Transcripts
Hi there, I'm Aileen, welcome to my kitchen.
Speaker:I just finished preparing pan charred asparagus with garlic and lemon.
Speaker:So asparagus isn't something I grew up eating, it's something I always associated
Speaker:with "high end restaurants" and exclusive dining, but when I first learned
Speaker:the history of asparagus in California and the Sacramento river delta,
Speaker:which is near by where I live, it opened my eyes to the
Speaker:deep connections of crops like these with migrant Filipinos and people of
Speaker:colour, this told me that behind a crop like asparagus is a whole
Speaker:story of the soil and people who fought for justice in the past,
Speaker:and present. The freshness of this dish makes me think about our living
Speaker:histories in food, which brings me to a topic that we're gonna learn
Speaker:about today, the relationships and values shaped from the farm to our plates,
Speaker:so I brought together two leaders with deep wisdom on this topic.
Speaker:Leonard Diggs is a peaceful farmer working to share his experiences with
Speaker:current and future generations of gardeners and farmers.
Speaker:Emily Moose is a sustainable farming promoter who works to empower sustainable
Speaker:solutions in food and farming. Settle in and enjoy the conversation.
Speaker:Hello, Leonard and Emily. Welcome and thank you so much for taking time
Speaker:to gather here today. When I think about relationships and values that are
Speaker:connecting farm to plate, a conversation between the two of you could just
Speaker:provide so many first hand stories and truth about what that is and
Speaker:what that feels like. And before we jump in, I want to center our
Speaker:minds with this question. What is growing in your yard or your garden
Speaker:that you are feeling particularly connected to, and Leonard can I invite
Speaker:you to kick us off. So many plants, it's hard to choose,
Speaker:but the seasonal preference for me is the citrus, we have about three
Speaker:lemon trees and two of them are older and they're blooming,
Speaker:and I love seeing the blooms plus a few of the citrus that
Speaker:have already set and a few that are ready to set.
Speaker:Special time of year to see that. And Emily, tell what's growing.
Speaker:This isn't in my yard, but there's a creek down behind our house,
Speaker:and on the way down to the creek, there's this patch of trout lilies, and
Speaker:I don't know if you've ever seen a trout lily, but it is
Speaker:a beautiful flower and the leaf looks like this kind of trippy looking purple
Speaker:and green leaf that looks like a trout's back, and when you look
Speaker:at 'Emily, you're almost not quite sure... I feel like you might be...
Speaker:I don't know, about to faint or something, or just seeing something that
Speaker:is in another dimension, and it is just one of the most beautiful
Speaker:leaves I've ever seen, and there's these bright tiny little yellow lily
Speaker:flowers out of each, two sets of leaves. So
Speaker:that's a flower I look forward to every spring, that's when I know
Speaker:spring's on the way. Thanks for painting that for both of us,
Speaker:Emily, I'm gonna have to look for the trout lily. I'll send you
Speaker:a picture. Thanks for taking us to a psychedelic place. So between the
Speaker:two of you, you're farmer Leonard, and you're a sustainable farm promoter,
Speaker:Emily. And both of you have these close relationships with soil and with
Speaker:people, and I wanna invite you to tell us about those early moments
Speaker:that you personally started that have shaped your deeper relationship with
Speaker:seeds and with soil. And what took you along this work early on?
Speaker:I always had a garden growing up, my family, we always had tomatoes,
Speaker:corn, whatever was easy to grow in a North Carolina garden,
Speaker:and so I always grew up connected and knowing where food comes from.
Speaker:Some of the earliest memories I have of agriculture and farming are visiting
Speaker:folks in my family who farmed; my mom's cousin raised cows in Virginia,
Speaker:my dad's cousin raised hogs also in Virginia, and so I've always respected
Speaker:the relationship between people and animals and the land and
Speaker:have not taken that for granted. I wanted to be a veterinarian when
Speaker:I... One of my first career I was gonna be a veterinarian or
Speaker:an artist or a writer, and somehow that still flows in to what
Speaker:I do now. And so I've spent many years in production in vegetables
Speaker:and small scale livestock and then I started working for A Greener World
Speaker:over a decade ago. And my role now is to connect farmers and
Speaker:consumers around principles of sustainable production that are verified
Speaker:and that are transparent, so that people can be sure about the products
Speaker:that they're buying and they know, hey, this really is having a positive
Speaker:impact on the world, and farmers are able to get credit for those
Speaker:practices. They are able to get the appreciation they deserve for using
Speaker:amazing practices. Thank you, Emily, for bringing us to those early moments
Speaker:'cause that's such a formative place, and I know that Leonard,
Speaker:you've also taken a path that spanned various parts of the food system,
Speaker:and we'd love to hear you share your take on some early moments
Speaker:that have shaped you. Yeah, my first garden experience was in college,
Speaker:and I'll share that in a minute, but I'm just thinking about my
Speaker:experiences that are related. We lived across the street from a cannery,
Speaker:and in the summer time, the air was filled with the smell of
Speaker:tomatoes, and I could ride my bike out to the country and look
Speaker:at those tomatoes actually growing in acres and acres of the fields not
Speaker:too far from my house, so I didn't get a direct experience with
Speaker:those. It was more of sensory experience with my eyes and with my
Speaker:nose. Then when I got to college, I lived in a house where
Speaker:we had about a two acre garden just outside of the house,
Speaker:and we grew the vegetables that we ate in the house,
Speaker:we also went and gleaned a lot of fruit. We went and gleaned
Speaker:apricots from winters, which was not too far. Sometimes we'd ride our bikes
Speaker:out there and go get them, so my experience of actually growing the
Speaker:food that we ate was really special. I'd never had that before,
Speaker:and then cooking it, we all had cook days and we'd team up
Speaker:two of us at a time to cook the meal for that night.
Speaker:So the combination of harvesting direct from the garden, bringing it into
Speaker:the house and cooking it up just resonated with my spirit.
Speaker:And that's what got me on the path that I'm on.
Speaker:I love how both of you have been invoking these really sensory memories,
Speaker:taste, smell, those connections, and is there a memory that you have,
Speaker:whether it's a favourite time on the farm, or some relationship of a
Speaker:meal shared that you would want to share that kind of illustrates these
Speaker:connections from seed to plate. I think the meals that I've had where
Speaker:we actually went out together with the bowl that was going to be
Speaker:the salad mix bowl, and the house that I lived in,
Speaker:we had great potters, and so we would have these huge beautiful bowls
Speaker:that we'd take out to the garden and we'd fill with things like
Speaker:the borage flowers and the nasturtium flowers, and then lettuce is put right
Speaker:in directly into the bowl, and by the time we had grazed all
Speaker:the way through the garden, we'd filled the bowl up and brought it
Speaker:into the kitchen, and that salad was the most special salad.
Speaker:I love that. Emily. Yeah, no, I'm going to the total opposite end of the
Speaker:food pyramid or table. When you first asked that question, the first meal
Speaker:I thought about was it was a gathering that we had with a
Speaker:cooperative of farmers that we certify in the eastern part of the state,
Speaker:and this is a group, a very diverse group of pasture based certified
Speaker:animal welfare approved hog farmers, it's an amazing group of people.
Speaker:Many of them have been farming this way since before industrial production
Speaker:in their families, and so it's a really interesting mix of folks who
Speaker:have a long tradition of sustainable pasture based hog production, and we
Speaker:had a... It was a barbecue, just a regular old barbecue,
Speaker:which we do a lot in North Carolina, and I just remember just
Speaker:the flavour of that pork, this was just some of the best barbecue
Speaker:I've ever had, if not the best barbecue. And this is a barbecue
Speaker:state, so much so that we have an ongoing feud about which type
Speaker:of barbecue sauce is the best, is it East versus West,
Speaker:so that was a very memorable meal. We're living in a time where
Speaker:there are so many choices in a lot of ways, and definitions around
Speaker:what to eat, how to eat, and I'm just curious, do you both
Speaker:personally eat meat, why or why not? And if I can add another
Speaker:part to that question is, what do you wish more people understand or
Speaker:knew about the connections of meat to farming in the land,
Speaker:from your own vantage points? Leonard, taking us from your borage gathering,
Speaker:grazing of a salad, I would love to hear your take on that
Speaker:first. It's funny because at that stage in my life, I was a
Speaker:vegetarian, and we tease sometimes and say, chickens are vegetables, right?
Speaker:Especially there were those times during the year when there was time to
Speaker:eat turkey and it was like, Well, you could eat a little turkey
Speaker:probably, but I was a vegetarian for about 20 years. And it wasn't
Speaker:until I was on a farm where we had
Speaker:our own cattle and our own sheep that I started eating meat again
Speaker:because one of the main reasons that I didn't eat meat wasn't because
Speaker:of taking of the life, it was the raising of the life and
Speaker:the taking care of the animals and feeling that there was a way
Speaker:to maintain that relationship in a healthy way. And take responsibility
Speaker:for the taking of the life, and once I had total responsibility
Speaker:for that, I didn't have a reason not to, and so started eating
Speaker:our own lamb and our own beef. And that was a completely different
Speaker:experience, and I really appreciated it. The skew though for me is that
Speaker:when I opened that door, it was like, okay, I can eat meat,
Speaker:but then going out to a restaurant and eating meat is a totally
Speaker:different experience and it didn't quite feel the same.
Speaker:Can you share a little bit more about that, Leonard? Well,
Speaker:because I wasn't always sure where the meat came from and the ethics
Speaker:behind it, and the quality of the meat, and in many places that
Speaker:I ate, I knew that the meat quality probably wasn't good.
Speaker:I could go to some high end fancy restaurants that I knew really
Speaker:were careful about where they sourced their meat and how they sourced their
Speaker:meat, but you go out to have a burrito with grilled chicken, you
Speaker:don't know what's in there. So that's the kind of ambivalence and hypocrisy
Speaker:I kind of felt as I wove back and forth between those two
Speaker:worlds, and yet I also realize that so many of us are not
Speaker:fortunate enough to be able to grow our own food, and that I
Speaker:had that privilege and the privilege of being able to be discerning and
Speaker:somewhat a little maybe snobby and arrogant about it.
Speaker:I wanna pull out something that you shared when you talked about being
Speaker:vegetarian and how chickens could be meat, one conversation that's often
Speaker:floated up growing up as a Philippine American is, Oh. Okay,
Speaker:so you're vegetarian, but you can totally eat chicken and fish,
Speaker:right? 'Cause that's our vegetables. So I feel like there might be a
Speaker:whole line of ways that people are relating in different ways,
Speaker:including from different cultures, so it's complex and it's this ongoing
Speaker:conversation, but when you were sharing Leonard just now about how there's
Speaker:this difference in having a personal relationship to meat and then also
Speaker:going to a restaurant and the uncertainties that can come about the source
Speaker:or the story or the life behind it, and I feel like Emily you have so
Speaker:much to share in this area based on your work and your approach,
Speaker:but I wanna turn that question to you too. Your own relationship to
Speaker:meat, and what are things that you wish more people understood about the
Speaker:story? So I do eat meat, I have been vegetarian at times in
Speaker:my life, but I've... Just like Leonard, I think it was largely because
Speaker:I didn't know that there was another way to raise animals,
Speaker:and the way that I saw most available was something that I wasn't
Speaker:comfortable with and so as I grew older and as I grew more
Speaker:aware and got more in touch with other methods, I
Speaker:was able to feel comfortable and to respect that full circle.
Speaker:And I think it's important to say people should eat whatever diet best
Speaker:suits them. I don't pass judgment on anyone's dietary choices,
Speaker:but when the stated reason for not eating meat is
Speaker:either sustainability or animal welfare, I think that there's a discussion
Speaker:to be had there because animals are an incredibly important part of sustainable
Speaker:agriculture, essential. And so to say, well, I don't like how animals are
Speaker:raised, so I'm gonna give up meat, to me that's like saying,
Speaker:well, I don't like this one story in a book I read,
Speaker:and so I'm gonna ban books. It's just one approach. And
Speaker:depending on how we as a society encourage different approaches that can
Speaker:change the impacts on the ground, and so
Speaker:that's the reason that we do what we do is to bring back
Speaker:that transparency that Leonard was talking about when you go into a restaurant
Speaker:and you want to know, okay, how was this pig raised, how was this
Speaker:cow raised, what kind of life did the chicken have? Then you can
Speaker:make an informed choice about what you are supporting with your food dollar
Speaker:and what you're putting into your body. It sounds like there's a lot
Speaker:of work to be done around the story telling, the story sharing,
Speaker:and also just the education piece on so many levels. So I wanna
Speaker:ask you, in all your years of working on farms, collaborating with producers
Speaker:and working in education, what do you see is the connections with social
Speaker:justice and how do you message that? Yeah, food and social justice are
Speaker:intimately intertwined and they always have been in a large part because
Speaker:if you control who is producing food and how it's done,
Speaker:you control pretty much every aspect of life. Food has an incredible impact
Speaker:on how we treat each other as people, and I think we saw,
Speaker:especially during this pandemic, how we as a society completely take for
Speaker:granted the people behind our food, and we expect, as Americans anyway,
Speaker:expect cheap food and expect to not have to think about it.
Speaker:And when we do have to think about it, it's usually in the
Speaker:context of, how can I get mine? It's not necessarily in how can
Speaker:we make this system work better for everyone. So, I do think that
Speaker:there was an increased interest in looking at the whole system and an
Speaker:increased appreciation for what it takes to get food to the plate,
Speaker:and I'm hopeful that that remains even as things settle back into
Speaker:some sort of routine. We're not going back to the way things were
Speaker:before. There is no going back, but there is opportunity to rebuild in
Speaker:more sustainable ways. And oh my God, the natural foods industry,
Speaker:it's rife with virtue signalling, it's almost like a hobby in natural foods.
Speaker:It's important to be aware of when demand or solutions or whatever
Speaker:is actually just looking like it's doing good
Speaker:versus when it's actually doing good. Leonard. What does this spark for
Speaker:you? So many things. What was just said about what looks good and
Speaker:versus what is good is a deep conversation in terms of
Speaker:so many of the choices that we make, because we're herd animals,
Speaker:we tend to flock towards whatever the most important trendy thing is and
Speaker:follow our group mentality about that. I think that tendency to group up
Speaker:to create cliques, to create our own clubs is
Speaker:not a very healthy approach to many things that we do because it's
Speaker:so exclusive. But what I was thinking about values and social justice is
Speaker:that it starts with what's justice? What's just? It's not just some social
Speaker:justice issue, it's what's just, what's fair? And we have so much indifference
Speaker:to things and we have so much greed
Speaker:that we are able to create systems that stem from that.
Speaker:They stem from the indifference and the greed, and they stem from intolerance,
Speaker:so when you combine indifference, intolerance and greed, you end up spinning
Speaker:off. I was remembering the chickens that I've seen, the meat birds that
Speaker:we've grown on farms that I've been on, and if you take meat
Speaker:birds that are part of the industry, that are the predominant breeds that
Speaker:are being grown, and you see how they grow out with these large
Speaker:breasts, and their breasts are so large to meet what's considered to be
Speaker:the demand that they can't even stand up. They fall over and when
Speaker:you try to raise them with ecological principles and having them be outside
Speaker:more, having them move around onto new grass, it's really hard to do
Speaker:that with chickens that can't walk because their breasts are making them
Speaker:fall over. And why did we start doing that? So that we could
Speaker:sell more breasts in the marketplace? So, there are all kinds of divergent
Speaker:realities that are created when you let greed take place and indifference
Speaker:take place. So social justice starts with having a set of values as
Speaker:a touchstone that allow you to make better choices. Peace ya'll. I'm Mark
Speaker:Winston Griffith, an alumnus of the Castanea Fellowship program. As the
Speaker:executive director of the Brooklyn movement center, I was looking for a
Speaker:community of peers who also saw a world where food truly became a
Speaker:source of health, equity and well being for all. Castanea brought those
Speaker:very leaders together and invested in us to make it happen.
Speaker:Since then, I've collaborated with a cadre of Castanea fellows on a national
Speaker:initiative to hold philanthropy accountable, and have tapped into game changing
Speaker:support for my food systems work here in Central Brooklyn. So I'm looking
Speaker:forward to what's ahead in my professional as well as my personal journey
Speaker:along with the following impact I know my friends from the program will
Speaker:continue to make. Learn how Castanea can support your journey. Visit castaneafellowship.org,
Speaker:that's C A S T A N E A F E L L O W S H I P dot org. It's just
Speaker:about relationship, really remembering relationship and breaking down these
Speaker:exclusionary practices and the divisions or the connections that sometimes
Speaker:are hard to see for some folks. And I'm wondering what's your take
Speaker:on how we can get to a healthier place? We've come through an
Speaker:incredibly difficult time when maybe some of these connections are more
Speaker:visible in the mainstream level, we'd love your take on how are we
Speaker:gonna get to a healthier place if there's no going back.
Speaker:What do you see as moving forward? That's a big question,
Speaker:and it is the challenge, our health and diet related disease,
Speaker:these are huge factors in how our lives play out. And I think
Speaker:one aspect of it that really resonates with me is really looking at
Speaker:the full cost of the food that we eat, and looking at all
Speaker:the externalities and looking beyond the sticker price because
Speaker:we as a society and our future generations are subsidizing that cheap price.
Speaker:And so it also needs to come into context with a larger conversation
Speaker:about who can afford what food and how we were talking earlier about,
Speaker:I think Leonard, you mentioned about being a premium or sort of a
Speaker:shi shi type thing, natural foods, sustainable foods, organic foods, and
Speaker:it has been that way because of these externalized costs that are being
Speaker:borne by everyone. So, I do think we have to look at health
Speaker:in a holistic context, not just in a food pyramid, but in a
Speaker:complete circle about making sure that good food that doesn't wreck your
Speaker:body and wreck the planet is a right and not a privilege.
Speaker:I love that Emily, seeing a circle instead of a pyramid,
Speaker:'cause pyramids are about hierarchies too. But Leonard, how about for you?
Speaker:What's coming up for you? So I think one of the things that
Speaker:we do need to return to, and it's going back
Speaker:way back before COVID, we're losing our relationships. I was just talking
Speaker:with some folks who were in Montana by chance yesterday, and they were
Speaker:wanting to have conversations with us in regards to
Speaker:what we could do to increase opportunities for farmers, and it got into
Speaker:all kinds of different corners, and what they said is that on a
Speaker:lot of farms in their area, when a farmer goes out of business
Speaker:an absentee land owner moves into place instead, and they don't have any
Speaker:connection with the community, they don't have any connections with their
Speaker:neighbours. And one of them has said, what if we would have gone
Speaker:over to that farm before they went out of business and sat down
Speaker:at the kitchen table and had a coffee with them and talked about
Speaker:how's it going and how are you doing? What are you struggling with?
Speaker:What can we help with? And sometimes those little interventions and the
Speaker:reason to be neighborly and part of a community
Speaker:make a difference. Maybe that farmer wouldn't have gone out of business
Speaker:and they would still be there to be part of the community.
Speaker:So I think going back to a time when we aren't indifferent about
Speaker:the suffering, we aren't indifferent about who's bearing the total cost
Speaker:of the system that we have, or part of the cost,
Speaker:what we see going on with field workers and the way that they
Speaker:have to live on the farms. The way they have to be exposed
Speaker:to the environment and the products that are being sprayed out on the
Speaker:farm, if we're indifferent to all of that in terms of how we
Speaker:get our food, there's a problem, and so I see it as the
Speaker:true value proposition. What is that true value, not the total cost,
Speaker:what are the ecosystem products, what are the ecosystem services and what's
Speaker:equal justice? Those are the things that I'm concerned about. I love that
Speaker:'cause there's two sides of that coin, and because food has such an
Speaker:intimate impact, the way that we grow food and the way that we
Speaker:eat has such an impact on the planet, you can either do great
Speaker:damage or great good. For both of you. I know that you have
Speaker:families and you also work in places that span across different generations.
Speaker:I wanted to ask what is one way that you found yourself wanting
Speaker:to pass on the lineage of your work with a younger generation?
Speaker:These are incredibly complex stories. I'd love to learn from you,
Speaker:what have you found as a way to impart this knowledge on the
Speaker:next generation? It's interesting that there is a generational shift in
Speaker:regards to how to make that transfer. I find that the generation that
Speaker:I run into a lot these days, 20 to 30 year olders would
Speaker:like to see a much more flattened hierarchy, and they wanna be able
Speaker:to have opportunities to be at the table and have a say and
Speaker:have leadership, and I think that's wonderful. The issue that comes up is
Speaker:how do we share what we've already been doing, what's the history of
Speaker:what we've been doing, and how do we include that into the conversation,
Speaker:history and experience. And I am more focused now on how I can
Speaker:interact in ways that I can share my experience, my professional experience,
Speaker:but also our agricultural experience over eons. I like to express it oftentimes
Speaker:in, we've got a lot of mechanical advantage that people created taking a
Speaker:stick or taking a rock or taking a stick and leveraging a big
Speaker:boulder, and that physical approach to being able to use leverage is something
Speaker:that we've learned over thousands and thousands of years how to use mechanical
Speaker:advantage. And it doesn't need to be thrown away in order to reduce
Speaker:the amount of damage that we're doing to the soil, because we've used
Speaker:a lot of mechanical advantage to maybe damage the soil but let's not
Speaker:throw out mechanical advantage. It's sort of like what was said earlier
Speaker:about let's not throw out books. And I think we shouldn't throw out
Speaker:mechanical advantage when there's an opportunity to deploy it in maybe more
Speaker:sustainable ways. So, I'm very focused on how to share those things and
Speaker:not preach them, how to point out what's really essential so that it
Speaker:doesn't get lost because those things took a lot of people,
Speaker:a lot of lives, a lot of years to learn, and we shouldn't
Speaker:as humanity lose that. I think in terms of connecting future generations,
Speaker:at least in the realms that I work, I think for the younger
Speaker:kids, just getting kids on a farm. I used to do a lot
Speaker:of farm tours with some of the firms that we certify,
Speaker:and just the look on a kid's face when they can actually touch
Speaker:a cow or see where an egg comes from, or
Speaker:there is a hunger for connection to food and animals and farming.
Speaker:And it doesn't go away at older ages too,
Speaker:we see a lot of interest in the generation you were talking about,
Speaker:the 20 to 30 year old generation and people are so hungry for
Speaker:information about food. And it's just such a natural human thing to wanna
Speaker:be connected to the food that you eat, and the way that our
Speaker:society and economy is structured right now, it's very difficult to have
Speaker:that connection. And the disconnection not only benefits food processors
Speaker:and marketers and people slapping labels on packages that look really great
Speaker:and don't really do anything for people or the planet. So learning more
Speaker:about food and feeding that hunger, I think is a really great approach
Speaker:because people can dive as deep as they want, and there's information and
Speaker:visceral connection available. Yeah, I agree with that 100%.
Speaker:One other aspect I would add to that is, I think that young
Speaker:people need to get exposed to those experiences when they're in junior high
Speaker:school at the very latest, because they haven't already developed a self
Speaker:image of themselves, they can experience it and feel it. And if it
Speaker:feels like it's something that resonates with them that they wanna do more
Speaker:with, that they wanna be involved with, whether it's natural science or
Speaker:ag science or working in those environments, then they're willing to pursue
Speaker:it, but if you wait until they're older in high school,
Speaker:or college, where they've already developed a self image of themselves and
Speaker:they don't see themselves as doing that type of work or being involved
Speaker:in those types of things, then you can only just hope for good
Speaker:advocates. People who are gonna support those efforts that other people
Speaker:are doing. But I think we're at an urgent time when we need
Speaker:some of them to be excited about actually participating, and if we're gonna
Speaker:get them to participate, we need to get them exposed much younger where
Speaker:they can envision themselves being a part of that.
Speaker:I'm hearing a clear call, clear call there to really bring in that
Speaker:connection early on, and one thing I wanna reflect back to both of
Speaker:you is we began this conversation from a visceral place with these early
Speaker:memories, and I feel like you've gone back there, so I wanna thank
Speaker:you for building those bridges. This hunger for connection that you're finding
Speaker:from people really meets the need that we're at right now,
Speaker:this urgent need to mend relationships. And so I know we're coming to
Speaker:the close of our conversation, but I want to just express so much
Speaker:gratitude to both of you for taking the time to impart these words
Speaker:from your own places, and want to invite you to share closing thoughts
Speaker:for the audience. What's some advice that either of you would want to
Speaker:share on one thing that anyone can do, that can make a huge
Speaker:difference in our own local communities and homes?
Speaker:I would say don't underestimate your own impact and empower yourself to
Speaker:be a part of the solution, because our current industrial food system,
Speaker:it sacrifices health, it sacrifices sustainability, animal welfare, our
Speaker:planet, and this is all for the profit of the few at the
Speaker:expense of everyone else. And this is not gonna fix itself and it's
Speaker:gonna take all of us. So here are a few things that you
Speaker:can do. One, I would say reward real change. So when you're shopping,
Speaker:if you're paying anything extra for food, if you are making decisions based
Speaker:on food labels that you expect to deliver change, make sure that change
Speaker:is actually happening. And you can know your labels, we've got some great
Speaker:resources on our website of a guide called Food Labels Exposed that goes
Speaker:through common foods and label claims and tells you exactly what they mean,
Speaker:so you can know what labels to trust. Or you can talk to
Speaker:your friends and family about why sustainable food is important, what the
Speaker:impacts of food are on our society whether it's routine antibiotics,
Speaker:whether it's environmental impacts, the social impact. You can demand better
Speaker:food choices, so you have a great deal of power as someone who
Speaker:may potentially buy food from someone about what type of food is offered.
Speaker:And so make sure that you're making your values known, where you're buying
Speaker:food. Thank those who are doing the right thing. So if you see
Speaker:a farm that is using amazing practices, we have so many awesome farms
Speaker:on our website that we certify whether their grass fed, whether they're
Speaker:animal welfare approved, non GMO, whatever. So if you see folks that are
Speaker:doing amazing things, thank them and let them know that you appreciate that,
Speaker:and the restaurants or stores or farmers markets they're offering their
Speaker:products, just let them know that you are grateful for that and you
Speaker:can support organisations that are making change. So the final thing I would
Speaker:say is that we really do all have the power to make a
Speaker:difference here, and we don't have time to waste. I'll second your statement
Speaker:and leave it all, I think we need to all reduce the amount
Speaker:of indifference that I talked about earlier that we have in our lives
Speaker:and intolerance. Those two go hand in hand,
Speaker:that we have to be so much more tolerant of each other.
Speaker:And not only the obvious tolerances of stark differences of culture,
Speaker:race, gender, but the subtle differences, just the quirkiness that we have
Speaker:each of us as individuals and how we sometimes get silly in our
Speaker:way of expecting to have cookie cutter type individuals. Celebrate diversity
Speaker:in every way, celebrate the differences that we all bring to the table
Speaker:and the quirkiness that we bring to the table. Eliminate as much greed
Speaker:as you can from your life, because it's this greed that is driving
Speaker:us and we've got to start there and learn what is enough and
Speaker:reset the scale so that there is an equitable distribution of the resources
Speaker:that we all need on this planet. And then I would counter balance
Speaker:that with saying, increase the amount of hope
Speaker:that you have, it can be very, pretty disheartening. I understand how disheartening
Speaker:it can be when you look around and you feel and you see
Speaker:what is going on in our world and what's been going on,
Speaker:but I think it's important to find that North Star, that thing that
Speaker:you can look towards that allows you to maintain your hope and your
Speaker:strength and lengthens your dreams, because as Frances Moore Lappe said
Speaker:many, many years ago when I was young and helped me buoy up
Speaker:my spirit, she says If you have a dream that you can see
Speaker:being completed in your lifetime, it's too small. You need to really have
Speaker:a longer view of what it is, and that the building blocks that
Speaker:are being built by you and your friends and family and colleagues are
Speaker:gonna help the next gen. Maintain it forward. I think that would be
Speaker:the other thing I would say, we have that phrase, pay it forward,
Speaker:but I think we gotta maintain it forward. We gotta start taking care
Speaker:of what we have and knowing that if we maintain it,
Speaker:it's going to be there later for other folks to use.
Speaker:Pay the total cost of stewardship, and I've flipped that too,
Speaker:in saying total cost of stewardship instead of the total cost of ownership.
Speaker:Ownership is not always the solution here, but stewardship is always the
Speaker:solution, we have to find ways to steward. Whatever you produce in the
Speaker:environment is an ecosystem product, whatever you can do to take care of
Speaker:the environment is an ecosystem service and equal justice is merited out
Speaker:everywhere, and it's something that you have to find a touchstone that allows
Speaker:you to determine where justice lies in every situation. It's not always
Speaker:clear, but we have to work on that, and that's through values and
Speaker:through relationships with each other. We have to have relationships with
Speaker:each other that are developed over time, so that we trust each other
Speaker:and respect each other, and then we can work together on all the
