Climate change, moderator Louise Schiavone notes at Roots 2023: Regenerate, creates significant economic and food production pressures—and, as we collectively try to solve the issues, we all need to do better. In this panel, experts discuss how they’re individually trying to improve systems while inspiring and teaching others to forge their own regenerative paths.
Louise Shiavone is a senior lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School and a lifelong journalist; a veteran of CNN, ABC News, and the Associated Press, she is now a newscast anchor at NPR. At Roots 2023, she guided a discussion among the following panel members: Amanda Harris of Playa Viva, Brandon Bir of Crimson Cup, and Jamie Simpson of the Culinary Vegetable Institute at The Chef’s Garden.
Each brings a unique perspective to the conversation and all agree that, to achieve a sustainable future, we must change the ways in which we produce and manage food. Here’s what they had to say at Roots 2023: Regenerate.
Amanda Harris
As the permaculture manager for the Playa Viva hotel in Mexico, Amanda Harris is responsible for two hundred acres of land, supervising the soil’s health, building a food forest, ensuring the growth of fresh foods, and more to help local farmers with their sustainability efforts in a challenging climate.
About one thousand people live in this agrarian community/micro watershed with the hotel being a unique, environmentally friendly resort for travelers. As the hotel is being transformed, employees for the regenerative farming portion increased from four to fourteen, including the first women to be paid for agriculture work in more than a century.
Goals include feeding soil to produce food, planting water, reintroducing native and climate-adaptive species, focusing on carbon sequestration, rotating crops, strategically using forestry techniques, and creating economic opportunities so that residents don’t have to leave home to find ways to support their families.
Planting water involves planting certain species such as the drought-resistant moringa tree—the tree of life—from seed at the right moon cycle. This tree, as it grows, draws water to itself through a root system that becomes the size or two or three tires; besides drawing forth moisture for its own needs, it also provides water for plants near it to grow.
Another technique used by Amanda involves planting four species in the same hole that work in harmony. For example, one may grow to provide the necessary shade for the other, mutually supporting one another from generation to generation.
At Playa Viva, people experiment, take risks, make mistakes, observe, and interact for best results.
For people who live in this community, they’re resilient as they try to bring back the dried up waters and create shade. Amanda supports them through educational and motivational means as they discuss the cycles of climate and solutions for climate change. At first, doubt and confusion about having a woman teach in a male dominated culture was a challenge, but they began to build trust in one another as they took risks together.
For vacationers at Playa Viva, it can be a transformative experience with 100 percent solar power and 50 percent of farm produce making up 30 percent of what’s used in the hotel kitchen.
Personally, the global picture worries Amanda, but having her place in a smaller locale allows her to make an even bigger impact as she creates leaders and looks for opportunities.
Brandon Bir
Director of Sustainability, Brandon Bir, at Crimson Cup travels more than 100,000 miles annually to visit coffee communities, improve their sustainability, and help to create a fairer and more responsible coffee future for farmers. In other words, he teaches, trains, and sustains.
In Papua, New Guinea, for example, where they pick beans only when they need money, he taught them how to mulch, use forestry techniques that are more circular and sustainable, and effectively manage byproducts. In Peru, global warming is forcing farmers to keep moving further up geographically to grow coffee. So, he showed them how to ferment, dry, and elevate coffee beans to improve their quality and allow farmers to quadruple their money per pound.
Cultural traditions vary with some families not wanting to send their children off the coffee plantation to attend school; in South America, family units are incredibly important. In some places, there is no internet and, in them, people may not use the word “sustainable,” but they’ve been incorporating sustainable practices for millennia that others can implement.
Because of climate change, farmers are either needing to adapt by incorporating hybrid approaches to address drought conditions or leave the industry. The reality is that, by 2050, coffee production as we know it today won’t exist, and Brandon does what he can to help farmers to transform to more long-term models of production.
Brandon tries to be intentional about his own behaviors, but he admitted to feeling guilty about some of the practices he has: when throwing away coffee filters, for example, or driving twenty extra minutes to get the biodiesel fuel he uses. He tries to always focus on the people behind the products used, never consuming without also considering what went into creating that product.
In general, Brandon is an optimistic, cheerleading type of guy although it was hard not to become pessimistic during the worst of the pandemic. He also revealed what revives his optimism: being around young people and their knowledge of sustainability.
Jamie Simpson
Jamie Simpson is the executive chef at the Culinary Vegetable Institute (CVI), an innovative place that he calls a center of unparalleled inspiration. The land where the CVI now stands was once lake bottom soil, which was enriched by sea creatures over the centuries. Today, he can stroll through the gardens, identify special ingredients of the day, and put them on a pedestal as he and others at the farm celebrate the seasons.
One of the farm’s greatest strengths is its diversity: in people and in specialty crops grown. This diversity helps to protect the farm against the ravages of climate change such as when storms hit; they may lose some vegetables, but they won’t lose the farm.
What Jamie appreciates the most in his daily garden walks is the opportunity to think about using all of the parts of a plant throughout its life cycles: roots, leaves, stems, fruits, blossoms, and pollen. He looks to find new ways to be less wasteful, and he loves when he can inspire other people to take this lesson with them in unique ways.
When asked about his relationship with Farmer Lee Jones, Jamie called him a brother, father, best friend, business partner, leader, and mentor who comes up with the best one liners. When asked about the future, Jamie called himself a realist who recognizes that there’s always going to be waste and unexpected suffering from random climate-related events. That’s why, he believes, we have to remain adaptive and flexible and why conferences like Roots 2023 are so valuable: as people inspire other people and their ideas impact one another’s, this can help to create a better future.
Transformative Path Forward
To heal our land and continue to produce our food in a time of climate change, regenerative farming and other sustainable practices are key as people like Amanda, Brandon, Jamie, and the entire farm team at The Chef’s Garden revolutionize the way we nourish ourselves around the world.
As an industry, it is imperative that people adapt practices to reduce food waste, cut greenhouse gas emissions, and ensure that agricultural land is used as sustainably as possible. Now is therefore the time to explore where our food comes from, how it is grown, and how tending the land the right way improves the health of the soil, the food we consume, and the planet.