Rodale Institute

Yeah, almost like no matter where you live in the Lehigh Valley, I think you can find a fall festival of some sort that is within like a 10 to 20 minute drive.

I know out in the western side of town near Kutztown, the Rodale Institute, has a Fall Fest that's probably gonna have already happened by the time this airs, right? But they do it annually and is a great way to get to know what Rodale Institute, this internationally leading regenerative farm does, but also brings community together.

There's stuff in Makanji and Hellertown and Quakertown, no matter where.

And listeners, if you haven't checked out our festival episode, we have a whole episode about all the festivals in eastern Pennsylvania that happen year-round.

Oh, and I was just doing a little quick research on what I said.

And there's an article from the Rodale Institute.

And it says the three sisters and the fourth sister no one really talks about.

Saying the fourth sister could be a sunflower or a bee bomb.

What are you seeing from a high level as what are the kind of conversations are you around in your travels and meeting with different organizations and companies? How is AI on the radar when it comes to agriculture?

I would start by saying that Rodale Institute has just authored its first ever five-year strategic plan, which we'll be publishing later this summer.

And within that plan, one of the five pillars is a focus on technology.

So Rodale as an organization is really going to double down on what role technology plays in scaling regenerative organic agriculture.

This is everyone's knowledge that they should be uncovering, sharing, and when I was thinking about the holistic picture of why certain foods heal us and pathways around sort of health and healing, I also want to understand agriculture and how our food is grown.

So I went to the Rodale Institute to study regenerative agriculture.

And there's a philosophy around healthy soil, healthy plants, healthy people, and how to create those bring levels of pathways just in the food that we get to grow.

And, I was really grateful that I got that education and then Fates had me come to Boston when I met my husband when he was living in Washington, D.C.

We haven't heard much about it in this part of the country.

Rodale and of course they're up northeast but they're pushing an expanded program that they call regenerative regenerative organic certification and they go a little bit beyond just the usual things that we like to see to have anything certified organic and gets into animal health care on meat products and interesting program we'll see if it catches on but They seem excited about it but have heard very little about it down here.

I was reading that book that their CEO sent.

It's very interesting things in there.

So I started this business where I was like doing consulting, soil consulting and worm composting.

That led me to my first job, which was at the Rodale Institute.

And I'm explaining all this because this is how I discovered permaculture and this is how I discovered edible landscaping.

So out of college, I couldn't really pay the bills with worm composting.

I found a lot of freedom in landscaping and running my own business.

So I was doing landscaping and worm composting, but I wasn't really combining the two.

I went to Rodale Institute.

I got a job.

ROC is up 22 percent across the U.S., up 17 percent across infra certification.

And then I read this quick note from the Rodale Institute recently.

It spans more than 20 million certified regenerative organic acres worldwide, 65,000 farms, 2,700 certified products, and 350 brands.

That's a pretty cool footprint, right, from a certification that has been around for less than a decade.

USDA data from the past few years seems to indicate that crop loss may be slowing and potentially even plateauing with modest production increases in recent years.

What is regenerative agriculture exactly? At the most basic level, the definition of regenerative is in the word, says Tim LaSalle, co-founder of the Center for Regenerative Agriculture and Resilient Systems at California State University, Chico, who was the first CEO of the Rodale Institute.

an agriculture research nonprofit.

Instead of extracting and destroying, regenerative agriculture has a focus on building, restoring, and then creating a fertility level that reduces the need for so many inputs, if not eliminating them totally, he says.

And long term s- and we're not the only ones seeing this.

In Pennsylvania, long-term tests at Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania has shown the same thing.

Um, and other farmers I've talked to all over the country, um, mainly see the same thing, um, especially the dry land ones.

I'm not, I'm, I can't speak for irrigation folks.