Understanding Regenerative Agriculture
What is it & why is how we farm so important right now?
An Interview with Caroline Grindrod of ‘Roots Of Nature’
Episode 1.
Published on 10th March 2022
Interview With:
Caroline Grindrod
Roots of Nature
Caroline Grindrod is a consultant and coach in regenerative systems and leadership.
Caroline’s Businesses:
Do You Have Any Questions?
Let me know in the comments below. I’ll look to create or link to resources above that cover any common questions asked.
Watch the Series of Mini Intro Animations!
Show Notes:
In this first interview for the ‘We Are Carbon’ project, I’m joined by Caroline Grindrod for a discussion all about regenerative agriculture.
Our food buying choices are one of our biggest consumer powers, and they offer us all the means to make a difference to the world around us.
So I was thrilled that Caroline was able to offer us such an insightful discussion to help us unravel the huge contrast between conventional farming (which is one of the most harmful activities towards the planet), and regenerative farming (which is one of the most healing).
We cover a lot so please use the time stamps below to get a sense of what’s included (and jump straight in with what best takes your interest if you’re in a hurry!)
00:00:00 – Intro
00:02:13 – Start of Interview
00:07:17 – Integration Instead of Separation
00:14:11 – Exploring Relationships
00:25:05 – Don’t Compare Apples With Apples!
00:27:34 – How Farming Can Heal The Planet!
00:34:27 – The Role of Animals
00:40:14 – Your Questions
00:41:32 – The Interests of Large Corporations??
00:48:00 – Government Backing?
00:51:46 – Can Local Land Feed Local People
00:56:34 – Food Resilience & Price Stability
01:01:01 – The Biggest Challenges
01:03:36 – Learn More From Caroline!
Watch the Series of Mini Intro Animations!
Interview With:
Caroline Grindrod
Roots of Nature
Caroline Grindrod is a consultant and coach in regenerative systems and leadership.
Caroline’s Businesses:
Do You Have Any Questions?
Let me know in the comments below. I’ll look to create or link to resources above that cover any common questions asked.
Watch the Animations!
I’m creating short digestible videos to help illustrate some of the key concepts that we’re exploring!
Every month or so you’ll find a new one added here.
The Latest Animation:
What is Regenerative Agriculture?
Listen On Your Favourite Outlet!
Helen Fisher
The Host
I take a very holistic view of the world and find enormous hope when we expand our thinking outwards and consider our issues as interconnected.
So it’s a huge delight for me to have the opportunity to speak with so many varied personalities here.
I hope you’ll enjoy learning along with me as my guests allow me to pick their brains on the diverse topics explored by this project!
Sorry but the mention of ‘primal meat’stopped me from listening to the rest. That might sound narrow minded but if we cannot exist peacefully & compassionately without slaughtering the innocent for food regardless of their upbringing for a few short months/years, then I’m not interested! Was looking forward to this too, shame.
Hi Tracy,
Thank so much for sharing your thoughts rather than simply clicking away!
This is an incredibly important point that you’re bringing up and I’d be so grateful if you’d give me the time to offer a few words of thought. Of course I’d love to convince you to listen through to hear more from the interview itself but if I could just start with a sentence or two, then I’ll leave it with you.
There’s a huge amount of tension and disagreement between people who wish to offer compassion to the world by choosing not to eat meat, and those who do eat meat but also wish to look after the world and care about animal welfare. I understand that it’s easy to draw a line and simply cut off from anything that is on the other side of it, but I think that we can offer the most significant impact here by recognising where our causes actually agree rather than where they differ.
The way that meat is produced in this world is for the most part horrific and unacceptable in my opinion. I applaud anyone who identifies and stands by that in whatever way is right for them.
There is a point in many people’s lives where we move from unconsciously grabbing packages off the shelf, to stopping and asking where that faceless product has come from, and how it has impacted the world.
My reason for supporting the regenerative production of meat is two fold: Firstly natural systems require animals to function regeneratively. This by no means requires us to eat those animals, but we need to recognise and value their role in the eco-system rather than simply allowing people to think that it’s always healthy for the environment and animals when we produce plant products in isolation regardless of the practices used (which on scale tends to increase the need for the use of harmful chemicals and fossil fuels).
And secondly I’m under no illusion that we can move from where we are right now to a place where animals are treat with compassion across the globe in one giant leap. The situation is too bad. And therefore we need to move in continued steps towards the ideal, by engaging with people about the impact of their diets on animals and the environment, regardless of the choices that are ready to make about excluding or not excluding animal products.
Veganism and vegetarian diets are hugely important right now. But someone who makes those choices and at the same time can be open to understand and support any step forward can offer even more value!
I’d love to continue the discussion, particularly if you do choose to have a listen to the interview – especially the area where we discuss the role of animals (starts around 34 – 35 mins in).
Thank you,
Helen
Hello Helen
Congratulations on this new project.
The interview with Caroline was very interesting and I shall be ordering produce from Primal Meats because of it.
I would like to know if she is planning to have more farms across the country supply her. It would be fantastic to know the food was locally grown as well as regenerative.
Another question I have is how can we, as gardeners, make our tiny (very tiny in my case) areas of land regenerative and productive for us?
Hi Suze,
Thank you, that’s very kind and I’m really pleased that you found the discussion interesting!
Caroline works with a selection of family farms at the moment and I wouldn’t be surprised if she continues to expand on this. She creates a very informative newsletter and I suspect she will include updates in there regarding the farms that she’s partnered with.
Regarding the gardening; this is a topic that I’m continually exploring hands on and so I’ll look to create some more detailed content on it shortly. Some great starting points would be to look into perennial vegetables – there’s many more out there than you might expect, and they offer a permanent root structure in the soil (as well as being a very lazy way of getting a crop once they’re established!). You can fit more into a space that you might expect by looking into a layered design too, which would be to take concepts from a ‘food forest’ and scale it down to suit.
Never remove or burn waste leaves or vegetation from your site. Keep adding that matter as a mulch to the soil, and where possible keep the ground covered with low growing plants. Ohh, and introduce a mix of herbs and/ or wild flowers – there’s a great selection that are both productive for various uses and invite in a diversity of helpful insects too.
I definitely need to start covering this in more detail! Let me know if any of that makes sense and I’ll start planning some new content!