> 00:50:27.667
She goes, \"Oh my God.\"

00:50:27.667 --> 00:50:31.375
She said, \"I have been trying
to hire a Tonya forever.

00:50:31.375 --> 00:50:33.125
Are you kidding me?\"

00:50:34.709 --> 00:50:38.876
We had, in our peak, over
150 different growers --

00:50:39.000 --> 00:50:40.918
from a three acre radicchio farmer

00:50:40.918 --> 00:50:45.083
to Stan Pura with several
thousand acres of agriculture.

00:50:45.918 --> 00:50:47.792
And what we learned right then and there

00:50:47.792 --> 00:50:50.209
was organic is scale neutral.

00:50:51.250 --> 00:50:54.250
Our goal was to broaden that horizon

00:50:54.250 --> 00:50:56.125
and make it food for everyone.

00:50:56.125 --> 00:50:57.250
Well, what would that mean?

00:50:57.250 --> 00:50:59.167
That would mean be in Costco,

00:50:59.167 --> 00:51:00.292
be in Whole Foods,

00:51:00.292 --> 00:51:02.876
and, oh, by the way, be in Walmart.

00:51:02.876 --> 00:51:04.834
Wow, revolutionary, right?

00:51:04.834 --> 00:51:09.000
So did that probably upset a
few of the organic ioneers?

00:51:10.125 --> 00:51:11.542
Probably.

00:51:11.542 --> 00:51:15.000
- We were conquering, you
know, the western states

00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:17.542
and, you know, it was a feeling

00:51:17.542 --> 00:51:20.334
that we kind of had a
ragtag bunch of hippies

00:51:20.334 --> 00:51:23.292
that most people would have said,

00:51:23.292 --> 00:51:25.542
\"They won\'t be around much longer.\"

00:51:25.542 --> 00:51:27.542
And we were turning into the leaders

00:51:27.542 --> 00:51:30.042
of our distribution space.

00:51:30.042 --> 00:51:32.292
There was maybe up to a hundred companies

00:51:32.292 --> 00:51:34.751
that we probably acquired over the years.

00:51:34.751 --> 00:51:36.417
Somehow we were lucky

00:51:36.417 --> 00:51:38.751
because, again, as one of the original

00:51:38.751 --> 00:51:41.167
and the homegrown companies,

00:51:43.250 --> 00:51:44.459
we did the swallowing

00:51:44.459 --> 00:51:46.542
instead of being swallowed up.

00:51:47.167 --> 00:51:51.334
- As organic pioneers\'
fortunes rose and fell,

00:51:51.375 --> 00:51:53.751
legislation that would do
more than anything else

00:51:53.751 --> 00:51:57.918
to bring organic into the
mainstream was inching along.

00:51:58.459 --> 00:52:02.250
The National Organic
Foods Act passed in 1990,

00:52:02.250 --> 00:52:05.584
yet it took 10 years to implement.

00:52:05.584 --> 00:52:09.250
Many organic activists were
opposed to any federal law.

00:52:09.250 --> 00:52:10.918
Others fought to ensure

00:52:10.918 --> 00:52:13.792
that the regulations
reflected organic practice

00:52:13.792 --> 00:52:17.209
in production, processing,
and distribution.

00:52:18.250 --> 00:52:21.167
- You know, a lot of the folks in organic,

00:52:21.167 --> 00:52:25.334
they\'re not real joiners
and organizational people,

00:52:25.918 --> 00:52:28.375
and they had heartburn with all that.

00:52:28.375 --> 00:52:30.918
But it... kind of the
market was going there,

00:52:30.918 --> 00:52:32.834
and so we needed some control.

00:52:33.234 --> 00:52:35.609
- So at the same time we\'re helping

00:52:35.609 --> 00:52:38.483
to write the organic regs,

00:52:38.483 --> 00:52:41.318
we\'re having big companies --

00:52:41.318 --> 00:52:44.901
big chemical companies
-- coming in and saying,

00:52:44.901 --> 00:52:47.276
\"Well, we want to make sure
that GMO\'s are included,\"

00:52:47.276 --> 00:52:49.192
municipalities that are saying,

00:52:49.192 --> 00:52:50.109
\"We want to make sure

00:52:50.109 --> 00:52:52.734
that we can add sewage sludge into it.\"

00:52:52.734 --> 00:52:55.901
And the third one was, \"Well,
let\'s add irradiation.\"

00:52:55.901 --> 00:52:58.192
So these are riders that they were adding,

00:52:58.192 --> 00:52:59.525
and I guess that\'s pretty typical

00:52:59.525 --> 00:53:00.901
that\'s happening in Washington,

00:53:00.901 --> 00:53:03.318
but the organic community went, \"Whoa, no!

00:53:03.318 --> 00:53:05.151
This is not what we want.\"

00:53:05.551 --> 00:53:09.718
- This involved a
full-throated public debate.

00:53:09.925 --> 00:53:12.342
In fact the debate was so full-throated,

00:53:12.342 --> 00:53:15.759
I felt it was choking me on occasion.

00:53:15.759 --> 00:53:18.842
When the proposed rule first
released three years ago,

00:53:18.842 --> 00:53:21.426
the public response was staggering --

00:53:21.426 --> 00:53:24.592
about 275,000 public comments.

00:53:25.909 --> 00:53:26.992
The people spoke.

00:53:26.992 --> 00:53:28.367
We listened and we respond

00:53:28.367 --> 00:53:32.283
by dramatically changing
the rule last March.

00:53:32.283 --> 00:53:34.867
Most notably, we revised standards

00:53:34.867 --> 00:53:37.575
to say that no food
could be called organic

00:53:37.575 --> 00:53:40.159
if irradiation, sewage sludge,

00:53:40.159 --> 00:53:42.159
or genetic engineering was used

00:53:42.159 --> 00:53:43.575
in its production.

00:53:43.575 --> 00:53:46.575
- I took over California
Certified Organic Farmers

00:53:46.575 --> 00:53:49.283
the day that the national rule came out.

00:53:49.283 --> 00:53:53.450
So I had to take an
organization of old rebels

00:53:53.492 --> 00:53:56.450
and rowdy folks, and make it...

00:53:56.450 --> 00:53:57.325
turn it into something

00:53:57.325 --> 00:54:00.159
where we would be issuing
a federal license.

00:54:00.159 --> 00:54:04.325
So this thing that went
from a Communist conspiracy

00:54:05.867 --> 00:54:09.951
to a national USDA-certified product

00:54:11.325 --> 00:54:13.701
was... was growth.

00:54:14.809 --> 00:54:18.975
And it went from kind of
way out there to mainstream.

00:54:19.642 --> 00:54:21.559
- Well, what did that
mean for the community?

00:54:21.559 --> 00:54:22.559
Two things.

00:54:22.559 --> 00:54:26.184
First of all, we got
the USDA Organic seal.

00:54:26.184 --> 00:54:28.184
Huge. That was that stamp

00:54:28.184 --> 00:54:30.725
of approval that went
on all of our packaging,

00:54:30.725 --> 00:54:32.809
and that told every consumer

00:54:32.809 --> 00:54:35.101
across the land that this is a brand

00:54:35.101 --> 00:54:36.392
that you can know and trust,

00:54:36.392 --> 00:54:38.975
and USDA has put their seal on it.

00:54:38.975 --> 00:54:39.975
The other thing that happened

00:54:39.975 --> 00:54:41.518
is the multi-state operators said,

00:54:41.518 --> 00:54:44.017
\"Great, we can now bring you in,

00:54:44.017 --> 00:54:46.518
and we can send you out to all divisions.\"

00:54:46.518 --> 00:54:47.351
Boom.

00:54:48.309 --> 00:54:52.351
So the next step is the
conventional operators are saying,

00:54:52.351 --> 00:54:53.892
\"I want a little piece of that action.\"

00:54:53.892 --> 00:54:55.809
So that was the next growth spurt.

00:54:55.809 --> 00:54:58.101
You\'ve got big conventional operations

00:54:58.101 --> 00:55:00.392
that now have a segment of organic

00:55:00.392 --> 00:55:02.518
in their product line

00:55:02.518 --> 00:55:04.892
because these retailers are calling them

00:55:04.892 --> 00:55:07.184
and saying, \"What are
you doing in organic?\"

00:55:07.184 --> 00:55:10.017
- Megaplayers moved into organic --

00:55:10.017 --> 00:55:13.809
a wave of acquisitions that
began with the USDA standards

00:55:13.809 --> 00:55:16.434
and swept the industry.

00:55:16.434 --> 00:55:19.975
Cascadian Farms, which led
the way in convenience food,

00:55:19.975 --> 00:55:22.600
was bought by General Mills.

00:55:22.600 --> 00:55:25.809
Earthbound Farm was sold
to top milk producer Dean,

00:55:25.809 --> 00:55:28.351
which spun it off as White Wave.

00:55:28.351 --> 00:55:30.767
Hain Celestial grew into a conglomerate

00:55:30.767 --> 00:55:32.934
from within organic.

00:55:32.934 --> 00:55:36.434
Others -- Coca Cola,
Kellogg, Campbell Soup,

00:55:37.518 --> 00:55:40.559
Smuckers, Nestle and Dannon from Europe --

00:55:40.559 --> 00:55:42.767
moved in from the outside.

00:55:42.767 --> 00:55:45.226
It\'s the triumph of the mainstream.

00:55:46.184 --> 00:55:47.142
By now organic

00:55:47.142 --> 00:55:49.101
is a multi-billion dollar industry,

00:55:49.101 --> 00:55:52.434
the fastest growing sector
of the food business,

00:55:52.434 --> 00:55:56.600
and yet it\'s only 4% of
total food sales in the U.S.

00:55:57.017 --> 00:55:58.850
Certain categories like leaf lettuce

00:55:58.850 --> 00:56:01.267
are as high as 50% organic.

00:56:01.267 --> 00:56:04.892
However, other measures like
acreage planted in organic

00:56:04.892 --> 00:56:06.725
are as low as 1%.

00:56:07.642 --> 00:56:11.559
It\'s what Julie Guthman
calls the paradox of organic.

00:56:11.559 --> 00:56:14.518
- Studies show that something like 70%

00:56:14.518 --> 00:56:16.975
of American consumers buy organics

00:56:16.975 --> 00:56:18.683
at least occasionally.

00:56:18.683 --> 00:56:22.850
So how do you square this
1% in organic acreage

00:56:22.850 --> 00:56:25.226
with 70% who claim they buy it?

00:56:26.184 --> 00:56:30.351
So even though I think this
bifurcation thing is okay

00:56:31.351 --> 00:56:33.683
in that it fulfills
different market niches,

00:56:33.683 --> 00:56:36.309
there\'s still something really missing

00:56:36.309 --> 00:56:40.142
when so much agriculture

00:56:40.142 --> 00:56:41.101
in the United States

00:56:41.101 --> 00:56:43.267
is not grown organically at all.

00:56:43.267 --> 00:56:45.142
- The other side of organic,

00:56:45.142 --> 00:56:48.059
the movement, is thriving as well.

00:56:48.059 --> 00:56:50.142
Over 50 years it has created

00:56:50.142 --> 00:56:52.975
an alternative vision of agriculture,

00:56:52.975 --> 00:56:55.184
realized it on the ground,

00:56:55.184 --> 00:56:58.392
pointed the way toward
a sustainable future.

00:56:58.392 --> 00:57:02.392
Those ideals are embodied
by the Full Belly Farm.

00:57:02.392 --> 00:57:03.642
- There were a lot of pieces there

00:57:03.642 --> 00:57:06.392
that maybe started out at ideals

00:57:06.392 --> 00:57:07.600
and took us awhile to get

00:57:07.600 --> 00:57:10.725
to the manifestation of that ideal

00:57:10.725 --> 00:57:13.226
in a real-world context.

00:57:13.226 --> 00:57:15.351
So that\'s kind of...

00:57:15.351 --> 00:57:17.850
we\'ve now hit a point
where all of those things

00:57:17.850 --> 00:57:20.518
that you put in place
begin to work really well.

00:57:20.518 --> 00:57:22.017
It became a social movement,

00:57:22.017 --> 00:57:24.226
which I think is very critical.

00:57:24.226 --> 00:57:27.892
(upbeat percussion music)

00:57:28.809 --> 00:57:30.392
I think if this agriculture

00:57:30.392 --> 00:57:31.975
is gonna really succeed,

00:57:31.975 --> 00:57:34.850
its virtue has to be
that it\'s just happier.

00:57:34.850 --> 00:57:36.017
It\'s healthier.

00:57:36.767 --> 00:57:39.351
We realized we needed to dance
together and get together,

00:57:39.351 --> 00:57:41.101
and so that\'s formed these

00:57:41.101 --> 00:57:42.642
kind of lifelong friendships

00:57:42.642 --> 00:57:46.351
to an idea that perhaps
we can make an agriculture

00:57:46.351 --> 00:57:48.518
that regenerates the human spirit also,

00:57:48.518 --> 00:57:50.434
if that\'s not being too presumptuous.

00:57:50.434 --> 00:57:54.101
(upbeat instrumental folk music)

00:58:09.392 --> 00:58:13.476
(sandhill cranes vocalizing)

00:58:23.226 --> 00:58:25.017
- Right on cue, Brian.

00:58:25.850 --> 00:58:27.892
Those are sandhill cranes.

00:58:28.767 --> 00:58:30.725
You know, we became known

00:58:30.725 --> 00:58:34.767
for providing really outstanding habitat,

00:58:34.767 --> 00:58:37.309
you know, the bed and breakfast for ducks.

00:58:37.309 --> 00:58:39.434
I worked on the Cosumnes River Preserve,

00:58:39.434 --> 00:58:42.309
and I developed a 1,400 acre farm

00:58:42.309 --> 00:58:45.392
to be the buffers of the riparian areas

00:58:45.392 --> 00:58:47.642
that the preserve was putting together.

00:58:48.101 --> 00:58:51.184
The last I saw there\'s
over 140 species now,

00:58:51.184 --> 00:58:54.017
because as wetlands disappear

00:58:54.017 --> 00:58:56.392
more and more species
are adapting to living

00:58:56.392 --> 00:58:58.642
on farms such as this.

00:58:58.642 --> 00:59:02.434
And so that\'s part of,
like, being a farmer now.

00:59:02.434 --> 00:59:03.767
It\'s between farmers now,

00:59:03.767 --> 00:59:05.600
like, hey, this time of year it\'s like,

00:59:05.600 --> 00:59:07.600
who\'s got the most ducks?

00:59:07.600 --> 00:59:10.683
- Organic exploded in every direction.

00:59:10.683 --> 00:59:12.809
Dairy, eggs, and meat,

00:59:12.809 --> 00:59:14.892
canned tomatoes and soup,

00:59:14.892 --> 00:59:17.017
frozen food and mac and cheese,

00:59:17.017 --> 00:59:19.267
baby food and cosmetics.

00:59:19.267 --> 00:59:22.892
Pioneers like Dr. Bronner\'s
and Amy\'s Organic.

00:59:22.892 --> 00:59:26.226
New stars like Nutiva and Patagonia.

00:59:26.226 --> 00:59:29.600
The tastiest, most beautiful
fruit and vegetables --

00:59:29.600 --> 00:59:32.725
a renaissance of food and agriculture.

00:59:34.142 --> 00:59:35.559
♫ Further up the road

00:59:35.559 --> 00:59:38.059
♫ Further up the road

00:59:38.059 --> 00:59:40.934
♫ I\'ll meet you further on up the road

00:59:40.934 --> 00:59:45.059
♫ Where the way is dark
and the night is cold

00:59:45.059 --> 00:59:48.101
♫ Meet you further on up the road

00:59:48.101 --> 00:59:51.351
♫ Where the road is dark
and the seed is sown

00:59:51.351 --> 00:59:55.518
♫ Where the gun is cocked
and the bullets cold

00:59:55.642 --> 00:59:59.059
♫ The miles are marked in blood and gold

00:59:59.059 --> 01:00:01.809
♫ I\'ll meet you further on up the road

01:00:01.809 --> 01:00:03.059
♫ Further up the road

01:00:03.392 --> 01:00:05.892
♫ Further up the road

01:00:05.892 --> 01:00:08.725
♫ Meet you further on up the road

01:00:08.725 --> 01:00:10.392
♫ Where the way is dark

01:00:10.392 --> 01:00:12.892
♫ And the night is cold

01:00:12.892 --> 01:00:15.850
♫ Meet you further on up the road

01:00:15.850 --> 01:00:19.518
(upbeat instrumental music)

01:00:21.809 --> 01:00:23.642
- This is so wonderful.

01:00:25.434 --> 01:00:28.559
(upbeat instrumental music)

01:00:47.725 --> 01:00:50.559
- Well, \'cause you guys
are probably young farmers.

01:00:50.559 --> 01:00:52.934
You\'re still kind of in
the young farmers side

01:00:52.934 --> 01:00:55.351
of the coin. (laughing)

01:00:55.351 --> 01:00:56.683
- To see what the next generation

01:00:56.683 --> 01:00:58.559
of organic is up to,

01:00:58.559 --> 01:01:00.767
we took a tour with Severine Fleming,

01:01:00.767 --> 01:01:02.725
founder of the Greenhorns.

01:01:02.725 --> 01:01:06.892
First stop -- Singing Frogs
Farm, Paul and Elizabeth Kaiser.

01:01:07.518 --> 01:01:09.476
- Three absolute basic principles

01:01:09.476 --> 01:01:11.184
of better soil management.

01:01:11.184 --> 01:01:14.017
The first one is disturb your
soil as little as possible,

01:01:14.017 --> 01:01:15.518
and that essentially is no-till.

01:01:15.518 --> 01:01:16.434
Don\'t disturb it.

01:01:16.434 --> 01:01:18.559
The second one is keeping
green living plants,

01:01:18.559 --> 01:01:20.184
a diversity of green living plants,

01:01:20.184 --> 01:01:22.142
in the ground as often as possible

01:01:22.142 --> 01:01:24.392
because they\'re the ones
that are taking sunlight

01:01:24.392 --> 01:01:27.017
and carbon and forming nutrient packets,

01:01:27.017 --> 01:01:28.767
and half of the nutrients they create

01:01:28.767 --> 01:01:30.725
are being exuded through the roots

01:01:30.725 --> 01:01:32.476
to feed the soil organisms.

01:01:32.476 --> 01:01:34.934
Now the third principle of
good soil organic matter

01:01:34.934 --> 01:01:37.476
is to keep your soil covered
and protected at all times.

01:01:37.476 --> 01:01:41.392
After being no-till for
about five, seven years,

01:01:41.392 --> 01:01:43.559
this bed\'s been here two and a half months

01:01:43.559 --> 01:01:47.725
and I\'m now straight fingers
down past my forearm.

01:01:49.309 --> 01:01:52.267
Went down about 14 inches,

01:01:52.267 --> 01:01:54.518
straight fingers,

01:01:54.518 --> 01:01:56.975
all the way in, no issue.

01:01:56.975 --> 01:01:59.934
But mostly we have just really gorgeous,

01:01:59.934 --> 01:02:02.392
healthy soil down here.

01:02:10.975 --> 01:02:13.476
- Next stop is the Grange Farm School,

01:02:13.476 --> 01:02:16.892
where Ruthie King is
educating young agrarians.

01:02:18.767 --> 01:02:21.767
- It\'s hard for me to tell
my students coming in,

01:02:21.767 --> 01:02:25.226
\"Okay now, try and find a way
to take out a massive loan

01:02:25.226 --> 01:02:27.017
and buy a piece of land
in Mendocino County.\"

01:02:27.017 --> 01:02:29.725
That\'s out of reach for so many people.

01:02:29.725 --> 01:02:30.683
There you go.

01:02:30.683 --> 01:02:32.017
- Oh, thank you.

01:02:34.351 --> 01:02:35.184
- Cheers to that.

01:02:35.184 --> 01:02:36.725
- Cheers to that.

01:02:37.392 --> 01:02:38.809
We cannot afford to be

01:02:38.809 --> 01:02:41.476
in an antagonistic
relationship with one another,

01:02:41.476 --> 01:02:43.309
and figuring out how to get along

01:02:43.309 --> 01:02:46.934
with each other in our
family, in our movement --

01:02:46.934 --> 01:02:50.142
and especially as there\'s
so many organic elders

01:02:50.142 --> 01:02:51.683
are looking at retirement

01:02:51.883 --> 01:02:55.883
and looking at the end
of their farming careers.

01:02:56.925 --> 01:02:59.925
The organic farmers are holding land

01:02:59.925 --> 01:03:03.259
that they\'ve been keeping
organic for 30 years,

01:03:03.259 --> 01:03:05.592
and that territory,
that\'s like the territory.

01:03:05.592 --> 01:03:08.217
That\'s like the ground game
of the organic movement,

01:03:08.217 --> 01:03:09.718
is the land,

01:03:09.718 --> 01:03:11.384
and that as a movement

01:03:11.384 --> 01:03:13.301
we have a shared responsibility

01:03:13.301 --> 01:03:15.551
between elders and
youngers to keep that land

01:03:15.551 --> 01:03:18.259
which is organic, organic.

01:03:18.259 --> 01:03:19.509
Like, that is our land.

01:03:19.509 --> 01:03:21.092
That is our organic land of this country,

01:03:21.092 --> 01:03:23.842
and it\'s less than 2% of the land.

01:03:25.551 --> 01:03:28.301
- ALBA trains workers to become farmers,

01:03:28.301 --> 01:03:30.718
including a generation of Latino growers

01:03:30.718 --> 01:03:32.467
who now dominate strawberries

01:03:32.467 --> 01:03:35.301
in the Pajaro and Salinas Valleys.

01:03:35.301 --> 01:03:38.175
Two thirds of their students
are immigrant farm workers

01:03:38.175 --> 01:03:41.009
looking to be the next
generation of organic.

01:03:41.842 --> 01:03:43.842
- At ALBA they can qualify

01:03:43.842 --> 01:03:46.800
to launch their farm
and grow their farm here

01:03:46.800 --> 01:03:47.925
over four or five years

01:03:47.925 --> 01:03:50.592
in what we call our
Organic Farm Incubator.

01:03:50.592 --> 01:03:54.676
We offer the subsidized
access to land, irrigation,

01:03:54.676 --> 01:03:56.800
the licenses and permits, business topics,

01:03:56.800 --> 01:04:00.467
production help, financing
and finding land.

01:04:00.467 --> 01:04:03.301
Yeah, Javier was one of
our superstar students

01:04:03.301 --> 01:04:04.551
three or four years ago.

01:04:04.551 --> 01:04:07.301
Yeah, he really excelled
right from the get go,

01:04:07.301 --> 01:04:10.883
had a lot of ambition,
entrepreneurial drive.

01:04:10.883 --> 01:04:12.467
- (laughing)

01:04:15.175 --> 01:04:19.342
I\'m so happy to be part
of this video, this movie,

01:04:19.718 --> 01:04:23.883
because having a Latino
grower, strawberry grower,

01:04:24.842 --> 01:04:28.134
it\'s a dream come true for many of us --

01:04:29.509 --> 01:04:33.134
not just being a farm
worker and picking berries,

01:04:33.134 --> 01:04:36.009
but actually own what\'s on the ground.

01:04:36.009 --> 01:04:38.676
I\'m really happy that
it\'s happening to me,

01:04:38.676 --> 01:04:41.759
and I can employ quite a few people

01:04:41.759 --> 01:04:44.301
and produce lots of beautiful
and tasty strawberries

01:04:44.301 --> 01:04:46.800
for thousands of people to enjoy.

01:04:46.800 --> 01:04:49.634
We can make strawberries look like this.

01:04:49.634 --> 01:04:50.718
I\'m not a rocket scientist,

01:04:50.718 --> 01:04:53.009
but I can grow things really well.

01:04:53.009 --> 01:04:56.384
(gentle instrumental music)

01:04:56.384 --> 01:04:59.342
- Sunol Ag Park is an urban edge farm

01:04:59.342 --> 01:05:02.050
established by Sibella Kraus.

01:05:02.050 --> 01:05:03.467
Its small plots are filled

01:05:03.467 --> 01:05:07.134
with ethnic specialties,
restaurant gardens,

01:05:07.134 --> 01:05:09.718
and a scientist turned breeder.

01:05:11.634 --> 01:05:13.217
- One of the great things for us

01:05:13.217 --> 01:05:15.467
about working in this agricultural park

01:05:15.467 --> 01:05:18.342
is it\'s allowed so many
different kinds of people

01:05:18.342 --> 01:05:20.384
to have an opportunity to farm.

01:05:20.384 --> 01:05:23.509
- But yeah, this is just
a wild Korean mustard

01:05:23.509 --> 01:05:26.551
that\'s really popular in Korean foods,

01:05:26.551 --> 01:05:29.217
have saved the seeds throughout
the course of the farm.

01:05:29.217 --> 01:05:32.301
Reverence and respect
for how sophisticated

01:05:32.301 --> 01:05:36.426
nature actually is sounds
like a hippie thing to say,

01:05:36.592 --> 01:05:40.759
but I think that it is
the greatest form of...

01:05:42.175 --> 01:05:44.467
mutual sort of interdependence.

01:05:44.467 --> 01:05:46.092
- I started a diversity garden,

01:05:46.092 --> 01:05:47.842
and people from Fremont would come

01:05:47.842 --> 01:05:51.092
and give me seeds from their country.

01:05:51.092 --> 01:05:53.800
The next generation of immigrants
are gonna be Americans.

01:05:53.800 --> 01:05:55.217
They\'re not going to be immigrants,

01:05:55.217 --> 01:05:58.217
and they need a connection to their food.

01:05:58.217 --> 01:05:59.676
They need a connection to their culture.

01:05:59.676 --> 01:06:01.925
They need to know what
their grandmother cooked.

01:06:01.925 --> 01:06:04.925
- For us at our scale,
which is a few acres,

01:06:04.925 --> 01:06:06.551
we really need to be selling things

01:06:06.551 --> 01:06:08.509
that are at the front edge of the wave,

01:06:08.509 --> 01:06:10.551
and as soon as the wave starts to crests

01:06:10.551 --> 01:06:13.175
we have to jump off
and catch another wave.

01:06:14.009 --> 01:06:17.592
- Urban farms and gardens
sprang up all over.

01:06:17.592 --> 01:06:20.592
In 2001, City Slicker Farms was started

01:06:20.592 --> 01:06:23.092
by Willow Rosenthal in West Oakland.

01:06:23.718 --> 01:06:26.634
- I just got the idea to look and see

01:06:26.634 --> 01:06:29.384
if I could start growing some
produce in the neighborhood,

01:06:29.384 --> 01:06:32.009
and it wasn\'t really any kind of big plan.

01:06:32.009 --> 01:06:34.342
It was just, let\'s see
if I can get an empty lot

01:06:37.509 --> 01:06:40.259
and grow some food for the neighborhood.

01:06:40.301 --> 01:06:41.384
Baby carrots.

01:06:43.092 --> 01:06:47.050
Except we don\'t whittle
ours down with a machine.

01:06:47.050 --> 01:06:49.925
- Set of seeds for arugula.

01:06:50.217 --> 01:06:52.092
(upbeat instrumental music)

01:06:52.492 --> 01:06:54.659
- We were put on this earth to eat.

01:06:54.659 --> 01:06:56.409
That\'s it, and we just added all...

01:06:56.409 --> 01:06:58.034
I mean, whoever created us said,

01:06:58.034 --> 01:07:01.200
\"Okay, let me put some
happy people on this planet

01:07:01.200 --> 01:07:04.159
and give them some good
food to eat and let \'em go.\"

01:07:04.784 --> 01:07:06.742
- If I didn\'t have this job,

01:07:06.742 --> 01:07:08.617
like, where would I be
in the last three years?

01:07:08.617 --> 01:07:09.909
Like, think about it, right?

01:07:09.909 --> 01:07:14.034
Like, dead, in an alley shooting up,

01:07:14.909 --> 01:07:16.742
or a penitentiary.

01:07:16.742 --> 01:07:19.159
Those are my three options.

01:07:19.159 --> 01:07:23.283
So yeah, Sole Food saved my life, right?

01:07:23.283 --> 01:07:24.575
What else can I say?

01:07:25.367 --> 01:07:27.826
- As organic farmers,
our responsibility goes

01:07:27.826 --> 01:07:29.409
to the broader community

01:07:29.409 --> 01:07:30.450
and certainly to those

01:07:30.450 --> 01:07:32.534
who may not have access to our food.

01:07:32.534 --> 01:07:34.951
Farms by the nature of
what we\'re doing here

01:07:34.951 --> 01:07:37.283
are kind of like the
great equalizer, you know?

01:07:37.283 --> 01:07:39.118
It doesn\'t matter what your history is,

01:07:39.118 --> 01:07:40.826
how much suffering you\'ve been through.

01:07:40.826 --> 01:07:42.450
It really levels you off.

01:07:42.450 --> 01:07:43.659
It\'s driven a lot of my work

01:07:43.659 --> 01:07:45.325
in the last 20 years or so.

01:07:45.325 --> 01:07:46.450
In urban agriculture,

01:07:46.450 --> 01:07:48.784
in the work we do with Sole Food.

01:07:48.784 --> 01:07:50.826
We employ up to 30 people,

01:07:50.826 --> 01:07:54.325
all of whom are managing some
form of long-term addiction,

01:07:54.325 --> 01:07:56.159
material poverty, mental illness.

01:07:56.159 --> 01:07:57.867
They are now highly skilled farmers.

01:07:57.867 --> 01:07:59.992
Some of them who didn\'t
hold a job for seven months

01:07:59.992 --> 01:08:02.200
have been working with
us for over seven years.

01:08:02.200 --> 01:08:05.534
- Yeah, it was a good
opportunity to get...

01:08:06.617 --> 01:08:10.784
into the \"giving back\" department
a bit, right, you know?

01:08:11.534 --> 01:08:12.492
(sheep baaing)

01:08:12.492 --> 01:08:15.742
(gentle instrumental music)

01:08:16.325 --> 01:08:17.992
- Then there\'s Fibershed,

01:08:17.992 --> 01:08:21.617
a collective extending
organic from food to fiber.

01:08:23.325 --> 01:08:25.409
- The Fibershed was founded in 2011

01:08:25.409 --> 01:08:27.118
by Rebecca Burgess,

01:08:27.118 --> 01:08:30.409
and it was initially an interest

01:08:30.409 --> 01:08:33.701
to connect consumers with producers.

01:08:35.283 --> 01:08:38.242
- These are from Kenny\'s sheep,

01:08:38.242 --> 01:08:41.826
and this is the plant
that made this color.

01:08:43.701 --> 01:08:45.534
And this is one dip in the dye vat,

01:08:45.534 --> 01:08:48.701
and this is three dips in the dye vat.

01:08:49.534 --> 01:08:52.575
(gentle instrumental music)

01:08:54.325 --> 01:08:56.575
- So now what you have is you have

01:08:56.575 --> 01:08:58.909
quite a few people raising fiber --

01:08:58.909 --> 01:08:59.742
especially in this area

01:08:59.742 --> 01:09:01.909
it\'s mainly wool, but some cotton --

01:09:01.909 --> 01:09:04.283
connecting those people with
people who are designers,

01:09:04.283 --> 01:09:06.118
people who are crafters.

01:09:06.118 --> 01:09:07.076
- This is how it works.

01:09:07.076 --> 01:09:10.826
The urban center, meaning
this is the Bay Area,

01:09:10.826 --> 01:09:13.034
houses all this creative talent.

01:09:13.034 --> 01:09:14.118
Before this project,

01:09:14.118 --> 01:09:17.826
none of these people were
professional clothing designers.

01:09:17.826 --> 01:09:21.867
- The pioneer of eco-fashion
was Marci Zaroff.

01:09:21.867 --> 01:09:25.242
She discovered how toxic
cotton production is,

01:09:25.242 --> 01:09:27.909
which led to innovating organic cotton.

01:09:28.701 --> 01:09:30.742
- And when you pull back
the curtain on fashion

01:09:30.742 --> 01:09:32.617
and textiles and fiber,

01:09:32.617 --> 01:09:36.784
it\'s actually the most
polluting industry in the world.

01:09:36.909 --> 01:09:38.409
And I really rolled my sleeves up

01:09:38.409 --> 01:09:39.492
and got in the trenches

01:09:39.492 --> 01:09:42.118
and said, I\'m gonna bridge the worlds

01:09:42.118 --> 01:09:46.283
of ecology and sustainability
and natural with fashion --

01:09:46.867 --> 01:09:49.575
which in those days, people
thought I was absolutely crazy.

01:09:49.575 --> 01:09:52.701
In 1996, I founded a brand

01:09:53.951 --> 01:09:55.701
called Under the Canopy.

01:09:55.701 --> 01:09:57.992
This was really the pioneering brand.

01:09:57.992 --> 01:10:01.909
We helped build farm
projects around the world,

01:10:01.909 --> 01:10:04.325
took factories through certification.

01:10:04.325 --> 01:10:06.617
We had an incredible store and a boutique

01:10:06.617 --> 01:10:08.992
with clothing and bedding and baby,

01:10:08.992 --> 01:10:11.034
and we ended up rolling
out into every Whole Foods

01:10:11.034 --> 01:10:12.701
in the country --

01:10:12.701 --> 01:10:14.826
turning the concept of organic fashion

01:10:14.826 --> 01:10:16.409
from \"hippie\" to \"hip.\"

01:10:18.118 --> 01:10:19.283
- My name is Jacob Katz,

01:10:19.283 --> 01:10:21.076
and I grow Floodplain Fatties.

01:10:21.076 --> 01:10:23.283
- The coolest expansion of organic

01:10:23.283 --> 01:10:25.367
has to be Project Nigiri.

01:10:26.659 --> 01:10:30.492
Jacob Katz is raising salmon
in flooded rice fields.

01:10:30.492 --> 01:10:33.450
- The Nigiri Project started
as my graduate research.

01:10:33.450 --> 01:10:35.701
The idea was to see if
farm fields could produce

01:10:35.701 --> 01:10:38.701
the same kind of benefits for wild fish

01:10:38.701 --> 01:10:41.200
as the wetlands that they replaced.

01:10:41.200 --> 01:10:42.992
And the results were tremendous.

01:10:42.992 --> 01:10:46.325
Not only did those fish
survive, but they thrived.

01:10:48.951 --> 01:10:51.076
Food that\'s made out
here on the floodplain

01:10:51.076 --> 01:10:54.159
is really a direct
function of solar energy.

01:10:54.159 --> 01:10:55.200
This is the supply ditch.

01:10:55.200 --> 01:10:59.367
This is the same water that,
over here, is in this field.

01:10:59.492 --> 01:11:01.784
But when I take a simple aquarium net

01:11:01.784 --> 01:11:04.909
that you get at the pet store...

01:11:04.909 --> 01:11:05.742
If you can get in there,

01:11:05.742 --> 01:11:06.909
there\'s a couple of bugs in there,

01:11:06.909 --> 01:11:09.034
not too many, one or two.

01:11:09.034 --> 01:11:10.450
If you put it on the other side,

01:11:10.450 --> 01:11:14.617
same exact water but it\'s
spread out and slowed down.

01:11:16.534 --> 01:11:20.159
Those bugs, those are floating filet.

01:11:20.159 --> 01:11:23.784
This is the perfect forage for small fish.

01:11:23.784 --> 01:11:25.992
This simple food web,

01:11:25.992 --> 01:11:28.575
that starts with sunlight being converted

01:11:28.575 --> 01:11:32.575
to sugar by algae floating
near the surface of the water,

01:11:32.575 --> 01:11:35.159
is the key to creating a Central Valley

01:11:35.159 --> 01:11:38.283
that can support self
sustaining runs of salmon.

01:11:39.492 --> 01:11:40.784
- The biggest news may be

01:11:40.784 --> 01:11:44.534
that soil can save us from climate change.

01:11:44.534 --> 01:11:47.701
The problem is too much
carbon in the atmosphere.

01:11:47.701 --> 01:11:49.742
The solution is putting
it back in the soil

01:11:49.742 --> 01:11:53.909
where it belongs, and where
it is actually deficient.

01:11:55.325 --> 01:11:59.492
The key to building carbon in
the soil is photosynthesis.

01:12:00.409 --> 01:12:02.409
Plants, with sunlight and water,

01:12:02.409 --> 01:12:03.742
pull carbon from the air

01:12:03.742 --> 01:12:07.617
and turn it into carbohydrates, sugars.

01:12:07.617 --> 01:12:10.159
But as much as 40% of these carbohydrates,

01:12:10.159 --> 01:12:11.575
these sugars, are pumped down

01:12:11.575 --> 01:12:15.200
through the plants\' roots
to feed microorganisms

01:12:15.200 --> 01:12:18.200
which use that carbon to build soil.

01:12:19.200 --> 01:12:21.826
Organic practice is ideally suited

01:12:21.826 --> 01:12:22.951
to carbon farming.

01:12:22.951 --> 01:12:26.118
At its heart is building
soil organic matter --

01:12:26.118 --> 01:12:27.867
life in the soil,

01:12:27.867 --> 01:12:29.701
half of which is carbon.

01:12:30.450 --> 01:12:33.992
Carbon farming gives organic
a new sense of purpose.

01:12:33.992 --> 01:12:35.784
It\'s a climate solution,

01:12:35.784 --> 01:12:38.659
maybe the biggest and the best.

01:12:38.659 --> 01:12:41.200
- As the warming temperatures
make the soil warmer,

01:12:41.200 --> 01:12:42.283
and it gets wet...

01:12:42.283 --> 01:12:43.492
- The Marin Carbon Project,

01:12:43.492 --> 01:12:46.367
founded by John Wick
and Dr. Jeffrey Creque,

01:12:46.367 --> 01:12:49.325
was the first to study
the science in depth.

01:12:49.325 --> 01:12:52.159
It quantified the benefits
of sequestering carbon,

01:12:52.159 --> 01:12:55.450
and grasped what effect soil
could have on climate change.

01:12:55.450 --> 01:12:56.826
- Gonna see if we can add carbon,

01:12:56.826 --> 01:12:58.617
we need to know what we\'re starting with.

01:12:58.617 --> 01:12:59.826
And we found something that excited us.

01:12:59.826 --> 01:13:01.409
And what we\'ve established scientifically

01:13:01.409 --> 01:13:03.200
is there\'s another version of agriculture

01:13:03.200 --> 01:13:05.951
that pulls the carbon out of the sky,

01:13:05.951 --> 01:13:08.450
into plants, through plants into the soil,

01:13:08.450 --> 01:13:09.617
and the more you do of it

01:13:09.617 --> 01:13:10.492
the more there is --

01:13:10.492 --> 01:13:11.784
and it keeps on going on its own

01:13:11.784 --> 01:13:14.034
after an initial impact.

01:13:14.034 --> 01:13:16.242
- This is earth-shattering news.

01:13:16.242 --> 01:13:17.826
- It\'s earth-building news.

01:13:17.826 --> 01:13:19.701
(laughing)

01:13:19.701 --> 01:13:21.367
It\'s the best news on the planet.

01:13:21.367 --> 01:13:24.575
- Could we accelerate the transfer

01:13:24.575 --> 01:13:26.951
of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,

01:13:26.951 --> 01:13:28.701
where it\'s causing harm,

01:13:28.701 --> 01:13:30.409
into soil organic matter,

01:13:30.409 --> 01:13:32.450
where we knew it would
be a beneficial process?

01:13:32.450 --> 01:13:33.992
- There\'s a growing interest and awareness

01:13:33.992 --> 01:13:37.034
about the potential for
soil to store carbon --

01:13:37.034 --> 01:13:38.409
again, bring it out of the atmosphere,

01:13:38.409 --> 01:13:41.118
put it into the soil where it\'s useful --

01:13:41.118 --> 01:13:43.909
and it\'s really caught fire.

01:13:43.909 --> 01:13:46.659
There\'s more and more
science demonstrating this,

01:13:46.659 --> 01:13:48.200
there\'s more and more
public interest in it,

01:13:48.200 --> 01:13:50.076
there\'s policy interest in it.

01:13:50.076 --> 01:13:52.701
And I\'ve come to think of
this as the Brown Revolution.

01:13:52.701 --> 01:13:56.867
- We\'re working on this
theory that the carbon

01:13:56.867 --> 01:13:58.575
is coming in through the leaves,

01:13:58.575 --> 01:14:00.742
going in through the roots.

01:14:00.742 --> 01:14:03.909
It\'s leaving the roots as exudates,

01:14:03.909 --> 01:14:06.283
which are feeding micro-organisms.

01:14:06.283 --> 01:14:07.118
- They\'re bartering.

01:14:07.118 --> 01:14:09.951
They\'re saying, \"I got this
phosphorus or this nitrogen,

01:14:09.951 --> 01:14:11.492
and you give me your sugar.\"

01:14:11.492 --> 01:14:13.659
- We don\'t know what most of
the things are down there,

01:14:13.659 --> 01:14:15.242
but it works.

01:14:15.701 --> 01:14:17.283
I mean, that\'s what\'s
going on in the world.

01:14:17.283 --> 01:14:18.992
That\'s what was going on in the world

01:14:18.992 --> 01:14:20.450
before we started messing up

01:14:20.450 --> 01:14:24.575
this layer that is so
critical to all of life.

01:14:24.826 --> 01:14:26.701
- Carbon farming has an abundance

01:14:26.701 --> 01:14:28.867
of ideas and strategies.

01:14:28.867 --> 01:14:30.992
The Marin Carbon Project\'s plan

01:14:30.992 --> 01:14:33.242
includes more than 40 items.

01:14:33.242 --> 01:14:36.575
Their signature technique
is applying compost.

01:14:36.575 --> 01:14:38.742
- How do we add carbon to our system

01:14:38.742 --> 01:14:40.450
so that we could measure that change?

01:14:40.450 --> 01:14:43.450
Well, the obvious solution,
at least from the perspective

01:14:43.450 --> 01:14:45.867
of a compost maker such as myself,

01:14:45.867 --> 01:14:47.617
was, well, let\'s just add some compost.

01:14:47.617 --> 01:14:49.659
So suddenly, not only had we achieved

01:14:49.659 --> 01:14:51.242
a measurable soil carbon increase

01:14:51.242 --> 01:14:53.076
from a compost application,

01:14:53.909 --> 01:14:58.076
we had initiated an increase
in carbon dioxide capture

01:14:58.200 --> 01:15:00.076
from the atmosphere by the plant community

01:15:00.076 --> 01:15:01.534
on those treated plots.

01:15:01.909 --> 01:15:05.492
That was unexpected
and very exciting news.

01:15:06.159 --> 01:15:08.367
- A single half-inch
application of compost

01:15:08.367 --> 01:15:10.242
resulted in a state change.

01:15:10.242 --> 01:15:12.534
The system\'s acting at a higher function,

01:15:12.534 --> 01:15:14.784
and from then on it\'s taking in more

01:15:14.784 --> 01:15:16.909
and more and more carbon on its own,

01:15:16.909 --> 01:15:19.118
with no further compost application.

01:15:19.118 --> 01:15:22.492
For the next four years an
additional ton of carbon

01:15:22.492 --> 01:15:24.283
has come into the system on its own.

01:15:24.283 --> 01:15:27.159
(metal creaking)

01:15:27.159 --> 01:15:29.118
- No-till and reduced tillage

01:15:29.118 --> 01:15:30.492
are important because

01:15:30.492 --> 01:15:33.909
turning the soil exposes
microbes to oxygen.

01:15:33.909 --> 01:15:35.951
This leads to loss of soil carbon

01:15:35.951 --> 01:15:39.242
and overall decline of soil health.

01:15:39.242 --> 01:15:41.992
- One of our greatest sins is tillage,

01:15:41.992 --> 01:15:45.701
and I am a tillage addict
like so many of us.

01:15:45.701 --> 01:15:47.951
This is like some sort of confession.

01:15:47.951 --> 01:15:50.617
When I\'m sitting on a
tractor, in the process,

01:15:50.617 --> 01:15:52.159
I can feel it almost

01:15:52.159 --> 01:15:54.450
on a gut level that it\'s not right --

01:15:54.450 --> 01:15:57.492
because every time we churn that soil

01:15:58.617 --> 01:16:00.659
we are contributing to the carbon problem.

01:16:00.659 --> 01:16:02.242
We are depleting organic matter.

01:16:02.242 --> 01:16:04.492
We are doing... it is destructive.

01:16:04.492 --> 01:16:06.076
- In my opinion you shouldn\'t make tillage

01:16:06.076 --> 01:16:08.617
just completely evil.

01:16:09.283 --> 01:16:10.159
There\'s no evil here.

01:16:10.159 --> 01:16:12.784
There\'s just people
trying to do it better.

01:16:12.784 --> 01:16:14.450
- Cow manure is a part of the problem

01:16:14.450 --> 01:16:18.617
because it emits methane,
a potent greenhouse gas.

01:16:18.701 --> 01:16:20.617
The Straus Farm has a methane digester

01:16:20.617 --> 01:16:22.826
that separates manure into solids,

01:16:22.826 --> 01:16:24.367
which become compost,

01:16:24.367 --> 01:16:26.492
and liquid, which emits methane gas

01:16:26.492 --> 01:16:27.659
that powers the farm.

01:16:27.659 --> 01:16:30.492
(machine running)

01:16:31.575 --> 01:16:33.242
- We have a 20 year plan

01:16:33.242 --> 01:16:37.409
to sequester 2,000 metric
tons per year on our farm,

01:16:38.367 --> 01:16:41.200
of which 1,600 comes from
the methane digester --

01:16:41.200 --> 01:16:42.242
the capture of the methane

01:16:42.242 --> 01:16:44.701
and taking it out of the atmosphere,

01:16:44.701 --> 01:16:46.867
but also applying compost,

01:16:48.159 --> 01:16:50.450
having livestock grazing,

01:16:50.450 --> 01:16:53.118
which helps promote more
growth of plant life.

01:16:53.118 --> 01:16:54.867
What I like to say is that livestock

01:16:54.867 --> 01:16:59.034
have an integral part of the
solution to climate change.

01:17:01.492 --> 01:17:04.575
- Intensive rotational grazing strategies

01:17:04.575 --> 01:17:07.492
can cause land to gain carbon, also.

01:17:07.492 --> 01:17:09.659
When livestock graze, trample,

01:17:09.659 --> 01:17:12.034
and dung one piece of ground,

01:17:12.034 --> 01:17:14.409
then move on and let it regrow,

01:17:14.409 --> 01:17:17.242
photosynthetic activity increases.

01:17:19.118 --> 01:17:21.575
- I bunched my cows together.

01:17:21.575 --> 01:17:24.659
The status quo is you
spread the animals out.

01:17:24.659 --> 01:17:27.659
Allen Savory said, \"No, historically,

01:17:27.659 --> 01:17:30.992
in an evolutionary sense,
predators kept them bunched.

01:17:30.992 --> 01:17:32.784
And when they kept them bunched,

01:17:32.784 --> 01:17:34.992
they defecated on their lunchroom,

01:17:34.992 --> 01:17:36.492
and they needed to move.\"

01:17:36.492 --> 01:17:38.367
Two kinds of carbon.

01:17:38.367 --> 01:17:41.076
You have palatable carbon,

01:17:41.076 --> 01:17:44.867
which is edible and digestible
to the animals -- the leaves.

01:17:44.867 --> 01:17:45.951
And they only take part of it,

01:17:45.951 --> 01:17:47.409
because in the top part of the leaf

01:17:47.409 --> 01:17:49.534
is what\'s really highly digestible.

01:17:49.534 --> 01:17:51.784
The rest of it is not palatable.

01:17:51.784 --> 01:17:52.617
It\'s lignified.

01:17:52.617 --> 01:17:53.450
It has lignon in it,

01:17:53.450 --> 01:17:56.034
and lignon can\'t be
digested by the animals.

01:17:56.034 --> 01:17:58.617
So you have edible carbon
and trample carbon --

01:17:58.617 --> 01:18:02.118
where you need the herds
to get this trampling done,

01:18:02.118 --> 01:18:04.867
you know, to scratch up that soil

01:18:05.826 --> 01:18:08.242
and to allow water to start to penetrate.

01:18:08.242 --> 01:18:10.367
When the animals, the cows left,

01:18:10.367 --> 01:18:12.951
the plants not only
captured photosynthesis

01:18:12.951 --> 01:18:15.242
and carbon dioxide and
all this amazing stuff

01:18:15.242 --> 01:18:17.534
that\'s a free lunch for cowboys,

01:18:17.534 --> 01:18:19.242
they put it in the soil that fed

01:18:19.242 --> 01:18:21.659
this vast array of life
that supported the plants

01:18:21.659 --> 01:18:24.283
that supported the cows
that supported the cowboys

01:18:24.283 --> 01:18:26.575
that support the people in town.

01:18:26.575 --> 01:18:30.200
- I think it just expanded
to include climate solutions.

01:18:30.200 --> 01:18:31.034
- Organic did?

01:18:31.200 --> 01:18:32.034
- Right.

01:18:33.909 --> 01:18:36.617
And so it\'s always been about improving

01:18:36.617 --> 01:18:39.659
the quality of the food,
and improving the quality

01:18:39.659 --> 01:18:42.076
of the environment in which
you\'re growing the food.

01:18:42.076 --> 01:18:44.450
And it just expanded out beyond that

01:18:44.450 --> 01:18:46.659
to include the climate.

01:18:46.659 --> 01:18:48.492
In part, that understanding of the role

01:18:48.492 --> 01:18:50.826
of carbon in climate change,

01:18:50.826 --> 01:18:51.659
it seems as though

01:18:51.659 --> 01:18:54.076
when you\'re headed in the right direction

01:18:54.076 --> 01:18:57.159
things start connecting
instead of falling apart.

01:18:57.159 --> 01:18:59.826
And so it\'s just one more
of those connections,

01:18:59.826 --> 01:19:03.450
that creating health in the soil

01:19:03.450 --> 01:19:05.701
creates health in the ecosystem,

01:19:05.701 --> 01:19:07.909
creates health in the atmosphere,

01:19:07.909 --> 01:19:11.034
and that it all cycles through.

01:19:12.951 --> 01:19:15.951
- Carbon farming may be the big new thing,

01:19:15.951 --> 01:19:20.118
but all sorts of futures
lie beyond organic.

01:19:20.450 --> 01:19:22.159
- I\'m actually very excited

01:19:22.159 --> 01:19:23.575
about the future for organics,

01:19:23.575 --> 01:19:26.701
because I think it\'s just
the tip of the iceberg.

01:19:26.701 --> 01:19:29.575
Not only to grow it from 1% to 80%,

01:19:29.575 --> 01:19:33.409
to address some of the
other fundamental issues

01:19:33.409 --> 01:19:36.034
like social justice that
we\'ve been harping on,

01:19:36.034 --> 01:19:39.992
and like environmental
footprint, reducing that,

01:19:39.992 --> 01:19:43.575
changing the structures of
how food is distributed.

01:19:43.575 --> 01:19:44.409
- I don\'t think of it as a movement.

01:19:44.409 --> 01:19:47.325
I think of it as inevitable.

01:19:47.325 --> 01:19:50.034
- (laughing) Inevitable vegetable.

01:19:50.034 --> 01:19:52.867
(laughing)

01:19:52.867 --> 01:19:55.159
- A lot of people say, \"Local\'s fine.\"

01:19:55.159 --> 01:19:56.575
I don\'t need to be organic.

01:19:56.575 --> 01:19:57.951
I just tell them what I\'m doing.\"

01:19:57.951 --> 01:19:59.867
And I say, wait a second!

01:19:59.867 --> 01:20:01.617
This is... no.

01:20:01.617 --> 01:20:03.409
This is a no-no,

01:20:03.409 --> 01:20:06.409
because that is taking us back to the \'70s

01:20:06.409 --> 01:20:08.118
when it was a wink and a handshake.

01:20:08.118 --> 01:20:09.200
I\'m sorry.

01:20:09.200 --> 01:20:12.701
Organic standards mean something.

01:20:12.701 --> 01:20:15.159
- There are a lot of
conventional growers who say,

01:20:15.159 --> 01:20:18.409
\"You know, I\'ve taken the best
of you guys\' organic stuff

01:20:18.409 --> 01:20:21.909
and have definitely made my
conventional stuff way better.\"

01:20:22.742 --> 01:20:23.575
Okay?

01:20:23.575 --> 01:20:24.409
I don\'t know...

01:20:24.409 --> 01:20:26.701
There\'s not a grower that I\'ve worked with

01:20:26.701 --> 01:20:28.617
that\'s a conventional grower

01:20:28.617 --> 01:20:31.826
that isn\'t using at least 50% to 60%

01:20:31.826 --> 01:20:34.159
of their program is organic,

01:20:34.992 --> 01:20:38.659
as opposed to 100% being conventional.

01:20:38.659 --> 01:20:39.909
That\'s awesome.

01:20:39.909 --> 01:20:43.659
- It\'s one of the great
needs of society right now,

01:20:43.659 --> 01:20:46.659
is to put massive resources into

01:20:46.659 --> 01:20:48.992
understanding how soil works

01:20:48.992 --> 01:20:51.784
so that we can start to use it,

01:20:51.784 --> 01:20:53.575
work with it, live with it.

01:20:53.575 --> 01:20:56.242
I think the great revolution
in food production

01:20:56.242 --> 01:20:59.242
is gonna come from that
understanding of soil,

01:20:59.242 --> 01:21:01.450
and it\'s gonna allow us

01:21:01.450 --> 01:21:04.159
to just change how we do agriculture.

01:21:04.159 --> 01:21:06.034
- I think organic farming is part

01:21:06.034 --> 01:21:07.867
of sustainable agriculture.

01:21:07.867 --> 01:21:10.118
But another part of that
is the culture piece

01:21:10.118 --> 01:21:11.617
of sustainable agriculture --

01:21:11.617 --> 01:21:13.575
getting the culture of people

01:21:13.575 --> 01:21:17.659
to start thinking that food
is important to everybody,

01:21:17.659 --> 01:21:21.076
and that how we treat the food is symbolic

01:21:21.076 --> 01:21:22.118
really of how we treat the earth

01:21:22.118 --> 01:21:23.367
and how we treat ourselves.

01:21:23.367 --> 01:21:27.034
- And we\'re not even looking
at sustainable farming.

01:21:27.034 --> 01:21:29.076
I think we\'re looking more
at regenerative farming.

01:21:29.076 --> 01:21:31.159
How do we regenerate the dream?

01:21:31.159 --> 01:21:33.701
How do we find another generation?

01:21:33.701 --> 01:21:34.909
Because we can\'t sustain what we\'re doing.

01:21:34.909 --> 01:21:38.283
Sustainable farming is a
contradiction in terms.

01:21:38.283 --> 01:21:40.118
- Now we got... it\'s a
different generation,

01:21:40.118 --> 01:21:43.450
but they have a very
similar set of ethics.

01:21:43.450 --> 01:21:46.450
They hold really high ethics,

01:21:46.450 --> 01:21:49.242
probably because they\'ve learned from us.

01:21:49.242 --> 01:21:50.242
A lot of the ethics

01:21:50.242 --> 01:21:52.659
are stronger held than even we held them,

01:21:52.659 --> 01:21:53.784
which is really awesome.

01:21:53.784 --> 01:21:56.450
So I\'m just jazzed to see the amount

01:21:56.450 --> 01:21:59.492
of interest now going
on with young people.

01:21:59.492 --> 01:22:01.118
It\'s phenomenal.

01:22:02.742 --> 01:22:06.784
(Music - David Gans, \"The
Bounty Of The County)

01:22:23.659 --> 01:22:25.951
♫ I can\'t live the way I did

01:22:25.951 --> 01:22:28.867
♫ When I was an immortal kid

01:22:28.867 --> 01:22:33.034
♫ The things that I ingested were a crime

01:22:34.118 --> 01:22:36.534
♫ All that sugar, starch, and lard

01:22:36.534 --> 01:22:39.992
♫ Were making my aorta hard

01:22:39.992 --> 01:22:44.159
♫ And I\'d prefer to live a long, long time

01:22:45.076 --> 01:22:47.951
♫ So on market day in our hometown

01:22:47.951 --> 01:22:50.659
♫ We rise and shine and head on down

01:22:50.659 --> 01:22:54.826
♫ Where the families and
the farmers meet and thrive

01:22:56.367 --> 01:22:58.826
♫ Because we\'re taking nature\'s course

01:22:58.826 --> 01:23:01.492
♫ We get it fresh right from the source

01:23:01.492 --> 01:23:05.659
♫ Where the bounty of
the county comes alive

01:23:06.951 --> 01:23:09.325
♫ We\'ll have yellow fin potatoes

01:23:09.325 --> 01:23:12.283
♫ And some fat heirloom tomatoes

01:23:12.283 --> 01:23:14.534
♫ I think the ones that look the weirdest

01:23:14.534 --> 01:23:17.617
♫ Taste the best

01:23:17.617 --> 01:23:19.159
♫ Well, I\'ll buy fish

01:23:19.159 --> 01:23:23.325
♫ While you go look for
English peas for Hugo

01:23:23.492 --> 01:23:27.659
♫ And then we\'ll shop
together for the rest

01:23:28.659 --> 01:23:31.409
♫ And on market day in our hometown

01:23:31.409 --> 01:23:34.159
♫ We rise and shine and head on down

01:23:34.159 --> 01:23:38.325
♫ Where the families and
the farmers meet and thrive

01:23:39.742 --> 01:23:42.283
♫ Because we\'re taking nature\'s course

01:23:42.283 --> 01:23:44.992
♫ We get it fresh right from the source

01:23:44.992 --> 01:23:49.159
♫ Where the bounty of
the county comes alive

01:24:23.367 --> 01:24:27.325
♫ Nature has her reason

01:24:27.325 --> 01:24:31.450
♫ So we eat our foods in season

01:24:33.826 --> 01:24:37.409
♫ And I will be more vocal

01:24:38.492 --> 01:24:41.367
♫ About thinking global

01:24:41.367 --> 01:24:44.283
♫ And eating local

01:25:15.034 --> 01:25:17.367
♫ The peaches are all gone, by gosh

01:25:17.367 --> 01:25:20.283
♫ But soon we\'ll have kabocha squash

01:25:20.283 --> 01:25:24.450
♫ The winter greens are
sweeter when it\'s cold

01:25:25.367 --> 01:25:27.742
♫ We keep our diet balanced

01:25:27.742 --> 01:25:30.742
♫ Because modern life\'s a challenge

01:25:30.742 --> 01:25:34.867
♫ But its many pleasures can\'t be oversold

01:25:36.242 --> 01:25:39.034
♫ And on market day in our hometown

01:25:39.034 --> 01:25:41.701
♫ We rise and shine and head on down

01:25:41.701 --> 01:25:45.867
♫ Where the families and
the farmers meet and thrive

01:25:47.159 --> 01:25:49.742
♫ Because we\'re taking nature\'s course

01:25:49.742 --> 01:25:52.450
♫ We get it fresh right from the source

01:25:52.450 --> 01:25:56.617
♫ Where the bounty of
the county comes alive

01:25:57.701 --> 01:26:01.867
♫ Where the bounty of
the county comes alive