Rodale Institute

You know, it's all the same different ways of looking at it, describing in different traditions and so forth.

Uh, I mean, regeneration came out of Bob's stuff, you know, at Rodale very recently.

You know, brilliant.

He was a great guy, uh, Bob Rodale.

But, you know, and organic goes way back, you know, and, uh, in traditional cultures and, and Asian cultures.

So, uh, either way, it, it has the same intention.

And, uh, yeah, we could learn a lot, not just from the Amish, but, uh, a lot of the people up in that part of the world.

That's, of course, where Rodale, J.J. Rodale, got started all those years ago up in Pennsylvania.

And, uh, I'm just, uh, thinking of that because I just, uh, got a book, I just took it out of the package, haven't even looked at it yet, from, uh, the fella who's current CEO up there, a guy named Jeff, and I have no idea how to pronounce his last name, but it's T-K-A-C-H.

Uh, but the...

That sounds good.

I'll, I'll get a copy, uh, right away.

One of the things that Wendell Berry mentioned was, uh, the work that Rodale was doing back in those-

Mm-hmm

What is it and what is its mission?

It's a network of farmers and researchers from NMSU and organic advocates and organizers from different organizations like Rodale or the Esekia Association or others who have come together informally to explore increasing the production of small grains and corn and beans, especially varieties adapted to the southwest and to southwest bioregional conditions, including especially the mega drought that we're currently in.

We first started Because of a business opportunity that we heard about.

Again, now this is going back to 2016.

So I always try to point people to others who are super well-versed in this so they don't just think I'm trying to sell them something.

So another quick example I'd give is check out the Rodale Institute for anybody interested.

They're an organic institute out of Pennsylvania, I believe, and they've been around since World War II.

And that particular institute has done a wonderful job of showing people how they can use highly diverse covers in row crop systems without using any herbicide.

So we got here before we, we started, uh, reviving our soil.

Uh, we, uh, we are partners with the Rodale Institute.

Wh- uh, the Rodale Institute founded organic agriculture in the United States, and, um, uh, uh, they are collaborators of ours.

They tested our soil.

It was completely dead.

They're es- they're essential to healthy soil.

Uh, the Rodale Institute found that food today contains measurably less protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, and vitamin C, to name a few, than food produced just 50 years ago when we really kind of started testing this stuff, and I'm gonna guess even 50 years ago we were probably depleted.

Um, that's a huge, huge shift and it's a generation over generation decline that we've really gotta deal with if we wanna keep ourselves and the next generations healthy.

Here's the thing for homesteaders, you have some control, okay? You can close the loop.

So Amber Waves is part of a cohort of farms and farmers in the northeast region that are focused on training new farmers, giving community access to farms, and making sure that regional food systems, that in the northeast we're still importing a lot of our food from California or abroad, but we're working towards from a food security perspective making sure we have enough food grown for our population in the northeast.

And with that regional food security, I'm thinking of like stars like Rodale Institute and the Glenwood Center.

Those folks are, are making strides such that people who are living locally can have access to their local farms.

We also do SNAP and EBT, so you can come to our farmers market and-

And, and you know, this idea of sort of companies work together that, you know, they're, they're also a great example of that.

You know, there's this huge movement, uh, around regenerative agriculture, and there's a standard, the Regenerative Organic Standard, which Dr. Bronner's and Patagonia and Rodale, um, who really is in the forefront of organic and regenerative, uh, agriculture founded.

But actually...

And I don't think, uh, I don't know however you pronounce it, Devenish, um, was part of that initial group, but actually they worked very closely with Rodale, and one of Rodale's, um, not that many, I mean, I think they have, like, you know, 5 to 10 around the world.

One of their, like, regenerative agriculture test sites is actually at Devenish in, I think it's Parma, Italy.

And so this is example of these companies, and they're part of this beauty coalition, B Corp Beauty Coalition, which is trying to, to coordinate on packaging.